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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

The main reason I'm absolutely SURE he'll start against Schalke unless he has a physical issue is because this is a guy who's reached an UCL final last season. He has Europe experience (not saying Azpili doesn't) and football in Europe is NEVER as physical as in England. So it's perfect, he has the experience and the quality and he won't be demanded physically (where he seems to still be struggling to catch up) as he would in the league. I mean, how those two things don't make him the perfect scenario for him to start? Where are the risks that I fail to see? I see advantages actually. And what defense harmony are we talking about here in the first place? If anything, our defense hasn't been as harmonic as it used to be, we failed in all goals we've conceded this season - except Etoo's in my opinion )although José disagrees about that goal) and we could have conceded two more against Leicester hasn't Thibaut been brilliant. We've changed systems, the defense is still adapting, as well as the midfield, and our players aren't there yet fitness wise. If anything this 'harmony' needs to go away and the consistency from last season to come back (as much as it's possible with the new system in charge - that will undoubtedly affect us defensively to a certain extend). The more I read Jason's posts about this harmony thing, the less it makes sense for me. And my two points from the previous paragraph stand... So I'll settle for agreeing to disagree.

I'm so happy for this extension I really hope he has a similar career here to what Cech has been: long time, a leader in defense, a legend to this club. I do hope this is only his first contract extension with us. Now can we move to the next Belgian in line, Emenalo? There's another one that also needs a contract extension and preferably a crazy release clause - something like 200m. That way nobody can take him away because as crazy as football spendings have been, with FFP nobody can spend something like that and I can't foresee it changing in five years... I feel if we don't set a high release clause - insanely, impossible to reach release clause - we'll lose Hazard (not necessarily to Madrid though, don't think they'd go for him next season).

It wasn't Eden who said it, he would never say something like that. It was someone here (just before my post). What I said about him is that I think is that sometimes his speeches don't match.Saying he wants to win the Balon d'Or and be the best player in the world and work hard for it to happen is something he's said in the past and without sounding arrogant. It showed ambition and I liked it. Now saying he's seemingly happy that someone else has to step up - it doesn't matter if scoring or assisting - doesn't match the first speech. Can you see a discrepancy between those two speeches and his goals? Nobody has to be Messi or Ronaldo talent-wise, scoring-wise, but everyone can step up to be their team's star and the man who wins them matches. I do think he lacks a bit of drive, but he's young, and I'm willing to wait, I just said I'm not too emphatic about my predictions about him because I don't know if he has the mentality a player like Cris and Messi have. I was comparing their attitude, I didn't touch talent (said many brazilians were talented and never reached their potential because they had the wrong mentality), I didn't touch goal scoring (never even mentioned it in any of my posts), it was all about having the mentality in addition to the talent (his relief about not being the guy that will win matches is worrying for his development). I see much less talent in Bale, but also much more hunger and balls. My point about his bad form at the end of the season (and early in the season too) is just so people can be a little more realistic about him - I never meant we lost the league because of him, but when we needed him the most, he wasn't there. So wasn't Oscar, so wasn't Ramires, so weren't our strikers (those had never been there anyway). The way people talk here it was as if Hazard has done his part and the rest of the team didn't and THAT is ABSOLUTELY unfair. He did his part, but only for a while - as did many others - but he didn't do it consistently - as didn't many others. He didn't have a great season. He had a great streak between November/December until early February (do people even realize that this doesn't correspond to even half of a season?). From March on he wasn't productive, he slowly faded until he go injured around mid-April. If someone who's never watched Chelsea in their life came to this forum, the feeling they would get from most posts here would be: Hazard was a hell of a player, carried the team and we didn't win the league because we didn't have strikers, because Oscar had a horrible second half of the season, because Ramires had a terrible second half of the season, because our FBs didn't support the attack, because Cech had some important failures, etc... Those things are true, but the Hazard part is a lie. I know it's something new for some people and many others don't accept it at all, but Hazard has flaws just like any other player and addressing them isn't a sin or a crime and shouldn't led people to be lectured. A lot of people are saying we should read Excalibur's post, but I didn't and I won't. I know there's probably a lot of right things there, but the problem is Hazard became a myth in this forum that can't be ever criticized without people overreacting. The rest of the team had ups and downs, but Hazard - because of the mouthwatering style - is always labeled as this amazing, complete player, when he isn't yet and he gets credit for a lot of things he didn't do - such as having an amazing season. I want more from him this season, the same way I want from Oscar, Schurrle and Willian. They can - and hopefully - will be more productive and consistent. I even said in my second post that if he checked all the right boxes and still didn't win the award, it'd be okay. I don't think he's going to be a scoring machine, but at this point, based on his previous season, he won't be an assist machine either. He needs to step up and be more consistent, like all our young players. And it's okay to demand that from the others, but it causes a problem every time someone mentions the same about Hazard...

