SW6 Chelsea

What a pleasure it is seeing him on top form. An absolute menace when he came on last night.

Even with Arsenal on Saturday I'd like a strong team - we know how important winning the League Cup can be to get a team into the trophy-winning habit. So I'd go: Courtois Azpilicueta Cahill Luiz Alonso Kante Fabregas Moses Willian Hazard Batshuayi. Don't see why players shouldn't be able to play three games in eight days - it's the beginning of the season and they look pretty fit to me.

When Pedro leaves Chelsea will there be a single thing we remember him for?

I'd never say I'm happy with a draw in any home game - and this game's no different, but I've got a bad feeling about tonight.

Luiz had a lot less defending to do at PSG than Godin does at Atletico though.

Interested to know as it was before I was around - which, say, 5 teams tended to take the most to the Bridge back in the 70s and 80s? Were there any big teams who took surprisingly few and likewise any small teams who'd take good numbers?

Ha! Love that - funny because I don't hate them nearly as much as I did about a decade ago, when I personally hated them more than Arsenal and Spurs. Good to see the obsession is still going strong on Merseyside.

I actually don't reckon we'd have many problems selling out 60,000 nowadays - if West Ham can do it (cheap tickets, lots of floaters I know, but anyway) then we definitely can as our support is much bigger. We have a mass support all over the south-east.

Yep - City just don't have a big fanbase in my experience. Only ever known one and he was an old teacher of mine who chose City purely at random. You see more fans of Leeds, Villa, Newcastle and even Everton down south than Man City fans.

Agreed mate - I thought we were great on Sunday bar a horrible three minutes. I think some of the criticism Willian and Oscar got was unfair. Their problem isn't creativity; it's finishing. Costa is the only player we've got who's really composed in front of goal. That's our problem going forward, not creativity.

Yeah I don't agree with that - it may be a factor for some, but I think anyone can see Luiz has his good points as a player.

I never see why comments like this get such stick. As it happens I'm okay with the signing: we were unable to get a top-level defender and so went with someone who can fit straight into the squad and who knows the club. I'll always like Luiz for his performance in Munich, and his penalty in the shootout. There did seem to be a tendency to romanticise Luiz in is time away from Chelsea - let's face it, we hardly missed him. Being sceptical about signing him back doesn't make you 'negative' or anything like that; it just makes you a person with a legit opinion.

Yeah - anyone able to answer this? Don't fancy the Harvester etc either.

Really enjoying the replies to this. Not surprised at all that so many people are picking out the 83/84 season - who knows where we'd be now if we'd not made the cluster of signings we did that season. Snapping up Nevin, Niedzwiecki, McLaughlin, Spackman, getting Hollins back and, of course, Dixon - surely our best ever summer recruitment. After decades of getting it wrong we suddenly clicked. Wish I'd been around to experience it. Interesting that people are saying 2011/12 - and understandable of course given we reached the holy grail. But I must confess that I hated most of that season. But that's the funny thing about football isn't it. There are few games I've enjoyed less AT THE TIME than the first 85 minutes of the final in Munich and the second half in Barcelona, but they turned out to be among our greatest nights.

For me it will always be 2004/05 - 99/00 was my first season and I barely remember the FA Cup win that season (I was only five) so 04/05 was my first taste of real success as a Chelsea fan. The feeling of finally winning a trophy at Cardiff against Liverpool and the ecstasy of seeing us win the title at Bolton are unforgettable. So I'm very interested to know what other seasons people on here enjoyed the most - the two I think my Dad enjoyed the most pre-Abramovich were 76/77 and 83/84.

Think late 60s/early 70s was when this started to decline. Wasn't around then but I've always seen those years as a turning point for football culture in England. With the expansion of motorways and football specials away fans started to travel. And if you only ever saw one team home and away, rivalries started to become more heated.

Yeah pretty much, but still quite a lot of their lads drink there on matchday.

Yeah similar to Charlton - both targeted the family market and their gates dwarfed anything they'd seen before.

Ha, just struck me as odd and very revealing that in 7 pages of this thread there wasn't a single mention of the club nearest to the Bridge

He'd be a great signing. Saw him in the flesh at Wales Belgium about a year ago. The proper, nasty, all-action midfielder we need. I'd imagine he'd be a nightmare to go up against. Fella can play a bit too.

I reckon that's about a 35k crowd, Jesus.

VIDEO: Claude: 'I'm not going to the Emirates again until he's gone' (Rant and argument with Ty) #AFC #WBAFC

I've generally been very supportive of Mikel - he's no worldbeater, but in every one of our big away performances in the Champions League, as well as some big domestic games, Mikel has never let us down. Think how good he was in Barcelona in 2012. But given there'll be no CL next year his opportunities will be limited: there's no point playing him at home to teams like Stoke (let alone alongside Matic!). If we got a decent offer I'd sell. I'd look to sell most of our loan players who are over the age of 20. It's ridiculous that people like Chalobah, Marin, Moses, Atsu and Todd Kane are still on our books. Let them make a fresh start elsewhere.

Yep I've got a couple of Fulham mates who live within 10 minutes of the Cottage but I'd say 80% of their fanbase (maybe more) comes from south of the river. Surprising they've never struck up much of a rivalry with Wimbledon given their core support bases aren't all that dissimilar in size.

I don't think there really is a 'Chelsea way' - and I like it that way. Can't be doing with teams like West Ham demanding a certain type of football and lying to themselves that they've been this free-flowing, expansive team for their 100+ years of history. There probably is a 'United way', stemming from Busby and Ferguson who both had similar ideas about football. But an 'Arsenal way'? Well there are two, aren't there. Pre-Wenger, 1-0 to the Arsenal and all that, and then the attractive but soft-centred style of the Wenger era. I don't accept there's any such thing as 'the Liverpool way'. I'm glad that we're not constrained by a single style - just do what it takes to win.