CHOULO19

I realize this nearly impossible, but if it were true, I would genuinely be against it. He's the type of player that needs to be the superstar and take all the shots and get all the glory. He just doesn't belong here. We're building a squad of great team players, not superstars.

Diego Costa has been rewarded for his brilliant start with Chelsea by winning the "Barclays Premiere League Player of the Month" award for August. The 25 year old who netted 4 times in the first 3 matches of the season, including a brace against Everton, was nominated for the award along side Nathan Dyer and Gylfi Sigurdsson, Andreas Weimann, and teammate Cesc Fabregas. And the Spanish-Brazilian striker expressed his delight at receiving this award: "I’m very happy to win this award. It is important to begin well at a new club and I’m pleased with both my start to the season and also the team’s, which is the most important thing." He added: "‘I hope to continue scoring goals to help out the team and keep making our fantastic supporters happy. I thank my team-mates as they have helped me win this award." Manager Jose Mourinho was also nominated for the Manager of the Month award after guiding the team to full points and top of the table in August, but lost out to Swansea manager Garry Monk. Here's to hoping that the 'curse of the manager of the month' comes into affect when we host Monk's team tomorrow afternoon! Also this week, Petr Cech received the Premiere League "Golden Glove" award that he won last season for keeping the joint most clean sheets (16) along with Wojciech Szczęsny. Big Pete, upon receiving his third "Golden Glove" award after 2004/05 and 2009/10, was keen to praise his teammates for helping him in achieving this accolade: "It’s always a pleasure to receive individual awards but I know that it would not be possible without my team-mates who work very hard to ensure the team keeps a clean sheet." Well done boys, and hopefully many more in the future. Click here to view article.

You realize that "Emirates" is a country as well, right?

Right! I knew I was forgetting someone when I wrote that! Oh well, too late to change it now More like completely wrong priorities! Yeah, but I only did the players in our current squad. We have more people on loan than here and if this article got a few lines longer no one would have read it

Yeah, Pochettino definitely. But Monk and Costa are deserved winners, imo.

Yeah, him and Christensen were the ones I enjoyed the most.

Who'd you have instead of him?

Thanks :tophat:

Wanting something very badly for a subconscious reason you can't understand even though logically you do not need it and there are better, cheaper alternative? That's not a "sex factor" that's just capitalism!

