OneMoSalah

Well it was either commit a foul and get a needless yellow card or acknowledge he couldn't tackle Draxler without fouling and not give away a stupid freekick. If it was a poor effort by Ramires to make a tackle that would have only resulted in a foul then was it a poor decision by Fabregas to hold onto the ball for so long?

"If we sign Reus" where the fuck is Reus gonna play? On the bench? On the right (even though hes better on the left, where Eden plays)? As a 10? There is no room for a player like Reus. Salah will get games don't worry, we are 5 games into a long season. We are very well prepared if we get injuries and suspensions.

Joke or serious?

There is a chance Fernando wont be fit for City, he missed the Bayern game tonight, which is a bit of a relief as hes really been quite an astute signing and gives them more balance. No Drogba from the start please. Costa is a must. Courtois Branna - Cahill - JT - Luis Rami - Matic Willian - Cesc - Hazard Costa

I didn't say that. I said everyone who thought (including yourself may I add) that we'd be able to comfortably beat Schalke were wrong and that was our strongest team except for Drogba. They are a good side, if we had rotated more than Costa then who knows what would of happened? Then there was posters who said we could afford to rotate 2 or 3 other players against Schalke because our squad is very good (which don't get me wrong it is) but its hardly like Salah is the same level as Willian or Zouma the same level as Cahill/Terry.

Think this is a huge overreaction. He was complacent tonight and performed very very poorly but hes not the worst center half out there and hes certainly decent when it comes to having the ball at his feet. The only not so good thing about him is his backing off strikers has cost us goals: Huntelaar tonight, Falcao in the super cup, Benteke at Villa Park... I'm sure theres more too but for certain members to say hes the most overrated player in the squad, or he should have been left at Bolton or whatever bullshit is a massive overreaction. Like when Mikel played that pass vs Juventus before they scored about a minute later under Robbie, huge overreaction.

That is what happens when you rest someone with 7 goals in 4 games and start a half fit 36 year old in his place. Not on about the sitter he missed but his all round contribution was shocking. Cahill was pretty poor as well. "We should be able to rotate 4 or 5 players and still beat Schalke" remember those idiotic comments. They could have beat us tonight. Just because we've won 4 out of 4 PL games doesn't mean we are the best team in Europe, big reality check. Play like that against City and we will lose. Filipe Luis is brilliant though.

Hes a system player. If Jose wants to play a more reactive counter attacking style then Andre's his man. Some of his off the ball runs are still class though as we seen against Burnley. Hes still gonna improve, hes not exactly a shite footballer either is he?

Fucking hell I never thought I would see the day Diego Costa's stats were compared to Dion Dublin's stats. In all fairness Dion Dublin is probably one of the worst football players that has ever graced football. Or is that harsh

They didn't have a great start the last time we played them either if I remember correctly. The thing is it doesn't matter how badly they were last week or the week before that, its first night of the Champions League and they will have their critics and they will want to ram their critics opinions down their throats. Perhaps Everton and Swansea are playing better right now but a full strength Schalke team performing better than they are right now would comfortably dispatch any of those two sides. No contest. We can't take anything for granted, especially after the first half of that Swansea match and even defending against Everton. If players like Sigurdsson, Mirallas, Naismith etc can exploit spaces and make an impact on the game then imagine much more quality players like Boateng, Farfan, Draxler, Meyer etc? I'd say a full strength team and we beat them in 50-60 minutes then we can sub players in and out, but using the squad 4 games in and resting key players like Matic, Costa, Hazard and whoever else people have suggested (not you but I've seen lots of posts with a similar point about rotation) would also send out the wrong message in my eyes, it would show we are more concerned about the City game (although players who are on our bench do have points to prove). We can't send that message out to a team that's say won every game at the start of the season, never mind a team that's struggled recently and have a point to prove to their own critics. Our squad is very good yes but I don't want to see us rotate every game before we play a big team, especially when we play a big team before like Schalke, because cmon they aren't exactly minnows nobodies heard of. 4 days is a lot of time to recover, although it doesn't seem like it. When the games start coming every 2 or 3 days maybe depending on scheduling and cup competitions then the squad is useful.

You have to remember the problems they gave us last year (with a lot of injuries in their squad) with a similar team bar Courtois, Matic, Cesc and Costa. They are better than anything we've faced so far this season. I would hope Jose doesn't go daft and swap 3 or 4 players. Maybe Costa could do with a rest but how do you justify resting a player with 7 goals in 4 games for a game that is 4 days after this one?

