Jase

But I'm on a hot streak right now. 3 wins in the last 4..

Thanks for jinxing it...

Chelsea midfielder Mikel angles for exit from the Bridge with Galatasaray keen

Just only noticed this but our league results before a Champions League game this season has been dodgy compared to after a midweek European game.. Before CL games - P8 W3 D1 L4 After CL games - P8 W7 D1

I knew somebody was going to put that up... Like I said before, we were going to drop points at some point during this run-in, one way or another and it just so happened that it came in such controversial circumstances that everybody is talking about it. And of course, because the loss came the way it did and at such moment, it's easy to use that defeat as a reason for costing us the title. Maybe if we had done better before those red cards, create chances and score a few goals, we wouldn't be sitting down here talking so much about the Chris Foy debacle... Also, you would be foolish to think if Mourinho doesn't view those other games against WBA, Newcastle, Stoke etc as a reason why we may end up not winning the title. Given what happened, I can understand the reasons he gave for us not winning those games. However had we approached some of the games better from the start, we would have won a few more and again, not sitting down here talking about the ifs and buts.

Crystal Palace v Chelsea Match Preview

The Match Chelsea travel to Selhurst Park on Saturday to face a struggling Crystal Palace side in a game that is set to kick off at 3pm UK time. The Blues will be looking to complete the league double over their opponent after winning 2-1 in the reverse fixture in mid-December through goals from Fernando Torres and Ramires. The Eagles, however, will be desperate to stop their illustrious visitors in a bid to avoid relegation as their form have dipped of late having won none of their last 5 league games, losing 3 of them, falling to 18th and just 3 points above the drop zone. This is in stark contrast to the form prior to that five games which saw Tony Pulis’ side picked up 18 points from the 39 available under his tenure compared to just 7 from 36 points under former manager Ian Holloway, who left the club in late October. The downturn in Palace’s form have been due to their lack of goals in recently as only one – from the penalty spot – have been scored in the last 5 matches. Pulis has spoken about the need of his side to be clinical with the chances while staying defensively solid if they are to cause an upset in this London derby and ultimately, stay up in the Premier League with just 8 games remaining. In contrast and fresh from their 6-0 demolition of Arsenal last Saturday, Mourinho’s men will be keen to follow that up by swatting aside Palace to keep up the pressure at the top. With title rivals Arsenal and Manchester City facing each other tomorrow and Liverpool hosting Tottenham at Anfield on Sunday, the league leaders would want to pile the pressure on the others and head into their midweek Champions League game with Paris St. Germain in confident mood. Chelsea know they cannot afford anymore slip-ups if they want to win the Premier League title in this tight race and Mourinho has warned of the difficulty of facing Crystal Palace tomorrow. “They defend well and a lot, they're direct and aggressive, strong in set-pieces. They have every quality that Pulis likes and that Pulis' teams have” said the Portuguese tactician. Recent form and quality possessed by both teams suggest this will be a foregone conclusion but Crystal Palace will be sure to provide a stiff challenge and looking to claim at least a point. For Chelsea, they cannot afford to drop points again to a lesser side and need to be at their best to achieve victory in their final capital derby of the season. Team News Crystal Palace Tony Pulis will be without the services of Maraoune Chamakh and Dwight Gayle due to hamstring and ankle injury respectively. Scottish midfielder Barry Bannan could start after returning to the side in the club’s defeat to Newcastle last weekend. Provisional Squad: Speroni, Hennessey, Gabbidon, McCarthy, Guedioura, Dann, Mariappa, Ward, Delaney, Jedinak, Ledley, Bannan, O'Keefe, Dikgacoi, Bolasie, Puncheon, Ince, Thomas, Jerome and Murray. Chelsea Samuel Eto’o has been ruled out of the game with the hamstring injury he picked up against Arsenal while Ashley Cole remains on the sideline with a knee injury. A more positive news for Mourinho would be the return of Willian following his one game suspension but Ramires is still serving his 3-game suspension – now in his second – after his red card two weeks ago. Provisional Squad: Cech, Schwarzer, Kalas, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Luiz, Azpilicueta, Mikel, Matic, Lampard, Hazard, Schurrle, Oscar, Willian, Salah, Ba and Torres. Stats and Facts 1. Chelsea have won 6 and drawn 3 of their 9 Premier League London derbies this season while Crystal Palace have won just 1 and lost 6 of 7 derby matches. 2. Chelsea have won 8 and drawn 4 of their 12 Premier League meetings against Crystal Palace. 3. Chelsea have allowed fewer shots on target against them than any other team in the top division (95) and have kept the most clean sheets (14) this season. [via Opta] 4. Chelsea have won 12 and drawn two of the 14 games ahead at half time this season. [via Chelsea Website] 5. The Blues have won 17 and drawn two of the 20 league games when they have scored the opening goal this season. [via Chelsea Website] 6. Chelsea are nine points up compared with the corresponding 31 fixtures last season. [via Chelsea Website] 7. In 2014 Chelsea have kept 11 clean sheets and conceded just seven goals in 17 games in all competitions. [via Chelsea Website] 8. Crystal Palace have won just 5 of their 25 Premier League London derbies at Selhurst Park. 9. This is Crystal Palace’s 50th Premier League London derby, but they have the lowest points per game of any of the capital clubs in local clashes (0.88 per game). [via Opta] 10. Crystal Palace Palace have failed to score in 4 of their last 5 Premier League games and have the worst chance conversion rate in the Premier League this season (7.5 per cent). [via Opta] 11. Crystal Palace are the Premier League's lowest scorers with 19 goals. That's a goal every two hours 22 minutes. More recently, they have scored one goal (a penalty) in the last 471 minutes. [via Chelsea Website] 12. Crystal Palace have gained two points from the 18 games in which their opponents opened the scoring. [via Chelsea Website] 13. No team have dropped fewer than Crystal Palace's six points from winning positions this season although the Eagles have gained only two points from losing positions, which is the worst record in the Premier League. [via Chelsea Website] 14. Andre Schurrle has scored 4 goals and assisted 1 in his last THREE London derby appearances. 15. Mile Jedinak has committed the most fouls in the Premier League this season (55), while Eden Hazard is the division’s most fouled player (85). [via Opta] Match Odds (Final Result/Full Time) Crystal Palace WIN - 7/1 DRAW - 7/2 Chelsea WIN - 2/5 *Odds obtained from SkyBet* Match Coverage Depending on where you are from, you can watch the match in the following channels: United Kingdom: TalkSport Radio, BBC Radio 5 Live United States: NBCSN, NBC Sports Live Extra Middle East: beIN Sports Belgium: Be Sport 1, Sporting 2 Brazil: ESPN India: Star Sports 4 India, Star Sports HD 2 India For additional regions, you can check out the TV schedule for the match here. There should be many match streams that can be found online if your local sports channels are not broadcasting the game or if you happen to be busy and cannot catch the game live, follow TalkChelsea on Twitter as it would provide live match commentary on the action. Click here to view article

