The only place to be

You never fail to take a dig at Chelsea supporters, yet you say you are one. Isn't that a little bit strange?

Falcao is proven in La Liga and Portugal. In terms of the Premier League, he has no experience and he also hasn't has masses of top level CL experience. He's 27, and he's never played at a top, top team in my opinion. The target for this club is to win in a sustainable manner. We have to start that at some point and if that means we don't win everything next year but continue to build a young team capable of winning TOGETHER for many years then I'd be fine with that. We'll still have Cech, Terry, Cole, Mikel, Cahill, Ivanovic, Ba and possibly Torres. In our squad we have about half a dozen national team captains, World Cup Winners, African Cup Winners, Premier League Winners, French Players of the Year, Champions League winners and almost all are key players for their national sides. People think we're going to be a young team, but that's not true and even if it were to be true it's not the be all and end all. It's just one possible narrative. WE WON'T BECOME FUCKING ARSENAL. It's the stupidest fucking comparison because it shows a complete lack of understanding about what happened at Arsenal whilst simultaneously failing to understand what we're trying to do here. I'm sorry if that sounds rude, but the amount of times someone incorrectly invokes the spectre of Arsenal is really rather grating. Arsenal sold their best players and replaced them with the Artetas, Mertesackers and Podolskis of this world. They sold world-class players and replaced them with old (sorry, experienced) players who weren't good enough. They underinvested in their team as a whole whereas we're still spending big. In fact we spent about £18 million on a striker not too long ago. And yes it is romantic. That's why we follow football isn't it? For the romance? Do you know what else is romantic? A team who played together for close to a decade lifting themselves one more time against all odds to win the biggest prize in football. You might as well go the whole hog and say you can't win anything with kids....oh, you very nearly did.

We have our own Toure - he's called Nathanial Chalobah.

Same here. I follow the England rugby team closely and despite having season tickets at Quins I still think that the national team is the most important one I follow. With the England football team, my first concern is always are any Chelsea players injured and how did our players do? Maybe it's that football is more 'tribal' or maybe it's just the case that the club game at the top end, i.e. the Champions League, is now the pinnacle of the sport whereas in sports like rugby the club teams are still some way below the national teams.

Not really.

I think it's perfectly fine for them to do that and it's the height of hypocrisy to take everything that the 'moneybags, Murdoch, Sky, grrrrrr....' era has given us (the players we've seen, the places we've been) and then moan about it superseding the national game. It is an inconvenience - in fact this international break right now is a major fucking inconvenience. We have to play 4 games in a week because we can't play games this week. We're hitting form and now the players have to disband and join up with their national teams. And I honestly think this trend will continue.

I said it at the time, but it was essentially getting all the bad feeling out in the open rather than bottling it up. He made it clear he was leaving and removed any of the uncertainty and I liked the fact that he was honest and candid for once, rather than beating around the bush. We've also been performing better and he deserves at least a bit of credit for that and he did make the right changes against United. Robbie did the same in the league game and I praised him for his ability to react to in-game circumstances so it's only fair to credit Rafa with the same.

I'm genuinely not that bothered about how good England might be, but I think our academy is actually turning into something special. The likes of Chalobah, McEachran and Hunte all have the talent to become very good players but I'm just as interested in the Musondas and Bogas in all honesty. But if I had to defend the national team, I'd say we're going from one very good but underachieving generation into something new. It's too early to say how good it could be but any success won't come on the backs of the Welbecks, Cleverleys and Rodwells of the world (Phil Jones actually has tremendous potential in my opinion, but he needs to pick a position and stick to it). So, um yeah. England as a country has a few issues and some of the players reflect that but there's cause for optimism because people (not just footballers, but actual human beings) like Chalobah, Shaw and possibly McEachran actually might have what it takes to bring success at both club and international level. But personally I'm relieved we can build success on Belgian and Brazilian youth.

No-one will disagree with him being the greatest goalscoring midfielder not just of his generation, but possibly of all time. But the point isn't about how many goals he might score next season, but how many the team as a whole would score and also concede were he to still be playing regularly.

