Jype

And that's exactly what's wrong with football these days. People expect the players to always stay loyal to their clubs and then turn on them the minute they express their willingness to leave for pastures new but the same people won't think twice about ruthlessly sending one of their own packing when some flashy new signing is on the cards. Fucking plastic is what it is.

Looks like the Mourinho-hating Spanish media will do anything to destabilize the club less than 24 hours before our big game. How typical...

Like that's ever going to happen. You do realize that the odds on all five being injured at the same time is basically equal to the odds on me shagging Mila Kunis tonight and waking up the next morning to a text message saying I've won the lottery? Spending £30m on a sixth choice AM who's only desperately needed in case of severe injuries (essentially how you just described the player and his role in the team) would be beyond ridiculous and the idea of him becoming a key player by driving one of our current quality players away doesn't sound that good to me either. You need to get your head straight, there's no such thing as a 'Willian hater' out there, unless we're talking about Spurs fans, but that doesn't mean we have to be overly excited about the signing and not to worry about what might happen to some of the players we've already grown to love. Of course now that he has signed every single one of us who opposed to this transfer will support him no matter what and acknowledge the fact that we are talking about a lad who's very, very talented but are we not allowed to share with you our concerns about what kind of impact this signing can potentially have on the rest of the squad?

http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3436444/title/terms-agreed-for-willian On the official website now. Still waiting on the work permit but other than that it's done.

He's not going anywhere, just posted the following tweet. @DeBruyneKev: Finally in my new place. About time. Happy

Hernandez won't play? Best news I've heard all day.

Mourinho trolling Spurs in the presser was great but I'm still not a fan of this transfer. From what I understand, it's now Moses who is leaving. Having Mata, Hazard, De Bruyne, Oscar, Willian and Schürrle is crazy depth really. Hope Jose knows what he's doing and is able to keep all six of them happy when they're competing for three places in the team.

This is getting scary, it really is. A while back I didn't believe for a second we would let Mata go but now I'm not so sure with all this talk of Willian. I would welcome the idea of us signing Rooney but he and his club can fuck off if it meant us losing Mata, it just wouldn't be worth it. Chelsea should never in a million years even consider the idea of letting him go to Manchester United. If they really demanded that and Jose would prefer Willian and Rooney over keeping Mata, the Spaniard should be offered to nearly any top club outside England and the money got from the transfer then used to make a ridiculously high offer of more than £50m for Rooney, making it very hard for United to say no. Not the ideal scenario but at least it would mean United not getting one of the best players in the Premier League in exchange. Making the direct swap between Mata and Rooney would come back to bite us in the ass sooner or later, of that I have no doubt.

A decent and mostly fair comparison but I've got a few issues with it. First of all, you have 12 players in the starting lineup. Remove Welbeck/Torres and it's 4-2-3-1 for both teams. On the goalkeepers I think it's unfair to give that one to De Gea outright. He's a wondeful shot stopper and all that but he still has some weaknesses like dealing with crosses and other physical situations. I'm not saying he hasn't improved in that department but that doesn't take away the fact the flaws still exist. Cech is in my opinion a more complete keeper with no particular weaknesses and while is reflexes aren't as fast as De Gea's, his experience alone should tie this one to 1-1. Then the RBs. Rafael may be in better form than Brana at the moment and seems to be developing well too but I would still consider Azpilicueta our main right-back and his form last season was not that far behind Rafael's. Also, if I'm not mistaken Rafa is still out for our match so shouldn't you be comparing our right-backs to Smalling or Jones? Smalling/Jones at RB against Azpilicueta is a point for Chelsea but otherwise Rafael edges it narrowly. Agree on the central defense but I'm not so kind on Cole and for me this one is 1-0 for Evra. As for the midfielders, why on earth would you compare Carrick and De Bruyne? That makes absolutely no sense because in his career De Bruyne has played what, maybe 20 minutes worth of pre-season in the position Carrick plays in. Carrick is ahead of Mikel for sure but let's save KdB for some other comparison, maybe the one against Zaha which De Bruyne wins every day of the week after his brilliant season in one of the best leagues in the world. Ramires is much better than Tom Cleverley in my opinion and he is usually at his best in big games unlike Cleverley who is still very much unproven with the big boys but I respect your opinion and I can see why people rate Cleverley too. Is Rooney available for you? If not, replace him with Welbeck and that's a clear win for Oscar. Rest are fine by me so for the starting XI's the scores are pretty even with my reviews and both teams can edge it depending on who plays at RB and ACM. With Rafael and Rooney your lot edges it 7-5 but for Monday's match I'm not convinced either of them will play so without them the score is 7-5 to us. Guess we should just agree that it's pretty close no matter what, eh? For the rest: Schwarzer vs Lindegaard 1-1 Cahill vs Smalling 1-1 Ivanovic vs Jones 1-1 Bertrand - Fabio/Büttner 1-1 Lampard - Anderson 1-0 Essien - Jones 1-1 (lol had to use Jones again, you guys really don't have enough CMs) van Ginkel - Giggs at CM 1-0 Schürrle - Nani 1-1 De Bruyne - Zaha 1-0 Moses - Young 0-1 Torres - Hernandez 0-1 Ba - Welbeck 1-1 For the starting lineups the scores would have been similar last year too and it's really no surprise Chelsea have enjoyed so much success in the cup competitions in reent times. The first eleven has been excellent all along but overall the squad has not been good enough to challenge you or City in the long run. However, now our squad has improved massively over the summer with recalling the Belgian loanees and adding good players like Schürrle, van Ginkel and Schwarzer. So far the only addition to your squad has been Zaha but with the potential departure of Wayne Rooney one can't with a good conscience say your team has improved from last season. Outside of the first eleven I'd say we have the advantage over United and in a long season that can have a huge impact on the title race. The last and most important one comparison of them all: Mourinho - Moyes 1-0

