Strike

Still don't see why the club persists with Turmoil as the backup goalkeeper. Premier League back-up keepers compared to Ross Turnbull Arsenal - Vito Mannone - Cleansheets against Stoke, Liverpool and QPR this season Villa - Shay Given - Enough said Everton - Jan Mucha - Has barely played for Everton - not sure Fulham - David Stockdale - Done well when called up recently. Kept his team in the game against West Brom away Liverpool - Brad Jones - Played 5 games this season and kept 2 cleansheets. Bit shaky but better than Turnbull. Did well in Cup semis v Everton last season ManCity - Pantilimon - Laughably better ManUnited - Lindergaard - Better Newcastle United - Steve Harper - Better Norwich City - Both Declan Rudd and Mark Bunn - Better QPR - Green - Let's call this even Reading - McCarthy - Worse.. Soton - Kelvin Davies - Worse Stoke - Sorensen - Better Sunderland - Westwood - Not sure Swansea - Tremmel - easily better Spurs - Friedel - Gomes Even Cudicini is better West Brom - Myhill - better West Ham - Henderson - Unsure Wigan - Pollitt - Definitely Worse So, imo, Turnbull is better than 3 backup goalies while i'm not sure about Henderson, Westwood and Mucha. Call him even with Rob Green and you still have 12 teams with better cover for GK than us. Yes, the whole Thibaut Courtois situation maybe stopping the club from signing a better back-up but seriously, if Cech is injured, we are well and truly screwed because well, Ross Turnbull is just shite. He can't save, he can't sweep, he can't even kick ffs

Jose Mourinho is the best available option out there. There is simply no one better. Imagine Mourinho in the Press Conference after the Hazard ball-boy nonsense. He wouldn't have buckled like Rafa did. He would've fired back saying - "Why was the ball-boy on the ball in the first place?". Completely hypothetical ofcourse, because under Jose, you wouldn't see Chelsea losing 2-0 at home Also, Joachim Loew? Manuel Pellegrini? David Moyes? How long would they last? For Roman to be patient, the manager who takes over should have some pedigree. He was patient with Ancelotti - yes..he gave him the whole season in 2010-11 but not with di Matteo or Scolari or the others. I can think of only 2 managers who can command the respect of Abramovich right now. One of them has joined Bayern Munich and the other is under enormous pressure at Real Madrid Another thing about getting Mourinho in is that suddenly we'll go from being the 3rd best team in England to be considered alongside the Manchester clubs. Plus, he has unfinished business to win the Champions League with an English club. Makes perfect sense from our point of view if Mourinho's interested.

He will stay with the German team till atleast the 2014 WC. Unfinished business there

Mourinho in an interview Reporter : "Do you want to go back and manage in England? Yes or No?" JM: "Yes. For sure. I want to win the Champions League again with an English club" Unfinished business at Chelsea - Win the Champions League

tbf, benitez isn't helped by all the pressure on him. goes to show what a poor appointment it was. with a competent manager and a bit of stability at the club, we would have incorporated a few youth players yesterday but the situation at Chelsea has been so toxic that the only youngster who has come through this season has been Piazon - league cup games and one 8-0 plonking. Nathan Ake's 90th minute substitution hardly counts Look at Manchester United - Wooton, Keane, Nick Powell, Tunniclife, Vermijl. When the club is in a situation like ours, we tend to concentrate only on the immediate future. yes, we may have signed lukaku, de bruyne etc etc but it's either first-choice challenging for the first-eleven spot like Oscar, Hazard etc or sent out on loan..no blooding of youngsters

who is there in the academy now? george saville? feruz? ake? bamford? don't think any of them are ready yet. all our young prospects are out on loan and that is problematic considering our busy schedule

that was my opinion on what should be done. hadn't considered Courtois side of the story. he would prefer to stay with Atletico i presume and we would be looking to keep it as a 'loan' for as long as possible. he has belgian friends here and has expressed interest in becoming Chelsea #1 in the future. the club should look to move Cech on and get Courtois in between the sticks by the start of the 2014-15 season

