Aesthetic Relic

When he's back to full fitness he and Ash will rip the EPL defences to pieces. I put him in my Fantasy team for a bargain price only for him to be left out completely for Saturdays game. Gutted

Very professional performance today. We were never really under that much pressure even though Cech was kept busy. I thought Mikel was outstanding and never put a foot wrong.

Do they not show MOTD2 on the BBC iplayer now ?

He was though There's no doubting he's a talented player, I just have the opinion that for a player to succeed in our midfield he'll have to work on his upper body strength. Its rare to see Mikel, Essien or Lampard get muscled off the ball when put under pressure. The game against Villa will give us another chance to see how he handles a more pysical game.

We've saw the good and the bad from him in his last two outings. Against Man City he was continually bullied out of possession and looked as if he couldnt handle the physical side of English football. Today he was simply outstanding, which got me thinking. Very few teams will sit off us and allow us to play football like Arsenal do. The majority of the time, teams will try to match us for strength all over the pitch. Its left me wondering wether we'll get the real benefit of hm until he fills out a bit and learns how to handle himself on the pitch against a strong side, as lets be honest......he's built like the side of a fiver. I'm more than willing to give any player time to settle into the side, I just hope he analyse his performances and accept that he'll have to work on the physical side of his game.

Brilliant result :champions: Midfield 3 were outstanding today. Mikel, Essien and Ramires....absolute quality. Just WOW at Alex. One off the training field imo, you can see Malouda shifting out of the wall to leave a gap for Alex to aim for.

Today we will show why Arsenal have not won a trophy for......what is it....6 years now ? You can play the best football in the world, but when it comes down to it, its winning games that matter. Wenger wont change his style of play which makes it easier to take Arsenal to the cleaners. 2-0 Chelsea

Nice one. Who's first on your hitlist Kez ?

Joined a few weeks agao and made wholesale changes forgetting I'd already used my wildcard and lost a shit load of points Schwarzer Sagna - Alex - Neville Malouda - Bale - Dempsey - Adam Drogba© - Berbatov - Tevez

Relax ffs :getyou: Once Drogba went off Anelka got moved inside which is the obvious move. He has more presence than Sturridge as a striker as he's still learning the game. He will get his chance eventualy, but he'll have to make do with playing where he's asked.

I take it asking for a kidney is pushing it ? Seriously though....She's through the worst, so its not as bad as it was.

Anelka hasnt a problem with playing out wide when he's asked. We played with 2 up front last season when Ancelotti was still finding his feet and althoughwe got the job done, we didnt look as comfortable. When he went back to the 4-3-3 we went goal crazy. Its up to Sturridge to improve his game to be beneficial on the right/left. There's no hope in hell we'll go back to 2 strikers up front and he'll always be behind Drogba and Anelka for a starting slot.

Seems the best place to post in response to TX reply to my post in his thread that was locked. The reason for my inactivity is that I other matters that are more important that massaging your ego. My Mrs has been in hospital for the past while back after her kidneys packed in, she was 50/50 for a while and is now on dialysis. So if its ok with you I'll post when I can.

I havent read through the thread so I'll give my thoughts on todays performance. I expected alot more from City today in terms of going forward, but they seemed intent on sitting back, denying us space and hoping for something on the break. Their game plan worked a treat and they deserve their 3 points. Although we dominated possession and did have shots on goal, we never really bother Joe Hart once during the game. I cant even remember him having to make a save. We resorted to pot shots at goal as we lacked the ability to find the killer ball through their packed final third. Drogba looked disinterested but the decison to bring him off baffled me as it was obvious City were going to sit with what they had and allow us to have the ball. Having a player like Drogba in the box is essential if you're going to pump balls into the box. It may not be Ancelottis way of playing football, but at times you have to go route one. Ramires looked out of his depth and I'd to take my shoes off to continue to count how many times he was caught in possession or muscled off the ball. Lampard cant get back to the first team soon enough. I'm not going to slate the rest of the players as I thought we played as good as we could considering how City took to the field. We should expect teams to play like this and make it hard for us. Its up to the players to find a way around the final third with 9 players intent on defending like their lives depended on it. I'm not going to read too much into this defeat as if anything we came up against a team who on the day had a better game plan. We'll get back to business next week against Arsenal who will not play like City did today. They dont know how to. Bad day at the office....move on.