Was it just me or did anyone else think that Carvalho was a better CB than John Terry?

In my opinion its not about how good you do for the U21s, its about how good you do for the first team if you get a chance. Josh and Gael Kakuta looked brilliant players at U21 level but where are they now?

Still doesn't matter what you think is Chelsea's priority, would you drop someone who has got 7 goal in 4 games? Or someone who has 6 assists in 4 games? If we had say injuries then yeah use the squad but we are 4 games into the season. Hardly like we've overused players already is it?

Anyone thinking we should go and change 4 or 5 players just because we play Man City 4 days after is just daft and naive because sure City are good but its hardly like Schalke are a poor team that didn't cause us problems last season with very much a similar team other than Courtois, Fabregas and Costa. This team has only been together for 4 competitive games, why rotate it? Especially with the form players like Costa, Fabregas and others are in? Costa is a striker and the more games he plays the more chances hes going to get to keep up this exceptional run of goals. Makes absolutely no sense to 4 or 5 change players. Sure take some of them off like Fabregas, Hazard and Costa after maybe 60 or 70 minutes if we are comfortable but not out of the team from the start, that would send Schalke the sort of message that shows we aren't too worried about the game and more concerned about the City match. Hopefully get a very strong performance, a very good good result and send out a statement to everyone else in the competition.

Hummels and possibly Chillieni is the only center backs on that list better than Kompany. Benatia and Godin are good players but they aren't better than Kompany, no offence but saying that is laughable in my eyes. Miranda is a good player but again hes hardly spectacular. He's like Cahill, hes got a better partner next to him in Godin as Cahill has in Terry. Kompany again isn't the best center back on the planet in my eyes but hes better than most of those guys. Guys like Ramos, Pepe, Thiago Silva, I would say are much better central defenders than he is. The fact that City were all at sea defensively last year was greatly his fault. Their was a lack of communication between Kompany and Demichellis for ages and when Pellegrini had to pick other center backs ahead of Kompany when he was injured the defensive unit looked more in sync with each other. Lets be honest, doesn't matter which center backs play against Costa they are going to get a rough game. He does everything, hes a very industrious player so I can't see Kompany or Demichellis having it very easy.

What a start, what a player. Lukaku 1 goal 4 games, Costa 7 goals 4 games. One cost 28M one cost 32M. Money well spent and well recuperated.

To be honest I'd rather see him playing shite for City than shite for us. Would he play ahead of Cesc, Ramires, Mikel or Matic? No.

Why is there even a thread for Ronaldo in the first place. We have no chance of signing him AT ALL. He hates Mourinho. Imagine suggesting trying to sign him after Mourinho internally criticized him at Madrid telling him he still needed to improve and that he didn't know best. Might as well hope Barca dont win the league again and try sign Messi or Iniesta or something. Ridiculous.

I am surprised nobody has posted the price and airplane mode joke yet.

What so you'd tell players like Ashley Cole, Cesc Fabregas, Frank Lampard etc the same? No way. Even the likes of Luis Figo, Luis Enrique, Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez done the same. Its ridiculous to criticize someone for that. BVB can't complain they put a release clause, they activated it. Everyone should of stopped complaining at Gotze and blamed the BVB board for allowing such a clause.

Hopefully get them on board as an additional sponsor but to have them replace samsung on the shirt, would look odd. Put it this way, United got away with spending 160M this year because of their revenue and money generated from various sponsors they have. More sponsors the better, FFP has a loop hole.

I watched the game, I seen him get subbed off. But that doesn't mean hes picked up exactly the same injury or an injury of that severity. Just clutching at straws. Calling him injury prone after 2 similar injuries as well in say a years time would also be stupid, he could have not fully recovered from the injury in the first place. Sometimes teams rush players back, would be terrible for him if it was the same injury but you could question if he was fully fit in the first place? Hardly would consider him injury prone if its the same injury anyway.

Are you actually joking? He hurt his ankle and was subbed, does anyone even know the extent of the injury yet? There's every chance it wont become a long term problem. To call him injury prone after 2 similar injuries in a season would be clutching at straws given hes played regularly for the last 4 or 5 years...

Just waiting for some idiot to say we shouldn't look at Reus because hes injury prone.........