BaconButty

I'd have gone to a back four by taking Zappacosta off, as he is sh*t Tbo Moses, Luiz, Cahill, Dave Cesc, Kante Willian, Hazard, Pedro

Haha, deary me

As soon as I see Zappacosta's name it deflates me.

Gonna weigh in for the first time in this thread here. Unpopular opinion ahead, I guess: Batshuayi is sh*t. I'm sorry, he just is. Every single one of his goals for Chelsea was either a tap-in following the hard work of teammates, or a huge slice of fortune. You might say "he has to be there to finish them", but his positioning is absolutely appalling 90% of the time. He stands like a lemon in the box and occasionally the team poke it into his path for him to score. His movement is atrocious; there's no other way of putting it. While Morata's finishing has been piss poor in recent games he's played in, his runs are at least still very intuitive and dangerous to the opposition. Morata can see where Fabregas or Hazard is about to make a pass 9 times out of 10 and he's always looking to get in behind. Batshuayi just stands with his back to the defence and wants everything into feet. It's simply not good enough for Chelsea. He is far too static and lacking in footballing intelligence. Norwich at home he was very poor - awful touch all night, kept giving the ball away, standing around doing nothing... but then he taps in a goal and he's the second coming of Zola. Newcastle at home he was likewise poor, but another tap-in courtesy of Hazard and Alonso and a massively deflected goal paper over the cracks once more. Any time he ever featured against good opposition, he looked totally out of his depth. It's all well and good building up your goals per minutes ratio with tap-ins in the cups, against pub teams no less, but any decent defence he has faced has had no problem whatsoever in dealing with him. His finishing is probably okay, but his movement is not good enough for that level. Before someone brings up Atletico as "good opposition", they couldn't beat Qarabag in two attempts, and again, it was a tap-in from close range with their defence apparently not fussed with marking. His one good performance in a Chelsea shirt was in that Watford 4-2. Great header. But otherwise he has ranged from bang average to downright horrendous in all his outings for us. I cannot believe that anyone is seriously letting his array of tap-ins against the likes of Qarabag and Forest add gloss to an otherwise below par Chelsea career so far. He will never be good enough to lead our line. I wish the guy all the best in the future, just as long as it's not at Chelsea. Nothing against him as a person, he just will not do for this club and its aspirations. He's better suited to running our twitter and facebook pages than he is to leading our attack. Rightly deserves a place in Chelsea folklore for that night at the Hawthorns though, of course.

Wouldn't amaze me if this turns out to be Conte's final game for us, to be honest. I'd pick this exact team although I'd have Willian over Pedro, assuming he's fit. Big fan of Pedro but he's been poor lately.

Trump can build a wall around our defence and get Spurs to pay for it

I get the feeling this season is karma for the 2012 Champions League. We're due an entire year of bad luck from those Barca semis alone.

What's this "relegation battle" bollocks? If you seriously think Chelsea could be in any way involved in a relegation scrap come the final months of the season, you need your head checking. Mourinho will either pick things up and get the wins back on the board, or he'll be sacked before Christmas. There's no way a club like Chelsea could end up seriously fighting relegation. Not to mention that we are less than two wins from the top half as things stand. It's just not possible. Even the seemingly doomed Dortmund finished 7th last season. You don't be one of the richest and best resourced clubs in the world and come close to going down. That said, we'll probably finish 10th-5th.

Of all players to meet haha. Was never Anelka's biggest fan. Better than nothing though I suppose, and I imagine being in Dubai mustn't have been too bad either.

Wish I shared your confidence, but there is certainly part of me that can see this happening. It would be quite like Mourinho to suddenly bounce back with a 0-2 win or even a 0-3 win out of nowhere. I wish Oscar was fit, though. If Ramires plays it'll be painful to watch us try and counter them.

It wasn't really the point I was making, it was just a sidenote stuck on the end. My point was that Ivanovic is currently the biggest liability in the squad and I'm hoping he doesn't play tomorrow. Don't worry, I'm not wishing a leg break on the guy, a short flu would suffice as Barry above said of Ramires. If you have a different opinion on Ivanovic, I'm more than happy to hear it and discuss.

