BlueLion.

Judging by the size of his hands he's probably packing some heat. Secondly, judging by the size of his wallet.... it's no surprise, really. Considering how good he is at dealing with crosses, I'm just hoping he doesn't catch something else with all this cavorting...

[a] Firstly, we can only deal with the facts. We don't know whether Eva will be on the bench or not on Sunday; this could all be hearsay. What we do know is José has publicly called her out, which I have already said I totally disagree with. However, look at what the media are talking about. They're spouting bollocks about a "crisis" and focusing on off-the-pitch antics rather than what happened on the pitch on Sunday. That, you can say, is a successful deflection away from his side, which is the most important element of the club. José losing it on the touchline was stupid, but I firmly believe he has purposefully made the comments he has made to keep the press talking about some imaginary "feud" that will all be forgotten should we blow City away on Sunday, which, amidst all this furore, is looking increasingly possible. Mourinho has an almighty ego and that is to the benefit of the club. He makes sure the papers are focused on him. Would we have had such a slump in Ancelotti's second season if he had a Mourinho-esque attitude? The papers certainly wouldn't have been scapegoating individual players if all the attention had have been on him. With regards to your point about José berating Hazard - I'd say that's actually counter-productive to your argument. The season after that dressing down, Hazard goes on to win the Player of the Year award. With Mata, too - José told him what he had to do to earn his place back in the side. Mata didn't oblige. José uses the press extremely effectively, but he consistently takes a risky attitude towards the situation as it can, like in this episode, backfire somewhat. As for your second point which you are basing on the evidence of one Premier League match (you surely can't be referring to games during the second half of last season; we were consistently superior in the second half of matches from January onwards, compared to the first half of the season where we'd dominate the first 45 minutes and fade away, which cost us in games vs United, City, Newcastle, etc.), there is absolutely no point even discussing it. You can't possibly bring pre-season matches into the equation. And, until more fitness is achieved, of course the players are going to look jaded and performances will drop in the second half of matches. These are people, not machines. Mental fitness + physical fitness = match fitness. And since it will be weeks before the players achieve physical fitness, let alone mental fitness, we're a long way from the outcome of that equation. Let's analyse first half and second half performances once the team has eased itself into the season. I can't really be bothered going into much more detail than this as I'm tired and have had a stressful day - we'll have to agree to disagree. I just think José has acted very deliberately to move the attentions of the press away from his unfit and underperforming players (on the basis of Sunday's game). What I don't appreciate is people (this isn't aimed at you; it's aimed at others) accusing people such as me as being pro-Mourinho and backing him when he's in the wrong. He's quite clearly ended up with egg on his face here, but I believe he's manipulated the situation to make sure people aren't talking about how useless Hazard was, about how diabolical Ivanovic was, about how vulnerable the centre-backs seemed, and how (un)fit Fabregas and Matic looked. I suppose the point I'm trying to arrive at is that what's been said has been said, and there's no point denigrating the man who led us to a Double last season. That's even more daft than Mourinho's rant. But let's be honest here, the person who turned this into a full-blown war was Eva and her poorly timed Facebook status. Let's not blow smoke up anyone's arse. I might read this post back in a week and disagree with myself, but for the time being I see no reason to hail Mourinho as the Anti-Christ as so many seem hellbent on doing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24155092

Two words: deflection policy. Everyone is slagging him off, rather than focusing on the fact that, on the pitch, we're lightyears behind where we were this time last season. José loves the attention, but he does it to stop the papers from focusing on what was a turgid performance against Swansea (even when we had 11 on the pitch). I don't quite know what you're alluding to with the second part of your post. It seems you are insinuating that A; Mourinho's team-talk demotivated the players, and B; that it is his fault that Courtois suffered from a brainfart, and by extension that it is José's fault that Thibaut got himself sent off. I totally disagree with the way José has acted in relation to this situation, but some of the posts on here are incredulous. I can honestly say that Benitez got less flack than Mourinho is copping at the minute, totally unfair.

Meh. Sorry to say but, after that one good (half) season under AVB, he did next to nothing. Offers a little more offensively than Mikel, but nowhere near as composed on the ball, nor defensively disciplined inasmuch as maintaining the team's shape/balance. Wish him all the best, but we have better options than him already at the club, even Mikel counts as one of those options. He isn't going to start ahead of Matic or Ramires, and MvG is likely to at least get one more season to prove himself.

FFS, you've now got me looking on Google for "hot" pictures of a bloke. My life is in tatters.

Lad.

He's also weirdly good-looking, definite "weird man-crush" material. Which is a bonus as the majority of our squad is fugly.

Fuck off. If anyone deserves a shot, it's Moses. Had a decent year at Stoke and offers us a very decent option on the bench. Plus he stops Cuadrado from being anywhere near the matchday 18.

Exactly. If Eva wasn't a she, and extremely attractive, there wouldn't be even half of the nonsense that we're seeing on here. If you all want to choose a doctor over the best manager in the club's history, then I'm chuffed to bits for you.

Roman > José > every other fucker at the club. People only give a shit because Eva is a female and hot. If it was some spotty male teenager, people wouldn't really give a shit. José is flexing his muscles, but this is possibly also just pure bollocks. We'll see on Sunday. Ultimately Eva is replaceable. José, not quite so.

Nice one José

He is a limited defender - but the sad story is he is actually one of the best in PL. That's how poor the quality of defending is in this league.

I do. It's all because of that post-season tour to Australia at the end of last season.

Of course he will. If we try and attack we'll get beat, it's quite a simple scenario at the minute. For the next month or so we need to grind out results whilst we accrue match fitness. We're a good few weeks behind most clubs in that regard.

£14 million? Excellent if true.

No-one likes us. We don't care.

It's like having a review left late on in Test cricket. You might as well ask for a referral even when you know there's no chance of it.

Great point. I hadn't thought of that. Stones would be such a massive investment we'd almost be forced into playing him at times. I doubt José would get bullied by the media but he'd certainly have to play his hand after moaning so much about a lack of investment this pre-season.

We should turn to Everton, tell them to fuck themselves, and go and get Varane instead IMO. There's an absolute gulf between the two in terms of ability, but surely the €48 million Everton want for Stones would be enough to secure Varane's signature?

Martinez is so naive it's unreal.

Nothing to do with being flexible, just got saggy bollocks

Or Ivanovic

José is spitting his dummy out. It's like he hasn't learnt from 2007. Abramovich is the gaffer and won't stand shit from anyone. If Mourinho is here until the end of 2019 (the end of his new contract) I'll be fucking amazed, quite frankly.

I've never seen him play and won't pretend that I have, so I'll judge him after his first ten matches or so.

Would bite my own left nut off for a win, but I'd be more than satisfied with a point.