The first thing to do before we jump to the conclusion of Courtois replacing Cech is to send him on loan to a Premier League club next season. We can't have another de Gea situation here. let him cope in the PL for a year and then he will be ready as for the decision between keeping cech or keeping courtois - the answer is simple. judge courtois on a season in the PL. if he is good, sell cech and keep courtois as he will cement the GK spot for the next decade if courtois struggles, then keep cech and move courtois on if it's in between keep both cech and courtois for a year before taking the decision

Personal feelings aside. -Rafa takes too long to make a change -Daft changes like Azpilicueta for Ivanovic in CWC Final, Luiz for Ivan in COC semis which barely affect the way we play -Rigid on tactics. Never changes tactics for a game or over the course of a game.(Exception - Started 4-3-3 vs Everton before reverting back after getting ambushed early on) -Only 1 signing in January. Board and Rafa must share the blame if that is indeed the case -Bertrand on the Left Wing..again -Fernando Torres - Rotation policy? More like Preference policy But there is no point sacking him now. Let's just hope he gets us top 4 and hope we get in a 'special' manager in the summer

its not just about the trophies as well. last year we finished 6th in the league. 6TH This year, we are 3rd but closer to the chasing pack rather than the leaders. plus, we were once a team with bottle,character. now we've blown away a bunch of knockout games. safe to say we are slipping.....

In terms of league performance we are closer to Arsenal than United. also there is a very real possibility of going trophyless this season - despite having 8 bites at the cherry

Come on United!

true. no steel in the midfield nowadays. We used to have Makelele Essien Ballack Lampard once upon a time. now we have Ramires, Mikel, Lampard (aged 34) and Romeu. Gulf in class Ramires runs but has pathetic technique for a central midfielder. Mikel - who, it should be said, is grossly overrated at Chelsea as he is nowhere near Makelele or Essien level. Romeu - another work in progress. Lampard with a drastic drop in mobility Add to this our defensive problems and the fact that we have one Fernando Torres in attack. Pains me, really...

Rafa moans about a small squad but doesn't have the sense of recalling Essien or maybe KDB? Tbf, i don't think there's any good player available to sign for a good price. looks like we'd have to overpay to get any decent talent. hence only Ba has come in. but this is getting crazy. rafa knows about the squad depth problem and still hasn't done anything to rectify it

@, given the current plight of the squad, i believe an exception should be made. atleast with benayoun who has played a few games for West Ham this season. We don't have Hazard and surely Marin will come in for him but Mata is due a rest and Benayoun would be a good fit for this game.

No. We should rest few key players of course but nothing drastic. no need of calling a horde of academy players and telling them to try and beat brentford. a cup run won't hinder our schedule much seeing as it is weekend games and with a good cup run we can build confidence. remember last year? later on in the season... also, I fuckin want QPR in the cup so that we can decimate those sissies

PL top 3 finish is important. nobody is daft enough to argue that but i feel once Hazard, Mikel and Moses are back, we have the squad to challenge in the cup. like say, we get a tougher team in Round 5, i say we should put out a strong squad. the situation with brentford is that the Capital One Cup came in the way. we screwed up the home leg and thus rafa put out a strong team to chase the 2 goal deficit. but i am sure once our players are back, we will have a squad good enough to challenge on both fronts one more thing, by saying - top 4 is enough - we are turning more and more into the Arsenal-Tottenham category and away from the Manchester clubs

so your logic is we can't handle FA Cup and Premier League together? even last year with the likes of Meireles, Bosingwa, Kalou, Malouda etc we won the FA Cup. And as Jason pointed out, it is held in the weekends, so no midweek schedule plus we don't have the pressure of playing Champions League in midweek as well

For the Brentford game, I don't think we have much choice other than put up a strong team. But even if we had 17-18 players, i would prefer to put out a strong-ish team simply because we cannot afford to bank on our backup team this year. a few years ago we had experienced backup. leaders among backup. Ballack (rotated), Deco, Joe Cole, etc not youngsters or u-21 players. what we have seen this season is that the squad lacks real leaders. earlier in the season, we had a great start and never recovered after united beat us at the bridge. consider this. we rest ALL our senior players. then - Turnbull, Azpilicueta, Cahill, Ivanovic, Saville, Ake, Ramires, Bertrand, Oscar, Marin, Torres (or i guess Bamford is better) would be our team. lack of real leaders. we should put out a strong team while resting few key players. for eg - Bertrand for Cole, Marin for Hazard, Torres for Ba and such. Not academy and reserve players edit: Hazard literally said - "i am signing for the European champions " but i think its safe to assume he came here expecting to challenge for trophies

One thing to note here is that the best talent from our reserves have all been loaned out. - Chalobah, Piazon, McEachran, Kakuta, kane, Kalas, Bruma, van Aanholt, along with Lukaku and de Bruyne who are a bit closer to senior level, have all been loaned out. Our academy options are probably limited to Nathan Ake

I agree that PL Top 4 finish is equally important but we should not 'disregard' the FA Cup. also @bushman, we don't have a deep or good enough backup squad to rest many senior players at once. Remember QPR?

