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You think so? It might be that or it might just be the fact that during that period, Drogba was not 100% fit. Mourinho holds Drogba in high regard. I did not see him mention Remy in the same way he mentioned Drogba when both joined. He stated when Drogba re-joined that he believes he is one of the best strikers in Europe. I personally think Drogba was always going to turn out to be his second choice striker.

Quality striker but why would we pursue him when we have Remy? Remy has not even been given that much of an opportunity here and when he has started and even came on he has shown that he can score goals. If Remy was poor then I could understand but he has not been and I don't see the need to spend so much on Bony when we have a perfect back up to Costa. I hope there is not much into this because it would be very unfair on Remy.

Really doubt it. Mourinho always starts Azpi at RB in the cup games or when Ivanovic is rested. Anyway I can understand why Mourinho has a strong team out but it is funny how a few weeks ago people thought RLC had a realistic chance of playing against Derby just because he came on against Sporting and yet we only have 1 youth graduate in the squad. I seriously don't see how our youth will ever make the step up with Mourinho in charge.

I never said we would have lost but he is not our usual penalty taker. It seems you are a person who would put a player over club. I put club before player. If Drogba had taken the penalty, that would have been more selfish because of the reason that: HE WAS NOT OUR DESIGNATED PENALTY TAKER. Lampard is and therefore Lampard should have taken it. Don't give me that rubbish that I am giving disrespect to a Chelsea legend simply because I think it was the right decision to let Lampard take the penalty and not Drogba. It is quite ridiculous to me that you think we should have let Drogba taken that penalty simply so that he can fulfil a personal achievement. Why should we change our penalty taker just to make sure Drogba recieves the golden boot. Ridiculous. Like I was saying if that came into a similar situation come the end of the season and Costa needed a goal or so to acheive the top goalscorer award, I would want Hazard to take it because he is our designated penalty taker. You obviously would want to see Costa take it. Let's get one thing clear, we have our legends and Drogba is certainly one of them but this is 'Chelsea FC', not 'Drogba FC'. Lampard was our best penalty taker. What are you on about? Look at the ratio of his penalties converted compared to the ratio of those missed. Of course you are going to miss some. How you are trying to refute that he was our best penalty taker is beyond me. We will have to agree to disagree but I can't believe you are telling me on the final day of the season where we needed to win and we were only 1-0 up that we should let Drogba take the penalty just so he can have the accolade of being the top goalscorer when we as fans and the team itself wants the title. Of course Lamprd should have taken the penalty. Don't be ridiculous. Selfish would have been if he had taken the next penalty when we were like 5-0 up but he never, Drogba did or like I was saying selfish would have been Drogba taking the penalty when we were 1-0 up because he would have been thinking about himself.

Even great players are allowed bad games. Messi has probably had more bad games this season than Matic. Matic is a world class DM and yes I still would say he is the best. Busquets has had some average/poor games for Barca in the last couple seasons. Matic performances this season has been excellent and that was an off-day for him. If you are going to use this game as a reason to back your point about him not being better than the aforementioned names you will need to find a successive amount of games where he has been poor which you will not be able to do.

I disagree with that. We were only 1-0 up against Wigan at the time and Lampard was our designated penalty taker. Why should we of let Drogba take it just because he needed to be top scorer? That would be more selfish if Drogba had taken it. Are you seriously trying to tell me if we went in to this last game of the season for instance against West Brom and City were 1 point behind us going into the game and we were 1-0 up which is not a secure lead by any means and we had a penalty and Costa needed one goal to win the awards, that we simply should let him take the penalty over Hazard? Of course not because Hazard is our reliable penalty taker and it would not be a game you should be taking liberties with and Mourinho would not be happy, same way Ancelotti would not have been happy. This is about a team not a player. The other Lampard criticism is fair and open to opinion but come on using that against him is harsh. When we had the game secured Lampard had no problem in letting Drogba take the next penalty. You said Lamprd knew what he was doing. Of course he did. He knew he was the best penalty taker at the club, we all wanted the PL title and the obvious choice was him. Club over player, it is not player over club.

You know what. I shouldn't have snapped like that. I do value your comments on here so I apologize for snapping like that that but regarding Cahill, it was silly what he done but it was hardly 'violent conduct'. Kane didn't even make anything of it which says it all. He should have been sent off but it was not that violent which is why F.A are not taking retrospective action over it. But the abuse you gave him is a bit OTT mate come on. That is very harsh. Just thought that was unnecessary mate.

Stop over-exaggerating. You obviously have not watched us for majority of the season. You are the fucking coward. Writing bullshit over the internet about one of our players who even if he makes mistakes, tries to give his all every game. Fucking idiot. Hate comments like this who personally abuse our own players for no valid reason. Abuse him for his football abilities, no need to get personal. Why can Zouma easily do it? He has looked decent so far but let's be honest, he hardly has faced any stern tests. Cahill is used as the scapegoat far too often. He got run ragged yesterday but was not helped by the majority of his team mates. Cahill has several solid games this season and has some average ones but the extent of criticism is way OTT. Anyone who refuses to accept this is just being one-sided. There is a reason Mourinho continues to play him and I am sure if Mourinho read all these comments on Cahill, he would be laughing. Zouma on the other hand was dropped by St Etienne last season after initially having a place in the starting team. They are much inferior than us so why can he easily fill Cahill's shoes if he was relegated to the bench at St Etienne? We have kept an abundance of clean sheets this season and it seems people are purposely ignoring this and acting as if he has been poor for the whole season which is just not true. I am for giving Zouma a chance but it is not a simple job where he can easily take Cahill's role in the team. Regarding Bertrand I would love to see him here as our LB but the reality is it is not going to happen and Southampton will most certainly buy him on a permanent basis in the summer.

