Jase

But there's no relation between maintaining your fitness level and (supposedly) faking an injury. You can question his professionalism in not keeping up to shape for pre-season but not his professionalism or even dignity that he's faking an injury and not wanting to play for the club. That's a convincing response... Honestly, why is it so difficult for people to accept that Hazard has really picked up an injury? It's pretty desperate stuff that some are trying to find conspiracy theories and all that to justify what happened under Mourinho.

No but constantly banging on about that point and using it as an excuse to question whether he's faking his injury is nonsensical. And the point you and some others are trying to make would carry more weight if it was brought into the question before Mourinho threw Hazard under the bus and questioned his professionalism at Leicester.

Had Hazard picked up this injury in any of the last 3 seasons, would anyone really be questioning him? All of this came about because we sacked Mourinho last month and doubting his honesty and professionalism due to that seems farcical.

Well, whatever team we put out from the squad we have now is going to be terrible, isn't it? Can only hope the players actually turn up and put in the required performance to get the win.

Sorry about that. Have notified Jim about the issue.

Hmm, you're right. Just registered as a normal member and I don't see the text box as well. The other threads in other sections are fine right?

That's strange. I don't see them as locked. Any chance you could get a screen shot?

Are you sure? All the threads are opened except the old, nonsense, pointless ones etc. Anyone else seeing the same thing as Henrique?

Might take awhile to familiarize with the new layout but it's pretty neat. 1. Love that we can now insert 'Header Banner' like on Twitter on the profile page. 2. Any way to disable the browser pop-up asking if I would like to receive notification from the site? 3. What happened to the Time Zone setting?

Here's a stat...or two: 1. Crystal Palace can become the first club to complete the Premier League double over Chelsea since Liverpool achieved it in 2011/12 (lost 2-1 at home and 4-1 away). 2. Crystal Palace can become the first London club to complete the Premier League double over Chelsea since Arsenal did it in 2003/04 (lost 2-1 home and away).

Chelsea vs Scunthorpe PRE-MATCH DISCUSSION AND LIVE CHAT 2015/16 FA Cup Third Round 10th January, Sunday, 2016 Stamford Bridge 14:00 Kick Off (UK time)

Well, it's either you have completely misunderstood the point or you're just conveniently ignoring it. It's not about winning ugly and "no one cares about winning ugly at the end of the season if you win the league". It's about having a definite style of play. The likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Man United (before Moyes and Van Gaal anyway) etc are known for playing attacking football. They combine success with style and that's what fans want to see.

Should have just let him rot in the reserves, even for a season.....

Norwich and Bournemouth both picked up points. So, we have dropped down to 16th. Interestingly, we're 6 points behind West Brom but only 4 behind Southampton (they are really dropping like flies at the moment). Still sit 3 points above the drop zone though.

It's a contributing factor but NOT a decisive one. You can blame the lack of summer transfer activity for all you want but it's no reason why we should be where we are right now. We can struggle and fail to achieve our targets (e.g. winning the league) but certainly not failing till the extent we're sitting just 3 points above the relegation zone. You are right, football is about winning. But we're one of the biggest clubs in the world and it's only fair that people expect the team to achieve success with style. But too often under Jose, we adopted the pragmatic or even defensive approach in matches like we're some sort of small team. You would be lying if you didn't find our approach and performances turgid to watch at times. Our youth academy isn't perfect. That much has been said. But it's still good and has some good talent coming through. All they need is for someone to put trust and faith in them and not one who expects the players to be finished articles from the very start and not willing to live through the ups and downs of developing young players. And seriously, bringing in the whole issue the country and/or other clubs have with youth players really doesn't cut it. It's a different situation with them and it's a poor excuse to justify our bizarre management of players from the academy.

Yes, we needed new players in the summer but is that an excuse for the way we've been playing this season? No. The players and Jose have failed miserably in that department. If what Jose said and did this season was the first or second time he had done it, then I would be inclined to agree with you. But since it's not, then I don't because we have seen him do that so many times over the years - he did the same at Chelsea, at Inter, at Real Madrid and at Chelsea again. Quite frankly, it's pathetic and gets extremely tiresome after some time and that is why the "he's only human after all" excuse (or similar ones) are poor in this situation. Using attendance to say fans are happy? That's convincing. Never mind winning 1-0 every week, we're not even winning every week (or most weeks) but I guess the fans are happy because they are filling the stadium. And we don't have a good youth system? Sure, we're not at La Masia level and there's still a number of good young players in there and they are good young players who have won 4 of the last 6 FA Youth Cups. It's like Gary Neville said last season, you cannot win 4 Youth Cups in last 6 years and not promote youth players into the squad. That's one of the things Jose has failed to do during his time at the club.