If you're anything like me, life just stops during the 'dark period', the root of all evil; also known as the international break. The needless "break" is called that because it always seems to come at the worst time possible and 'break' your team's momentum, and puts you in a state of constant worrying about potential injuries. As for the football it self, it is notoriously underwhelming and incredibly dull for football fans around the world, but for the footballers themselves, the period is a very busy one. With 19 Chelsea players out on international duty and playing matches on 3 different continents, keeping up with news that will no doubt come into Jose Mourinho's team selection calculations, such as the playing times of each of them, could get very tricky. So, here is a roundup, by country, of what and how our boys did in the past 10 days: Brazil The good news regarding the national team with the most Chelsea players (4) is that Brazil have got no competitive matches for some time. The bad news is that the players have to fly thousands of miles to South America and that all 4 of them started both of Brazi's friendlies. Brazil 1-0 Colombia (Friendly): Willian: Started and played 72 minutes. Ramires: Started and was subbed off at HT. Oscar: Started and played 72 minutes. Filipe Luis: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Brazil 1-0 Ecuador (Friendly): Willian: Started and scored the only goal of the match. He was subbed off at HT. Ramires: Started and played 69 minutes. Oscar: Started and was subbed off at HT. Filipe Luis: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Spain: Fernando Torres' exit brings us down to 3 Spanish players within the Chelsea first team squad. The current European Champions were said to be in "transition" and "still in crisis" after losing to France in the first friendly match, but I saw no sign of that when they put 5 past Macedonia. Fabregas in particular looked good in that match. France 1-0 Spain (Friendly): César Azpilicueta: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Diego Costa: Started and played 67 minutes. Francesc Fábregas: Started and played 67 minutes. Spain 5-1 Macedonia (EURO 2016 Qualifier): César Azpilicueta: Was an unused sub. Diego Costa: Got injured in training before the match was sent back to England to recover. Francesc Fábregas: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Luckily, Costa is expected to be fit for the weekend and he got a deserved rest. England In the week he was named vice-captain for the three lions, our only English international at the moment was keen to repay the manager's confidence in him and he looked an absolute rock at the back. England 1-0 Norway (Friendly): Gary Cahill: Started and played 84 minutes. He captained the side for a quarter of an hour. Switzerland 0-2 England (EURO 2016 Qualifier): Garry Cahill: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Made a match saving goal-line clearing tackle. Serbia Serbia, who were drawn into a 5-team group for the EURO qualifiers and were not scheduled to play in the first match week. Hence, they only played one friendly match, against France. Matic was boss, but that's hardly news... Serbia 1-1 France (Friendly): Nemanja Matic: Started and played 90 minutes. Branislav Ivanovic: Started (captained) and played 90 minutes. France Frace, the host country of the EURO 2016, qualify automatically and thus only have friendlies scheduled. Remy stole the show in the first by coming off the bench and scoring the winner against Spain. A performance that earned him a start against Serbia a few days later. Their U21 team, however, played two qualification matches and currently sit top of their group. France 1-0 Spain (Friendly): Loic Remy: Came on in the 58th minute and ended up scoring the only goal of the match. Serbia 1-1 France (Friendly): Loic Remy: Started and played 60 minutes. Kazakhestan U21 1-5 France U21 (U21 EURO Qualifications) Kurt Zouma: Started and played the full 90 minutes. France U21 1-5 Iceland U21 (U21 EURO Qualifications) Kurt Zouma: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Belgium Like Serbia, Belgium only played one friendly match after their match against Israel was postponed due to "security reasons". Eden Hazard did not join up with the team due to an "injury" *ahem* Belgium 2-0 Australia (Friendly): Thibaut Courtois: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Germany The new world champions unexpectedly lost a friendly against the finalists they beat a few weeks back, before passing the first test in their EURO qualifiers. Schurrle seemed to continue his excellent form with 'die mannschaft'. The only Chelsea first team player to score for a senior national team in the break. Germany 2-4 Argentina (Friendly): Andre Schurrle: Started and played 57 minutes. Scored Germany’s first goal. Germany 2-1 Scotland (EURO 2016 Qualifications): Andre Schurrle: Started and played 84 minutes. Czech Republic Generally, the current Czech NT is not the best in recent years by any stretch of the imagination; something that was highlighted in their defeat against the USA. But they managed to pull the shock of the break by beating the Netherlands. Czech Republic 0-1 USA (Friendly): Petr Cech: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Czech Republic 2-1 Netherlands (EURO 2016 Qualifications): Petr Cech: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Denmark At just 18, Andreas Christensen has already cemented his starting position for the Danish U21 team and even scored in their first match. Quite impressive. Denmark U21 4-2 Russia U21 (U21 EURO Qualifications): Andreas Christensen: Started and played 77 minutes. He scored his team’s 4th goal of the match. Denmark U21 7-1 Bulgaria U21 (U21 EURO Qualifications): Andreas Christensen: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Netherlands Much like the senior team, the Dutch U21 NT did NOT have a good international break losing both of their qualifying matches and their first spot in the group. Ake played both games from start to finish. Netherlands U21 0-1 Georgia U21 (U21 EURO Qualifications): Nathan Ake: Started and played 90 minutes. Netherlands U21 0-1 Slovakia U21 (U21 EURO Qualifications): Nathan Ake: Started and played 90 minutes. Egypt Disastrous week for Egypt, losing to both Senagal and then Tunisia, they have basically all but lost any hope of qualifying to the AFCONs. Good news for Chelsea as Mohammed Salah will most likely be available for selection in January. Senegal 2-0 Egypt (AFCON Qualifications): Mohammed Salah: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Egypt 0-1 Tunisia (AFCON Qualifications): Mohammed Salah: Started and played the full 90 minutes. Nigeria Our other African player didn't have a much better break as his NT only managed a single point from two matches after Congo pulled a shock win in Nigeria in the first match. They're still in the group, but they'll probably need to get at least 9-10 points from their remaining 4 matches. Not that I mind having Mikel available in the busy January period. Nigeria 2-3 Congo (AFCON Qualifications): John Obi Mikel: Started and played the full 90 minutes South Africa 0-0 Nigeria (AFCON Qualifications): John Obi Mikel: Started and played the full 90 minutes. The four senior players that did not have any international duty are those retired from their NTs, namely John Terry, Didier Drogba and Mark Schwarzer as well as the 'injured' Eden Hazard. Finally, we can get back to proper football with our clash against Swansea at the weekend will be the first of 6 matches in 16 days! Something sure to get our minds off the fact that there is another international break in 5 weeks time I'll try not to miss it too much.. Click here to view article.

