Slojo

How on earth does Salah put in 2/10 performances but keeps scoring? He was dreadful today.

Very confident on a win here, we are in good form, I don't think Stoke have what it takes to get something out of this. Play the same team.

He's a very good player, but he does need a rest. I don't think anyone can argue with that, get someone else for that position.

At the time of Mazacar I actually thought Oscar would be the better out of the 3, that being Mata & Hazard. Especially after the Juventus game. But under Rafa Benitez I thought he slumped a bit, he wasn't performing up to scratch consistently although he still looked like he had heaps of talent. Under Mourinho in the first 18 months, he looked VERY good. Great work-rate and could actually link up, after that though he massively declined, once we sold Mata and got rid of De Bruyne Oscar just didn't put in consistent performances again he was lacklustre. I remember people writing De Bruyne & Salah off, Salah I could understand actually but De Bruyne I couldn't, he was still very young and looked impressive. Whereas Oscar people defended & defended despite the bad performances he was putting in consistently from 2015 and onwards, which again is understandable given that he looked a good player but he just didn't quite make it. Now you look at the way De Bruyne & Salah are playing then you look at Oscar who's barely even playing well in the Chinese League, what a crazy transition.

I'm really not confident of a win here at all. I'll have my fingers crossed at work but I think I'll be disappointed.

I wouldn't want him, no doubt he had some good games a season but he was just terribly inconsistent to be a squad player.

It's not that, it's just you could literally make that argument about anyone, it's silly to say. It's like saying Jonjo Shelvey at his best puts in a Paul Scholes performance when he receives the MOTM award once every season then saying it's Scholes-esque. I personally think it's a silly assessment unless they're consistently putting the performances like that in you could go ahead and say it. As for the second part of his post I disagreed with, Matic wasn't great defensively for almost two seasons and that's why I was glad to get rid of him. The Arsenal game was the icing on the cake, he was bad in a very good season. And Mikel, in my honest opinion he should have gone 5 years before he eventually did.

Very true, he seemed like a closet Chelsea fan when Jose was here. I can't remember him defending us like that though when we went through a bad patch, he was very silent in fact and was critical of Jose for not playing youth players. I get that he's a United fan so he's going to go into depth with his own team more than others, but what would balance this out would be if we had Chelsea pundits on Sky that were of the same profile giving an insight on Chelsea. Instead, it's always the same, Conte has 1 loss and we'll hear about how he's going to be sacked or that he's lost the dressing room.

God Lukaku is so bad... Already making dreadful passes.

United have an interesting lineup, Matic the only CM on the field, Shaw back on the left and a new youngster in the attack.

I think every team has their scapegoat and it only really happens when the player has been with us for over a season or two, so Willian is the scapegoat. I wouldn't care I think he's actually been better than Pedro this season yet Pedro seems to escape more criticism than Willian.

The last formation with no striker worked really well but Southampton are a much better side. I think we need Morata at the top for this one.

I think it's because the attackers were more available, Willian was dropping deep a lot, Bakayoko was just sticking onto their players and putting pressure on them, he actually did that well. It was similar to how he played against Arsenal, he's better off the ball than on the ball, although he's had some games where he's really bad off the ball too but I'll give him some credit.

A very good game from him, the best I've seen him at. I give him a lot of slack but he made me eat my words today and I hope he continuously does that in the future.

Oh come on no need in that Yorkley, it's a fair critique, we're all Chelsea supporters here.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that the sport has evolved, 10 years ago you didn't really get this tiredness nonsense, but the game is faster paced than it was years ago. George Best used to play while being a massive alcoholic, that's not necessarily the case anymore, footballers have to be on very strict diets and must continuously do the same training exercises to be 100% sharp. Sports Science has been massively introduced into football and now you're seeing players using all their stamina and conserving it tactfully. http://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/st-georges-park/performance/performance/sports-science If you look at the detail that goes into training these days you'll see the difference, Michael Ballack was also talking about how football is becoming a lot more fast paced by the day. Especially now that the game is developing into a wingback frenzy over the past 5 years, there is an outcry of fast wingbacks. I think fatigue is definitely an issue, it's not the same as working a shift for 9 hours on 2 hours sleep then working again the next day, I get what people are saying.

Zanka's 2nd foul on Hazard, no yellow... Well done ref.

Jesus & Aguero is a much better rotation than Bats & Morata. Sane, Sterling, Bernardo are all very capable starters that are fighting for first place, they would get in just about any team, Sterling would atm with the way he is playing. Delph backup DM, Fernandinho proven starter, Yaya proven starter still looks very good, David Silva world class and a utility player in Pep's system, De Bruyne again world class probably the best midfielder in the league. We have Kante, the best DM in the league, Fabregas who has physical limitations but one of the most creative players in the league, Drinkwater solid but not yet proven himself, a backup as of yet. Bakayoko the same, unproven. So that's 1 world class player in midfield, City have 2 and 2 solid starters as backup while having another backup with the same experience as Danny Drinkwater. Then for the wingbacks they're pretty much in the same scenario as us, 3 wingbacks. Defence the same as us I'll give you that, our defence is probably better that's City's weakness. But other than that they're much better than us in midfield to attack, have much more quality of depth, it's not a myth whatsoever.

1) Hazard was fouled 4-5 times that half, 4 times at least, twice by the same player and on both of those instances it was because Hazard was getting past him so they were deliberate. This is happening game after game and Conte has to say something about it. AVB did the same with Gareth Bale years ago when he kept getting fouled and after that Bale went on to have the best season of his life. 2) Bakayoko big improvement, I don't think he's put a foot wrong all game or misplaced a pass but my stream went for a good 10 minutes after his goal. 3) Willian again a big improvement, he's been everywhere all game, filling in well as free roam, good work rate and getting involved in the play, he's been the biggest menace towards Huddersfield as of yet. 4) Pedro needs to get more involved, doesn't appear to be making himself as available as Willian & Hazard, he's been missing quite a lot this season, besides the miss he had which was a very good run from him he hasn't done much else 5) Both wingbacks getting in dangerous areas, even Alonso is despite him giving the ball away quite a bit, Moses looks up for it.

Alonso cross, Willian goal, OOOOOOSHHHH!

At least Mourinho used to protect Hazard as much as he could as much as I wish he kept his mouth shut on 90% of things. Conte needs to speak up because defenders are getting their way with him.

For f**k sake where are the cards? They just keep fouling Hazard... Conte really needs to start making a statement about it.

Brilliant ball from Baka, impressed with him so far.

It's a shame only Fabregas can connect to him, Pedro & Willian aren't doing that much this season like they were last. He needs someone to play with who can match his level of flair.

Willian is playing really well.