Slojo

In fairness, I used to watch a lot of youth games years ago and I can never recall Matic standing out 6 years ago, he was very average actually. His Benfica transition was remarkable, couldn't believe it was the same player. Back then it was all about McEachran, Lalkovich, Clifford, Kakuta, Bruma, Patrick van Aanholt and Todd Kane who used to stand out in the youth games and strangely enough neither of those players developed into PL quality nevermind top level quality.

GC has been dropped and he's been putting in better performances, I much prefer it this way, he's a very good option to have in certain games. Can we really say GC has been bad this season so far? I don't think so. I don't really think any of our defenders have been, Azpilicueta & Luiz have been underperforming defensively in a handful of games, but that's about it. That's bound to happen if we haven't won many games though, other than that I'm impressed with the defence this season, our problems lie elsewhere and Cahill still has a future here.

We let go of many many players in 2010/2011 season, Ballack, Carvalho, Deco etc. Without really replacing them, we signed Ramires, Benyaoun and Turnbull??? Since then we've been keeping the squad very thin to our much larger squads before then I think. Especially under Jose Mourinho.

Well, you say this, but you also credit Emenalo for near enough everything positive that happened in the club. How can we criticise people for criticising Emenalo on the technicality of "We don't what happens behind the scenes" while praising him for anything positive that happened? It works both ways. What's to say Wilkins was worse than Emenalo? I actually remember when Wilkins left we couldn't stop losing games for quite some time, we lost 3-0 to Sunderland at the Bridge.

Wasn't he promoted to director in 2010/11 ? And since Carlo's 2nd season we've had a very thin squad I thought. Although luckily we haven't been plagued with injuries until this very season.

Not a Emanalo hater or anything, but Hazard coming here was purely Hazard. Every top side in the world was in for him, I'm not sure how Emanalo gets's praised for that. If anything you should praise Joe Cole for telling him Chelsea is a good option for development while he was playing with him at Lillie

It was at high speed, but that is very very soft, when you look at the legs of the replay, Sterling just drops down, no trip, just a nudge, a defender has to have contact. If we're giving penalties for that then we need to be giving a penalty every week.

He's great in the air, but that for me isn't his strongest attribute. He's fantastic at playing with his back to goal, something we so desperately need with the way we play. Costa was good at scoring goals when we needed them but he wasn't Didier, he couldn't link up with the players, he couldn't take defenders out the game with his back to goal, Morata has been doing this very well. This game he was superb at doing exactly that, I'm so glad we signed him. I was a fan of Costa, but he was frustrating, he couldn't link up with Hazard, Pedro, Willian or Fabregas, it was painful at times when he would continuously lose the ball, especially on counter attacks. I haven't even seen Morata frustrate me like this, he might miss some sitters but he creates chances, he just needs to keep his head up more when it's going tough, Costa always gave it 100% when on the pitch.

Same here. I actually think Luiz is a world-class player and it'll be a huge loss without him, but if we give in to player power then we'll never learn, we'll keep having bad second seasons, we'll keep having to sack managers. If Luiz doesn't want to play, get rid of him honestly, the club comes first, Conte is in charge. I also don't like the way he behaved in the Roma game, reminded me of Sanchez laughing on the bench when they were 6-1 down to Bayern. It's just shameful behaviour and complete disrespect, love him as a player and he seems entertaining but there is something about his attitude that I don't quite like. Of course, I know nothing of what goes on behind the scenes, but I doubt Conte is in the wrong here.

16:30 an interesting discussion. And as much as people may not like Carragher I thought he hit the nail on the head with some hard truths about this club and sacking managers. It's not to be pessimistic but the Conte situation probably won't die down, if Luiz is content on sitting on the bench, we won't hear the end of it. The board have to back Conte, will they? I have yet to see anything like that.

I had a quick browse for a laugh, you get some absolute wums on there honestly, they think they were wronged by the referee for Fellaini falling over in the box in the 88th minute. God help anyone if they think our match day forums are bad, just go on RAWK or Redcafe.

Fair enough, although if I were you I would avoid that TalkChelsea forum, it's an absolute embarrassment, mostly full of fans that started supporting the club a few years ago and angry teenagers. Like I said you do have a point and I've agreed with you a lot in the past regarding Cesc, there were some terrible comments on here earlier but only a few. Most people I've seen on this forum have been sensible regarding Fabregas, to be honest, most people on this forum are sensible anyway. How many were slagging Cahill off calling him all sorts of names on this forum? I probably saw one, the rest was all from twitter.

The penalty decision was even worse, you can't even touch a player anymore.

If Luiz has a behaviour problem, absolutely, but if anything he should be replacing Cahill in the long term. Not having a dig at Cahill by the way he was great today, but Christensen is a limited defender, very good defensively, good for balance in the side. Luiz however, nobody can do what he does so well, he's like a playmaker in defence, we will miss that badly without him mark my words. Defensively he's been poor this season, but that's because of the huge imbalance in the side.

I don't agree with the direction of this post. His criticism was very well warranted, he isn't good enough to be in the pivot. I did see a few people wanting him sold and making silly comments which was irrational completely. He was superb today and showed exactly what he's capable of, he needs to start playing with Hazard more from now on. I don't think many people will still be criticising Fabregas after today's game, just look at this thread and the match thread.

https://twitter.com/Matt_Law_DT/status/927245008746483712 Brilliant! Where the f**k is Phil Neville and the rest of the Skynited pundits who've been saying we miss Matic so badly. I haven't heard a word about it, it's quite clear Kante is crucial to this system, even Drinkwater is an upgrade on Matic. I can bet any money the next manager who comes in after Jose will be selling Matic.

Oh god Jose you're adorable aren't you. He's now talking about all the injuries United have when he was saying Conte cries about injuries.

I only managed to get home in the second half, I saw a lot of people complaining about Alonso, I thought he was superb in the 2nd half? Very comfortable in tight spaces despite a lot of pressure, barely lost the ball. He has big expectations but I think people are too critical of him and miss a lot of good things he does game in game out.

It is just one game but this shows how limited Lukaku is, it's why I didn't want him, he'll probably score more goals than Morata by the end of the season. But if he gets limited service he's garbage, he can't play with his back to goal and how bad were his touches? Now look at Morata, yeah okay he missed some shockers, but he created a lot of those chances himself, he was a right thorn in United's side today, arguably the best defence in the PL. We've finally got a striker who can play with his back to goal since Drogba, he was awesome today, always there for the flick-ons and diagonal balls, I won't even miss Costa.

It was the same when we were missing Hazard also, he does so much for the side, he's unplayable. Then we missed Morata, Drinkwater, Bakayoko. Fabregas having to play in the two-man midfield certainly hasn't helped our results. But look how good we are when we have a full side, although I do worry about this Luiz situation, he is vital to our setup.

It's crazy isn't it how we can just perform like that, we certainly aren't in a crisis, our system is just fragile. Without our key players, we simply collapse. Also, this has to be Fabregas's position from now on, let him link up with Hazard, love watching them two play together.

Absolute f**king bull sh*t

I love Baka when he's in the moment but my god is his decision making shocking

Currently racing back home from work, but I have one question. How is a referee from Manchester officiating a match for Manchester United? Against a southern team? Well done FA

Salah is awesome, I'm surprised so many underrate him. For a player as fast as he is he does have a decent end product which is often very rare.