Stats

Was awful. Looked so lacklusture and him in the no.10 did just not work. I actually think this season, Roma might win the league. They have strengthened well, got excellent squad depth while Juvemtus have lost 3 of their best players in Vidal, Pirlo and Tevez. Interesting.

Costa was awful against City. Yeah, the team was awful but when he got the ball he was battled out of it easily and was manhandled. Costa did not fare any better than Lukaku. To use today as evidence of Lukaku hold up play is unfair. Costa did receive the ball like I was saying but just could not get past them. City just look too strong right now. Have not conceded a goal.

People say Remy was poor against Arsenal. I know the circumstances have been unfortunate when Falcao has come on however he has shown nothing to make me think he can do a decent job but Mourinho constantly brings him on. it is like he feels he has to owe him something or wants to prove a point that Falcao can still score goals. Today made no sense bringing him on. We were 10 men down. Costa was doing fine, chasing down balls, holding up play well. If you are going to sub Costa, surely Remy would have been better. He is faster, better presser and more likely to get a goal for us on the counter attack. I knew it was going to plan out this way tbh. Not surprised.

Gary Cahill's page would have gone into crash if he got sent off for what Terry did today. Cahill, Zouma were excellent as a partnership.

His ambidexterity makes him so hard to mark and adds a great dimension to our attack. He so easily switches the ball on to his left or right, full backs do not know how to deal with him. Quality debut. Can't wait to see him again in a Chelsea shirt if this was anything to judge by.

One word: Whew!

Don't understand for the life of me why Mourinho brought Falcao on.

It a shame that the Willian miss is causing people to throw tons of abuse at him when he has been very good this game. We are not losing ffs, we got a 3-1 lead and he contributed well in the counter attacks.

Nees to work on his finishing but I would like to see him get a regular role in no.10 over Oscar tbh. Bar the goals, he gets involved much more involved in our play and does much more on the field. Just add the goals like MrBlueguy said and we will be talking about a quality AM.

Willian missed a sitter but him, Hazard and Pedro look excellent on the counter. Willian done fantastic for Costa's goal too. Want to see this trio more.

Wickham injured I assume. Bamford on the bench. Gayle promoted to the bench. They sub off Murray. Who comes on? Gayle. The man they basically have on the transfer list and accepted bids from championship clubs for him comes on instead of him. Bamford, now has been an unused sub for 2 games. Early stages but like I was saying, do not think he is going to get enough games. Hopefully he starts in the week against Shrewsbury so he can prove what he does best.

He is an excellent talent but no point spending over £30m on a player who will rarely start. The rumours is probably BS anyway.

Just been watching skysports transfer centre and I am hearing the same old thing. They said Mourinho said if we sign Pedro we have to sell. I am assuming he is talking about FFP purposes and not due to too much players in that position. City though have spent around £80m which will probably go in to the £100m mark and they have not even sold anyone. Dzeko has gone out on loan for a mere £2.9m which will rise next year when they make it permanent. Jovetic also left out on loan with a view to a permanent transfer. So in theory, they have not sold at all and just keep buying. Why can't we just buy without the need to keep balancing. Uefa said they are relaxing the rules and City have clearly took advantage. I hope Mourinho means it in terms of that we need to free up space because we do not need all those players but it is annoying when we keep seeing the excuse of FFP.

Fair enough but Matic has to do be more aggressive in a team like us because we don't have 3 in midfield. We play with a double pivot which means he needs to press a lot more. But, I agree with you. While I think Matic is better, he or no other DM would take Busquets position in that Barca tea. Vice-versa, Busquets would not take Matic place in this team too. He needs to be playing in a 4-3-3 to be effective.

That is why I can't see how anyone says Busquets is better. He looks good in a team like that. If he was at us, he would be much more exposed and not be able to do what Matic does for us.

Updates tackles show this from most tackles but the message is clear. Matic is a better tackler by far and in my opinion is one of the best interceptors around.

Put Busquets in our team and he will be exposed imo. I am not denying is quality but in no way would I say he is better than Matic. You put Matic in Barca and we rarely will talk about a flaw in his game. As for tackling, no DM beats Matic in that department. Most tackles won in the 2014/15 Champions League: Vidal (45) Matić (37) Casemiro (36) Toulalan (30) Busquets (27). Remember, we got knocked out the knockout stage as well, whereas Barca reached the final. Had we reached the final, Matic would have topped that table for sure. Not even a debate who is better. It is easier for Busquets to standout in a team like Barca.

