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You're joking right? I think you'll get Semis at least, you're underestimating Mourinho and the squad in general. The only teams that I can't see Chelsea beating are Bayern and Dortmund because of the speed of their play. If you avoid them two you might get to the final.

I think this game showed how far we have regressed under Wenger in recent years, shocking performance and all-round lack of quality . Will be a cricket score on Wednesday if we don't step up. But one word for the dippers: take that you scouser scum!

This isn't cautious Mancini. Pellegrini plays unhinged attacking football, there is no way Sunderland are going to withstand the firepower, especially if he plays them as relentlessly as he played with Malaga against Dortmund in Germany. This maniac will attack right to the very end. Two very different managers mate.

League cup is already in the bag. I can't see anyone stopping them in the FA cup. Who knows how much they will win but to be comfortably 1-0 up against Chelsea without Navas, Fernandinho, Nasri, Negredo or Aguero on the pitch, I'm sorry but that's outrageous. They got a good result away at Bayern with players rested as well, this team is built to get more than 2 cups in my opinion, but 2 cups would still be a fantastic achievement for Pellegrini in his first season here. It will be interesting to see how far they go in the CL, there is no reason why they cannot go all the way to the semis at least. If they get smashed by Barca, that's on Pellegrini.

He is underrated in my opinion, I knew the game was over as soon as he came on. He has a brilliant first touch, his movement and awareness of the players around him is good to watch as well. Gotze and Reus have nothing on him.

I have to credit to Salah though, very brave move to come to Chelsea under Mourinho, he must have seen Mata being thrown out head first. Jose has a track record of not tolerating players that are not up to his standard, he even managed to banish the likes of Kaka and Casillas out of the team at Real. He's a ruthless manager and it's a risky move for Salah.

Silva and Toure took complete control in midfield and Chelsea couldn't really wrestle them off today. It was only going to get worse when Nasri came on. I think Mikel really let the team down, so did Ramirez and Matic. Chelsea's transition was hesitant rather than swift. If City can circulate the ball quickly in the final third, they might cause Barca's shambolic defence some problems.

You're absolutely right, from 2009-2011, we were starting to build a serious team capable of fighting for many trophies, everybody could see that which is why Kolo Toure wanted Arsene to get Yaya from Barca. David Villa was desperate to come to Arsenal long before Barca swooped into him. David Silva was also available. We needed a good holding player like Yaya Toure or an attacking midfielder like David Silva. I remember at the time I said to many people that the final piece of the puzzle was Yaya Toure, if we had him, I honestly can't see how we couldn't lift the league title, it stank of a lack of ambition that we relied on a fit Fabregas the entire season. This is the reason why there was a mass exodus, it was obvious that Wenger and Arsenal preferred a fragile squad rather than one with depth. Going forward the same problems will occur, we will always be missing a player here or there to mount a serious assault on trophies. The only peculiar thing is, where will it leave Ozil? He's a signing which I honestly can't make sense of. Wenger must know that he is in his prime age and is here for trophies and yet he's more than happy to field Giroud and Bendtner in front of him the entire season, it boggles the mind. I think Ramsey and Wilshere will be the bedrock of future Arsenal teams but yes, there will be continual rebuilding and a lot of patience with regards to players who are still maturing like Gibbs,Ramsey, Wilshere and Oxlade Chamberlain. Players like Rosicky and Podolski won't be here when we eventually win something or go close to winning something, they will be too old. Again, I have no idea where Ozil will be, but he definitely shouldn't be in a team relying on the likes of Chamberlian, Gnabry, Giroud and Arteta. Wenger will have to sign players of serious quality to keep Ozil content otherwise he won't be here beyond next season.

I'm glad you recognize how good that 2011 Arsenal team was. It looked like all of Wenger's hard work was coming into fruition, we went away to Man City, played them off the pitch and destroyed them 3-0, we beat Chelsea at home 3-1 who we haven't beaten for light years. We beat bloody Barca at home. Our football was immaculate and I honestly felt like we could take any team on. The problem was there was absolutely no strength in depth. Injuries to Walcott and Fabregas and the season was over. Instead of building on that team, it was dismantled and here we are back to square one. This current Arsenal team are nowhere near the quality of the 11' team, Wenger took us 6 years back. Spending 40 mill on Ozil is never going to be a quick fix, there's no quality in the rest of the team.