Agree with all your points there and just to add on the one above, Mourinho also always defend his players and will often take the pressure off the players onto himself so that they can go out there to perform without any anxiety or tension. Unlike Benitez (or some of our previous managers), he doesn't do that and more often than not, leave the players hung out to dry in the public. Didn't defend Hazard after the ball boy incident last season or said anything to condemn Suarez after he bit Ivanovic and instead, did an impersonation of Arsene Wenger of "I didn't see it"!

Optimistic..

http://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/calciomercato/chelsea-open-to-loaning-torres-to-inter/ We are open to loaning Torres to Inter apparently, according to di Marzio. Taking that with a pinch of salt..

Blanc refuses to play mind games with Mourinho ahead PSG's clash with Chelsea

Their last away defeat was to Sunderland in early November. Since then, they have only suffered 1 defeat in the league overall and was to us obviously in February. Otherwise, they have been in near perfect unbeaten run.

Well, that is rather obvious. This is no different to what the Barcelona players tend to do by publicly courting players from other clubs.

Seems like a classic case of 'oh, player x is available? Let's link him to Chelsea!'. Doubt there are much truth to this..

Lampard launches campaign to get more children reading... but which books are favourites of Premier League stars?

But managers generally don't do that. They do so with the team as a whole but hardly a player alone. Moreover in Moyes' case, he's not a top class manager that commands instant respect like Mourinho, Fergie and his position right now is far from stable. If he's gonna start criticizing player(s) in the public, he risks losing the team altogether (if he hasn't already).

One could argue that he can get away with it when his Madrid was like basically scoring 2-3 goals every game and not even bother with 1-2 goals conceded. Different case with us. Moreover, changing Coentrao and Marcelo is slightly different since the latter is better offensively and worked better with Ronaldo ahead of him. For the GKs, he eventually settled on Lopez after all the drama at Madrid. Otherwise, he pretty much played with Casillas as his first choice in almost every game before that. Similar case with Essien over Arbeloa. 'Political' intentions in it. Would love to as well. Want to see Shaw at LB and Azpi at RB but there is a strong case for Mourinho to retain the current back 4 as the main back 4 for next season..

Easy to say that and all but I doubt Mourinho would want to be chopping and changing the back 4 (assuming if Azpi continues at LB of course) unless something desperate happens. Otherwise, he would want to have that consistency and stability at the back throughout the season, like what he has mentioned before this season.

Question is, would Shaw be happy to be second choice and only play once in a blue moon? He is 19 and would want to play every week to develop himself further.

True but there was 1 United counter attack in the first half yesterday where Mata was leading it and running with the ball and he looked awfully slow, even slower than usual. It's almost as if he doesn't look 100% fit!

Looks like Bertrand has had enough and I don't blame him.. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ryan-bertrand-would-consider-permanent-6876145

I think it's easy when you already have players who are tough characters, strong and have that winning mentality like the Vieira, Adams, Keown, Henry etc. The manager only needed to push them a little bit more to get things going. I kinda disagree Wenger is an excellent coach. Maybe he is on the technical aspects of playing football but overall, I just feel he's a good manager that is desperately lacking in some areas. As I stated weeks ago, I get the impression that he is only interesting in coaching his players how to play football and doesn't seem to put much effort into improving them tactically, defensively like other managers would normally do. Moreover, I don't think he's capable of coaxing his players to have that ruthlessness and winning mentality to be successful consistently. A player may be good at playing football but if he isn't strong mentally and have that winning edge about them, they will not rise to the next level, be a genuine top class player. It is what seperate the top managers like Mourinho, Alex Ferguson with the others. They are able to toughen up their players mentally and character wise and push them that little bit further. Heck, even average players at United were able to perform above their level under Fergie. With Wenger, I just don't get that at all. He has sold a few players here and there over the years but still have a good squad and yet not able to instil that winning edge into his players. When the going gets tough, they are not able to handle them. When it isn't, they'll shine most...in the unimportant part of the season.

EXCLUSIVE: Chelsea close in on Costa as Mourinho plans £40m move for Atletico star It's from Daily Mail by the way...