different level

The things that can happen when a team plays an open game against us. 6 freaking goals! I'm also falling in love with Diego Costa!

Considering the options available, the Remy deal seems like a good one. A bargain would be an overstatement IMO, just all the other similar players like Bony, Benteke, Martinez are too overpriced. With Remy we'll be getting exactly what we paid for and that is a solid back-up for our world class forward. I don't think he'll ever start ahead of Costa in the EPL and CL games if the latter is available for selection, he'll be coming of the bench quite a lot and I expect him to start almost all national cup games. I see there are some concerns in this thread, but Remy is an upgrade from Torres (albeit not as great as many seem to think). Hopefully he'll do a good job covering Costa when needed as Drogba is practically not an option in attack.

Just a loan but either way that has to be the end of Fernando Torres' unfortunate Chelsea career. 3 and a half years filled mostly with false hopes, pity and negativity. Best thing for both parties, no doubt. I'd like to thank him for a few good moments including his goal against Barca two years ago when I screamed my heart out, his goal against Benfica in EL final, his hat-trick against QPR and the winning goal against Man City last season at the Bridge. That being said getting £ 180k or so off our wage bill would be massive. However the deal won't be a good one for us if we're actually paying some of his wages.

Awesome example of attacking play on the first game of the season. I'm very happy with the link up play between our midfield, the attacking trio and the striker. Cesc was the one to light the fuse and make that connection look so good in this game, his fantastic pass to Schurrle for the second goal, the way he bossed the midfield and that well taken corner for Ivanovic's third. Hazard had a good game. trying to create spaces for himself, had a key part for the 2nd goal and again the player with most dribbles in the match. Greatly impressed with Costa, the way he terrorized the defense and how he smacked that goal. He was unlucky to be booked by that cunt Michael Oliver. However, the way we defended was not the most convincing. I noticed the first half we were leaving too many open spaces for their attacks and I thought that's because we're applying more attacking minded football, but then when we were supposedly shutting the game down the second half that trend continued and we let them create too many shooting opportunities. I am also unhappy with the way we conceded especially with the way we covered the offside after the corner and then the defenders surely could've done a better job at blocking Arfield's shot. Another thing, probably Sean Dyche didn't see how much we struggled last season when a team parks the bus on us. He went too bravely and tried to attack us, leaving a lot of spaces for our fast wingers to exploit and we raped them in the space of 15 minutes to make a comeback and secure a healthy lead. I'd like to see how we'd fare against a side that tries to do a WHU on us with our current attacking options.

Fantastic debut in official match for Diego! He pressed, terrorized the Burnley defense constantly, scored the equalizer and was unlucky not to be given and penalty. He has all the qualities a top striker should have and I enjoy watching him in attack - a pacy battering ram with great goalscoring ability, very dangerous in the penalty box and is extremely hard to be pushed off the ball. I can't wait for the next game and I'm really excited to see more of him as the season progresses!

Cesc fully deserved his MOTM award! Two assists on his debut already, some fantastic passing and the way he set up Schurrle for the 2nd goal was unbelievable. Keep it up, ex-gooner!

Awesome attacking display! A stupid goal to concede though and extremely dumb of the ref not only to deny us a penalty, but to book Diego!

My point was not to concentrate on the European performances of German and English teams in that season alone and use that to draw a comparison between the EPL and the Bundesliga. The idea was to see the performances of the only viable German teams in Europe both on pitch and in terms of results and compare that to the following two years. I agree that doesn't show the entire picture, but if you see the Bundesliga as a superior to the EPL, you have your right to believe what you want. Also, It's pretty sad what you think of Chelsea's greatest ever achievement...

Depends on the way you choose to look at things. While in those two seasons the league was closer in terms of competition that doesn't necessarily mean it was stronger. In 2011/12 as a reigning champions Dortmund had a pretty poor CL campaign, while Bayern were definitely not as as good as they were the year after and last season, despite reaching the final of the competition. But even today you'd struggle to find any other half decent team in the league that can give a match to Bayern and Dortmund (to a certain extent, because they've also struggled in the league last season.)

Weaker was the right word. Back then Bundesliga was still behind Serie A, I think.

One good season in a weak league two years ago and Kagawa is a top player...

It's not the same thing at all. Mata's had this kind of problem with only one manager for so many years of European football. With Kagawa it goes with Ferguson, Moysey and by the looks of it LVG is not very fond of him either. Moreover the only manager who used Kagawa "the right way" was Klopp. Sounds to me like too many excuses are thrown in his favour.

Have we seen Mata playing under Jose for two years? Kagawa has 4 full seasons in European football, two of which in Man Utd under two different managers (not counting Giggs). Your comparison has nothing to do with reality.