I seriously hope this doesn't happen. On one hand it would be great to fuck over Tottenham's plans once again but we have absolutely no need for Willian unless we sell one of our current AM's and why would we do that? Mata is one of the best players in the PL and Moses is a good squad player so which one would he replace? Replacing Mata with Willian would be the worst piece of business the club have done since Torres, especially if sold to a title rival like Manchester United and Moses the sixth choice AM hardly plays any important games anyway so splasing out €37m for his replacement wouldn't make sense either. Fuck the media, they've brainwashed me into worrying about Mata's future at the club.

Not a good match and I think Villa deserved something out of this but I'll happily take the three points. A hard game was to be expected with that lineup so I'm very happy for the result but something needs to change if we want to win next week's games too. Lukaku has to start and something must be done to the midfield, not to mention the defense. Hope Luiz and Azpilicueta are ready by then. Lots of controversial decisions by the referees. Ivanovic against Benteke was a clear red card and he was very lucky to stay on the pitch. Not giving them the penalty was an okay decision due to Agbonlahor pulling Terry's shirt but I've seen those given many times as well and had it been the other way around I'd have been furious. Was Brana's goal offside too? Anyway, top of the league for now. KTBFFH!

Horrible first half, hopefully some substitutions will mix things up a little. At least with Mourinho we won't have to wait till the 80th minute before subs anymore.

I'm hearing Ba and Mata for Torres and De Bruyne, otherwise the same team as against Hull.

Bitches please, this guy is the one and only Eddie:

Not really. Our coefficient is third highest after Barcelona and Bayern so even if we finished last in our group and got the minimum amount of points available we'd still have a coefficient of around 120 minimum and at the moment a score like that would still get us comfortably in the top 6. Finishing third in the group and going a long way in the Europa League can actually be better for the coefficient than say reaching the QFs or even the Semis in the Champions League. For example we got 30 points for last season's European campaign while Benfica, the other CL drop-out and EL finalist, got 28 points but teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid only got around 27-29 points for getting knocked out in the CL Semi-finals.

Stupid rules when something a club did or didn't do five years ago still affects their chances in the draw. Clubs like Porto and Benfica literally can't fail to qualify for the Champions League through their domestic league and even if they don't get past the Group Stage they still get a decent amount of points for their coefficient and because of that they're always in either Pot 1 or 2. Then there are clubs like Man City, Dortmund, Juventus, PSG etc. who are way more likely to do well than the Portuguese but because they weren't this good five years ago they're now punished in the draw and given much tougher groups, making it even harder for them to do any better in the competition this time around. In my opinion they should make it that the points accumulated in the previous season or two would be multiplied, making it much easier for clubs who do well one year to get easier groups the next time they participate. For example it's nothing short of a joke that last year's finalist Dortmund are in Pot 3. They will need to get very lucky to get an easy group and on the other hand it's very tough luck for the team in Pot 1 who draws a team of Dortmund's quality from Pot 3 when someone else gets a team like FC Copenhagen. Anyway, there's nothing us fans can do about it so no point complaining. After last year's farce I want an easy group, maybe something along the lines of Ajax, Anderlecht and Dinamo Zagreb. However, I could bet a house on us ending up in the same group with Rafa Benitez' Napoli?

