Strike

Newcastle squeezing City with set-piece pressure now. City holding on though. Come on Newcastle! Get the f****** ball to Ba!

Tim Krul - Brilliant keeper

weird. i didn't get a notification for this.. anyway, true, lewandowski is a no-go for january. but his contract expires in 2014. this summer, he'll be an on the move. has indicated that he wants to run down his contract. think dortmund will look to sell this summer than lose him for nothin in 2014

was hoping Ben Arfa would be there. to create somethin for Ba edit: Ba - coming as far as the halfway line to collect the ball. Despite Newcastle's bright start, expect ManC to seize control

Perch, Tiote And Vurnon Anita in midfield....Pardew's playing for a draw here.

enough with the Falcao, de Rossi etc. Impossible especially in January. they are tied to the club till 2016-17 and will only leave if we overpay significantly (like torres or luiz) realistically, our options in January - Strikers - Wilfried Bony, Darren Bent, Fernando Llorente, Mauro Zarate, Demba Ba, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, Theo Walcott, Robert Lewandowski, - Mids - Joao Moutinho, Lewis Holtby, Mathieu Flamini, Moussa Sissoko, Fernandinho, Ettiene Capoue, Kevin-Prince Boateng and for replacement for JT in the summer - Defenders - Benedikt Howedes, Neven Subotic, Holger Badstuber, Serdar Tasci, Simon Kjaer Spikinho mentioned Xabi Alonso and David Villa - both having less than 2 years left on their contracts. might be possible edit: apart from all this, we have internal options in Essien, de Bruyne, Lukaku, Jeffrey Bruma, McEachran, Chalobah .....

again tied down to contracts. cant see them moving in january on the cheap

benitez is much better but until january reinforcements arrive, we are hopping on one leg. squad has major holes in CM and ST especially

Gibson's long-range shooting technique is just class

you lot have another game before we play again although both Stoke and West Ham away will be a real test. lot of balls will be dumped into the area. jagielka and distin need to win the aerial battle

anyone know a list of good players whose contracts expire this summer? - Huntelaar, Walcott who else?

Nice one Jim! slight problem with my notifications page - clicking on quote or the post someone quoted takes me to the first page of the thread and not the post or the quoted post

except Xabi Alonso, all others have existing long-term deals. Alonso's deal runs out in 2014 but he's 31 now. surely we'll have to overpay to get any of them. Joao Moutinho, Fernandinho, Ettiene Capoue are more realistic targets.

watched him today. nothing great. ofcourse, this is the only game i've seen of him and i don't know much about him but from what i've seen, i would say he's another Mineiro. to be fair, the whole team was being pegged back by Al Ahly

why'd you go for Spike Spiegal in the first place?

the corinthians keeper looks as good as the Monterrey guy...why did he come out? and after he did, how did the ball go past him there? (the aboutrika pass that lead to a chance)

let's be honest. he was poor last season. very poor actually. can't hide that. i wouldn't be surprised if the club don't exercise the option of calling him back

we need depth till the summer anyway. Romeu is out for the season almost. We should get him back or get decent cover in the market

in all this i doubt that Pep will even come to Chelsea. Recently i saw unconfirmed quotes that Barca players hate Chelsea more than even Real Madrid. that gets me thinking that Pep may not be interested in the Chelsea job at all. all this talk about the club rebuilding this summer maybe moot if Pep snubs us and joins City or something.

i'm sure we can manage to sign a cheaper player that can do the job in midfield. i read a link today that had Sergio Busquets and 30million GBP in the same sentence. his contract expires in 2015 - 2 years from this summer and Barca won't be keen to offload him unless we overpay. Joao Moutinho is a cheaper and better option imo or Axel Witsel if he tries to force his way out of Zenit. Able to fill the CM role although they are more attack minded than Sergio

Is it confirmed? no Official report

with sam hutchinson out on loan, shouldn't we register a youth player as one of our HG players in the event of Sturridge leaving? we would have only 7 HG's then - Lamps, JT, Bertrand, Cole, Cahill, Turnbull, Moses

true. all those gits - Skrtel, Agger, Suarez signed new contracts. sterling must have wanted a pay-rise. hence the reason for holding out

When we trail, we should really be throwing the kitchen sink at the opposition. but sadly we don't have the option of putting another striker next to Fernando

Outs Sturridge - 13mil - looks like he's leaving Ins Replacement for Sturridge. If i was a member of the Chelsea staff, i would have Walcott at the top of the list. Walcott and another striker among - Ba (7.5mil) Huntelaar (7mil) Bony (again, cheap) or Bent to have some options in attack. we wouldn't be making a loss as well if possible - a decent cover for Romeu