TorontoChelsea

Because Mazacar isn't a unit, they are three different and separate players who, for some reason, have earned a childish nickname. Oscar, Mata, and Hazard just don't work that well together. They are all central midfielders so when they play, we lack width and our side becomes imbalanced. Moses with two of those players gives the side much better balance.

Building a stadium wouldn't count against FFP and would actually help it greatly. In 2011, Chelsea made 82.1M from gate revenue. Arsenal made 114.7 and ManU made 122.4. Having an extra 30M to spend every year is a pretty big advantage.

Not Fulham's fault I agree, they just spend like we do. The problem (as much as it's a problem) we have though is that we don't have a top rival. English football is international but very local. Look at the plans at building a new stadium. You're talking about maybe 10 square blocks where a stadium would be acceptable to supporters otherwise you start to go into another team's territory. Real Madrid and Barcelona are not good examples because they are the two teams who have dominated Spanish football. In 81 years of Spanish titles, those two teams have won two thirds of all the championships. It's a rivalry because it's basically a league of two. (Portuguese league is similar. Porto, Benfica, and Sporting are really the only teams that have ever done well so they are natural rivals regardless of geography). There are six London teams in the Premier League right now. QPR and Fulham are our most local rivalries and both view us as their biggest rival, but both are too crap for us to feel the same about them. I'd like it if one of them were to spend money to become a top-5 sort of club so we could have "that" rivalry.

It actually makes sense. We're running low on homegrown players and Baines is one of the best left backs in the world. Personally, I think keeping Cole for another year or two and watching how Bertrand develops (and maybe buying someone like Luke Shaw to compete with him) makes the most sense.

This is actually the closest Premier League I think I remember. Not in terms of points, but in terms of quality. There are five teams that are all top squads with Everton being just a little bit behind that. Personally, I like the competition of a tough league. It makes winning sweeter. I may be alone on this board in this, but I really wish Fulham were better. They are are most natural rivalry, but because they've been poor for so long, it isn't a real rivalry. The other quality London teams Spurs and Arsenal are bigger rivals with each other than with us. Other teams we have rivalries with also have bigger ones with other squads (Manchester derby, Liverpool-Everton, etc...) Sherlock Holmes needs Moriarity, Batman needs the Joker and I think things would be more fun with a better local rivalry.

I don't understand why Walcott would leave Arsenal. If he wants to play up front (which he does), no other team of any quality would make him the starter there. At Arsenal, he'll play a lot of striker. Where is he going to go that's going to give him the same opportunities? Certainly not at Chelsea where'd play an occasional match to give Torres a rest and play the rest of the time on the wings (which would force Moses out of the starting XI). I've always thought Walcott was underrated because people focus on the disappointing player he was a few years ago rather than the player he'd actually become, but he just doesn't make sense for us right now. We're stacked at attacking midfield and we're obviously committed to Torres.

ManU look much more solid at the back with Vidic there. Today he was incredible, 7 arial duels won, 19 clearances, 3 shots blocked, 4 tackles, 4 interceptions, and a key pass thrown in for good measure.

Foster a couple of brilliant saves to keep WBA in it. Kagawa with some beautiful passing. The good news is that City and United are both only one goal up. Anything can happen still!

ManU winning and dominating with no Van Persie or Rooney.

Which is exact same description for the second goal as well.

Wow...what a goal by City. Great defending by Kompany, beautiful passing and movement and finished excellently by Dzeko.

Bale is such a tremendous player. Can't believe they didn't score there.

Scramble from a set piece. Spurs should be up, probably by two but they can't finish. Also, Kyle Walker with a couple of horrible defensive plays to set up the free kick. The Spurs are really only a couple of players away from being a great team and one of those players is a right back who can defend.

Ha! Well, he's played both attacking midfielder and striker so...

Very very tough because there are at least 10 attacking midfielders and strikers that deserve to be here.(Mata, Cazorla, Bale, Michu, Rooney, Fellaini, Hazard, Van Persie, Suarez, Rooney), My team which is an extremely attacking 4-1-3-2 or something (just to accommodate more players who deserve to be on the team) Cech, Zabeletta, Kompany, Vertonghen, Baines, Arteta, Mata, Cazorla, Bale, Rooney, Van Persie, Can't believe how much love Stoke's defenders are getting. Both are extremely mediocre IMO but play in a very defensive system where they have to do very little one on one defending. Neither can move the ball at all either which is an important part of being a top defender to me. Stoke doesn't concede, not because of individual brilliance, but because they don't go forward. They have the fewest shots of any team in the Premier League this season.They have fewer goals from open play than any other team in the Premier League. Defending is a lot easier when you're not trying to score. Also, Fellaini isn't a defensive midfielder. He's played exclusively at attacking midfielder this season.

I thought he was much better in the Mikel role to be honest. As I said, I don't think this means anything for his future. I don't think he's going to be a midfielder for us, but I don't want to really judge any player for at least 10 games at a position and a variety of different opponents both in quality and style. Maybe he'll be good next game, maybe he'll develop beautifully in the midfield, one game does not determine a players' fortune but he was poor this last one.