Turn the clock back to August 2012 just for a moment. Heading into the new season with 7 trophies to aim for(after the heroics at the end of last season), Chelsea fans around the world were gleefully welcoming the start of the 2012-13 season. With Eden Hazard and Oscar signed and Cavani, Hulk, Falcao etc rumoured to be on the way, you would be forgiven for thinking that the club was on the verge of yet another successful season. However, 6 months into the campaign, the club has turned into a circus, the season is in disarray and the dubious distinction of going trophyless this season is suddenly very much possible. That brings the FA Cup to the spotlight now. The FA Cup represents a last chance to win something meaningful this season. Yes, that was a dig at the UEFA Europa League which I believe is a grotesque competition filled with a ridiculous number of teams and yes, that was also a dig at our Premier League title hopes under Benitez. The FA Cup has managed to retain its prestige in England and much of it is down to the way it is structured. Over 700 teams spanning the length and breadth of the country take part in the competition giving lower-league teams a chance to rub shoulders with the top teams in the country. Over the years, it has seen some memorable moments leading to the widely used phrase – “The magic of the FA Cup”. Chelsea’s record in the FA Cup is ridiculously good in the last few years. A freak 1-0 upset at Barnsley and a late Leighton Baines free-kick aside, Chelsea have been unstoppable in the FA Cup in recent seasons. It seems that every year Chelsea would get their act together in time for the FA Cup. Last season’s unforgettable Champions League final may have eclipsed the FA Cup win 2 weeks prior but regardless of the CL win, it was a brilliant Cup run topped off by beating two of our hated rivals – Tottenham (5-1 that too) and Liverpool. Petr Cech’s save from Andy Carroll’s header stands out from last season’s Cup run while it also saw Didier Drogba score the winner in (possibly) his last Wembley appearance. Now, Rafa Benitez faces an away trip to Griffin Park to face Brentford in the Cup and I believe he must resist the temptation to rest his senior players. Rafa probably learnt a lesson in rotation in the 1-0 loss to QPR AT HOME earlier this month but nonetheless, it is time to take the FA Cup seriously now. When Eden Hazard decided to snub the Manchester clubs to join Chelsea, it was because challenging for trophies was part of Chelsea’s DNA. In the Roman Abramovich era, we have gone trophyless only twice in 2007-08 and 2010-11 (It is worth noting that we were within a penalty kick from Champions League glory in 2008) But all we have done so far this season is find ways to throw away trophies. The Community Shield may have come too soon for the squad but 2 weeks into the season, Chelsea were smashed by a vibrant Atletico team for 4 goals. That’s 2 trophies down the drain by the end of August. Then we managed to get dumped out of the Champions League(3 down) and then passed up the rare opportunity to win the Club World Cup in Japan (4 down). With fading Premier League title hopes (5) and the Carling Cup farce (6) on Wednesday, we have now managed to mess up 6 trophies this season. For a club so used to winning trophies, this season has been a lesson of sorts. So I circle back to my point. An FA Cup win represents the best possible ending to a nightmare season. It will be a great boost for us in the transfer market (as well as our quest for a new manager). But perhaps, most importantly, an FA Cup win would be the best possible farewell to a certain Chelsea legend. Imagine the ending to last season, except this time it's the FA Cup – “Lampard with the 5th penalty in the shootout and he’s buried it!…..”. Good times Click here to view the article

bypassed in the first half hour but soon grew in prominence. got in the faces of those everton mids later on. started badly but i don't think the goals are 'hiding' a bad performance.

yeah exactly. from challengin for the BPL golden boot, he won't go to warming the bench. we'd have to spot a "Dzeko" or a "Chicharito"