CHOULO19

*bump*

Watford at home in the third round.

It's obvious, isn't it? We played our best team against Schalke, so if we don't play our best against Sporting, it wouldn't be fair to Schalke. Hence, UEFA whose job is to protect the fairness of the competition would obviously take issue with that. One more point about this that hasn't been brought up is that the difference between a loss and a win in this match is over a million Euros IIRC (depending on how many goals we score). That is also a factor, no doubt.

Yeah, I was not upset when Demba said in an interview that names play a role in who gets picked at Chelsea because that was clearly true in his case.

Was he really sacked? Does that mean he's no longer at Chelsea TV either? Shame if true, but I won't miss his interviews if I'm completely honest.

If I'm not mistake, that's actually consistent with the mins per goal he had here last season. No regrets about letting him go, though. It was the right decision once it was decided that Didier would come back.

No, I think Barnett was the one who publically made fun of AVB getting sacked IIRC.

3/3 successful takeons. Second most on the pitch behind only Hazard. But if you're so intent on viewing him as bad player, please don't let facts stand in your way...

I REALLY hope so. His leadership is unmatched and unlikely to ever be replaced.

I'm a little depressed that it's his birthday to be completely honest. 34 already, it's a bitter reminder that "the captain of captains" might not be on the pitch much longer. I'm not ready for that at ALL!

Bashing Mikel is like a fetish on this forum. It makes absolutely no senae but some people are irresistibly attracted to it to the point of obsession.

True, but a bit isolated. He doesn't have the ability to drop deep and participate with the link-up like Eto'o.

Things went against us today, could go for us against Stoke. Of course it will be tough, but a fresh Hazard, Cesc and Costa can break a parked bus.

Forgot about Ake, but I am certain that Jose will start with at least one experienced CB. Can't play in Europe with a pairing of Zouma and Chrustensen. I think Matic will start because he had a rest today and will rest again next week against Derby.

You're just a ray of sunshine, aren't you?! I never felt that anyone except Eto'o and Barkley showed and fighting spirit. That's why it was so easy for City to dispossess them. Against us, from the same kind of positions they were creating dangerous chances while today they were almost nonchalant.

It's an ethical issue, though, isn't it? Like putting the ball out when a player is injured, your best interest is to keep the ball and attack the team while they're a man down, but if you don't someone doing that to you in the future, you kick the ball out. If I know Jose, I think he cares about fairness and sportsmanship. Obviously, he'll rest players, I expect about 5-6 changes (Remy, Zouma, Cech, Salah, Schurrle, Luis) but all are first-teammers. Talking about starting Baker and Boga is just nonsense, imo.

This match may mean nothing to us but it may be a decider on who qualifies with us. Even if Jose wanted to field a team of youngster, he couldn't because UEFA would probably punish us. Plus, put yourselves in the shoes of the shoes of the Schalke fans. We need to try to win this match while still resting some key players, especially Hazard.

Pellegrino said ligament damage and no doubt someone made up 4 months like someone always does. There is no way to know the extent of ligament damage without an MRI and they never do that on the same day of the injury.

Everton where beyond poor. They never looked like they wanted any points from the match. They're 1-0 down with 5 added mins to go and the two CBs are passing it between each other. No one, bar Eto'o, was really trying to score.

Yeah, Jose said after the match that when Newcastle scored the second he instructed the players to play direct balls. But still, there were a couple of situation where he had a 1vs1 and I was screaming at my TV "take him on" and he just passed back to Luis to cross it in. Probably fatigue, as you said.

First half was very poor, though. His decision making was bad as was his ball control. Very frustrating to watch.

So O'Shea kicking him makes it okay for him to kick him back? That was stupid. And the elbow was most definitely and obviously intentional. No one in the world lifts and spins his arms AFTER he had jumped. I don't like it at all. And when he had already won the header and had a chance for a dangerous attack but decides to elbow the defender anyway, then yes, I will say that he was more interested in fighting than in scoring. In fact, he was even more interesting fighting than playing an important match against Tottenham.

No, I criticized him for that after Everton and Liverpool, even though neither were as bad as the ones against O'Shea and Brown and both Coleman and Skrtel were clearly and physically provoking him for a long time before he responded. And you're having a laugh if you're suggesting that Costa gets over-criticized. He had a performance worthy of Fernando Torres today and now is saying a word about it (rightly so because this was his first real bad performance for us).

Name: Costa Reason: Trolling Punishment: Content moderated permanentlyAbility to create content removed permanently.Suspended permanentlyAlso move to Banned

That's because City have something magical called "wingers" and an inform world-class striker (who wanted to score goals not pick a fight with CBs).