kellzfresh

My admiration for him knows no bounds. He's one of the best things to happen to our club. Absolute service to the club, plays anywhere you tell him to play and gives 110% everytime he is on the pitch. He should be a serious contender to take the armband after Terry retires.

Very good saves from him. Finally contributes to a clean sheet like cech did against Middlesbrough yesterday. Hopefully more of this to come.

I don't know if Conte is giving hints that Terry might not start.

Arsenal draw!!!! Yes, no more lucky last minute handball and penalty winners

Thank goodness they drew. At least we won't lose ground on everyone if we draw. Like I said earlier, I hope Spurs and Manutd fall so that we sneak into the top four at their expense.

This formation should be what we play. In the firsthalf of manutd vs Liverpool, Manutd pressed Liverpool very hard and played them at their own game before manutd sat back and parked it in the 2nd half. With evidence from our matches against arsenal and Liverpool, we struggled when they pressed us so I think playing batshuayi will help immensely as an outlet for holdup play to escape any manutd pressing and get us quickly into attack, while costa and hazard combine. Many tactical scenarios could be at play, hopefully we come on top, can't wait for the game.

Mourinho has made some damage limitation comments "We have a very difficult week, playing these two matches in the Premier League against two of the big candidates. This is not the week where we were expecting to close the distances to the top of the league." "This is the week we have to keep contact with them because then we will arrive at the moment where we win three, four or five matches in a row and we will be there fighting with almost everybody for the title." Looking more likely that we'll see the Liverpool performance again. Hopefully we get an early goal and nullify whatever they plan to do.

I wonder what Conte is going to do about the Terry situation. Terry is our best centerback in terms of organization, positioning and awareness but I don't know if he fits in the back 3. If he plays on the left side of the 3 it could get ugly if Alonso is up the pitch and Terry has to come out to defend against a quick player. In fact this will happen a lot with this formation, that's why Conte always played quick centerbacks on either side of the 3 (Cheilini, Barzagli, Caceres) If we put Terry in the centre, we're removing a huge part of our creativity if we move luiz to the left side, because luiz will never get as much space and time on the left side to ping the passes and create chances as he'll get in the center. This will automatically take away part of our build up play and creativity. And the ball playing centreback in the middle is a huge part of Conte's system, that's why Bonucci always played in the middle. It'll be interesting to see how Conte navigates this.

I just realized that manutd are playing mancity at home 3 days after our match. I'm beginning to think that Mourinho will play very conservative in this away game to conserve as much energy as possible and not to lose. If we score early we could easily finish them off, I'm sure the next match against mancity at old Trafford will be at the back of their minds. That said, I'm hoping for a 1-0 win, own goal, off Dea Gea's butt, 94th min, 1 minute more than the added time

The last time we had back to back wins with clean sheet in the league was when we defeated QPR and ManU on 12th and 18th Apr 2015. We have played exactly FIFTY games between the win against ManUtd and the one against Hull 2 weeks back and never managed back to back wins with clean sheets.

To me, we'll play better because of the formation change. Conte prefers to defend solidly and patiently together when the opponent is with the ball, but defending against arsenal and Liverpool with the 4-1-4-1 didn't work, we were leaving gaps to create chances. But now as we've changed to a more familiar system for Conte which he used for Juventus and most recently Italy. The 3-4-3 will cover more spaces centrally and force Manutd to mostly attack through the wings. And with 3 centerbacks to defend rather than just two we'll be defensively better against crosses with the extra cover. And we'll have one week to get ready for manutd and get used to this formation even better, while manutd will be playing on Thursday.

We look better placed now on the Alternative Premier League table (APLT). For guys who don't understand, this is last seasons final table. The Alternative Premier League table starts everyone from the 90points Line. To maintain the 90 points level: 1. You have to win all 19 home games 2. Win all the away games against the bottom 7 from last season 3. Draw all away games from the top 12 from last season. The relegated teams last season are replaced with the newly promoted teams. If you win when a draw is expected, you go up by 2 points. If you lose when a draw or win is expected, you go down by 3 points. If you win or draw when expected, you maintain the same level as the last gameweek. The 71 points line is the average expected points for champions League qualification (4th place) For some reason, this table almost always works every season. The top four here will most likely be the top four in the real table.

I'm hoping for a score draw here. We need to gain ground on Liverpool but I don't want manutd to overtake us. This season is so annoying, we are competing with Mancity, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Manutd for a top 4 place. So we need two teams to drop off for us to get in and only manutd seem to be the ones who are not playing well so far. At first I was thinking that just beating the smaller teams as we've been doing so far could be enough to make it, but it seems we need to at least not lose to our competition to make it. In the past seasons, Arsenal could lose to the big teams and still make it but now I'm not sure that will be enough. Harder now than ever before to get champs league. Hopefully tottenham collapse late in the season and Manutd flop so that we sneak in.