No, Luiz was shit. Luiz performance in central midfield has nothing to do with Lampard for me. Lampard is likely gone and there is almost no way Luiz lasts in central midfield next year anyway. He's good as a defender, and he has a lot of problems in midfield. And I insulted someone who made an idiotic comment about Lampard. One of the people on here who has no sense of history and treats Chelsea like their FIFA13 team There are plenty of people who don't think Lampard should be back, but to show no respect for him, to treat him like he's Boswingwa or Ben Haim, means you don't deserve respect.. And yes, Luiz was shit. And yes, Lampard was fantastic in the Villa game but he's not Brazilian so I doubt you'd notice. @Sheva, but that's because Luiz was playing the Mikel role when Mikel went off. Lampard has never played that role so Lampard is always supposed to get forward. Early this year, he was probably making a run or two too many a game, but even his worst game being out of position, his positioning was much better than Luiz's yesterday. You can't complain about players A doing something then when Player B does it much worse, say it's good.

The attacking player does have the licence to go forward, but it's limited. His positioning when he was playing there was basically where Oscar was playing. We really played a 4-1-5 for most of the game. It's not only how forward he got, it's where. He went on the wings more than one occasion. You can't do that as a central midfielder. One of the reason this annoys me so much is how much people got on Lampard for going forward and in the entire time he's played in the pivot, he's never gone anywhere near where Luiz went and his positioning was never even remotely as bad.

It's not hypocritical. Luiz was shit yesterday but because Norwich couldn't mount any attack, the fact that Luiz was often 25 yards away from where he should have been went unnoticed. He also had players go around him in the first 30 minutes like nothing because he didn't know where to be. His passing before Lampard came on was under 80%, his long balls were a very poor 3 for 7 and his tackling and interceptions were poor. (That part is usually good.) And as for "Ball-winning"? He had zero interceptions and 2 tackles. How exactly did he win the ball? The irony there is that he usually is a ball winner in a more defensive role because he's so good at reading the play and stepping up and intercepting the ball. As for being like Lampard in running the show? He was 3 for 7 on long balls. In the past two games, he's been 8 for 17. Lampard? 12 for 12. Luiz was our second worst player according to whoscored.com (the invisible Torres not surprisingly being the worst). Even without the stats, there is no way you can watch that game and think that he was good. Based on what? Two really good passes? That doesn't mean he's always going to be bad, he might play the same position and be great tomorrow, maybe he'll turn out to be a fantastic midfielder, but the people who refuse to admit when he has a bad game are just as annoying as the ones who refuse to see when he has a good one.

They don't have a striker. They have someone on the youth team. Chelsea are not going to consider playing Feruz regularly. At most, Feruz would get the Ake/Piazon treatment. Is that really worth stirring the pot in the media for? Getting a few minutes at the end of a game? Feruz's agent pulled the same sort of tricks to get him out of Celtic and to us. He wants more money from Chelsea or to be able to move somewhere where they will give him more money..

Agent just trying to get money. He has excellent potential, but no decent team would be interested in signing him except to loan him out to have him develop, so his agent is full of it. Don't see Feruz getting any game time with us unless we don't bring in anyone else in January.

We're lucky that Fellaini will be out but it's still a relatively tough game. Everton's last 13 matches have all either been draws or 1 goal wins/losses so I expect a close game. (Would anyway, mind you).

I broadly agree with you that Mata was poor for most of the game, but without his moment of brilliance, we don't get three points. If there were someone else who was excellent, I'd have voted for them, but nobody really stood out.

Because he isn't doing great as a DM. Luiz sometimes gets criticized unfairly and I think he's a better CB than Cahill but nobody thinks Cahill is a world-class defender and he didn't cost us 25M pounds.The thing that drives me crazy is that Luiz can have a terrible game like he did today but because he makes a couple of brilliant plays, people think he had a good game. (Similarly, I've seen him have good games where people think he sucked because he had a couple of bad plays. People just pay too much attention to individual plays.) Today, his positioning was just terrible but beyond that-3 shots from dangerous areas, none of them were within 15 feet of the goal, 0 interceptions, 2 tackles, 4 fouls, 3 for 7 on long balls, 3 turnovers, and was dispossessed once. He was better once Lampard came in and he could play defensively and simplify his game,instead of bombing forward and yeah, he gets criticism because he sticks out, but he also gets credit for the same reason.

Not saying it will solve them completely, but it will help a lot. Vidic was never a pace guy so injuries are less worrisome. Even more than that, look who he'd be replacing in the starting XI. Rio Ferdinand? Phil Jones? Even a hobbled Vidic would be a massive improvement. They play a very attacking style which means that they leave themselves vulnerable defensively and as you say, their central midfield is sub-par so they will keep conceding goals but perhaps not at quite the same rate. IMO, one of the best things we have going for us versus them is their continued involvement in the CL. Their playing Real Madrid three days after playing Everton which means that they are going to have to rest players in what will be a touch match. That's why I never understand why people cheer against our competitors in CL. I want them to be distracted and tired in the league and a good run in the CL does that as well as anything.