TBH I think having a trio of Willian, Reus and Hazard would be an improvement rather than seeing Oscar in the team. They can all interchange with each other considering all are capable of playing LW, AM and RW. Provides much more of a counter-attacking threat and more pace going forward and with work I reckon it would work effectively.

I don't. There is a reason why I said it was funny because it is in complete contrast to what our fans feel. Furthermore after the monday night game with Liverpool and Swansea, they did their team of the season so far and they were 50/50 over which defender to have. Fonte or Cahill

The problem with him imo is not his size. It is the question of does he have any outstanding qualities such as pace, dribbling or creativity. He is not poor in any of those aspects but he is not outstanding in any of those attributes either. What I see often is that he is able to play well with other members of the team but he cannot do anything spectacular if we are playing poor. For me that is down to the fact that he is not outstanding in particularly anything. Sounds harsh but that is how I feel.

The more we play him in CM, especially away from home the more yellow cards he is going to pick up. He is already on 7 and if Mourinho plays him there it is inevitable that he picks up the accumulator of 10 yellow cards which will lead to a 2 game suspension and that I dread.

I am desperate for us to sign Reus so we have another player of similar quality who can really help Hazard. The extent of inferiority of some of our attacking players compared to him is amazing. Hazard and Reus, I just dream to see that combo. Please!

I agree with most of what you were saying but Costa?? I thought he was poor. Looked quite decent first half but apart from that was dominated in every other angle of play and was frustrating. What summed it up for me was his selfish attempt at the end when he should have done the smart thing and look up and play it across the goal.

OK where do I start. What an awful start to the New Years. We lost 5-3 and I went out in the fantasy cup and who did I leave as my first sub? Kane... I subbed him out for Sigurddson 5 minutes before the 11.30 deadline. It just was not meant to be my day. Anyway on the performances, bar Hazard and Fabregas in some ways, we were absolutely awful. I don't know what else to say really. I was really annoyed with Costa today. Apart from the goal was bloody awful. Away from home I think it is clear that we are going to have to see Fabregas pushed further forward quite often. At home, Matic and Fabregas is fine but away from home it just is starting to get caught out more and more. Regarding Luis, it was not one of his better days against Southampton however does that warranty him being left out the squad completely? No. Yes we have a big squad but it begs the question as to why the hell did we have both Remy and Drogba as subs if we did not bring them on and that is why leaving Luis out the squad seems more bizarre as you think about it. If Luis was a sub I am 100% sure Mourinho brings him on for Azpi at H/T. Assuming Luis is fit, it was a poor error of judgement by Mourinho as he would of added more of an attacking impetus and is naturally left footed. Look at Man City for instance. They rotate between Clichy and Kolarov however if Clichy is starting you rarely see Kolarov left out the squad. Why? Plan B. Kolarov provides the attacking impetus needed if they are struggling to break down teams and it works more times than not for them and Mourinho can't assume we are going to wipe every team off the floor and I think it is important that when Azpi starts we should be having Luis on the bench all the time because he may have just helped this evening. Anyway this is another lesson learned. I am sure we will recover and there is definitely a few lessons learned today for Mourinho. I am still confident by the end of the season we will be lifting the PL title. Football is not played on paper but I look at the amount of difficult fixtures City have compared to us and think they will drop points in a few of those games. Also Yaya Toure goes to the ACON and he will most likely miss the game against us later this month.

Poor decision by Mourinho. He should of been an option of the bench for his attacking abilites. He could have just replaced Zouma on the bench considering Ivanovic can play there.

Here goes the same plan again.... Bring Drogba on...

All this talk about bringing Oscar in and dropping Mikel out the team and it has proven fuck all!

My confidence in finishing teams away from home is diminishing compared to how it was in the opening stages of the season.

Ideally we should have Luis on the bench for these games because he would be better going forward than Azpi but he was left out the squad and he would have been a good option to come on second half.

Upset two sets of fans now. Chelsea and his parent club: New York City. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30648173 It is obvious he feels like he has a point to prove still. But it is a bit low to betray not us but his own parent team, New York City FC. If you consider that the likes of Donovan who had 2 loans to Everton during his time in the MLS break and had the chance of extending his stay till the end of the season but refused because he had his obligations for his parent team. Lampard has betrayed a lot of his own fans by this move. He could of done what Donovan done and agreed to stay for a couple months but extending it to the whole season is a bit low imo.

That is harsh and just way OTT imo. He has made a few errors but overall I have been impressed with him. Most of the matches where he has stepped in he has not looked out of place. The criticism of him is going a bit too overboard. He has linked up well with Hazard and I would not say he has made any glaring defensive mistakes apart from the Palace one when he came on but fortunately we won the game. If he gets successive games in a row we will see the best of him. In fact the 3 games he stepped in this seaosn when Azpi was suspended, I thought he looked very comfortable. How can we say he is not Chelsea XI material when he is rarely able to string 2 matches together.

He had some great games for Arsenal against Tottenham. Hope that can continue on Thursday.

As soon as Drogba joined I knew he would be second choice regardless of Remy joining. Mourinho made it clear that he was signing Drogba with a view to making history with the club and not based on past sentiments. He stated this: "He’s coming because he’s one of the best strikers in Europe". Mourinho clearly was going to have more trust in him than Remy.

Be real. Hazard has been quality for us 2 games inside 2 days. Our next game is 4 days. Enough time to recover. Resting him would be ludicrous.