Jype

Gutted if we miss out on him but got to laugh at the lengths United are willing to go here. In what world is an 18-year-old LB worth 30m pounds and 100k a week? I thought it was us who are supposed to be ruining football... Buy Ricardo Rodriguez from Wolfsburg if Shaw isn't available without breaking the bank. I've always rated him just a little higher than Shaw (a couple of years older though) but still preferred Shaw for the fact he is a Chelsea fan and would qualify as a homegrown player but surely the lad isn't worth as much as United are supposedly willing to pay.

Has the first touch of a rapist and messed up a few potentially deadly counter-attacks yesterday. Still a good performance IMO because he did pretty much what the manager wanted him to do.

Here I use the term 'we' and also when talking to other Chelsea fans elsewhere but I don't know, just feels wrong to say that when discussing football with fans of other clubs because they're clearly not a part of this 'us'. Kind of like Spike said, I consider the term 'we' to refer more to us as a group of fans rather than a part of the club itself.

Agreed. Should give him some minutes against Liverpool this weekend and considering the suspensions of both Lamps and Mikel, maybe even play him against Atleti next week if he does well. Either way, if Jose doesn't want to risk anything by playing a guy who's been out for so long his recovery has still been remarkable and is definitely a good sign for next season. He's not going to the World Cup so he will begin his pre-season earlier than most of the team and will have lots of time to impress Mourinho. Hope he succeeds in that.

From what I've seen he's always like that. Read on some other forum a pretty good description about him: "It's not often a striker goes up against Sergio Ramos and Pepe and comes out of it looking like the bigger scumbag" Still want him, we need a cunt striker in our team.

That's actually a pretty good question, especially since the fourth longest serving player after those three Mikel who has also captained the team a few times will also be missing the game. Maybe Ivanovic or Cole?

Great result. Now just need to finish the job at the Bridge which I'm pretty confident we will, especially with Hazard, Eto'o and Ivanovic back next week. Schwarzer my MotM today, was great since coming on. Feels nice to have a solid backup keeper. One thing though, I will probably not be able to watch the second leg. So far this season I've only missed four games and we've lost them all (Stoke away, Crystal Palace, Sunderland twice). I will do my best to watch the game but if I can't and we lose it, please don't kill me.

At the moment Mourinho is the 8th longest serving manager in the PL with 323 days so not long, I would suppose.

Got to be some kind of a record too.

Why would he go there now? With their current players it's far from being a Mourinho kind of team and they don't even have CL next season. Maybe he'd think about it in a few years after he's had a few seasons with us and Van Gaal or someone else has repaired the damage done by Moyes but no fucking way would he join them this summer. Keep dreaming United fans.

I would say that after last weekend the Liverpool game on Sunday is not so important anymore. Would be nice to do a favor for Manchester City by fucking up Liverpool's title challenge but we're 99% out of the title race so surely the CL semis are more important. Anyway, it will be vital to have him fully fit for the home leg of the Atletico tie so I wouldn't risk him today either.

That's ten PL managers sacked in one season, got to be some kind of a record?

Yes he's part of the 20 man squad, Ake too. Van Ginkel will probably make the bench because of that squad only two players will be missing out, one of them is surely Hilario and I would guess Ake will be the other. Maybe if Hazard isn't ready everyone apart from the third goalie will make at least the bench.

Seen some rumours suggesting there is a clause in Moyes' contract that says failure to make top4 allows United to sack him without paying the cunt anything. The timing would sure make sense if that was the case because after yesterday's result it's mathematically impossible for them to qualify for the CL now.

Van Ginkel has travelled with the squad.

Marca are saying the clubs have now found an agreement with the Courtois situation and he will play against us, if there ever was any doubt about that.

Makes sense, didn't they recently sack two of their assistant managers without saying why?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/apr/19/police-called-drug-scandal-major-club Interesting. Any guesses on which club we're talking about here? Seriously hope it's not us..

I was one of few people who preferred Vidal to Modric in 2011 when we were after both of them but Vidal ended up at Juve for a mere €10m and we missed out on Modric too. Time to get him was three years ago, can’t see him leaving Juventus now. Even so I think he’s the best midfielder in the world at the moment and if there was even the slightest of chance we could get him, we should go all-in. What the hell is 'footballdirectnews' though? Doubt a source like that would have any inside information from Chelsea.

The fuck? I'm sure everyone knows by now that I haven't spoken highly of Cole in years but surely a full-back pairing of Cole - Azpilicueta with Luiz in midfield is better than Azpi - Luiz and maybe Mikel at CM?

Costa 2-0 from the spot, that's another 3 points in the bag for them.

Modric would have been an amazing buy back in 2011 when we were after him but at the moment there’s no way I’d agree to that swap, not without a significant amount of money coming our way. He’s still at least as good as he was back then and would slot next to Matic perfectly but he’ll be 29 when next season begins and surely that means his value has gone down a little from the time Real Madrid bought him for £30m whereas Oscar, having now proved himself in European football, has got to be worth more than the £25m we paid for him two years ago. That being said, something like Modric + £10m for Oscar and I’d snap their hand off. We’d finally get our man for the pivot which has been a big problem for years now and I really don’t think Oscar, no matter how good he is, would be that hard to replace. For example Ross Barkley, who you mentioned, would be a very good replacement and with players like Modric & Barkley we would end up having a much, much stronger squad than we do now even if it meant losing Oscar. Not sure how to feel about potentially losing Lukaku though. I think he'd be the perfect 2nd choice striker for us next season with Costa likely to be the main man. With those two guys we'd have two very different kind of strikers which would give Jose a lot more options to prepare for each game, and also the impact of bringing a striker like Costa or Lukaku from the bench would be nothing short of devastating against tired defenses. Anyway, I'll leave Lukaku's fate to the hands of Mourinho and the board because there's really no way to know what's happened behind the scenes before / after he requested the Everton loan. After all this, I think it's worth noting that I don't believe for a second that we'd have any chance of getting Modric. I don't think Real Madrid are willing to sell a guy who has been one of their best players this season and anyway, why would they even need Oscar when they already got Isco?

21 would be even better. I find it ridiculous that proven world class players bought on massive transfer fees such as Hazard are even nominated for an award that in my opinion should only be given to a player who's made his breakthrough to the highest level in the last year or two. You know, players like Shaw, Barkley etc.

Also a major doubt for Atletico on Tuesday, though in that case I would think it's safe to assume he'll be fit to face Liverpool.