It's about the politics. The saga with Jose Mourinho and Barcelona signing Neymar were bitter blows to Florentino Perez and certain people were starting to question whether or not he was still the right man for the job of Real Madrid's club president so a flashy new Galactico signing on a world record fee will go a long way convincing the fans and the media. This is Real Madrid we're talking about, they don't operate the way other clubs do and it doesn't matter one bit if the player is ridiculously overpriced and that their squad is already stacked with quality players in the positions Bale plays in. Money is no obstacle because they get loads of money from La Liga's unfair TV deal and also the Spanish banks keep grating them massive loans with zero interest despite the fact many of these banks are all close to bankruptcy, Spain's economic situation being what it is.

Cech Azpilicueta - Ivanovic - Terry - Cole Ramires - van Ginkel de Brunye - Hazard - Schürrle Lukaku Need to have a dynamic midfield against Aston Villa and Ramires & MvG will offer just that. Don't want to see Cahill against Benteke again so Azpilicueta should start if he's fit and ready, allowing Ivanovic to play at CB. I'm sure not many of you will agree but I would give Schürrle the chance to shine on his natural position and try Hazard down the middle. Oscar did great against Hull and wouldn't mind him starting but we mustn't let Schürrle rot on the bench either and we have important games next week too so Oscar should rest. Mata didn't even come on as a substitute against Hull so I'll just assume he isn't ready yet and he should be rested for the harder games as well. Lukaku up front a no-brainer.

Bale, selling him will get them enough money for all these new signings.

Are you for real? How many times have you seen Willian play if you're ready to make such a bold claim? This guy's not fit to lace the boots of Mata or Hazard. I started watching Shakhtar Donetsk somewhat regularly in the 11/12 season when this guy was strongly linked to us and back then I would have taken him without a moment's hesitation even for around £25-30m because at the time our squad was severely lacking in quality as well as quantity. As it turned out he was nothing special, even against the low-level Ukrainian teams and now we have four players (Hazard, Mata, Oscar, KdB ) who I would take ahead of Willian any day of the week so I couldn't be happier that we didn't get him in the end. He's good but not an exceptional talent like Hazard, Mata or Bale, the one he's going to replace at Spurs. Willian's good at dribbling and he's fast but not much else. Bad finisher and not much of a crosser either, is it just because he had his best games of the season against us in the CL last season that some people rate him so highly?

Nah, it's Arsenal who should be worried not us. Even with Willian, I can't see them finishing any higher than fourth when they lose Bale. And is Willian really worth £35m, more than any of our current attacking midfielders? Anyway, they've done some decent signings this summer and may even have more coming in if they get Coentrao and / or Lamela. Their centrbacks apart from Vertonghen are still shit though and they have even lost Caulker without replacing him with anyone.

City looked good, although I will wait till they face a proper opposition before making any judgement. They're playing against United in a few weeks, aren't they? Once again very impressed by Dzeko even though he couldn't find the net today. Cheeky bid for him if we fail to get Rooney?

Talking out of your ass again, it seems. If you're going to complain, at least go through the trouble of getting your facts straight. Our record with Martin Atkinson (20 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses) is way better than with any other active English referee and there's nothing you can say to make this any less true. Unlike you think, it was in fact Atkinson who took charge of both our wins against Arsenal last season and the one who officiated the 3-5 in 2011 was Andre Marriner. So far Atkinson has refereed two of our games against Manchester United and both of them have resulted in a Chelsea win, the latter of which even involved a very dodgy game-winning penalty awarded to Chelsea following a 'challenge' on Yuri Zhirkov. Also, he's the one who awarded Mata's ghost goal in the 5-1 FA Cup semi-final win over Tottenham. I could go on but I have a feeling everyone got the point already and I'm not one to keep repeating myself to make my intentions clear. Source: http://www.thechels.co.uk/analysis/referees/?ref=ATKINSON,MARTIN Feel free to browse through the referee analysis on that site and come back when you can come up with someone who from our perspective would've been a better choice for next Monday's game.

Nice, our record with Atkinson as ref is very good. He took charge of both our wins against Arsenal last season if I'm not mistaken.

They also have Javier Hernandez who's a very, very good goalscorer. I'd say van Persie, Hernandez and Welbeck is more than enough for them if they keep playing the same formation. Obviously RvP will start the majority of their games up front while Welbeck is capable of playing in any of the positions in their front four and Hernandez is very much an adequate backup for van Persie. They also have Shinji Kagawa to play behind van Persie and because Rooney played a lot of games in the #10 position last season they haven't in my opinion seen the best of Kagawa just yet. I feel they would be just fine if they sold Rooney, maybe even better off if he's really causing trouble in the dressing room like the media seem to think.