Barbara

fuck DIEGO COSTA YEAH!!!!!!

You're exaggerating. He hasn't been left all on his own like that. He definitely isn't making a two-men job. You don't like Cesc in the team, we all know that. You've been unfair to him though

come on, boys, no wasteful football. Let's get this around in the first half already.

he's making individual mistakes that have nothing to do with who's by his side. His bad judgment about passing the ball cost us a goal, his passing has been shocking, what does it have to do with his partner? Things are not perfect in our midfield, but he's technically poor. Technically.

at this pace Swansea won't end this match with 11 players.

Matic is really having a mare in this match and overall at the start of the season. If he doesn't play well, we're fucked, no matter who partners with him... unless we have both Mikel AND Ramires, but that's too much, we're already over it, but we need Matic to perform.

well, we're getting things under control and we're starting to pressure them. I still see us winning this.

yep, really don't want to keep this defense harmony, because there's none...

Fucking Matic fault this goal

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#Swans starting XI v @chelseafc: Fabianski, Rangel, Amat, Williams ©, Taylor, Ki, Shelvey, Sigurdsson, Dyer, Routledge, Gomis. no Bony

Chelsea FC ‏@chelseafc now Team to play Swansea: Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry ©, Azpilicueta; Matic, Fabregas; Schurrle, Oscar, Hazard; Diego Costa. #CFC perfect team is perfect edit: Subs v Swansea: Cech, Filipe Luis, Zouma, Ramires, Salah, Remy, Willian. #CFC

Well, my mother - if she had continued her football career, at age 54 could be Brazil's striker right now. We've been stinking on that for a while and the only good one we actually produced we ignored and then he chose to play for Spain. We double-suck, we're almost as bad as Wenger. Almost.

tbh what I think he should maintain is the same level throughout most of the season, regardless of how many goals/assists he ends up with. As someone said - I guess it was Bir_CFC - it's too much to ask him to play what he did in December for a whole season because he's still young, inconsistency is part of the package. But sometimes he goes through a few matches contributing with too little except a few dribbles that don't lead to anything concrete. I mean a player of his talent and ability should be able to offer more than a few dribbles in a streak of matches. That's what I hope he improves this season, he's becoming 24 in January, there's still time to polish his game afterwards, but he's been inconsistent imo, I'd rather somewhere between his peak and his average matches at most of the matches rather than 7-8 matches a season when he's unstoppable and then 20 matches where he's okay and 10 matches where he does effectively nothing. Putting it in rating system (a real, fair rating system, not that whoscored bullshit) I'd rather 30 matches rated 8.0, helping the team win - even if it's with the pass before the assist (he doesn't need to assist and score at all times), rather than 7-8 rated 9.5/10, 20 rated 7.0 and 10 rated 6.0. Hazard isn't Ramires... we should have a different standard for him because he's a special player, I can't have the same expectations for Ramires and Hazard. The only players in the team I expect the same as I expect from Hazard are Costa and Cesc - not that they're as talented, but they're too determined and also very good footballers that I think can pave our path to the title more than others. I expect the same from Hazard, the rest of the team isn't as talented as those three, so of course, I won't expect as much from them, but I'm sure some of them will surprise me along the way.

they're losing because Welbeck sucks... and also because Wenger doesn't know shit

regardless of the tactics, Ozil is a CAM he should be played in the CENTER at ALL TIMES. What's the point of Wenger making a big signing if he doesn't know how to use the players properly?

absolutely, I'm hoping for a late Ramsey equalizer, what I meant is always tough to count on Arsenal to beat big teams. We have to do it ourselves... and hopefully we'll do next week. City had been our achilles heel for a while until last season. Hope we carry on the good performance against them.

Flamini, lol, nice goal and all, but watching Flamini being beat in the midfield NEVER gets old. Nor does Arsenal losing. We'll handle with City ourselves next week - just like we did last season. Even if I have to make another bet/promise

how come? They had to deal with Jovetic injury and it led Pelegrini to bench Dzeko because in their usual 2 strikers system if he starts with both he has no substitute. They lost Yaya and his replacement is Lampard (who I love, but lol, talk about underwhelming). Their AMs are no better than ours, their keeper and his sub are no big deal and their defense despite now having Mangala isn't that deep in the bench. We have better backup FBs, better backup defense (if we count Iva there), we have better backup midfield (Ramires, Oscar, and even Mikel don't compromise playing in the midfield) we have better AMs Hazard, Schurrle, Willian, Oscar, Cesc (who can play #10) and Salah is better depth than they do. And even their strike advantage - as proved in today's match - is now smaller (or maybe even nonexistent) now that Negredo is off... But maybe I'm missing something (no sarcasm) about their bench... how are they better than us? I'd like you to expand. Maybe I'll agree.

and they say City have a better bench than us... I don't get how their squad is deeper than ours...

Thread of the day to avoid: Frank Lampard. I'm already cringing only imagining what I could be reading there...