Either this has already been killed by ISIS (I highly doubt it) or the US/KSA thought that the militias needed "new management". Yesterday (or was it the day before?) a "mystery explosion" took out a meeting between the leaders of "Ahrar Al Sham" killing more than 50 of them including their leader. "Ahrar Al Sham" are probably the the biggest "moderate" resistance militia, bar Al Nusra. Some claim they have near 40000 fighters. I can't possibly see how the situation in the region can get worse, but I have a feeling I'm about to find out...

Amid the bore-fest that is the international break, a ray of joy emerges to bring football-fever excitement to all the Blues in the world: Chelsea football club has today announced that Thibaut Courtois has signed a new 5-year Contract. The news will no doubt come as a big boost and yet another indication of the Chelsea board making all the right moves. The 22 year old Belgian, who has been a Chelsea player for over 3 years now, has impressed immensely so far in his first season at the Bridge. Thibaut, who had already hinted that he might sign a new contract after the international break, expressed his delight at committing his long term future to Chelsea: "I’m very happy with this new deal, it’s really nice to have signed this new contract for five years. My future was already sorted but it’s nice to know I’m going to be here for another five years and now I can just concentrate on playing games." Thibaut becomes the second Chelsea player to sign a new contract at the Bridge this month after Cesar Azpilicueta. Eden Hazard next, please! Click here to view article.

Of course it's not the same, but the common theme is attempting to blame the victim for the offender's crime. The point is, once you give up some of your freedom to avoid people trying to violate your rights, other people will come after the rest of it. You shouldn't have take the nude pictures. She shouldn't have worn such tight clothes. They shouldn't have voted for Hamas... Same shit.

For me, sometimes it appears just fine, and sometimes it looks as above.

Impressive, though not surprising. He rarely ever jogs on the pitch, even when he's closing players down he run with pace.

Yes, but what will the other clubs say of us!

You sure you didn't misplace it?

Can we "upgrade" the current deal we have with them? Mind you, I don't think there is any money involved in the current deal. I think it's just a mutually benificial agreement of us putting their logo around the bridge and in th e conference room in return for them putting ours on their F1 car. Yes, because everyone now is convinced that Arsenal are a team from the Arabian gulf...

Or even Audi.

Nedved!

I'd put Simne and Klopp somewhere below Jose and Pep (mind you, Pep himself has his glaring weaknesses) but certainly above Ancelotti and Rafa. For me it goes like: 1. Jose 2. Pep 3. Klopp 4.Simone 5. Wenger 6. Ancelotti 7. Rafa ...etc.

I understand how important it is to get a sponsor that is aesthetically acceptable on the kit and how that even affects kits sales, but eventually, whoever we get, we'll get used to the logo in the long run. Honestly, if it gets us more money than City and utd, I'd be okay with us signing with bloody ISIS!

Yes, but this is Real Madrid. The fact that it makes no sense and is completely unnecessary makes it all the more likely!

Big win for the Czech Republic against Netherlands yesterday. Think they can actually top the group?