TorontoChelsea

That's not even a foul, but a yellow?

Too bad...was a beautiful move and great passing but Mata was well offside.

Great first half but should have had a second especially one of Oscar's two glorious chances. Ba and Luiz particularly impressive. (uh oh, Ramires hurt?)

We haven't played this well in a while.

Ba!!!

He's been great recently. Fantastic against Spurs and Liverpool.

Don't really care either way, he looks like a good young player, but we don't exactly need more young attacking midfielders...I think Hamburger's HSV acronym is the most unfortunate in sports.

No. We all know that Torres has had poor service just as Drogba and Ba had/haveas well. It's a difficult system for a striker to fit into right now. The point is that even when taking this into account, Torres has been awful.

No. The problem is physical. His knees are ruined. Speaking as someone whose knees are gone, you simply don't get that level of explosiveness back. He could still be a passable striker in the right team/system (mid-table or say Spain) but Chelsea and Torres have to part ways. The whole thing is toxic.

I'm not worried. He's young and has lots of time to develop. He'll go on loan next season and develop there.

Enjoy and take pictures!!! Hope Chelsea win this one for...well, for all of us.

It don't understand...so, because people know his name who haven't seen him play, he's underrated? That's, to me, a hallmark of being overrated. Underrated is the opposite, when people see someone play and don't appreciate their quality or people have never seen or heard of a quality player. Witsel has never played a game in a top-5 league. He's played one and half seasons in top-10 leagues. Benfica has been better without him and Zenit has been worse with him. He's a talented young player with promise whose stock is moving lower because of his move to Russia. Would I take him at Chelsea? Gladly. Would I want them to pay big money for him? Not a chance.

I don't know how you can call one of the most expensive midfielders of all time wit h almost no experience playing top competition, underrated. I'd prefer him to Fellaini as well because he's a much better fit for our squad. I think he's a good player, but he's simply not worth anything near what he cost. Hulk wasn't worth what he cost and he was back to back player of the year in Portugal.

Doubt it too and he's not worth anything near that. He's probably around a 20-25M Euro sort of player but he's also probably on massive wages. Zenit is actually worse this year with Hulk and Witsel than they were last season.

This is one of the worst things because next year will also likely be a transition season. We'll be getting in a new striker (either a buy or Lukaku back), likely bringing back KDB, and very likely making a buy or two (especially central midfield). The basic questions we hoped to answer this year: Who will be our central midfielder of the future? Who will be our starting striker going forward?, Can Hazard, Mata, and Oscar play together? Who will take over from JT as our steady #1 defender?....none of these have been answered yet.

Good lineup. Finally resting a bunch of players.

I think Ramires would be fantastic in a Mourinho sort of system. Counter-attack football with strong defence. This allows him to work aggressively defensively and affords him space to run in counter-attacks. Unfortunately for Ramires, we are not moving in that direction. He's a very good player on the right sort of team, I just don't see how he fits into a future Chelsea team.

There is a fair bit that can be done. Mata started three games against Sparta, Brentford, and Sparta. An absolute waste of his energy. Everyone's energy is finite which is why so many of us keep emphasizing the importance of sitting players in the Europa League. Worst case scenario. We lose next round... I'm not going to blind myself and walk the land like Oedipus...It doesn't really matter. Worst case scenario in the league. We miss the CL, miss out on a lot of money, probably miss out on some players, and we miss out on the CL next year again. That is a big big deal.

Exactly. Lukaku has generally played very well this year, but Chelsea right now do not play a system where strikers can succeed. We are a team that's set-up around our attacking midfielders which leads to the best chances falling to our midfielders. (This is not to excuse Torres, he's been awful, but our system also doesn't help strikers). WBA plays a system that works around setting up the striker. WBA's top three scorers are all strikers. Chelsea's top three scorers are all midfielders. I'd rather Chelsea bring in a new manager next year, get a system in place that fits the team and is working and then bring back Lukaku. I'm less worried about KDB because he is versatile enough to play in any system, but one always has to be concerned if a young striker has a tough spell that they may lose confidence. I wouldn't be against bringing Lukaku back, but I don't think it's a given no matter how well he does. (First things first, Torres needs to go.)

I have no problem with that. I don't even have a problem buying our young players like we did with De Bruyne, Courtois and Lukaku. It works. The issue is this: we've spent in the 20M and over range on six players in the last three years. Only one, Mata, I would consider close to top-level. Hazard is not far behind. Ramires and Luiz are good but flawed players. Oscar has promise. Torres is not even worth mentioning. In that same period ManU has spent 20M+ on one player. Robin Van Persie. When you spend elite money, you should be getting elite players a lot of the time. We're not.

They do have good people, but it doesn't matter, because you could put idiots in charge and if you are outspending everyone 10/1, you should win the league easily. Some of their signings are working out, some have been poor. Pastore, Lavezzi, and Veratti cost about 75M and have been pretty mediocre in lesser league. Thiago Silva is excellent, but 35M and 160K/week on a five year contract a 28 year old central defender? That's just crazy money. And Lucas Moura has looked good early on, but 45M Euros for an unproven player? That's a massive risk. It's the Chelsea 2003/2004 model where you just spend so much that some players turn out and the ones that don't, don't matter because you'll just spend 100M more the next season. That model is why we're in the trouble we're in. Massive, reckless spending on prestige signings.

PSG are doing an awful job. They've spent about 10X more than the next highest spending club in France over the past five years and they're only 3 points clear. PSG spent around 125M this year. Next highest spending team? 4.4M. They're going to win but not because they're run well, but because they spend so much more than anyone else.

That time was a while ago. We need a captain at the head of our ship and we've just got Cap'n Crunch.

Bale is simply one of the best players in the world right now.

Only illegal in the U.S. Customs officers can do what they want. They can rip your car apart and say "thanks, have a good day". It's the first time I've ever been stopped like that which is good because usually I smuggle cocaine and machine guns for a living.