mjcreswick

As good as it is that we don't have one stand out player and that its split across the group, I think this may be our come down when it comes to where the title ends up at the end of the season. Even when we had Drogba I know people will argue that he wasn't just there to score goals he had a bigger influence on the team than that. But to win the league I think you need one, maybe two stand out players. If we had a player in the form of an Aguero, or a Suarez, that top 5 looks like a title winning 5.

Discussion at work on what our best 5 a-side team would be, then onto who would win the league and Champions League if it was a 5 a-side indoor tournament. My CFC team; Terry(GK) Luiz Oscar Hazard Willian Barcelona would be pretty scary, as would Liverpool's as much as it hurts to say it!

There's 9 of us coming up on the friday, any idea where Chelsea fans will meet Saturday morning?

I'm not enjoying our comparisons to Arsenal, whose squad is super thin compared to ours. Yes they've started well, but once they get injuries and/or suspensions to key players around christmas time is when you see the teams with the best squads really take over. With 4 competitions to play for, we've got 3 strikers, 6 attacking midfielders and more than adequate cover in midfield and defence. However, I firmly believe we need to realise our best team, or even if we can't do that, decide on a starting line-up for the next month and stick to that as much as we can, even top quality players need time to adjust to one another.

A lot of people stated when Benitez left that our main transfer targets should be a centre forward and a centre midfielder, we haven't strengthen either with enough quality. Our team would look so much better with a De Rossi style player holding, and a Rooney/Lewandoski up top. My first 11 at the moment would be ; Cech Ivan/Dave Cahill Terry Cole Mikel Oscar Hazard Mata Schurrle Eto Cech and the back 4 speak for themselves, defensively we are fine. While however much I rate Lampard, and dont rate Mikel, he needs to play if we are playing this system, someone needs to sit - he's the only player we've got who can. Going forward, the problem we had last night was that the attacking midfielders all wanted to do the same thing, playing Schurrle out right might give us a outlet, someone who will get his head down and run at his defender - exactly what Moses did! Centre forward can be one of three, none have done anything to be put in above another, however for me it has to be Eto or Ba.

Undecided on this one. Part of me thinks that it might be good, get him another season of playing every week, Eto's is the short term option for one year and then Lukaku will be ready to go. The other half of me thinks a club like Chelsea plays a lot of games, we could easily afford to keep him and play him once a week. If Eto'o doesn't settle and play well from day one then again we've got ourselves 3 mis-firing strikers.

It's because the strikers you name wouldn't improve us that much. Rooney is an obvious choice if he wants to leave United, he's proven in the Premierleague, and in a World Cup year he has to deliver. City would never of sold Tevez to us, while as good as Gomez, Aubameyang, Osvaldo and Bony are, I dont think they are miles ahead of Torres, Ba and Lukaku.

By the way, what pubs are we looking at going to before the game? Or do most people drink in the ground?

I'd be very suprised if we didn't go 3 in the middle. Oscar could drop in; Rami Oscar Lams Or leave out Oscar/Mata; Essien/Mikel Lamps Rami

I bloody love cereal

Stop it!

If I had to call it now, I'd go 1. City 2. Chelsea 3. United I think we will definatley challenge, but come up just short, which our young players will learn a lot from. I think we with Lampard playing less games and no world class striker we lack someone who will win games when we are really up against it. We are relying on a younger player having a phenominal season, HOWEVER this is a possibility. If Hazard or Lukaku have outrageous seasons then there's no reason why we cant pip City to it. I think we are a De Rossi and Rooney off the title.

There are a few of us looking at going up to Newcastle for the away fixture at the start of November, on the Friday and coming back on the Sunday. Just wondering if anyone else has sorted out travel up there? Cheapest trains are around £85 which seems quite pricey considering we went up to Sunderland last year for around £40. Cheers

I seem to remember a certain Mateja Kezman coming from the dutch league and scoring for fun in pre-season.

Decent first game, however was hoping for Southampton or Palace away. In terms of United away, from past experience does anyone know if that game will go on loyalty points from last season?