I disagree. Handling pressure is about character and this guy seems to have that in spades. I can name guys in different sports who stepped up when they were thrown into high pressure situations, and I can name guys who had tons of experience but none of the intangibles that you need to succeed. So another year at West Brom prepares him for a starting role at Chelsea Football Club? If people are saying he should spend another year on loan to get ready for Chelsea, then WHY IN FUCK ARE THEY SUGGESTING WEST BROM? Seriously? What more can he learn at West Bromwich Albion? This guy loves this club - there is not a moment in the next decade when he won't be under pressure at this club. That's because he's a professional footballer. He didn't win a competition, he's not a YTS kid, it's not 'take your son to work day'. He's a man who is paid money to play football and he appears to be pretty good at it. At some point you've got to take the plunge with him and I don't see what else he can learn at West Brom.

Two more seasons than Falcao has had in the Premier League. Let's not pretend that signing Falcao isn't a gamble either. The difference is we've already gambled on Lukaku by signing him. Does Eden Hazard's age seem to be holding him back? What about Mata? Let's not confuse age and experience. My personal fantasy is Lukaku fulfilling his potential in a Chelsea shirt. It'll be a commitment of close to £100 million. FFP or not that's a lot of money. What we're doing right now is building a team, one that can grow together and buying some flash fucking tart who is 27 and expensive isn't a guarantee of success. We've got a kid who loves this club and has EARNED his shot because of his attitude and it's having faith in that is what will bring us success in my opinion.

Random list - Josh and PVA (and arguably Kakuta) are both on-loan and could figure in the team in the next few years, Borini wouldn't re-sign, Bruma is struggling in a poor Hamburg team, Sam had a career-ending injury and the rest on that list really aren't anything special. It's too early to go writing off these kids' potential Chelsea careers because a few players who weren't as good as them didn't make it here.

I can see why Arsenal have put him on a shortlist. He cechs (boom boom) all the boxes and we do have a ready-made replacement who costs about a third as much as Petr. If we made the move to change them then of course Arsenal would have to take a look at him. But I can't imagine he'd ever go there to be honest. It's not on the same level as some transfers but it's hard to imagine us selling to them. If we did (and it's been done before with Ashley, albeit the other way) then hopefully it would be for an extortionate fee. If Arsenal did come at us with an offer of around £20 million then it would be hard to dismiss out of hand. So it could possibly happen, if about half a dozen other things happened and each is fairly unlikely.

Stick a NSFW on that sucka because that shit is straight porn.

If you look at Hazard's goal, Ba creates space for him by sticking on the last two defenders. Too often Torres would be playing off them or simply not offering a threat. Ba actually uses his body to shield one of the defenders, and throughout the game he just kept the West Ham defenders honest. He had an off-day with the finishing but that happens to all strikers (Van Persie for instance). Unlike Torres, his bad day in front of goal didn't make the team worse like Torres often does.

Zola mugged off Dicks. Hazard just mugged off four Dicks.

We're just lucky to have Emenalo handling our transfers, and not Wenger.

Good article It's that stat about first or only goals in matches that's always astounded me. He scores important goals in matches, and that's what you'd have thought we might struggle to replace but Juan Mata seems to have stepped up in that regard. If Lamps does leave this season, then it's arguably as poetic a way to go out as Drogba's was in May.

Not really much of a story in the Mail, but this line did make me smile. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2295131/Neymar-snubs-Manchester-City-sets-sights-Barcelona-Real-Madrid-Chelsea-move.html 'I dream of playing in Europe, for a big club like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea. Poor City, not getting a mention.

Number 5 on that list always leaves me in tears. We've always created emotional moments at this club, but that was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen a sportsman do. The amount of bottle, heart and soul that took is something only a handful of people in any sport could do.

The question is whether we should be committing close to £100 million to him when we have needs in other areas. Personally I'm not sure we do need an 'out and out goal machine' when we've never really needed one in the past. I've always thought we were at our best when we had goals throughout the team and let's not forget we won two league without a 15 goal a season striker (incidentally we'll probably have two of those next season).

