francozola

When I click on the "Go to first unread post" icon, most of the time it doesn't actually bring me to where I left off... Is this happening to anyone else?

Brilliant!

He actually shied away from a couple of tackles lol and his first (?) touch was a glorious pass... to the stoke defender. What else is new? It's vital that we sign another striker. He's useless.

Yeah I'm very pleased at Hazard's attitude. Going away to that shithole many "flair" players just don't turn up and give a fuck. Also someone mentioned in his player profile thread that despite being given more defensive duties by rafa he's not moaned about it, has done what he's told and is still performing well and that's a great point.

Luiz MOTM for me too. Brilliant performance by him. Sick of all the abuse he gets when IMO he is by far our best defender. Hope rafa stops playing him in midfield jfc Hazard was wonderful too. Lamps too some superb pick outs. His vision is still top notch Excellent team performance. We're more fluid in attack with Ba. Torres keeps coming deep and losing the ball whereas Ba is a constant presence against the centre-backs.

Well we need to sign another striker, because Ba is great but he can't play every game and this other striker that we have is absolutely useless and cannot be relied upon at all. About 10 mins before he was subbed off, Azpi (I think) whipped a cross in -- one of those dangerous between-the-CBs-and-goalkeeper types -- and the only player who was running into the box to try and basically score a tap in was Mata. And that just fucking sums Torres up doesn't it? If Ba was on the pitch then it would have been 1-1. A few minutes later I think it was Azpi again who crossed and he chose to cross it deeper to some other player and Torres was in his usual stance of 1) stop suddenly 2) stare at the team-mate who crossed/passed 3) hang arms slightly forward to show displeasure. You fucking tit there is a reason why they don't pass it to you: they don't fucking trust you. I can't imagine what must go through some of our other players heads when they're playing with him.

Right, forgot about the international break. Ugh.

The biggest bummer for me is that we now have to wait an entire week before our next game. Ideally I would have liked to see us play again ins 3-4 days. Instead, we'll carry this for a while now. A game that quick would have forced Di Matteo to make some changes (Azpilicueta, Moses, Oscar in. Ivanovic, Ramires, Lampard out) whereas now I have my doubts on whether they will happen. My biggest concern going into this season, and still remains to be Di Matteo himself. His tactics yesterday were poor, substitutions horrendous. Willing to let it go as a one-off but I'm still unconvinced (simply because he hasnt had a chance to show it yet) whether he will be willing to make hard decisions if they prove to be necessary. Also I'm sick of seeing Ramires at RW jfc

Agree mate. I think we've done really well this transfer window. And people should remember how shit our squad was last season. Everyone thinks because we won the champions league and FA cup our squad wasn't that bad, but it was. We won those cups purely out of determination, etc etc. we had a good first XI which got us through the two competitions. When we rotated in the prem we did pretty badly which showed that the replacements were simply not good enough. So seriously everyone needs to lower their expectations. We replaced a lot of shit/past it players like Kalou, Bosingwa, Anelka, Malouda (to an extent even though he's still here), Essien. All our replacements are young and inexperienced so there are definitely going to be a lot of hiccups along the way. Just keep the faith ffs. Think about where we'd be now if we hadn't won in Munich! You think any of those players would have joined us?!

agree.. the complaining irritates me. "We didn't sign anyone on deadline day" are you fucking kidding me?!?!?! we signed Hazard, Oscar, Marin, Moses, Azpilicueta in this transfer window and people still aren't happy? yes we shoulda tried for a proper CM but jesus...

I'm pretty happy with this draw. Not as easy as I would have liked but we aren't Utd so can't expect that sort of 'help'. Really looking forward to those Juve matches. And jesus some of the posts here after the draw was made...

How dare you!

IMO he's still not nearly as fast as he was at Liverpool. He looks better now because he was awful in his first season here. Last season he showed decent pace and now he's better. He was a beast at Liverpool. I agree that the confidence thing has a lot to do with it but he's still lost pace due to benitez fucking with his injuries. "Don't know if you've actually watched our games or not" And nice sarcasm. If only you could post things in a non-condescending manner

Yeah, when he gets the ball deep and he's running at defenders he thinks too much. He always tries to go for the pass when you can tell he actually wants to try and shoot but he doesn't have the confidence and of course he's lost a lot of pace since his Liverpool days. He's done better when he doesn't think and just acts instinctively. But definitely fair play to him he's improved a lot.

He's also so sensible as a player. In the last 5-10 minutes especially against Newcastle he dropped deep but was just playing simple passes to the other players. Not going for anything spectacular, just closing the game out with smart possession. Shows his composure and he's not just some flashy player who wants to "prove" his abilities everytime. That back heel for Torres was glorious. Anyone can do a simple backheel, but he actually held on to the ball (in such a tight space) for a second and then returned it to Torres, and knew exactly where to place it for him. We've got a gem!

SEX!!!!! I'm just doing this to wind you guys (especially bluesmaster) up now :D

Haha you're the one who keeps bringing up how "the ladies are going to love him" etc and you've even started posting pictures of him now!!! Are you sure you aren't obsessed with him?!?!

Yes it definitely varies a lot. For me (just fyi :eyebrows: ) its the arms and the smile

:wub: daaaaaaamn I wish there were more shirtless pics though. I searched on google but there are none. I am disappoint.

I'm having a little problem atm with the "mobile version" / "full version" options of the site.. When I was at work last week I selected "mobile version" and it seems to have... stuck. Even when I log in using my home laptop, it automatically opens the mobile version of the site and I have to manually select the "full version" button at the bottom. And if I close my browser and log in again after opening a new window it's back to the mobile site. Any idea how I can reset the thing to have the full version as the default?

http://youtu.be/F6XITAx8trA not sure if it's been posted

Mikel was a fucking beast today. Now I realize how much he suffers by having lampard next to him. Meireles was excellent, playing nice passes, and always mobile to support the defense as well as the attack. Great performance by both. Overall delighted. 9 points out of 9!

I think he has been very, very good so far today! Distributing the ball excellently, much to my surprise Much better performance than lampard in the first 2 games.. Lampard just doesn't seem comfortable in that role. Of course I'm not saying Meireles should be a starter but he's still a great option to have! Especially when playing 60 odd games a season.

I think it's raining but not heavily