Dion

That seems like a proper analogy.

I just don't think things are so black and white and it's important to understand every aspect of such things. I think most of the times racism in football is just a form of banter taken too far. It's just people using the racial aspect to get under the skin of players and/or supporters of rival teams and such. Again, I'm not saying it is right, but to me the real underlying cause is the rivalry, the hatred against rival fans or teams - the racism is just one of the ways chosen to hurt the "enemy", usually rivals but it could be any other team that is not your own. As such, whilst using racism to achieve the goal of hurting others is still reprovable and a shameful attitude, it's not the very same thing as the real deal, is what I'm trying to say.

Hazard also has more minutes played, their output per minute should be very close. I don't think the difference in goals is only due to that. Alexis has very good goal instincts.

If this ever happens to me I'm screwed, I'm terrible at giving directions. I wouldn't be able to give directions even in the city I was born.

Every game is important to win the league, if beating the big ones was all that mattered we would have won the league last season. Regardless of that, from the top of my head I remember he has at least one good game against the bigs in Manchester City, I think he even scored that game. He's also on fire in the champions league and his stats in this season are not too far from Hazard's (same amount of key passes per game, a very respectable number of successful dribbles per game - probably one of the best in Europe after the likes of Hazard, Robben and Messi, almost as fouled every game as Hazard), while at the same time having a better work rate, he averages 2 tackles and 1 interception per game in the PL, he runs all day long and never tires, he's like a mix between Willian and Hazard plus the killer instinct that both seem to lack, very underrated player tbh. Hazard has better passing, dribble and ball control over him, even then it's not by a landslide. It's impossible to consider Eden one of the best performers and not Alexis.

Sanchez has been phenomenal this season, his overall play is almost on Hazard's level but he takes the edge for producing more at the final third for me. I think no other player is having as big a impact for his team as Alexis. But I could see any of Hazard or Cesc overtaking Sanchez depending on how they perform until the end of the season.

Not saying they are or aren't racists but people say things they don't really mean or believe sometimes, you know? Add to that alcohol and group behaviour and boom. I'm in no way saying it is all right to do it, of course it is wrong and should be punished, but it doesn't instantly make every single one of them inherently racists. It is almost guaranteed that many of them were just following the group behaviour. Believe it or not, people are stupid, especially in groups. And when drunk.

If we were to use Hazard, Willian and Cuadrado together, I'd rather have it like: Willian - Hazard - Cuadrado. Perhaps that could improve Willian's productivity goals-wise since he's right footed (meaning he would be playing inverted winger, which suits him more - given that he likes to cut inside) and at the same time it shouldn't affect his dribbling too much, since dribbling on the flanks is easier than in the middle. Hazard, as our best dribbler, shouldn't have too much trouble in the middle. My only concern is Cuadrado + Ivanovic, since I'm not too sure about Cuadrado's defensive ability and work rate. Also not too sure how that would affect playing Fabregas + Matic.

I've watched some compilations of him playing today (those sort of 'every time player X touched the ball in the match' videos) just to be sure my memory wasn't tricking me and there's one against Bayern Munich which is particularly relevant to the comparison with Oscar. In that game he was literally what Oscar has been for us in most of these recent matches, he scored once or twice (not too sure, just got home after working pretty much the whole day - exhausted as fuck), but the amount of misplaced/intercepted passes and the amount of times he lost possession trying to dribble is mind blowing, I was truly shocked. I won't be too harsh because it was Bayern after all, but that's the typical Oscar performance of recent, poor overall game but contributing to the score nonetheless - except the very last games Oscar couldn't even do that, but you get the point.

To be fair, while it is undeniable that Firmino is more creative, has better dribbling and way more flair than Oscar (which makes watching him more pleasant), the few times I could watch him play he missed A HELL LOT of passes, if you get annoyed but Oscar's inconsistent passing you all would go crazy watching Firmino. Still, Firmino is a good player, has a very good work rate and the defensive side of his game is at least on Oscar's level if not better. All in all, I consider them similar players, although I believe Firmino wouldn't be near as good if he was in Oscar's shoes (as Chelsea's nº 10) playing in the EPL.

To me the surprises are Southampton and Everton. One positively and the other negatively.

8 points clear would have been good. On a side note, Atletico Madrid 4-0 Real Madrid?! Holy shit!

That pass attempt was Fabregas-esque.

There, your wish has been granted.

I just woke up, would any kind soul link me a good stream? Edit: Never mind, found one.

Damn! And here I thought I was doing a great job concealing it...

W-wait, I do?

Maybe that would have made the deals we got for them harder to pull off or decrease the amount we got for them. At the same time I wish things would have been different, I'm not all that disappointed with how things turned out. KDB, for instance, he looks like a great player but the money we got for him helped us build the squad we have now, a squad that got us to the top of the table, and we're not even certain KDB would have eventually start performing the way he is right now. I think the board and Mourinho have made good deals as of lately. If the money from Andre is well spent I won't complain, even if I liked the lad.

Sad to see him go. I still had hopes for him and always liked him better than Willian, too bad it didn't work but this deal was probably in the best interest of both parties. Sort of similar to how I felt about KDB leaving. Have a feeling that he will perform way better in the Bundesliga.

I think I've never been too crazy. Looking back, I think most of the crazy stuff I did were caused more by my own stupidity than by badassery. For instance, me and a friend once spent like 2-3 hours walking home at 3:00 a.m because the place where we were didn't seem that far away when we got there by taxi. There might have been some alcoholic beverage involved in our decision making. And we might have passed by some shady places and there might have been some running from a couple guys.

Ouch!

Well, some parents have a really bad intuition about those things. A few of my friends that my parents thought were nice people and felt comfortable about me hanging out with were some of the craziest motherfuckers I've ever met.

There's no actual equivalent word in English? Anyways, for some reason I hate the word nice, I can live with cute though.

@Stingray, may I request some translation services? I'd like to know what it means when someone says a person "is een leuke jongen".

Lampard looks motivated to scored against us.