BlueLion.

Sorry Choulo, just seen your post. Indeed. Discuss the Fat Spanish Waiter in the sixteen threads we have for him in the Matthew Harding Stand please!

And if your perspective was out of your backside for two minutes you'd notice that he is no longer the Valencia manager, nor the Liverpool manager. He has since helped drive Valencia into financial melt-down, sabotaged his own team's chances of winning the Premier League with Liverpool, absolutely destroyed Inter Milan (who were the best team in the world when he took over) and is now doing the same to Chelsea. I don't hate him because he's a winner. I hate him because he's replaced a man who was doing okay, and is doing worse than the guy who was sacked.

Demba Ba, Lukaku, Torres + one other (and it doesn't necessarily have to be Falcao or Cavani, either) would do it for me. Provided they are rotated properly and/or paired in tandem by someone who knows what they are doing.

Done. Best of luck doing your dissertation, I know exactly how that feels.

Agreed. Under di Matteo we lost to the likes of Juventus and Manchester United. We beat the rest, Arsenal, Newcastle and Tottenham included. Now under Benitez we're either losing or drawing to the shittiest opposition we've faced in seasons (Reading, QPR and Brentford are frankly utterly abysmal football teams).

This is just God's way of saying he is never going to be a professional footballer. Fully expect him to remain as an academy coach, however, and at least he can say that the few games he played for Chelsea were when we were at the height of our powers.

Since Shevchenko, every big-name striker that Chelsea will sign is doomed to fail. There is always going to be the expectation associated with a big money move in the first place, but because of the intense media scrutiny of the club, there will be immense added pressure comparing everything every striker does to what Didier Drogba achieved. Add in the prospect of being as bad as Torres has ended up... we might as well just give up now and stick with what we've got.

Scum home kit is class, though.

Moses and Mikel won't play in this one in my opinion... reckon they'll be given a little bit of a break.

From playing in the full-back position, only Yury Zhirkov has ever produced more assists in one Premier League game (three) than Cesar Azpilicueta produced on Saturday (two).

Well we should have won against QPR, Reading and Southampton for a start. There's 7 points. We should be six points behind United in the title race. But we're not, which goes to show how shit we are. There is a good chance City may thump us in a couple of weeks' time.

Cole had a shocking game today. Add di Santo to the extensive list of players that have done him time and time again this season.

Holy cunting fuckballs! We won!

Rafa's pre-match team talk

Then who's doing that? Disagreeing with someone is not attacking someone.

And who is denying people the opportunity to voice their opinion, then?

I think you are taking me incorrectly... I said a lot of people are getting a bit too excited over TC, but our Belgian members especially. We all do it - the English overrate the English players, the Brazilians do the same with Oscar/Luiz/Ramires/Piazon, etc. etc. No offence was meant, but if it was caused then I apologise.

LMAO, what's the point of having a forum if we can't disagree and thus debate? I'm not denying that he is doing very well. My point lies in the fact people are getting too excited over him. Is he ready to replace Petr Cech? No. Why? Because he isn't quite on the same level yet. That is my point. I am not being derogatory towards Courtois, just being realistic. He is a good young goalkeeper, but when you consider Cech's considerable experience, he is the best goalkeeper we have and therefore for Courtois to continue to improve and develop (rather than sitting on the bench for four games in every five), it is important he stays away from Chelsea and plays regularly. Granted that the de Gea comparison was a crude one, but it wasn't based on the fact he was at Atletico before TC. It is showing the fact that such young goalkeepers aren't always ready to make the jump straight away into another team. But I absolutely agree with the need for TC having a Premier League loan. He needs to learn the ins and outs of this division, and it is more beneficial to him to learn actually playing rather than warming the bench at Stamford Bridge.

There's no evidence that suggests he will be brilliant. He has potential, but so does David de Gea, and he is seriously error-prone. If a goalkeeper is error-prone, how can you call him brilliant? I am not blind to the raw talent TC has, but a lot of people on here - our Belgian contingent especially - are being naive on this issue. I am excited as you are that we have signed a future potential goalkeeping great, but we, like Thiabut, need to keep our feet on the ground.

Sure, Courtois play against Manchester United and Cech play against Macclesfield. Cech is streets ahead of Courtois at the minute. In terms of all-round goalkeeping - distribution, handling, reactions, shot-stopping, dealing with crosses - Cech is better in every department but for distribution right now. Put that down to age and experience. Courtois isn't quite ready. He has incredible potential but he isn't ready to play for Chelsea right now. A loan to a club in the lower thralls of the Premier League will be best for his development. He'd get into most Premier League teams quite well, and even if he went to a club such as Wigan, he'd have a good goalkeeper in Ali al-Habsi to challenge him.

Atletico have a far better and more cohesive defence... Courtois has actually got quite a low save percentage because he doesn't face even half as many shots on target as Cech does. So don't look into the stats too much. Both are brilliant goalkeepers, but in terms of their overall quality, if you think Courtois is even near Cech's shadow, you're very much so mistaken. The best goalkeepers in the world are the likes of Buffon, Casillas and Cech, The next level are the likes of Lloris, Manuel Neuer, Joe Hart. After them you have the next great goalkeepers; the likes of Marc Andre ter-Stegen and Courtois. Thibaut is good, but not brilliant.

We've finally broken even, after the best part of nine years. This year we might even post a net profit. Shirt sales are through the roof and the tour to Asia in the summer will only help that.

Can we drop the childish antics, please.

As far as I'm aware, Carragher never shagged his best mate's missus or got caught in a racism storm. The hate towards Terry is entirely justified.