I'm getting slightly pissed off with this "Chelseas first real test" crap. We've got to this stage in second gear and have showed we can turn it on at the flick of a switch. We've destroyed everyone in our path and City will be next. They're trying to use last seasons results as a stick to beat us with, but all it really does is prove that they raised their game to play us. They'll have to do the same again as they have been far from convincing despite their defensive record. Dont let it fool you. We'll be more than ready for them this season and we've a massive point to prove to all our doubters who have been slating us in the past few days. We'll pummel Citeh into submission and then take care of Arsenal like always and we'll probably still have people waiting to shoot us down.

Sturridge looks like he'll keep improving and be a big player for us in the years ahead. I'm expecting big things from him. As for Yossi, the main reason CA went for him is that he's a disciplined player and will do a job for the team. He may not be a flare player, but he will give stability to the team. Its a team game afterall and not about individuals, which Man City will find out this weekend

I've had my run ins with TX in the past and tbh, I dont have a problem with him. What I did have a problem with was his attitude. Like a few on here have already stated, they (I) are Mods/Admin elsewhere and it is a thankless task. You can only give a certain amount of warnings before action has to be taken. TX has been given a second chance to redeem himself and its up to him wether he decides to heed the warnings or come back with the same "attitude". If he gets perma banned then he's only got himself to blame. Up to you now dude..... :tophat:

Haha....Love it !!! Just shows the cracking spirit we have within the squad.

We had to spend big to get to the position we're in. Now that we're there, we dont need to go out singing left right and centre. We have a very solid squad and as long as we continue to tweek it every now and then, there's no reason why we cant compete for the title for the forseeable future. If a top player does become available and he'll be an asset to the squad, I dont see why we wouldnt shell out for him....ie...Torres. Drogba and Anelka will have to be replaced in time, so I wouldnt be surpried if we did try for a "marquee" striker over the next few seasons.

Cant see anything other than a Chelsea cricket score today.....and a nice wee 4 point gap opened up :cfc:

Plenty of links in here http://www.myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=85991∂=sports I can see us rattling up another cricket score today. Wet Spam are shite

When I think back to 20 odd years ago before I took an interest in Chelsea, it was guys like Ally McCoist and Davie Cooper that I looked up to when I kicked a ball about the second I got home from school until it was dark. I idolised these players. The only time you saw them was on TV or when I went to a game and not plastered all over the papers. Nowadays due to the internet, Its a whole new culture/generation. A player cant fart and its all over the world in minutes. Due to this, footballers of today should be more aware at what they get up to. They have more money than they know what to do with. Its only natural that they'd want to go out and enjoy themselves. But you can enjoy yourself without getting some tart up the duff or get glass some random bloke in a pub. Players also have more power and clubs cant really employ a strict code that players must abide by. They can get kicked out of the club and walk into another club the following day on similar if not better wages with a hfty signing on fee to boot. If I'm honest, the majority of players couldnt really give a flying fuck about what anyone thinks of them.

I've been a regular on here for quite a while and although I'm maybe not as active as I used to be its still a very good forum to be part of. Members like Jim, Dave, Bluelion, Esk, Fulham Broadway, Kez, CJ, Warnie, Steve, Badboy and a few others (sorry for not mentioning you ) have been the core members who have kept things ticking over during my time with their own insight on things others may have no knowledge of. The addition of more members as the forum has grown has brought some tension at times, but thats natural on any forum. Not everyone has the same opinion. If we did it would be pointless being here. I couldnt care less where a member is from. They come here for the same reason as me. To be part of the Chelsea family. :cfc:

Thats not too bad then. When I first heard he was going under the knife I was expecting to hear 6-8 weeks or something like that. As already mentioned.....having him back for the Citeh game will be vital as I want us to give them a good old fashioned reality check

Whats the chances of him featuring this season ? The reason I'm asking is that there were a few whispers that Rangers were possibly interested in taking him on loan in a similar deal that saw Vladimir Weiss arrive from Man City.