TorontoChelsea

Poor Sturridge although he'll be starting some up front now. This reminds me of the QPR game last season.

I agree with the first red. This one was ridiculous.

What the fuck????

Sturridge was going to come on before the sending off for Torres. Would have loved to have seen that. As is, Azpi for Oscar makes sense.

Goddamn it

We deserved that. Been taking the game to them for a while.

Wow, this is set up for a brilliant second half.

What a free kick. Boy, Mata is carrying us offensively recently.

This is why possession is so overrated. We have 58% of the possession but it's just passing it around the middle of the pitch posing no danger whatsoever. ManU are counter-attacking and are much more dangerous.

Worst time is before an international break because you have that bitter taste on your tongue for 2 weeks. Saturday early game is the worst for a time slot because I have to get up at 7:45 to watch them play those and if they lose, I get the "should have just slept in" feeling.

12 added minutes. Wow. Would generally always like to see more extra time than is given and this 12 is deserved because of the injuries, but I can't remember ever seeing this much extra time given.

I think it depends on what Chelsea want to do with Oscar. They seemed to suggest earlier that they were going to move him into central midfield. If that's the case, Chelsea don't need to upgrade there but they would need to buy a winger if Marin and Moses don't show enough.Also, your suggestions mean another 80-100M pounds in spending or so. Don't think this is going to happen unless Chelsea win the CL again.

Poor Julio Cesar. A couple of fantastic saves but QPR couldn't hold Arsenal.

Andre Santos is one of the worst defensive left backs I've ever seen. Every time an attacker goes at him, they seem to be able t just run past him with ease.

Hate the name and refuse to use it or any other abbreviation. Why do players need a nickname? Did we call Terry, Lampard, and Drogba DROMPRY or something?And they played together for years, not a handful of games. It reminds me of being in grade school and trying to come up with a cool nickname for our group of kids. Mata, Hazard, and Oscar are three players with different skills, who bring different things to the game, and who will have different futures. Why is there a need to try to combine them into one entity?

So Mikel can score!!

Hard to know what to make of this. I don't know why the FA don't set up a pay site. My friend lives in Australia and bought NFL Pass and MLB Extra innings and can watch every single game live streaming (alternatively, you can just buy every game your team plays which costs less money, monthly packages or even one game). If the Premier League did the same, I'd buy the package in a second.

The first half of last year he looked like he was declining (but didn't most of our team under AVB?) and you are right. He's been a beast this year.

I am extremely sure. On the scale of big tournaments, the CL is a 10 and the CWC is a 2. It's like saying "players want to win the Premier League so they get a better draw in the Capital One Cup" . In Brazil, it's bigger, but it's still not close to the Champion's League. Neymar wanted to play in the tournament because his club was going to play in it but his decision to stay in Brazil was not because of the CWC otherwise he would have gone this summer. He wants to stay until after the World Cup in 2014 which will be in Brazil and he's made that clear several times as has Santos.

It's not really even a tournament. For the only two good clubs in the tournament, it's a maximum of two games played. Barcelona used a weaker team for their first game last season. If you look at Barca's "average starting XI" (players who played most frequently), only five of them started in their first game. No Xavi, no Fabergas, no Busquets, no Pique, no Alexis, no Danny Alves. In the second game, they used a full-strength team. I think that's what we will do too. Rest some key players and have most players only start one game. Also, I don't think any player thinks "I want to win the CL so I can get to play in the CWC.".

Welcome!

I see what you mean. Their shape does go off because Rooney often has to drift a fair bit. He himself does get back to defend, but they have to do something to fix their defensive problems (besides hope for Vidic to come back healthy). There definitely should be space for both teams to exploit and there will be a lot of firepower on the pitch. Really looking forward to the match.

Agreed. And don't think his choices have anything to do with balls.."He plays who he wants, he plays who he wants, RDM, he plays who he wants" or something like that. He's conservative as a coach but it's not because he's too scared or anything. ,Sturridge will definitely start the second ManU game and I think if he has a good one (or if he plays well as a sub in the first game) he'll earn more of RDM's trust and start to get starts in the league..

The Diamond is working very well. ManU have been scoring a lot of goals. Rooney and RVP have basically played 4.5 games together and ManU have scored 14 goals in that time. Their problems have been defensive and more to do with lack of talent at certain spots than anything else. .

.And Eddie Newton. How many assistant managers are minorities on other clubs? Chelsea's multiculturalism was one of the reasons I loved them in my first years of fandom. Most other clubs were basically just slow British players who liked to lob the ball up the field and hoped to get a head on it. We had Zola and Desailly and Poyet and Babayaro (in fact, Chelsea have been one of the best clubs at bringing African players over as well. We've had Essien, Mikel, Drogba, ) It bothers me when people try to act as if we're a racist club (like say, half the teams in some parts of the continent or Leeds.)