The only place to be

Then we're going to have to agree to disagree on what I intended. And I don't think players not wanting to play for their country means they only play for money. Look at Scholes, a guy who decided that United was far more important than England.

Why? When you evaluate players there are dozens of factors. The availability of a player at a key point in the season surely has to factor in. Maybe I'm being unfair because I think of Chelsea before my country and I expect too much of the players who represent my club.

There is an actual debate here - in fact I've had it many times with Chelsea fans on the way to games when we lament players going missing for a few games. It's not dumb, but it may be selfish. I want players representing my club to put their teammates before anything else. I want that badge on their chest to matter more than anything else. It's a choice that players like Mikel and Moses make - they are open to debate.

Sorry, but you're the second person to suggest that I've said representing an African nation is less important than representing England. Where have I given that indication? You're the second person to make vague illusions to some weird race issue. Don't. In fact, where THE FUCK did I give a single fucking opinion on the Euros? If you must know, the most important thing in the Euros is that Chelsea players don't get injured. International football takes a firm second-place behind Chelsea for me.

No, they have a striker who is one of the most physically ready young men we currently have in our academy. Piazon gets the treatment he does because of the competition in his position, the same goes for Ake to a lesser extent. This seems to me to be purely about playing time, something that would lead to more money.

And that is the flipside of the argument. It's the price you pay for doing business in these circumstances. However it's frustrating when you have games coming up and have to make plans because a couple of players have made choices that remove them from selection.

Because it affects our club.

Moses's situation may be somewhat different in that we signed him relatively recently, but it's disappointing seeing him going off as he's starting to establish himself in the first team.

I actually disagree. I think this is absolutely about reminding the club that they have a striker on their books less than a week before they potentially buy another one.

Actually in Europe we only have a continental competition once ever FOUR years but I like the implication that I'm making some post-colonial point. Please don't try and play the race card with me, you understand? The European competition is also held in our off-season. Now I'm sure there are reasons why the ACON can't be held in the same period, but we both know I'll just refer to the World Cup in South Africa or the upcoming one in Qatar.

I'm judging him as I would judge any other adult male who has a choice in life to make. Now the ACON is a joke in so many ways with it being every other year and being held in the midst of the major leagues' seasons, but each man has choices to make in life and Mikel is supposed to be one of our senior players yet he is choosing to put his national team ahead of his club teammates. In future, maybe we shouldn't sign players who may choose to go to an international tournament in January.

We all have choices to make in life. He has made a choice in this matter and that is something I feel is absolutely open to a honest discussion. Now of course we chose to sign him and other players in that position. Maybe in future we shouldn't.

Without googling can you name the last 4 winners of it? Personally, I can't. But I can with the World Cup, the Euros and the CL. The fact that it's every other year DURING the league season just makes it even more objectionable. For some reason Shola Ameobi isn't joining up with the Nigerian squad too. Let's not go over that rather sordid little piece of our recent history again, but suffice to say that threatening to break someone's legs isn't the only way to go about things. He has options. We all do. We aren't slaves to patriotism - it's a personal choice.

I have a problem with the ACON, but I also think Mikel is now one of the senior members of our squad and for better or worse we need him. The fact he got suspended (and the 3 game suspension was extremely light and we got lucky) doesn't help.

So Mikel is one of our senior players, but he let himself and the club down and missed 3 games through suspension. Now he's off to the African Cup of Nations to miss more games when the club needs him? Would someone either direct him to look at the badge on his chest or the employer's name on his wage slip?

Moses should be available for the game, but it does raise the point that the ACON is a stupid fucking tournament and I wonder why players like Victor and especially Mikel feel like they should go off and play in it every other year.

They'll probably want 4 top strikers - RVP, Lewandowski, Hernandez and Welbeck.

His agent has seen two other youngsters make their league debuts in the last week whilst we're selling the only other striker we currently have on the books. He's just making some noise like any agent would and I hope it actually leads to Feruz getting some playing time because he does look a little bit special.

At times he reminds me so much of Zola....and then I remember we didn't sign Franco until he was 30 and Mata has so much time to mature. What will be key to his Chelsea career will be how Oscar progresses as a deeper-lying midfielder.

He actually moves like Ruud too. He's got a laid back style (too much so sometimes) but I think he could be a bit like Chalobah where he can play in both positions, but ultimately be more of a DM.

I actually have in this thread. I didn't think he had what it took to be a midfielder, but he's demonstrated that he might. I also questioned his leadership abilities prematurely.

We have a £24 million investment who we don't trust to play in defence, yet might solve some problems in midfield. I saw your comments on his game yesterday, and I also saw the responses of a number of supporters who watched the game and quite vehemently disagreed with you. I doubt you're trolling, but just because it's an opinion doesn't mean it can't be wrong. In fact the most important point that arose from yesterday's game was whether both Mikel and Luiz can play together. There seemed to be some real problems with positioning and that seemed to coincide with Norwich pressuring us. When Mikel went off we looked a lot more comfortable so maybe we have to start looking at Luiz as our main DM and someone alongside him like Lamps or Rami.

United could be planning to move Rooney back into midfield for real. That leaves them a striker light up top.

It's almost as if he's played the position less than half-a-dozen times. He's shown enough in his games there for us to continue with the experiment. Yesterday he struggled until Mikel went off, and then he seemed to settle down. His shooting was off but it was the right conditions to test the keeper from that range, especially with the way Norwich defended. Arguing about what type of midfielder he is after 4 games in that position seems a little premature. Personally I'd be inclined to go with him in midfield against Everton too but that depends on his fitness as well as Mikel and Ramires. And I'm not sure what point you're making about him being by the opposition's corner flag, but Lampard was in a similar position when he came on too. Clearly Rafa wanted a certain amount of attacking from whoever was playing that position.