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Mendy made mistakes last season however we can't say categorically that Pope was better than him. A lot of the names you mentioned are not even playing for Newcastle. Isak only scored 6 league goals last season. Wilson is good but again injury prone and has inconsistent patches himself. Basically what is getting Newcastle where they are is not individual quality (bar Almiron asides) but a team spirit.

I get your point. Disagree about Trippier. He was always a good RB but not better than James. The rest would of been players our team would have laughed at. I get his point. You are putting their current players in form but had we bid for these players start of season, bar Guimares and possibly Botman, I don't think most fans would be content. ASM isn't even in their best team right now and this has been the case for majority of season. Their favoured 11 for past few weeks/months has been: Pope, Trippier, Schar, Botman, Burn, Longstaff, Guimares, Willock, Almiron, Wilson, Joelinton. Targett has not been favoured all season. Burn has been their LB. At beginning of season, there is not one player from that team you are putting into the Chelsea team. Guimaraes possibly and that is about it. But yeah I agree that they have had great pickups but then had we made some of those transfers, ironically our fanbase would criticise us for not being ambitious. Similar to United when they went for Arnautovic only for their fanbase to stop the move. I personally thought Newcastle were going to invest heavily in summer and no way did I expect likes of Willock and Longstaff to be regulars in their team but credit to them.

Yep, as I said, I do like him but spending £50m right now is crazy. He has just joined Southampton and has looked good but also picked up an injury that had kept him out for a while. Southampton, I would like to stay up as always had a little soft spot for them, but may well go down this season would surely not be able to demand £50m next season and unless we have a direct plan for him, no point spending out that money imo. Both prices were well inflated imo, but I was referring to Lavia. Enzo was with a view to immediately start, while I doubt Lavia would be.

Just no, no, no. He is a very exciting youngster but to spend this money on a player who moved for peanuts in summer is crazy. Especially that Southampton may well go down this year. Also need to stop panic buying because we haven't got plan A. Wait till summer please and then assess our options.

Those commentators on BBC are the biggest dickheads I have witnessed. Biased pricks who clearly don't like Chelsea. Absolutely pathetic.

Auba isnt doing it right now at all and is on the decline. Havertz is too inconsistent. Broja is injured for the season. I would take him and he would be relatively cheap also.

We are now looking into possibility of signing Marcus Thuram in January. He is free agent in the summer and there is a lot of interest but I would take him. Fast, powerful and tall also. Let's see how this pans out.

https://www.skysports.com/football/live-blog/31771/12476234/transfer-centre-live-all-the-latest-deals-moves-and-rumours-as-the-january-transfer-window-opens?postid=5172642#liveblog-body Relates to my point here and can’t say I disagree. If we keep buying players or the next ‘biggest thing’ then will potential players begin to take us seriously if they think we are going to buy a new player in their position everytime the window is open. I would be very surprised if Mudryk wanted to come here tbh unless he was tempted by salary which I don’t think is his main objective.

The transfers we are being linked with is worrying a bit. It seems that Boehly is targeting young players without any approval of Potter and just planning to lump them all in one squad. We are now seemingly after Mudryk whose best position is on the LW. Then if Arsenal don't meet Shakhtar's offer and we end up signing him, are we then going to try and sign Leao in the summer who is also a LW. We bought Bashadille from Monaco which I am content with but also reports say we still are after Gvardiol. Then have we got a plan for Colwill still then? I hope the owner isn't just bidding for players for the sake of it. Also if we don't get Fernandez, hope we are not rash in buying CM just for sake of it. I don't believe MacAllister will join, but if we did go for him, I would be quite worried about us just buying the hottest topics. He is a very good player but does he actually improve the current team. Gallagher was brilliant at Palace last season and we have reintroduced him back into our squad, albeit he is struggling for starts. So now if we buy a player like him who is flourishing at Brighton then joins a bigger team and doesn't stand out, just adds to the problem. If there is a plan for these players we are bidding for then I am happy but with likes of Nkunku joining and then we are bidding for Mudryk, is this with Potter's approval. Sterling hasn't hit the major heights yet, but his best position is also on the LW and he was a player we invested big money and wages into, so will have to work with him and ideally at his best position.

Makes perfect sense. They look a complete team right now but need more depth. He isn't going to be a guaranteed starter but he will be rotation. On top of that with the Jesus injury, sometimes he will line up in the same team as Martinelli and Saka. If Martinelli or Saka get injured, then that is a big blow so it is important as a club, that they continue to bolster their squad. Martinelli has had injury issues before. Last night was evident about their lack of attacking depth. Jesus injured and so is ESR. They did not make one attacking change. They have Mudryk and that possibly is difference between 3 points and a point. I think he would benefit from going Arsenal or Liverpool, with the way they play. Until we actually have an attacking identity, think he will suffer here.

Absolutely pathetic. Second half is one of the most dreadful performances I have ever seen in my entirety of watching Chelsea. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Every single one of those travelling fans deserve to be refunded for the journey and the tickets. Awful. Diminishes our chances of finishing top 4 realistically now. Awful fixtures to come this month. Ziyech was a bright spark coming on and actually delivered the best ball of the game but Aubameyang spurned it. Pulisic did well in spells but wasn't helped by Sterling who was poor besides the goal. Havertz was awful all game too. Azpi proved why we need an emergency replacement for RB. His legs are finished. I would have preferred Chalobah playing there than him. Yep, pretty much have to place our hopes on the UCL to have any chance of getting back in it next season.