Bloody hell!!!

Can't play against Palace apparently - because of the loan rules/agreement I'm guessing.

That I can agree. It is a double edge situation although, with the senior players already doing so badly and showing no signs of improvement even after being given like 1000 chances, you do wonder if it's worth gambling on youth because they can't do any worse, can they? If you had read my posts in here and elsewhere, you would know I'm not pinning the blame entirely on Mourinho. The board and players are at fault too. Jose, however, was the one who managed the squad and was tasked with getting the best out of the players. There was no reinforcements in the transfer window from the board but it's not their fault when the man in the dugout couldn't ensure the team play well and pick up results week in week out. Oh we have seen the team play attacking football under Jose but we only saw that for 6 months and some matches here and there down the years. It's not consistent Like it or not, he's a pragmatic manager who doesn't adopt an attacking approach and if he could bore his way to a 1-0 win every week, think he would do it. And you're right in saying football is ultimately about winning but people would expect at least some form of entertainment to go along with it. Why talk about Guardiola and La Masia? Bayern don't have an academy like La Masia and yet that didn't stop Guardiola from promoting youth and tweak, improve the playing style of the club. He's far more adaptable than people think he is. That DNA went out of the window as soon as the previous team era was over. This current side couldn't do the things that Jose's teams are renowed for correctly - e.g defending solidly, don't give chances away, strong on counter attacks. You could hardly find many matches in his second stint that saw us do what Jose's teams do best. Wow. That's deep... If you have strengths, then you maintain it and try to make it even better. If you have weaknesses, then you work on it and change. If you continue allow those weaknesses stay in you and do not adapt, then you won't move forward and become better. Instead, you regress.

It's a bit of both really. When you buy young players like Mata, Hazard, Oscar, De Bruyne, Lukaku etc, you can't say we aren't trying to change the profile of the team. We clearly did. But on the other hand, if we have to sell them (some we really shouldn't have), then at least we'll be able to get decent amount of money. No, it's not. If I had mentioned about Jose's time at Chelsea as a whole, then maybe yes. But I only mentioned his second stint, which if you look at it, it's hard to pick out many good things compared to say the first time he was here. Our squad depth has been off for a while...yeah, for the last 2-3 years. The squad Jose inherited had decent depth but it got worse as each season went off and now first XI is so predictable. And the team was hardly forseeable under Benitez, who probably had fun rotating the starting XI every game considering we had to play every 3-4 days. Says a lot when you said "we were wonderful to watch AT TIMES...". Yes, we played good attacking football under Jose but only for 6 months. Other than that, it was pragmatic stuff - although I'm not sure how one can categorize our football this season. And yes, we need players to improve the style but at the same time, the current group of players we have is pretty much the same as last season and the one who played that good football. Needing new signings is one thing but there's no reason why this team shouldn't be able to play good or at least decent football to watch - like putting opposition under sustained pressure, creating chances, scoring goals and defending properly. Buying players won't help to solve that. It's done through coaching the players and whose job exactly is that? Blaming the board is fine - because they aren't entirely faultless either - but let's not act as if Jose never suggested and got his reinforcements - just look at Cuadrado, Salah, Falcao to begin with. That is seriously a poor excuse. We all face pressure in our life but there's a right and wrong way to go about handling yourself. Jose is a man with plenty of experience and knowledge and yet every time, he needs to create controversy. Even when the pressure is already on, he likes to add more fuel to the fire. Why? You only have to look at this season, when we were already in crisis, he continued to create more drama - with the club, players, media, referees etc. He should and must know better. Other successful managers like Fergie also experienced that kind of pressure before but he didn't go about his business like the way Jose did, certainly not in the over the top manner.

That's an exaggeration really. There are those who don't wear Mourinho tinted glasses all the time and can see through his faults and flaws, even if he's our most successful manager.

I didn't say Mourinho is the only manager who makes the players work. Others do too obviously but compare to most, Mourinho does that way too much and he restricts players from expressing themselves. Attacking football takes time to instill - it won't be successful in days but what you would like to see is progression. Did we see that under Mourinho? No. Not only we're not playing attacking football now, we're not even playing football. Each to their own. The club's insistence of wanting to get Guardiola back then was clearly a sign they wanted to change our playing style .

Only the Mourinho worshipers were wanking over him and saw him as one who can do no wrong. If you look at the past posts and threads, I'm sure you'll find that while people were pleased and happy about winning the league, they still had doubts about Mourinho and his management style.