While I agree that everyone has an opinion, just look at his post and see how antagonizing it comes across. Regarding Pedro as a Barca reject is pure BS and idiotic tbh. He was a backup behind three of the best players in Europe. Even great players would struggle to get in that team. So to call him a reject is just pure BS and a idiotic statement especially when it was clear they wanted him to sign a new contract but he chose to leave. And while I agree the price that Stones potentially may come here for is OTT, again he just makes a comment that is going to annoy people and shows a disregard for English talent. He referred to him as an "unknown CB" which again is just a idiotic comment and shows he has not paid attention to English football at all. Stones was a regular in Everton's team last season and has been playing in the PL for what 2-3 years now and was a huge player for them last season. When you make comments like that, surely you can expect people to react that way because while I get his point, some of his statements in that post is just ridiculous.

Fabregas Matic Pedro Willian Hazard Costa Excited about this already. Hopefully we pick up our season from here.

Just because Arsenal are weaker than us it does not mean he would have joined us. Yeah, we are more likely to win the bigger trophies but Alexis had his heart set on a move to Arsenal. He admired their style of football as it was similar to Barca's and I think he would of rather work under Wenger than Mourinho tbh. Easy to say we could have signed this player and that player but remember, it does not necessarily mean the player wants to come here.

Excellent. Just a bit disappointing that we have only reacted because of the slow start. Should have done business early. Willian and Oscar competing for the AM role. Pedro for the RW and we have got cover for the winer positions as well. Has played football as well with Barca so hopefully is is fit and raring to go against WBA. Bring it on!

The annoying thing is it is not even based on merit but instead reputation. Remy should be ahead of Falcao when coming on as an impact sub. As shown by his goals last season.

Do you have a link or quote of him actually saying that or are you manipulating the situation? As far as I remember, he stated that he wanted to be playing first team football, otherwise he would look elsewhere. He had 2 seasons out on loan in a row. He scored 20 goals in the PL for WBA at the age of what? 19. Phenomonal achievement. He then came back and a lot of us wanted him to stay. He wanted to, but he obviously was not happy, like a lot of us when despite his season at WBA, combined with him being top scorer in pre-season, he still was not able to start any of our 4 games for god knows what reason and the thing is we had poor/average strikers. He then went out on loan again, to Everton this time, scored goals but it was obvious from the start that Mourinho did not fancy him as a starting striker. Lukaku, who was loaned out twice, and is ambitious because he knows how good he is, was not going to accept 2 seasons being farmed out on loan then for the club to basically say, you scored goals but we are still not convinced by you as a no.1. While I was delighted with Costa and fellow fans alike, we stood years by garbage such as Torres and constantly gave him chances but were not willing to do the same with Lukaku. He obviously knew the quality of Diego Costa and knew he had no realistic chance of ever replacing him in the team unless Costa got injured, otherwise he is only going to make sub appearances in the PL and his other starts would come in the Cup. Fair play to him, he wanted to go and play regular football. Everton are a good team. With regards to the second highlighted part, you proved exactly what I am stating. You said everybody starts somewhere. Maybe Lukaku realised when he made the permanent move to Everton that he was only 21 and another big move could come in a few seasons if he keeps on doing what he does best: scoring. That is ambition. Rather than follow a lot of players who are happy to stay at the likes of Chelsea, City etc and fall into obscurity, he wants to play. That is a sign of a player who loves his football and has high ambitions. When we bought him for a start, he was considered as one for the future and the fee was a reflection of his potential. It was big money, then yet again will it prove to be worth it? Yes imo. Is Stones worth £34m? No. But for his potential, we may just have to pay big money for him. Is Shaw worth over £30m? No. But United saw the potential in him as well as his current ability. He scores goals and as long as he does that it is money's worth. If he gets over 15 league goals this season are you still going to say it was too much? Especially when it is clear he is capable of scoring bagful of goals, season in, season out. To your last point which I highlighted. Yeah, you can say he is working under the best manager in the world but would he develop more at being a sub at us or starting every game at Everton? I know which one I would say. A few years time, Lukaku will be leading the line for a top club. Maybe even United, who knows. Very naive to say, he has no chance of leading the line for a title-chasing club.

I thought this was one of Fabregas worse performances in a Chelsea shirt. He was awful. He made more better sllide tackles than he made an effective pass. But like you said, no one was really on the same page. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33954640