Só there's a headline saying 'Hazard is relieved to have others to take matters in their hands' and 1 people read it as a joke, 2 a younger player shouldn't be challenged and willing to show the world what he's capable of? So when he should show ambition he's just happy someone else is stepping up. Then you read ir listen another interview of him saying his goal is to win Balon d'or. Am I the only one to catch a discrepancy between both speeches? And his attitude reflects a lot more this interview than previous ones. When the team needed him the most in the title run in he went MIA scoring literally only from penalties and assisting once or twice. What I do feel n this forum is a huge bias and a lot of overrating the actual influence he's had. He's amazing, very talented and had amazing streaks of football brilliance. But for some he's already better than Ronaldo or just behind him and Messi when he isn't. I'm not saying he should be now or even ever, but every time someone talk about his weakness, limitations or shows uncertainty about him fulfilling his potential they're labeled as a disgrace. People should show patience, but others should also be able to show concern about his development and analyze his attitude, concrete contribution, etc. One thing doesn't automatically denies the other. The awards he so much wants won't come just because he wants them hard or TC members think he should win them. They come as a result of a lot of hard work and hunger to win (matches) and definitely balls that I hope we'll see from him. And if he doesn't win those awards but shows those things, it won't matter as he'll definitely be one of the best. As someone said, it depends entirely on him...

what's the point of guy supposedly being able to run if he doesn't bother because he's lazy. I think there's a hell lot to do with how pacey or not he is. Magic Lamps has been very assertive in all his analysis on German players, he's a football fan and he's been watching Ozil for a long while. It's not even about you agreeing or disagreeing, but going as far as saying he clearly doesn't know Ozil... a bit too precious, don't you think? It's really surprising that you assess Ozil like that when most people I know don't - me being one of them. As a Madrid fan I've watched a lot of them until 2012. Haven't watched last season - then again Ozil was already at Arsenal - and it puzzles me that you think he can beat players with pace. Unless you mean the likes of John Terry - who are very slow. Ozil doesn't like to run, prefers to pass, takes the shortcuts whenever he can (hence why I call him lazy) and he doesn't beat many with pace. Can't remember one single play of it happening... but if you think so, be my guest. But Magic Lamps knows his stuff when he talks about German players - even if I disagree with him in many other things, normally he's assessment of them is spot on. I do think Oscar is also slow, and I even joked about him trying to beat someone with pace against Leicester. Not gonna happen... he doesn't have it on him.

He's german, has been watching Ozil since he's a professional and you dare to say he clearly doesn't know Ozil? Sorry, but that's at least ironic, not to say funny... Also Ozil is slow although I'm not advocating Oscar is faster. I tend to agree more about your assessment on Oscar than yours on Ozil. Ozil not only is slow, but also lazy...

I think he's bored to hell with a one-horse race in France. The league wouldn't challenge him and it could even affect his team's competitiveness when tougher opposition came in UCL. I don't see him moving there at all. He'd probably work in Germany - where he hasn't and I'm sure he wouldn't pass the chance to compete against Pep again although I think Pep won't last much there (and I can't see Mourinho leaving at least not until the end of next season. Things would have to do unbelievably wrong for him to be sacked in the next two years imo). Other than that I could see him maybe trying the international thing earlier than he predicted. I don't know, he hates Spanish media with reason, Italy is in decline and he's an Interista at heart. It's either staying in England or going to Germany if he doesn't want to go NT yet. He won't leave any time soon though imo.

Still not comparable imo... also I'd be very surprised if Luís got the same treatment as Cole... VERY surprised. He isn't fit yet for EPL and that's been clear from PS and Mourinho must have an even better idea based on trainings. I don't think Cole could be used from time to time, while he was still useful offensively he was a liability defensively losing most of the runs on his flank. He exposed the team, especially against fast wingers and FBs. Luís doesn't expose us and we're talking about a player that could have been the very best LB last season or at least a top 3. Chelsea didn't have then FB that would make even the top 5 in the continent, probably a bit worse, but now we have Ivanovic playing as the best FB in the world. I haven't been watching much football, but based on what I've watched last season from other FBs and having watched all our games, I can't think of anyone that could be better than him. A beast attacking and completely unrelenting defending. He's been immense. Azpili on the other hand hasn't been as good as last season, offers literally nothing in our attack (although if memory serves he did took part in one of our goals, but maybe that was during pre-season)... but between a Cesar who hasn't been brilliant and a Luís who hasn't learned how to cope yet, I think Azpili is by far the safer bet, especially in a defense that seems sort of shaky at the moment.

he wouldn't go to Milan because of that but also because Italian football is declining, they can't offer him a competitive team in Europe and as I said he's above managing those profile of teams at this stage of his career... but even if they could afford everything he'd demand, I also believe he wouldn't go there. He even said he likes Torres and would have preferred him to go to Inter instead of Milan. For the first time in my life I'd be sad for Mourinho and I supporting the same team if it meant he sent Torres to Inter. No, thank you.