CHOULO19

I think the worry in such situations is that he would swallow his tongue which is incredibly dangerous.

That did NOT look good. Anyone know what actually is in Petr's head gear? Is there some sort of metal or something? Really hope it's not as serious as it looked.

He's improving. Obviously something that the coaching staff is working on with him in training. At his age, he can still learn a lot.

Worth it

Hazard had two days off last week and was allowed to travel with his family when he was rested for Sporting and he'll have another two days off tomorrow and Thursday with the rest of the team since our next match is Monday. I think we can afford to play him tonight without risking exhaustion.

Yeah, Zouma will indeed start and the others are not exactly 'fringe' players as they are hardly below the level of the usual starters.

Smh....I don't know much about Pakistani politics, I know that it was a school that's related to the military, but still, what in the world do they imagine they would gain from this?! Here's a nice little reminder from 1985 for people with short term memory:

But they lost that season to blackburn. And that was in 1995, it's a completely different ball game today. Youth players don't have just the established English players to compete with but some of the best players in the world. It's also a much more business/result sport and top teams are expected to win every match even though the league itself ten times more difficult. This is especially evident in the EPL where literally any team can beat any other team. Barcelona or Real Madrid can afford to start 1-2 youngsters against any bottom half team and still win comfortably without getting out of first gear.Same with Bayern against almost any team in the Bundes Liga. In the EPL you can't afford not to play your best team against anyone because there are no easy matches. The club will not rely on unproven youngsters. It's as simple as that. Apart from Zouma and to a lesser degree Ake, none of the youth players are part of the first team or really part of our season despite all the debuts. Those are meant first as a publicity stunt but also as a motivation for young players to keep working hard to impress, get a loan, impress there and hopefully get a place back here. Being a footballer at a top European team like Chelsea is not something that gets handed to you for some vaguely moral reason. Same goes for the players we buy in the market. Chelsea is no longer just a football club, it's a global brand and essentially a corporation, and corporations will always attempt to maximize short-term gains.

Yet to be proven wrong though, isn't it?

What a smart and mature response! Are you trying to show off to the other kids? Are trying to be the leader of the fifth graders?

But apparently his knee was pretty badly bruised after the match. Neil Barnett asked him(Filipe) about it after the match he said it's swelled and badly bruised and said that it should be fine in a few days.

Reporters too busy asking about the "quadruple", Lionel Messi and Roy Keane's book to get to that...

Has there been no news on whether or not Luis is fit for tonight?

That's my mental image of you. Every time I read one of your posts, especially this season when we are winning almost all games, I imagine you booing the TV every time we score...No offence, but I think you're trying too hard to be the "realistic" guy that you now sound deludedly pessimistic.

Serious question: Do you, each time we score a goal boo and shout at your TV: "Why bother? We're going to lose this match and won't win anything this season anyway!"?

I swear I thought he retired ages ago. Absolutely brilliant in his prime but turned shit in the end.

In other news, at least 84 kids shot dead in Peshawar. There's my faith inn humanity destroyed again...

On a side note, you really have to praise the amazing response of the Australians to the whole thing. The #illridewithyou was probably one of the most powerful hashtags of the year and has done more to combat extremism than all the coalition airstrikes.

Wow, really? You Australians are way too peaceful and laid back...

They've moved to diving, now...

To be fair, "stuff" leaves a lot of grey areas

Mentally ill armed man taking hostages in a public place? Yes, the religious extremist factor is new, but surely they've dealt with something like this before, or at least trained for it. I think they got freaked out by the flag and made a decision they would not have otherwise made which means that the extremists group are achieving their goal of planting fear. Of course, we don't know all the facts so it's all speculation.

Didn't follow very closely, but didn't the police rush into this? Obviously always a difficult decision to make, but surely there must have been a better option than storming the place when there are still several civilians in danger?

That sort of 'journalism' makes me sick. Contrary to what the title suggests, this absolutely nothing to do with the dive as Jose said right after the match that Cahill will not travel because he played against Sporting. He even defended him and said that he doesn't "believe that that big honest guy would dive".