francozola

Same One of my favs. Always gives 100%, and seems like a great guy as well.

^ And the 4th game will be Arsenal, won't it?

they used the only shot of him that there could be where he wasn't smiling He's one of the most professional footballers out there and he's also very self-critical so he's definitely aware of the fact that he is on the decline. It's not like he will be dropped entirely because we don't have that many CM options right now hence AVB will rotate.

He's been much better this season but for the long term we definitely need to get someone better

^ Ah yes, I forgot about the yellow for Mata. What a ridiculous decision that was. It was a nothing challenge, and his first offence.

Agreed. I was a little worried because the first 20 plus minutes was the same shit from last season - slow passing, no creativity etc and he was clearly frustrated and I thought it would be another dire 90mins for him but one chance and goal! I think he just got overexcited and AVB was right infront of him so probably trying to show that he's committed or something and dived in. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Went for Meireles but could have been Ramires or Mikel. All 3 were excellent. This trio works much better than any combination including Lamps sadly.

Yes but when balls are crossed into the box... our players aren't in the right places which is worrisome. The Bosingwa mistake I won't criticize that much because we were 3-0 and the game was going nowhere but right after HT and at 2-0 where a goal for them would have changed the entire momentum of the game... I think we should have had more concentration and awareness at the back during those few minutes. Anyway, we were much better defensively overall today as compared to recent weeks and also you're right, we were playing with 10 men.

but I think the defending was poor in the first few mins of the 2nd half when they had a flurry of corners. Mikel saved our asses by making some crucial interceptions and clearances. If they had managed to score we would have been in trouble

It's sad how we haven't missed Lamps at all in the last 135mins of football without him. But I'm glad AVB has done the right thing

Why are we having so much trouble with our marking on set pieces? It's horrible to watch and AVB needs to sort it out! Other than that, good win. Ok performance but in the 2nd half after a scary opening few mins we managed to get control of the game again and were comfortable all the way.

This commentator... Tony gale I believe is really trying to get avb in trouble. Fucking twat. he has been so biased

Should bring on drogba soon. Anelka has been poor

Lampard on the bench

Training won't help imo he needs to go somewhere and gain match sharpness Yeah, I'm glad the Stoke loan didn't work out. Bolton are dire right now, but maybe Wigan?? Or perhaps Sunderland... they're really lacking in the striker department

This is fucking ridiculous. Fergie does the exact same thing every other week and no one says a word. I'm really sick of this now. All week long they've been harping on and on about this. Cunts.

Definitely needs to go out on loan in Jan. His technical attributes are very very poor right now. With consistent playing time he'll improve a great deal in 6 months. I think if we keep him here and just have him play 15 minutes every other week it'll do him no good at all.

Hmm he said that if we progress in the Carling Cup, he will continue to play kids all the way. Compared this to Jose's methods in the Carling Cup which he described as "aggressive" to "win the first available trophy" and he said that his approach is not the same. He wants to use this to give kids some playing time.

Everton are in a shit load of debt, I'm not sure he would cost 20m. Anyway I doubt that we're actually interested.

was it for his comments in the 9/11 thread?

Confirmed by AVB: Josh, Lukaku, Bertrand and Romeu will be starting and Drogba will also get some playing time

There's going to be a press conference in about 20 minutes, for those who are unaware http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LivePressConferences?WT.mc_id=livepressconf-newspromo

Once we get Torres scoring consistently (which I believe will happen), and the team gets used to this new rhythm we are playing at, we should be ok. We do need a couple of new players though. Ramires' miss was just a case of wrong person at the right place. He should have had the awareness to realize that Sturridge was behind him. I'm sure they will work on that. Sturridge meanwhile will get more involved in games (I hope) as he plays more so he'll be more effective as well.

He was definitely offside. They showed it on the replay. He ran back deep which made him look like there was nothing wrong, but the replay clearly shows he was offside when the diagonal ball was played