I meant life/career goals, as in objectives, not goal scoring. What does his ambitions have to do with goal scoring? Goals isn't only a football related word. If he's relieved that now he doesn't need to be the man, then that's where I read it. I read that same interview in three or four different sources, all of them headline he's relieved Cesc and Costa are here... Which as I said isn't a problem for Chelsea. Cesc and Costa will benefit from Hazard feeling more free. Chelsea will benefit from the three of them offering goals and assists. The only one who doesn't benefit from it all is Hazard - in a career view. That's the thing YOU assumed I singled him out. Was I talking about us as a team? Was I talking about who's responsible for us losing the league? NO! I was talking about Hazard in his thread. I said the same about Ramires and Oscar in their threads last season. I've criticized Cech in his thread last season. So because YOU think I singled him out, it doesn't mean I did. Should I bring everyone else to a discussion about Hazard just to level it out? Please... And I'm all for different views and opinions and I love a discussion - as if it haven't been clear yet. The thing is discussing things in this thread unless is sucking Hazard up isn't productive in general. There's always the lecture, always, always, always. We can't talk about his poor WC - because guess what, it wasn't poor. We can't talk about his inconsistency, because guess what, he isn't inconsistent, we can't talk about his apparent lack of hunger, because guess what, he's very hungry. We can only talk about how awesome he is and post vids of his flicks. Anything else we get lectured right and left. Did you purposefully didn't copy the rest of that sentence because it didn't fit your agenda or did you missed the part where I said with all words that I'm sure I would have agreed/liked with most of what he said? I don't need to read something that is meant to be a lecture about something I already know. Knowing his age, his potential, his talent, knowing that isn't fair to expect him to be a score machine or to compare him to Cristiano and Messi is obvious, an understatement that I don't need to read for the 100th just because someone dared to say Hazard isn't this complete player, just behind both Cris and Messi as some here think. I only compared their attitude... something you can see for example in Schurrle. The interview Madmax (I think) posted yesterday in SChurrle's thread is a testament to hunger, bite, drive. Coincidently enough we've NEVER read or watched Hazard saying those sort of things... actually he once said he doesn't like to train... Oh, right, your opinion is a fact right? You, the one defending that forums are discussion places, where people are showing different views, now is talking about facts. Your opinion is a fact, the disagreement isn't. Yep, I got it. Marvelous theory. But as I can't have an opinion and discuss it, I can only have facts (despite your opinion automatically being a fact), I'll provide you a few. The stats I posted a few weeks back when I broke down Hazard's contribution to the team month by month that shows clearly he only had a hot streak between the end of november and early february didn't have people quoting me with their facts. Said break down shows he was inconsistent - like many of our players - and normally nobody quotes you saying otherwise, because guess what, that's a very tangible, undeniable fact. When I say Hazard's never given an interview like Schurrle did normally doesn't have anyone quoting me with their facts (this isn't the first time I point out Hazard seems to be quite comfortable with his talent). Stating the OBVIOUS that Hazard doesn't have a mentality and a drive such as Schurrle, Bale, Cristiano (in his United days, to make it fair and put him in the same age bracket as Hazard), Costa, etc.. doesn't have people quoting me with the interviews where Hazard is in theory showing that. So, mate, could you please give me the facts I've missed? Or are you going to only give me your opinion, advocate that people should have opinions in a forum and then tell me my opinion isn't valid because I don't provide facts? I'm sort of confused between the free opinion and the fact thing. I'll settle to disagreeing to your facts. That's my invalid opinion.

Unless somehow I felt like not winning another league title for 5 years I would take him back. Now if I wanted to see Chelsea winning the league, then no thanks. Been there, done that. He doesn't work for English football in general, much less to the system Mourinho has here. And yeah I'm absolutely stating he compromises our title chances. But he writes nice blog entries... there's that.If Oscar doesn't work we should move to someone else who does. Mata ain't that player and we need him creatively even less now with Cesc in the team. He offers very little effectively, reason why he'll probably warm United bench too

I don't see it as urgent to be honest. Who is really interested in Oscar? Why would they? He didn't have a good season - only a good half, he didn't have a good WC (although not terrible either). His form's been on limbo and so is interest for him imo. Of course, it'd be wiser to extend his contract now - so it'd prevent him from asking too much money if he's at the top of his game - on the other hand is also a risk. What if after another year he proves to still struggle to keep up from the winter on? Then it makes much more sense for the club to let him go rather than keep him. If he doesn't get used to the winter days and the league in three years, I think he never will. I'd wait and assess it further later if I was the board. There's no rush because there's no one seriously coming. I've never even bought PSG interest. Don't remember if their board or president acknowledged them back then...

actually you corrected me on Oscar. He does have it on him sometimes, but I'd say only against medium-paced players. But he doesn't have a chance against fast players. I can remember two or three runs by Oscar beating a marker last season