BlueLion.

] That is what makes us a better breed of fan, although going by this reaction you'd think Lampard had murdered a child on live television. There will be a lot of very embarrassed people on here tomorrow when they re-read what they've written.

Chelsea legend Frank Lampard scored a late leveller for new club Manchester City to earn the champions a share of the spoils at Etihad Stadium. Pablo Zabaletta saw red for City after he was shown a second yellow card for an altercation with Diego Costa, and within moments of his dismissal Andre Schurrle gave Chelsea the lead. Costa then saw a deflected strike hit the woodwork with Joe Hart well beaten, only for Lampard to arrive late in the area and finish with trademark aplomb. That goal was the ultimate sucker punch for Chelsea, who looked completely comfortable to sit on their lead given their man advantage. The Blues were understandably stunned and were forced to quickly recover to compose themselves and leave with a credible draw. After many wonderful moments in a Chelsea shirt, a clearly remorseful Lampard approached the vociferously vocal Blues travelling support at the end of the match - almost apologetically applauding the fans that chanted his name for 13 seasons, and throughout this match also. The point, in truth, is the least City deserved for a strong performance, where they dominated for large parts of the match. Whilst Thibaut Courtois was relatively untroubled - one very good save from Sergio Aguero besides - City had the lion's share of possession and Chelsea were forced to showcase their defensive steel for prolonged periods to keep the champions at bay. And even when the Blues went a goal up with a man advantage, Manuel Pellegrini's side still looked more than capable of responding, and in the end José Mourinho will rue not going for the jugular after Schurrle's strike. Ultimately, this performance thoroughly vindicated City's title as Premier League champions, and the script was written for Lampard for make Chelsea pay for their lethargy, and he duly delivered. The terrific James Milner's driving run was not picked up by Schurrle, and his cross was met terrifically by Lampard to earn his new side a warranted share of the spoils. A draw means Chelsea retain top spot, moving three points clear of second-placed Southampton. Crucially, and more to the point, their were at least able to maintain their five-point advantage over City, which, even at this early stage of the season, could prove pivotal come May. Countless glorious moments for Frank Lampard in Chelsea blue - in Bolton and Munich to name but two - have not been undone. A dropped two points represents negligible recompense for his service of nearly 650 matches and 211 goals.

Locking this before I ban the cunt who calls him Judas.

Reading through this thread: All we need now is someone to throw around the word "Judas" for a full house.

City are the one team in this league we have no chance of beating if we go all-out attack, IMO. We have to be clever when playing teams as good as/better than we are, and I'm a firm believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" - we have incredible success against the superior teams in the PL last season when playing a more sedate style of football. It was all about being a defensive sponge and soaking up all the pressure and then attacking them on the counter. The City away game last season was a bit of a strange one because we completely dominated the midfield battle all the way through, and had by far the better chances on the balance of play - I quote Phil McNulty of the BBC: "This was no smash-and-grab tactical raid by Mourinho either, as his side hit the woodwork three times through Samuel Eto'o, Nemanja Matic and Gary Cahill. They could, and should, have won by a greater margin". My point is, whilst we didn't exactly park the bus in that game, we definitely didn't attempt to fight fire with fire, and I would be amazed if José opted for us to go all-out today. That's why I'm certain we'll see Willian and Ramires start this game.

He was and he wasn't. I'm surprised Remy didn't start as well, but he's only recently joined up with the club and maybe hasn't trained as much as José would have liked. José saw this as a game we should have won easily (which we should have) and chose to give Didier the time to improve on his fitness and sharpness. As the game went on he visibly improved physically IMO, and his match sharpness will arrive with time. I can perfectly understand why José chose to start him, especially given his CL experience.

Plenty of life left in our Didier yet. I'll be sure to remind certain members of their vitriolic prattle when he next scores.

Unbeaten season? Won't happen. I'll ban myself if that comes about, just won't fucking happen.

That is just fucking unsaveable.

He better start against Bolton or I'll be pissed.

Cahill has quite clearly been on the retard pills since the end of last season. Looked shaky as hell at the World Cup and simply hasn't gotten over it. Some players have to learn their position in the team isn't infallible and need to learn the hard way. I don't think you'll find any reasonable Chelsea fan calling him shit. But he certainly looks the weak link in the side right now, and his consistent backing-off of players is costing us as much as Ivanovic's half-arsed defending from full-back.

It's no surprise we didn't, we haven't had a good crosser from the full-back positions since Wayne Bridge left.

You were sat literally two metres from where Joe Weller was

With Gary "let's back off fifty fucking feet" Cahill playing like he's only got one leg at the minute, a change wouldn't be all that bad.

Sack José and sell everyone. This forum does my tits in sometimes, heaven forbid if we lose to City on Sunday.

Reading through this thread like

Going by the RAWK-esque meltdown on here tonight I expect Courtois to be dropped forever, Drogba to be executed, Mourinho to be sacked and City to win 18-0.

Fixed.

If I'm not mistaken this was his 200th game* for us today, well done Rami. * inc. 2012 Community Shield.

So much hate for a manager who chose a team that could have hit Schalke for six tonight. Blame your heroes Fabregas, Hazard, Drogba and Remy for all screwing up multiple glorious chances instead.

Because José played such a big role in all those missed chances... absolutely nothing to do with him. The team he put out today had the ability to beat Schalke 6-0, but instead the team were complacent and missed some glorious chances to kill the game off before we'd even played for an hour.

Agreed. Remy should have been starting today. Drogba doesn't look anywhere near match fit at the moment. There is a time and a place to play your third-choice striker. For instance in a home tie against a Championship side in the League Cup, have we got any games like those coming up soon?

Tonight showed how desperately we need to switch to Luis-JT-Ivan-Dave at the back.

Its a lovely kit but let's not get carried away.