We've paid a lot of money over the years because we did buy into the promise that the club will build a team capable of competing in Europe, we still don't have a team capable of competing for either the Premier League or the Champions League, the closest we have come is 2011 and that team was dismantled and sold for profit.

Maybe we post on both? I even had a RAWK account once but that was purely relentless trolling. Fun times.

Jose's absolutely right, the right thing to do when you've taken a club as far as you could is to hand in your resignation and seek fresh opportunities elsewhere.

Yep, never going to happen. We're crap at penalties and we don't have the drog up front. I honestly can't stop thinking about that goal sometimes, as soon as Chelsea won the corner in the last minute, I just KNEW Drogba would equalize, and he did it with a thundering header. What a legend. Had me jumping up and down at home and I'm not even a Chelsea fan. You just gotta love Drogba.

Yes, City certainly have not just the experience and world class talent but they have played together for a while now, they are in the best position to win the league. But I don't really buy this "little horse" argument that Jose has used, this Chelsea team is expensively assembled, has got quality all around and is built to play Jose's football. If you look at Arsenal, the only Arsenal players that would get into the Chelsea first team are Ozil and maybe our two centre backs, at a push perhaps Wilshere. Players like Arteta, Cazorla, Rosicky, Chamberlain, Giroud wouldn't even get onto the Chelsea bench. The only thing we have working for us is the fact that the players played for a while together and have the Wenger system drilled into them so they can walk all over the smaller teams. But Arsenal struggle to overcome the better teams, because the quality isn't there.

That is not a far fetched idea, if they do both go to Chelsea that wouldn't even funny, that's a serious squad, one of the favourites for CL.

You might have a point about Torres, but no way about Shevchenko, he was worth every penny. It's just that during the course of the season, he was neither given the freedom to play because of Drogba and neither was he supplied very well, he could easily have hit at least 20+ goals for a few seasons with decent service. I was foaming at the mouth when he played his debut and he scored that world class goal when Lampard gave him that Kaka-like delivery: He was a world class player and it's the management's fault that they didn't utilize him properly, that should have been Chelsea's title easily without a doubt.

Liverpool were quite reliant on him to be fair, and he was still lightening quick in his play and was a nightmare for defenders. The fact that he had extensive international experience also meant that he was essentially proven, I couldn't see him going for much less than 50m at the time. That was my thoughts at the time but yeah, I can see your perspective.

See, this is the kind of thing I don't understand. Torres was actually worth 50m when he was bought, the club did not pay over the odds. The lack of performance is either down to the tactics or Torres himself. The club can't be criticised for paying his worth. The same with Shevchenko, that should have been a title winning season for Chelsea, in my opinion Mourinho played him all wrong, he was worth 30m and was one of the most clinical finishers in the world.

People are talking about Brazil and Germany being favourites but no other squad comes even close to the quality of Spain's, they have by far the best players and it is theirs to lose. The midfield and striking options are outrageously good.

England winning the world cup with Gerrard in midfield? Insanity is trying the same things and hoping for a different result, when will these idiots (england managers) ever learn.

Almost there. The true story is that Wenger doesn't want to build a team capable winning the title due to the added pressure. Our team plays every season with one arm tied behind their back because Wenger does not want to put pressure on himself. Even when the Arsenal board put the money down on the table this January to bolster the squad, Wenger rejected to spend a single penny. He wants excuses for when he fails to win trophies, in fact, his first excuses already came out yesterday, he said it was always going to be difficult because of Ramsey and Walcott are injured. This man is never going to win a title with Arsenal again. Ever since we lost to Birmingham in the CC final, I already knew we're never going to win a trophy again under this man.

Liverpool's seeding is in the gutter anyway, so hopefully they face the third placed Italian team in the 3rd qualifying round or something.

If Liverpool win the league with the squad they have, that would be scathing indictment and embarrassment to the PL, in fact it would devalue the PL in the eyes of Europe. Shocking.

Another spineless performance from the gunners, simply unable to beat top teams, horror show.There 0% chance we're winning the league. With Tottenham charging up the table and our capitulation, I'm seriously worried about top 4.

Ok, fair enough we disagree on this point. Although, I would like to double down on my initial viewpoint that I don't think he would replace any of City's first team AM's including Navas. Overall, Hazard is a better player, but Navas is quicker and also a specialist on that right hand side and a catalyst to their constant bludgeoning of opposition defences. I think this opinion is even more controversial on here than the Silva comparison so I'm going to exit the forum for now to avoid the inevitable backlash :)