The most satisfying thing was actually the clean sheet for me. There's still that nagging fear in the back of my head that we could ship two goals when we've got a two-goal lead but we held on yesterday despite having to make a shuffle. And the changes made sense. I said to my mate that I hoped he brought on Mikel for a bit of protection and a minute later he did. The best thing i can say is that it felt like an old-fashioned (circa 2005) Chelsea win, although with a bit more clnical finishing it could've easily have been 5 or 6 goals to us. It must be noted that West Ham were poor and missing some key players, which allowed us to totally dominate the midfield without having to worry too much about them hitting us. A better team would've taken advantage of the lack of midfield protection. I'd also ignore Carroll's dominance in the air - no he isn't worth £35 million but the guy is still one of the biggest aerial threats in the league. On his day he can dominate any defence and sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and accept he's going to win a fair few headers. What you have to do is cut them off at source (which we didn't do quite enough of, especially late on when some players got a bit lazy with tracking back) or clean up the knock-downs which we did fairly well. But a good, solid result and one that might ease the anxieties of the crowd. Hazard continues to improve (like I said he would) and is building an amazing rapport with Mata. Lamps got his 200th in the best game possible and Rami put in another hard-working shift. All in all, a great weekend. Spurs dropping points is great, but it should make everyone realise how tough that Fulham game will be for us. Could've done without Arsenal winning, but it puts more pressure on Spurs than us at this moment. A four point cushion is surmountable in this league, which does make second place a viable target for us but I think third is still the most realistic target. Despite all that, four games in eight days will probably decide our season.

Phenomenal result and another sign that we've got something special happening at our club. Beating the likes of Barca and Juventus, progressing in the Youth Cup and seeing players getting playing time on loan is all encouraging for our future. The number of times I've been impressed by Lewis Baker's impact is surprising. Thought he was a step below the likes of Feruz but he's really stepped up his game. Still not convinced he'll succeed here but if he continues the way he has been, who knows?

Tell me one day in the next decade when Lukaku playing for Chelsea doesn't come with pressure to succeed? He's a Chelsea fan who cried when he came to the stadium for the first time, and he's clearly something of a perfectionist - there is not a crowd in the world who could put the pressure on him that he will put on himself, and yet he seems to have lived up to some of those lofty expectations at West Brom. He has amazing tangible skills, but he also has the intangibles that very few pros seem to have. You have to sometimes ignore the stats (which are actually pretty impressive) and trust a guy's heart. Man United 1995-96. And can we please stop with this Arsenal comparison. Arsenal didn't get where they are by taking a chance on youngsters, they got where they are by selling their best players in their prime and buying crap replacements. We aren't doing that. Cahill is experienced. Ivanovic is experienced. Hazard is experienced. Lukaku has 20 international caps (almost) playing in a team which carries a whole nation's hopes and expectations. Azpi wasn't experienced but has turned into arguably one of most dependable players this season. Luiz is actually quite experienced despite what people might think. You know who isn't experienced in the Premier League? Falcao. Cavani. Lewandowski. I'm not going to throw the 'wet night in Stoke around', but these guys probably don't even know who Stoke are, what the stadium's like and what the pitch is like to run on. That would be the Barca team we be in the NextGen? One result doesn't prove everything but our youth setup is good and we need to start recognising that. Barca go out and but Sanchez and he's hardly set the world alight whilst Tello comes in and does a good job. In fact most of Barca's better signings are players that they let go in the first place as kids. They aren't infallible despite what the media might say.

Has the ability to be that swing striker who can do a job from wide as well as leading the line in 15-20 games, but everytime I think about that position I wonder why Moses hasn't been given a go. When he was at Wigan he excelled at playing on the break against teams who had pushed up. Then when he came to us he showed an ability to break down teams who sat deeper, beating the first man and forcing them to re-organise. I'd love to see what he could do in another position for us, running the channels and holding the ball up. Jovetic deserves a lot of credit for coming back from that injury though. It shows a lot of character to come back arguably better than you were before you got injured, but it's still a lot of money to fill a position that we arguably already have solutions in. Until we get that midfield sorted, anything else runs the risk of being superfluous decoration.