BlueLion.

Chelsea's opponents in the FA Cup fourth round will be Bradford City, after the Bantams saw off Millwall in their third round replay. Through to the fourth round for the first time in fifteen years, City were comfortable 4-0 winners in their home replay, City, League Cup finalists in 2013, dominated their Championship visitors, scoring three first-half goals after Lions defender Mark Beevers was sent off. The Blues will now host their League One opponents on Saturday 24 January. The game, a 3pm kick-off, will be sandwiched between two League Cup semi-final ties with Liverpool as Chelsea's attentions switch towards potential cup success after this weekend's away Premier League fixture at Swansea. The latest odds for the game see Bradford at 16/1 to cause an upset. Click here to view the article

I was only thinking about this the other day. Cracking homegrown option to be 2nd/3rd choice.

Which you'd expect from any striker in all honesty, forwards are strange beasts that thrive off confidence, he's naturally going to be more confident playing in front of 41,000 people screaming "DIEGO, DIEGO, DIEGO" every time he even farts near the ball than at Old Trafford where his every touch would be jeered.

Every player on the bench warms up during the game except for the GK, don't look too much into it. Mikel was warming up at the same time; shall we assume Jose was going to haul off Costa and settle for 0-0? Don't read cryptically into simple things, he was warming up for the simple reason of there being a potential injury. JT has had a number of poor games this season. Spurs and even last weekend are two very recent examples. But he is playing poorly in those games because he's too old to play 60 games a season consistently well, IMO.

On his current form he's nowhere near Drogba or Remy's level, let alone Costa. Our decision to sell was a good one.

Exactly, all of a sudden Courtois and shit and Cech is world-class. Whilst the latter is true, Courtois is just as good and should be number 1. I just think Chelsea fans would like Petr to reach 500 games, and break the PL clean sheets record. But only the former looks possible.

And he was truly awful in that match as well. But then again so was everyone - I explicitly recall that as the worst game I've ever seen in terms of a performance from John Terry, as well.

Bullet well and truly dodged.

Yeah I don't think that shirt is the new one, it's a 2014 template and is probably being used as a promotional stopgap.

This was definitely the result of a mass stoner session.

Which is what some of us have said from the beginning! but that isn't to say Courtois is a bad shot stopper. To the contrary, he's one of the best in the world.

Because of how good both Cech and Thibaut are, I don't think you can use the word "dropped" to describe which of them is playing. "Rotated" is more of an accurate term IMO.

If Arsenal were hosting City they'd have a chance. At the Etihad City will annihilate them.

Gomis is an absolute bastard of a striker to mark. Watched him in France for the best part of seven years, he's a fucking nuisance. Anyone who thinks we'll have an easy game because Bony is on ACoN duty is mistaken. This will be a tough 1-0.

or maybe Viagra so we can get past a semi in the cup

I don't see any reason why he won't, tbh, he's been the designated cup keeper from the off!

Reus isn't injury prone. Injury prone means he physiologically isn't up to the stresses of being a footballer. Being targeted by the opposition and quite literally taken out game after game is an entirely different thing.

Yes, but not with any positional discipline... he'll have to be more defensively minded, á la Fernandinho/Fernando.

Doing that he'd probably have to withdraw Toure into a central position and drop one of Navas or Nasri, which is where most of City's width comes from. Just think two strikers would upset the balance of City's present system.

But when they did it was always one playing as a striker and one playing off almost in a free role. The archetypal 4-4-2 is now dead; if City played with two strikers then one played in a withdrawn position in a 4-4-1-1 at best, or if they played together as genuine strikers (which I genuinely can't remember, though I find City's brand of football boring and thus can't stand to watch them) then it was only on a few occasions.

In terms of balance, we piss all over Madrid IMO. In terms of pure attacking firepower, as you say, Madrid easily top the bill. But I'd pick that Chelsea six over that Madrid six any day of the week.

Agreed but I can't for the life of me remember Pellegrini playing with two up top at all either last season or when he was Malaga? There were times when he'd play two of Dzeko/Negredo/Aguero up top when chasing a game but I can only ever remember him starting games with one striker.

Defensively he's very easy to beat when isolated one-on-one. When he's hunting down the opposition as part of a pack he's great, but when he's targeted he is a weak link, no doubt about it. Going forward he's a joy to watch, very exciting. Even if he did accidentally block one of Hazard's shots yesterday

They were horrific yesterday. P.S.: allez l'OL! They've been brilliant to watch this season. 2-0 up at half-time versus Toulouse. Puts them top as things stand. #8?

He was here in a previous guise simply as "Korea" and was banned for being a cunt. When we a - realised it was the same guy, and b - he continued being a cunt, we acted accordingly. There's having an opinion and then there's being a racist, argumentative moron.