barak81

Read it, understood it, but stand my post, I'd give Jose more of a chance of winning the league then you hanging around (topical)

I feel you are not long for this forum #justsaying

Leverkusen 0-1 A MadridMan City 3-0 MonacoDerby 2-2 BurtonHuddersfield 3 -1 Reading And izzy to get oneQPR 1-1 WiganSheff Wed 2-1 Brentfor

It looks like costa doesn't want to score , never struck me as a confidence player

Moses having a bad day offensively

I think you have to be giving a Bats a go now,costa as much as I love him , is well in his comfort zone. Effectively we are saying we only have one real striker if we can't mix it up

Huddersfield 0-3 Man City Middlesbrough 1-1 Oxford Millwall 1-0 Leicester Barnsley 1-3 Brighton Notts Forest 2-2 Sheff Wed Wigan 1-0 Preston

As it stands Michy has scored in "Every" round of the FA cup so far i believe, what happens if he continues to score and we get to the final, would you drop him and prevent him from achieving his life long dream of emulating his child hood hero, the King osgood?

You would take a draw at united and city at home, Everton, well a draw is not the worst thing. The issue is the lower teams and the timing, swansea who we have next as an example are now in full swing, confidence up, and they are fighting for their lives.

But wasn't really culpibale for the goals and might have been our best player, cirtinaly played the best ball of the game from out point of view

No striker goes through a whole season without some kind of drought, you can't blame China for Kane not scoring for a while, Sanxhez had gone a good few games, Lukaku deffinatly has streaks, it will be.

Man utd 2-1 Watford Boro 0-4 Everton Stoke 3-1 Palace Sunderland 2-1 Southampton West Ham 3-2 WBA Brighton 3-0 Burton

Costa sent me a text to tell me it was the only way we could score for him to get the ball to Alonso of the bar... so there EDIT - also what diffrence does it make if we know if meant it or not? Jespers goal i mean?

I have a question In 2003 Jesper Gronkjar (sorry for spelling) scored a pretty important goal for us, it came from the right wing and instantly most people around me and most pundits said it was a cross gone wrong. Seeing as he could never really get a decent ball in to the box this is probably true, so assuming he meant it as a cross is it any less of a goal, of course not, the same should apply when someone meaning to go for goal but who's effort directly results in a goal for a team mate. For me Costa's supperb work resulted in a goal for us, thats what matters.

Costa's header on goal was exceptional He had to work hard to out jump the center-back and direct the cross goal bout with enough power You could say that considering the move and technique applied he was unlucky not to score, Cech didn't get close to it. Without this effort, application of movement and technique, will to get above his man the opportunity for Alonso to score doesn't exist. So the effort implemented by Costa resulted in the goal for me this is more of an assist then some one who lays the ball of two yards, 30 yards from goal to see his team mate lash it in the top corner, but that is considered an assist.... and if you have ever ever quoted assist stats you include this in you're assumption Conclusion - it was an assist.

If you read this thread and the alonso thread together you would guess that are top of the league playing with 9 men every game

Remember when he played against us for Stuttgart, (i think it was Stuttgart but could easily have been Hertha Berlin) even then it was so clear he was a stand out player.

He did lose the dressing room though, there was a lot of gumbling over the way Carlo just took the sacking of Ray on the chin and then Sunderland at home happend and then the bad moment

Normally I would be confident in our ability to keep a manager or event top players, only Robben really springs to mind as a player that left in his prime, i think a lot of credit has to go to JT and some of the old establishment for that, they clearly created a a family like environment with in the club and the team. Credit must also go to our fans because it seems most players who pass through the doors seem to leave with a very strong affinity towards Chelsea and despite all, if Jose were to answer honestly blue or red he would fail a lie detector test if he said red. (that could change in the future) However... Conte left Juve for nothing, he just quit... does anyone know why, i understand that there was no thought of the Italy job at the time?

Matic played very well agasint Le Arse. I do think that Chalouba would be a perfect fit there though

Not really, he was signed by robbie but only really came in to the team under Benitez who moved Ivan to center back in place of JT and Dave came in on the right, He is probably the best one v one defender in the league and on the right offered a very decent option going forward. Amazing player. But even if he wasn't there was enough resentment towards Benitez (rightly so) at the time that i think he could have stuck me up front and no one would have noticed. Dave was switched to leftback by Jose when it became clear that cole was passed it and that became more obvious with daves defensive performances but we where always unbalanced, always playing with a gap so to speak because we basically sacrificed any attacking intent from the left back. Alonso is not in the same league as Dave defensively, but as i said, he makes us a much more balanced team and is pretty damd good in the air which gives us an out ball on either side.

I'd go along with this, i think the general apathy towards him is he's not Roberto Carlos or Dany alves, but he has done a tremendous job for us, and i think the saying does everything well and nothing spectacular (although i'd like to see him behind a few more set peices) sums him up, and is that not what you want from you're full back?

We only really have fabregass who play's with his head up, obviously all out players play with with their head up to varing degrees but you could say that the score on Saturday flaterd arsenal (i think 5-0 would have been a fair reflection). A lot of that comes down to our pressishion when on the break, at least 3 times in my mind we either picked the wrong pass or executed the right pass badly. Fabregass doesn't have 100 plus assists for nothing, he normally sees the pass before any one else and will normally give the players the best possible chance of scoring. Hazard, Pedro, Willian, Kante and Matic, for all there quality aren't quite on that level (Hazard being the best of the bunch i would say). I would credit KDB with that skill set. It could be Conte's just looking for that player that applies that bit more of control but with a bit more athleticism about them, then fabregas has, so come to think of it he is looking to recreate pierlo

I'm hoping the increased games opens gives more playing time to Ake, Chalouba and maybe even RLC. If these guys are ever going to make it they need the playing time. We do need to be making a signing or two because all teams need the momentum of a new face in the dressing room. But think it will probably be another forward.

Agreed, at least twice yesterday he saw the opportunity to set us away and but for a bit of wayward passing we would have been in on goal