Wishing defeat on our own team, classy. But seriously though, Ivanovic starting tomorrow would significantly decrease our chances of getting a result. I wouldn't mind if he picked up a knock at all because of that. I love the guy, but damn he is awful at the moment. I'm sure his 65k a week would soften the blow of an injury anyway, don't feel too sorry for him if it does happen.

My mate just messaged me saying that his friend's dad is sat near Ivanovic at an airport in Toulouse. He could be bullsh*tting, but I can still dream that Ivanovic is injured/dropped/released.

I thought Hazard had a good game to be honest. He did fly past City players a number of times and burst into spaces a number of times but CIty did a good job of suffocating those spaces relatively quickly. We could have done with Oscar today to give Hazard a hand in the middle; Fabregas still isn't up to it, Ramires is more of an athlete than a footballer, and Willian was pretty quiet. Sadly Oscar is treated as a luxury player anyway and wouldn't have played even if fit.

Costa in their centre half's pockets again, just like in this fixture last year. He's a good finisher but his first touch and pass let him down so many times. The ball just won't stick when someone plays it into his feet with any kind of pace, and he has a tendency to give away possession on what should be simple passes. He's still our best striker but I would have taken him off in this game before the end, it just wasn't working. Every time he got the ball his touch let him down and he would be barged off the ball before looking straight to the ref for a free-kick. Ivanovic has to be dropped for West Brom assuming the Rahman transfer is a done deal. Azpi on the right, Rahman on the left, with Terry and Zouma in the middle for me. I hope we dish out the money for Stones too, and he would get in that defensive line-up ahead of Zouma for me.

Predicted 3-0 after the Swansea game and everyone shot me down. Mourinho had to lose one of these eventually and this was always gonna be this one for me.

Yeah I agree, we were cut open far too many times today. We have been very weak defensively all throughout pre-season and now today. It reminds me of last season when we began the season leaking goals (3-0 defeat to Bremen in pre-season, 2 conceded at home to Swansea, 3 away to Everton, etc)

It's so easy to say that now. Courtois made a decision in a split second in an intense match to prevent a Swansea player scoring a tap-in; if you honestly expected him to consider the consequences of a potential red and how it would effect the following 40 minutes in an instant, you have clearly never played in a football team.

I'm not usually part of the knee-jerker brigade but that was simply appalling from us. Very poor pre-season and now outplayed in the first game of the season at home. The red card killed the game and I accepted the draw as soon as the penalty went in as the best result we would get away with. But even before the red, we were very poor; two fortunate goals and almost no other chances created at all, if any. If we couldn't beat City last season with Costa on fire and the side on a win streak, we most likely won't win there this time around. I would bite your hand off Suarez-style if you offered me a draw in that game right now.

Oh and as for this campaign issue, I have to say I'm a believer. Well, kinda. I'm certainly suspicious at this point. I wasn't in total agreement with Jose when he first made the claim after the Saints away game. I thought it was the halfway stage in the season and we'd had no luck with referees but it was bound to even itself out and purely be coincidental. I'm starting to lose faith in that narrative; the amount going against us is becoming ridiculous. Of course some go for you and some go against in football, and most seasons I feel the split is close enough to 50/50, but not this season. Never, in my entire life of supporting Chelsea, have I seen quite this many decisions so against us and so few go for us. It has come to the point where I'm wondering how we will be denied a penalty against Spurs on the weekend, not if. Will it be a handball? Push? Late slide tackle? Who knows.

This. Platini's face was the icing on the cake for the greatest night of my life.

I'm certainly worried at the moment. Not scoring many goals and some truly atrocious defending since the turn of the year. I'm not usually a pessimist but the cracks are starting to show for me, and I just cannot believe there are a number of Chelsea fans thinking the title is wrapped up. I'm not saying it will happen but it is at least becoming conceivable that this season could fall apart. Of course it doesn't help that there appears to be a c******n against us (I don't want to risk being fined). Hopefully my worst fears are a load of rubbish though and we can really pick up again and start playing like we were at the beginning of the campaign season. Winning the COC could be just that boost we need.

Or seeing as it's Liverpool, miss a sitter with the last kick of the game, that would roll back the years too

I love the alphabet.

Bar a miracle here, that's 1 win in our last 5 away games. People may not take me seriously, but I'm worried about this title race. I feel its slipping away. Another poor performance (at home too) from City but another 3 points.