Barbara

you're both missing the point, lads. Swansea is just after Hull for a reason. Those are the people betting against Chelsea and ManUtd... not really betting on Hull and Swansea Is it going to be broadcast somewhere? Chelsea TV or else?

I don't have a clue of the first thing, Ankit I tried to convince my brother to join - he said he forgets to update his team way too often - and when he asked me if it was like the one we have in Brazil for our league I couldn't say. I thought the main thing was to make money - having a valuable team, but he explained me that it's probably the case of receiving points based on the players' performance. Then I decided to read the entire help section... He was right and I'm still the most clueless person playing this ever. But I've got the team I want to play the entire season with. I'll do two changes in two weeks for now - coincidentally when Chelsea won't play - to settle that team and I'll only use the first wildcard if I do really bad or if there's this one player that I paid a lot for that became a liability as you said. Otherwise I only plan to do changes in the January window if it affects my team too much. I will follow it weekly, but I decided to face it more realistically and pretend if my team was a real club I wouldn't have the chance to keep adding players every week. I know it makes no sense to think like that, but as I said, if I do really, really, really bad, I'll use the wildcard to set up a new team. Do you want to see my team and see if I'm not embarrassedly too off the mark? And don't copy me if for some sort of miracle it's a good one.

Another evidence of Mourinho's power. Daily Mail's predictions about who will win English and European titles next season: The start of the new Premier League season is here... so it's time for our experts to put their necks on the line It makes me smile to see Mourinho's name in basically all of them who chose Chelsea

My defence was the only part I would have top teams only players I think our defence will be the best in the league under Mourinho... I'll sack Mertesacker for someone cheaper so I can afford Ivan My starting XI is 2 Chelsea (gave Carzola up to have Terry), 2 Arsenal, 1 Swansea, 1 West Ham, 1 ManU, 1 Sunderland, 1 West Brom, 1 Southampton and 1 ManC

don't crash my dreams like that, K! I worked around my budget and I ended up with only Hazard and I'm quite content with what I have, but I want to replace Jagielka for Ivanovic or Terry. It's a 0.5-1 pound difference *cries copiously* I want my defence to be Chelsea, ManC and Arsenal

is there a way I'll get more money as the weeks go? To have my perfect team I'm missing ONE FRIGGING pound! I can't believe it! Please, lads, be nice to the hysteric girl and reassure her if she goes well she may have the extra pound to spend in a few weeks

This is the Sassy Mou I love Mourinho: I'm back at Chelsea to heal the family rift after Benitez fall out

I have Luiz and Oscar, but I'll probably drop Luiz if it's confirmed tomorrow he won't play the weekend... Mata probably won't play 60 minutes if he plays at all, so I wouldn't choose him either. There's a chance Kevin can play, but am I the only one to think some of our players - especially the ones who never played EPL are very expensive? I wanted to have Kevin but I'm way passed the point of having 8M to spend. I had 10M to buy another 3 players when I realized that wasn't like my credit card Keep in mind that Chelsea and Aston Villa will play twice in the first week so choosing players from both teams may give you a chance to double your points

because the alternative is so painful we prefer to live in delusional denial. *nightmares*

someone had to replace SAF properly

that quote, plus what Dani Cunt Alves said, convinces me that even if David wanted to go and asked the board, we aren't releasing him. So I'm not preoccupied now

so much quality, as always, Peace. I don't like 4-2-3-1 almost as a rule. It works terribly for our kind of players imo for the reasons you so perfectly pointed out. An alternative would be Oscar replacing Kevin, but then there would be two situations: play Mata in LW or play Oscar in LW and I'm not sure Oscar's contribuition with the defending will be as good if he's played in the wing. And to have Oscar in the center with Mata in the right, seems sort of a waste. So I'd rather play a 4-3-3 than a 4-2-3-1 with Mata - Oscar - Hazard in the three. I think unless we have this DLP that will really soothe the transition between our pivot and AM we aren't suited for a 4-2-3-1 because we have players to make a much better 4-3-3.

I really like what Adidas did with those pics. I'm tempted to use one of them as a sig just because they're damn perfect aesthetically!

Ibrahimovic Rooney Any Barça player

Dani Alves got what he deserved scoring an own goal today. That's for being a cunt, a diver, a Barça player and for harassing David to go.

As an Inter fan I politely disagree about Milito has always been good... or been good at all God knows how much us Interistas lose our hair with his misses... there are tons of them every match. But he still scores more than Torres, so yeah, it's a good thing, but he isn't broadly known as someone really good.

PM Steve for the private league codes

btw that was a fangirl response. I missed the after it. I meant to simply take a chance to fangirl on him. I'm a huge fan.

and when he isn't?