Mata has more than one season to prove his worth. During his time here he's worked with 4 managers and he was the top star while playing for the first 3 of them. He was given freedom by RDM and Rafa and his creative prowess produced lots of goals and assists and no wonder he was picked as Chelsea's player of the season for two consecutive seasons. I don't get why is he blamed for our tactical inadequacy back then as probably him at attacking free role (and later Hazard and Oscar) was our best way to go at the time, given all the circumstances. Also we had much bigger problems like the one in defense and midfield. Remembering AVB's high defensive line with JT (who is not exactly blessed with pace) and David Luiz (who was running around the pitch like a headless chicken) still gives me a headache. I never buy the excuse of someone not being able to "fit the system". Everytime a new manager comes he has his own set of requirements so the players need to be adaptive and work hard in order to do what is asked of them. Mata's inability to press and his poor work off the ball have been ever present since he joined us in 2011. However, back then the focus was on his creativity as he was excused of his defensive duties. When Jose came he was fully aware of those flaws and he instantly gave his spot to Oscar who is a better tackler, but probably two times less creative. Sure Mata's poor form at the time didn't help his case, but he clearly didn't play as much as he needed to. Ultimately he was the one who decided to go rather than stay, work through his weaknesses and earn Jose's trust. Ironically he'd have a great opportunity to do that considering how useless has Oscar been after January. Afterwards I didn't see a lot of him, but after a slow start for United he picked up some form and scored 6 goals and it's probably fair to say he did okay, despite not being played CAM. As for Kagawa people seem to build their opinion of him as a player on his single good season with Dortmund. You could be right that he's being misused, but either way he's a big flop. He still should have had many strong games and the only one I can think of is the one against Norwich in the spring of 2013 when he scored a hat-trick. When he first came in England he was compared with Hazard which proved to be more laughable by the day. Eden is not the best presser, he's not always tracking back and that's why Jose said he wants more from him when the Belgian received his Chelsea POTY award 3 months ago. But I don't think anyone here would consider comparing our best player to Kagawa. As I said, you might be right about Kagawa. I've barely seen him play for Dortmund as I don't watch the Bundesliga, but still the only argument in his favour seems to be his time in Dortmund, which is simply not good enough to compare him with the likes of Mata.

I was already pissed off before reading the posts here and you're not really helping my case with your moronic statement. If you want to be a scouser then go on and have fun with that... Don't quote my post if you have nothing to say.

It's really shocking and disrespectful towards Mata to compare that useless piece of trash Kagawa with him. That's the guy who couldn't get in United's first team for two years. I'm surprised he's still there. I think someone bragged about his stats when he was in Dortmund. Well do you know how many goals he scored last season with 30 app in all competitions? I know you can check by yourself, but I'll help you - 0. Also if people insist on the importance of Kagawa's time at Dortmund for the argument, I might try to make a Torres vs RVP comparison based on that logic so you see how ridiculous this is.

No way... I hoped Frank's number would not be assigned to anyone else at least for a couple of seasons and when that happens we should have given it to someone more deserving of it. What can you do?...

He won't, because he will leave by the end of February. That's when the MLS starts, right?

If you read the first part of my post again you'll see I have nothing against Fabregas (anymore). The moment he posed with the blue shirt changed everything and from then on he has my full support. I said I couldn't understand the majority of those who fell in love with him instantly and you gave a reasonable response: ...so fair play to that. I can't imagine why would someone who is first of all a Chelsea fan and has supported them through the noughties at least would prefer Cesc over a legend like JT for example. Eto'o has made some negative comments for us in the past and so has Fabregas. I'm not trying to read too much into that to be honest. Football players say stuff to please the fans of their current team or it's just a burst of emotions related to some event in the past. I think they should be careful and never say publicly "I'll never play for XXXX" as you never know if this team won't be their best career option at some point. The media will surely try to use those outdated quotes as a beatstick.

I really like his pace and he is a proven EPL goalscorer. The fact he recently failed a medical could be a concern though.

Reading through the thread it seems the only concern about Diego is his temper. Now I don't follow La Liga closely, but looking at some of the videos posted in the thread, if he pulls some of those moves on multiple occasions you can bet he'll receive a lengthy ban and the media will start treating him like Suarez. I hope he settles down a bit.

To be honest I think it would have been much better to keep Eto'o for one more season than bringing back Drogba. He is younger and not completely past it like Didier. While not brilliant I think the job he did here last season is quite underrated. He scored some important goals and I think he could have been a better 2nd striker option than both Drogba and Torres. It's a pity his relationship with Jose deteriorated over something so stupid. Still I think he would have stayed if the board had decided to sell the whiny Lukaku earlier, but then again probably Jose intended to start the season with him until the £ 28 m offer came out of the blue.

I think that depends on what do you mean by excited. You said it, Cesc is a fantastic player and he could finally solve the problems in our midfield that we've had for years. Everyone should be excited by the prospect of his contribution to the team and most of us can't wait to see how our attacking play evolves under his guidance. However not everybody can immediately start showing love towards him, talking about future captaincy and putting him down as their favourite player before he has even played in an official match for Chelsea. Some time needs to pass to completely erase the image of him in Arsenal and Barcelona shirts. I admit that is going to be a lot easier if he scores goals like the one yesterday more often

I for one think we have great chances of winning it, if we don't get too troubled in the group stage. We're the best team in the world in matches played over two legs and we're the best English team in European competitions for years now.

LOL! Have you really proven that Frank should be stripped of his legendary status with the club? I don't think so. Just some dubious quotes. Have a nice day