Havertz needs to do a lot more. Lookz lazy on and off the ball. Pulisic has impressed me however.

They have only lost one game this season. A game in which they were unlucky and majority of game were better team. So all there potential slip ups have not happened bar that and Southampton was a game they should have won but drew. They will slip up but do I see them slipping up enough points to bottle it? No. They just look a class above in all aspects of play.

Begrudgingly have to concede the title to Arsenal. Don't see them being stopped. Jesus being injured has not made a difference and they will strengthen in January. Saka for me is the best winger in the league bar Salah. Odegaard is a top player too. I was very pissed off when Real sold him to Arsenal after initially stating that they would give him a shot in the first team, then ended up selling him and Arsenal got him for a bargain. Top player. Got to give it to them. City fucked up. Decent thing as at least Lamps will get a lot of credit.

Anyone calling Sterling and Cucurella duds are short-sighted fools honestly. A season where we have had a managerial change, injuries and not a settled team is going to cause imbalance to any team and some players will take time. I mean who knows Sterling may not improve but he may well do. How anyone can blame the board for buying him is just stupid. He looked better at City than Jesus did, but Jesus has joined a team which are more settled and have a clear style. We don't so give him a chance and wait for things to fall into place. Our so called support are just knee-jerk supporters. It will take 2 games for Sterling to score then suddenly the views will change. Got a long way to go until we can them failures.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11500025/Gabriel-Jesus-facing-THREE-MONTHS-sidelines-ruled-World-Cup.html They have been quite fortunate with injuries this season. Will be interesting to see how they cope now.

2nd contract extension within the space of a year. Proof of how far progress he has made here. Hard work pays off.

Bayern doing Bayern stuff as usual...

Thanks God. Please keep it that way. Not for now, forever please!

I think he is a brilliant player tbh. The one thing he did not really do much was score but his dribbling is top class. Brilliant technique/vision. ESR is criticised a lot by Arsenal fans. He scored a lot of goals last season but they generally feel he goes missing a lot. I was annoyed when Arsenal got him from Real as he was till young and would improve. I think he has been one of their best players. He is the perfect player for Arsenal, especially in terms of getting the ball out wide to Martinelli and Saka.

He was feeding on scraps. I don't get how any striker in our set up would thrive yesterday. Maybe put him in a team where we actually create chances. The line up was poor. Football was poor and the team just clueless. Any striker would have struggled yesterday. There was no width, no creativity. Harrsh to blame him.

Very pessimistic about this game but let's see.

No Sterling... the lack of width is concerning.

I always was pessimistic going into this game with our injuries and the way we have been playing and the way Arsenal were playing. Thought Potter got his tactics wrong from beginning. Went way too offensive line up without defensive cover. Jorginho in a 2 man midfield against Arsenal with the way they play was suicide. They honestly battered us all game and the scoreline should have been a lot more. We were lost in defence and attack and was only for Arsenal's profligacy why the scoreline looks respectable. I know Potter will take time to get his methods across but I don't know what we have been doing in preparation for this game. The team was lost. Kovacic should have come on first half immediately and Aubameyang should have come off earlier. He was a ghost. Broja did more in his first 5 mins on pitch than Auba did all game. I feel that sometimes Potter is starting Auba on rep and not actually anything else as I struggle to see how Broja cannot get more than one start this season. Sterling barely threatened them at all but what was so depressing to watch was us succumb to Arsenal and look so inferior. We let them run all over us. Mount ineffective. Cucurella's weight loss is obvious as he looks so feeble out there. Newcastle winning topped of bad weekend. If they beat us next week, which I think they will, we drop 9 points behind them already. I normally have some form of optimsm in posts, but not today. Shocking. Injuries played a factor and I thought Arsenal would win but it is the manner we lost which hurts me the most. No urgency and three seasons in a row, Arsenal have now beaten us at the Bridge.

Positives: Mount looked really good. Thought he was our best player on the night alongside Chilwell who got that unfortunate injury. Zakaria looked very good too and I know it isn't against a top team necessarily but very surprising that he has not managed even one minute. Has a good physical presence about him and glad he took his opportunity. Sterling getting back on scoresheet was bonus too. Thought other than the goal he was quiet but a goal is a good way to get back his confidence. I hope he is playing LW against Arsenal on Sunday as if he is up against White, he will cause him massive problems. Cons: Injury to Chilwell and Broja not starting then using him out wide left then wide right. I did not understand what Potter was doing with Broja. I was annoyed he was not starting in first place as he started against Brentford and got subbed (not due to his performance) where he looked a threat but because that was his first ever start, Potter said he always planned on giving him around 60 mins. So I would have expected him to start another game since then and he has not and not as if our attackers have looked great in that period. What was more annoying last night was that he did not even play up front. He almost looked like a LM/LW then a RM/RW and we had Mount at the same time in the CF role. Was really confused. But a small confidence boost before Arsenal. Annoyingly worst fear have arisen and Saka has returned to full training so will be starting on Sunday while our LB who would be most likely marking him that game now gets injured. A shame but hopefully Cucu steps up on Sunday. Bring on Arsenal!