Jase

Have we really unsettled Carroll?

It's a double-edge situation. Sign him and it shows we have ambition but risk ruining our wage structure. Don't sign him and we watch him strengthen one of our rivals. The potential funny thing in all of this is we don't sign him because of his wage demands and then see Hazard/Courtois leave anyway.

That was always going to be obvious, wasn't it? Next thing we know, we'll submit a 20m bid for a permanent deal!

Scenes when Barkley floats a corner into the box for Carroll to score and we win 1-0 on agg against Barcelona.

A loan deal for Carroll? LOAN???

At least Lacazette and Morata have the excuse of playing in England for the first time. What does Lukaku have?

We are Arsenal's cup final.

You could say the same about Hazard but does he get dispossessed as much as Sanchez?

Could care less about signing Sanchez if it means we keep Hazard AND Courtois at the club.

What are the odds that his mind is already in Madrid?

The 3-5-2 is rather predictable, which is made even worse by having average WBs, as you mentioned there. Stop Alonso and Moses, which is hardly hard, and there goes our width and all our play will go through the middle, which again makes easy for the opposition to contain us.

It may have worked for a lesser side like Leicester but it doesn't mean it will for us. And even if it does, is it really good enough at the highest level? True but haven't you always complained about getting dominated in midfield like after every big game? Did I? When we defend, they obviously drop back to form a back 5 but when we attack, they don't just stay at home, do they? They get forward, forming a front 4 or 5 (in 3-4-3 or 3-5-2). Their role is rather a mix of the two rather than just defensive or offensive.

Is there any point of Fabregas these days? His performances this season have proven why Conte didn't trust him to begin with last season.

In other news, Real lost again earlier.

Surely, SURELY, we won't f**k this up?!

Maybe it was due to the mics around the pitch or something but I swear the Bridge was like a cemetery last Wednesday.

Can you blame him for taking off someone who was playing poorly, even if that someone is our best player? Let's not pretend as if Mourinho didn't make some mind boggling decisions with Hazard. He, once, benched Hazard against Aston Villa (ASTON FREAKING VILLA!!!) at HOME because he wanted balance in the team. 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 produce its own dilemmas really. Play 3-4-3 and we risk getting overrun in midfield and who is best to partner Kante? Neither Drinkwater nor Bakayoko offers anything of note and dare I say Fabregas even offers nothing these days, not even offensively anymore. Play 3-5-2 and we're able to at least try and control the midfield and put Hazard in probably his best position to do damage. But we become far too predictable if the entire XI isn't on it, especially if the midfield doesn't take control and Alonso/Moses do zilch out wide. I see where you're coming from but I don't know why people keep on saying 7 defensive players. Can we really term Alonso and Moses as defensive players when they are key part of our attacks as well? They aren't just in the XI to defend but also provide key offensive contribution.

I know we have ours coming but have you seen their fixtures at the end of this month?

I know Hazard is our best player but for god sake, he's not immune to criticism! Every time he goes AWOL, people keep finding excuses for him. Did anyone see the number of times he gave the ball away against Leicester? Had it been Willian, people would have thrown him under the bus.

Not sure what's worse - watching us bore our way to a 3rd 0-0 draw within a week or reading the stupid, drivel comments from the fans after the game (I don't necessarily mean you lot here). @manpe mentioned this the other day - plenty of irony in fans calling for Conte (or the manager in general) to be sacked when we hit a tough period and then later wonder why the club are so trigger happy. Some might argue that we have done this in the past with decent success but at some point, the novelty of that will run out, if not already. Why would any saint manager want to come here if they know they will face the sack when hit a bad period and worse of all, have a pathetic, average squad to work with? Has Conte made bad decisions? Yes. Does he deserve to be criticized? Yes. Should he be sacked? No. But we will probably do it, won't we? Have been repeating this for ages but the manager can only do so much because at the end of the day, this squad is extremely average. I mean, just look at that last shot from Moses against Leicester earlier. That's how bad this squad. We can sack Conte and hire Sarri, Allegri, Tuchel or whoever but they aren't gonna be successful year in year out if the board don't invest, never mind not giving what the manager wants. Also, people need to make up their mind about who's at fault for our current problems. One week, it's because Willian, Bakayoko etc are shit. Next week, it's because of Conte. Which is it? If you can see them lacking the quality already, why even moan about the formation? People like to moan about it as if a simple change of formation will spark an upturn in form out of the blue (last season was down to because no one knew how to counter it in the early stages). No formation change is gonna suddenly make the players become the Brazil, Ajax or Milan or yesteryear. It's also silly that people praise the players and not Conte for getting it right when we win but put all the blame on Conte when we don't.

Chelsea 1-1 Norwich PRE/POST-MATCH DISCUSSION, LIVE CHAT AND ANALYSIS 2017/18 FA Cup 3rd Round Replay 17th January, Wednesday, 2018 Stamford Bridge 19:45 Kick Off (UK time)

Andy Carroll incoming...