He played well, good crosses especially in the first half. He even ran more than kante

Someone made this comment and I agree Conte could be perfect for Chelsea. Abramovich has craved sexy football for so long, and he is finally getting it with Antonio Conte. We've been super dominant in 4 out of 10 games we've played this season (Bristol, Burnley and Leicester twice) and only against arsenal we didn't score (and batshuayi missed a one on one) He’s got the winning mentality of pre Madrid Mourinho, without any of the brashness that follows years of success. He’s a very astute tactician, he finds the best system for his players (Hazard’s new role, Moses, Azpi, Luiz’s anchor/distributor role), gives them confidence (Cahill, Matic) and he’s pragmatic…like with the Chalobae sub to solidify the midfield in response to the Slimani, Mahrez substitutions. He’s also big on physicality and work-rate, standing together as a team, and today when he refused to sub out Costa despite his tantrum, it showed that he was telling Costa..‘I want you to control yourself, and I’m sure you can..without getting a card. Show them YOU are in control.’ I’m sure he’s even earned Costa’s begrudging respect today. I think we are witnessing the birth of a cough….dynasty under Conte. Get hyped! We Are Chelsea!!! KTBFFH!

Also him being allowed to get forward has been fantastic for him. He has everything you need from a midfielder: fast, ball control, very good control under pressure, Makelele level tackling and very good passing(this surprised me) One of the best midfielders in the league, better than Pogba so far

Or Griezmann/dybala

Fantastic performance from us. Dominated for majority of the match and looked solid defensively when Leicester attacked us. Chalobae with the fantastic assist. He's a good passer of the ball and wouldn't look out of place starting for us imo. He could be the one that finally makes it from the youth team. When costa plays well, Chelsea play well. I remember that season we bought him, where he was scoring almost every game, we played our best football for half a season. Costa is looking as good as that once again. Hazard looks involved more centrally, please let it stay that way. Kante along with costa is our best player. Sometimes he was giving passes like Pirlo, if he knew how to shoot he'll be one of the best midfielders in world football, has everything else in his locker. Luiz has been fantastic, he's thriving in the Bonucci role and I hope he stays there permanently. Moses is all energy, all action, causes trouble out wide always. Well done Alonso was fantastic in the first half. It feels so good having a left-footed leftback that can cross once again. Looks a huge threat in attack. Matic was very good, didn’t dwell on the ball and passed out quickly. Pedro was energetic, huge contribution in the link up play but lack of quality up top. Azpi and cahill have been steady in this formation. It'll be sad if Azpi gets dropped for Terry Conte has got us playing quicker in the attacking third of the pitch, quick one twos between the 3 upfront. We also look more comfortable sitting deep with this 3-4-3 compared to the 4-1-4-1 Courtois has had nothing to do since we went 3 at the back. And he trusts youth, I think he likes chalobah. 10/10 from Conte today.

If he's sitting and kante is the one allowed to get forward like the last game, I'm fine with Matic in this case. The only problem is when Matic is trying to be the box to box attacker....

No Terry?? Pedro ahead of batshuayi?? Hopefully we win somehow.

Nooooooo

Everytime stepovers and cross on the ground which never beats the first man. He's no winger, he doesn't have the mentality for this. He's good on the ball in tight spaces, he's one of our few players who can hold onto the ball under pressure and will fit in the middle. Look at Liverpool, we thought wjnaldum will not fit in midfield but he's working well there, Willian would be even better there in a 3 midfield formation. Him and kante in a box to box role will be very good, much needed speed and technique/control will be added.

Not looking as bad as I thought we would be, if the referee didn't cheat us against Swansea, we would be even better placed. But we're still behind 4 teams, so hopefully we keep beating the smaller teams and try to draw with the big teams instead of losing.

Matic has the ability to make runs. He used to do that in almost every match during his first season here. But his form/stamina/energy is no longer the same, so he never does it consistently enough or well enough anymore. And because of his onefootedness and slow turn, kante is by far better than Matic in terms of pushing the ball forward through midfield because he can shield the ball under pressure better. We were so spoiled in the past having essien do this for us like it was nothing, never did I know that the skill to push an attack forward with the ball from central midfielders will be so hard to replace.

Leicester should have had penalty Stupid penalty against Southampton 93rd minute winner today. Arsenal have had some luck! Wish luck smiled on Chelsea this way