I like two formations, and between then I think this 4-3-3 fits our players better. 4-3-3 Cech Ivan - Luiz - Terry - Cole Ramires - Van Ginkel Oscar Mata - Hazard ??* 4-2-31 Cech Ivan - Luiz - Terry - Cole Ramires - Van Ginkel Kevin - Mata - Hazard ??* *I'm really not convinced Lukaku should start for two reasons: 1) emotionally 2) technically 1) It's a lot of pressure on him to be the answer to our attacking issues. I think he has all the tools to be better for us than Torres, but I think we should be careful in how we make the transition. Watching his pre-season matches (in US), his match today for Belgium I think his age and immaturity are showing right now (and he was also sort of nervous in some of those matches) - and that's understandable because he's only 20. So I'd rather him to gradually become our first option rather than throw him to the lions and I'd be really surprised if Mourinho has a different plan (unless he's showing much more confidence in the training sessions - we never know what happens there and Mourinho has thrown players even younger than him in first squads in the past because of how confident they were in training sessions). The same people that are so vocal about him now will bitch about him in a month if he feels the pressure and starts to perform badly. I've seen players never really recovery emotionally for things like that and others to take literally years. Why risk the boy? Let's not forget he's a boy. If Eto'o comes, Samu is my starter for the rest of the season and it's much better for Lukaku to have Eto'o rather than Rooney. I think Roo could jeopardize this evolution I'm talking about. With Eto'o, Lukaku could start a few matches and it won't become a problem to Samuel whereas Rooney doesn't deal well with the bench. I'm not saying Eto'o >> Rooney, but I'm just looking at it from Lukaku's perspective and having to invest in the future I'd rather invest in Lukaku's rather than Rooney's. I'm not saying Rooney would ruin Lukaku's future either (sometimes people take our posts too extremely), I'm just saying one scenario benefits Romelu better than the other and out of all strikers we have and the ones linked to us now, Lukaku is still the best prospect in let's say two years from now and I favor his future over any of those other future's. 2) Because of his age and inexperience in a big team like Chelsea, he needs to improve a few areas, in addition to a few traits. Right now he's clumsy, raw, and sometimes too sloppy and really, really naïve. He needs experience and more practice imo. So I'd prefer him to have in Chelsea a similar season to what he had in West Brom, starting a few matches and coming as sub in all the rest. He's a must in the second half. Those are the traits and in addition to those there are a few things in his game that he needs to improve. Of course he needs minutes to cement those improvements, which is why I think he should play all matches, but come from the bench the majority.

we disagree then, mate. I think he had a terrible match, but I'll give you that I didn't really pay much attention in the second half (more like the end of it). But I didn't miss the miss I'm not comparing him to any 20yo either. I just reported what I saw and my personal opinion on that. His age, others about the same age was never implicit or relevant to my point. Perception is subjective and so is expectation. It's not me exaggerating, it's me not being accommodating to him. I've just learned for Belgians there's a special level for Kevin performances in the NT and I guess the same can't be true to Lukaku. Which is why at first it would seem crazy to see more Belgians complaining about Kevin than Romelu when Kevin was much better in the match. So I guess we look at the player in a different way, in addition to having different opinions about his performance. My commentators had much worse words about him than I did, so I guess this is subjective. If you want exaggeration search Lukaku on twitter and your countrymen (and French) may have different opinions from what my poor French was able to catch and what my English, Spanish and even Portuguese caught. No Dutch for me though. To be honest I don't care about Benteke (I'm not being rude, just stating how I feel about Benteke, I know sometimes those written sentences sound much harsher than intended). As a Chelsea fan I was paying attention to our players, so that's my assessment of Lukaku's performance. It seems like André had a similar miss for Germany that could have given them the winner, so it seems like Torres isn't influencing only Romelu And don't be so defensive. A friendly's performance 4 days before the season starts is really irrelevant in the big scheme of things (both for Belgium and Chelsea). How good or bad Romelu or whoever was won't really tell much about their season.

I was wondering why Benteke was benched to be honest - and that was before the match started.

but France isn't close to the shadow of what they were... seriously they've been sucking a lot for a few years now... their match against Brazil just before CC was one of the worst matches I've seen a French side bringing... they really aren't the standard...sadly

the Belgians seem to think Kevin was bad, I think he did some nice plays in the first half. I suppose their bar is too high He had a few bad moments, but still not shitty. Lukaku has showed one of the worst displays I've seen by him. Awful through and through and the sitter he missed... terrible. Hazard was okay - this is a friendly, chances are he won't show his best here especially when there's an official match for him in 4 days.