Old Shaggy

I would love to see Tammy and Bats play upfront as a two. Doesn't make sense to sell Bats while he's doing a job for us. Goal scoring strikers seem to be in a minority in this day and age.

The problem with Barkely is his first touch is far too heavy which was evident last night. Even against dross opposition he loses the ball far too often. Although when he does get it right he can be devastating.

He never faded at all last season! If anything, he started slow then grew into the season, arguably being our best player towards the end of last season.

Think I'll give our matches a miss until we sort our sh*t out. I'm not in it to watch us get our asses handed to us every match

Done it all theee matches this season. Turned off after United's pen. Didn't watch The Livepool pens, and bored with this game already.

I honestly think I've been spoiled by our successful years, because when we play sh*t I just lose interest. Already turned the game off.

https://twitter.com/johncrossmirror/status/1161310442054180865?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1161310442054180865&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheshed.chelseafc.com%2Fchat%2Fposts%2Fthread_mobile.shtml%3F257753349 What the actual f**k!

Lose this one and it's a f**king horrible start to the season. Losing to these scummy c**ts as well as United leaves a horrid taste in my mouth.

Well, I expected us to concede but I also expected us to score! Not the start to the season I was expecting. All our top 6 rivals winning and we get shafted 4-0. Can't get any worse.... can it?

I just want to be smashing teams 4/5/6 - 0, just like City and pool seem to do with ease. Depressing watching Liverpool smashing Norwich by 4 goals when you know we'll scrape a 2-1 win after struggling with Norwich's high press for most of the game.

Laugh, because it probably means they're tracking back after Luiz is stranded in midfield after losing his man!

This news couldn't come at a better time. Gonna need him now sooner rather than later.

Well I suppose it stops Arsenal signing a quality CB. They could of gone for someone like Koulibaly, but they end up with Luiz!

If the current transfer speculation is true, with Spurs making a bid for Coutinho and Eriksen then moving on to United, I would revise my prediction a follows: 1. City 2. Pool 3. Spurs 4. United 5. Chelsea 6. Arsenal All subject to how the rest of the transfer window pans out of course.

Good on him. Will go down as a Legend for us just for what he's won with us. Just the sort of player Palace need as well.

"Seven Football fans" BBC being quite careful not to assign blame to City or Liverpool, only mentioning that they were in London for the Community Shield! Very different reporting to the "Paris Metro" incident.

I was sure someone had already created this topic, but I can't find it. So here it goes... Let's have your top 6 prediction for the coming season. Here's mine: 1. Manchester City 2. Liverpool 3. Tottenham 4. Chelsea 5. Manchester United 6. Arsenal Top two being interchangeable for the moment. They are both probably the two best teams in Europe. Where we finish all depends on how we sort our defence. It could be between us and United for the 4th spot. I can see Arsenal dropping out of the top 6, being replaced by either Wolves or Everton. However, they may have saved it with the signing of Pepe.

It really depends on our defence now. I do think we have goals in us, but as it stands we are going to concede a few as well. Once Kante, Rudiger and James are fit, we could be a different beast entirely. So for the moment I'm going with anywhere between 3rd and 6th. With the way Man City and Liverpool are looking at the moment, I can't see anyone shifting them two from the top two spots.

The Good: Pusilic. Looks like a good replacement for Hazard. Has a good eye for goal. Barclay. Could this be the season he finally shows that he is as good as the potential he has always shown? Kovacic/Jorginho. Both have looked good in that midfield pivot role. The Bad: Up front. Still couldn't tell you who our main striker will be this season. Surely one of the three will come good! Pressing. Could see glimpses of what we were trying to do; but, I still think that we are poor at pressing as a team. You could see that by the way Salzburg were pressing us. They were far more organised, and done a better job on us than what we did to them until they started to run out of steam. Teams like City and Pool will destroy us if we don't up our game. And finally.... The Ugly: Defence. Our defending has been atrocious so far this pre-season. Hopefully once James and Rudiger come back we'll be more solid. But for now it's going to be a case of "We're gonna score one more than you". Agree/Disagree?

@Brutos can I just ask you what, in the specific case of the fan that was banned, your evidence is that he was being racist and not just shouting "Manc c**t". Although I agree with you that racism is still a massive problem in this country, and in our club, I think you are being a bit narrow minded in this case.

Well one thing is for certain, we need to sort out that defence. We're not going to score 5 every game.

What I would like to know is, why is it that most teams seem to be better at pressing than us? Always seem to struggle when we're being pressed where a lot of teams we play seem to be able to break our press with ease.