barak81

Our biggest strength last season was being able to bounce back from a bad game. After Arsenal we responded to every loss with a run of wins. Conte has to try and reproduce that now. that said unless we get some body's in the door and (not the biladogy kind) he will walk. He walked out on Juve because he felt the board were not matching his ambitions and we would jidnour selves to belive he might have more affinity for us then he did for them

As some one who has been backing him quite voccally , have to eat a bit of humble pie and clearly conte knows what he's talking about. Michy has a lot of great attributes and could be some player but right now as you say his ability to hold the ball up and bring his team in to the game was exposed today, needs to work on it

Not a game for cesc now, but no other center mids... board has sold him down the river

If we include the youth we have 17 outfield players available , I don't think Remmy will be here come the close of the window so 16... and at wing back and center mid we are woefully short. I would not like to play spurs with Fabregas and Kante in center mid

I actually think we could have had a another couple of league titles had managers been backed correctly, Losing Ballack and Ricky in 2010 and only bringing in Ramires until half way through the season. We didn't double down two seasons ago at all and this year doesn't seem very cohesive. Personally don't think Conte makes the end of the season, sadly.

Seems pointless to go back out to holland, had it been a top team in Germany or a prem team I'd be more optimistic but if this is true he's done

This is just the Chelsea way.. The following should never have been sacked: Ruud, Vialli, Jose, (part one) Robbie D. im not saying that I rated them all as managers but they hadn't done anything to warrent sacking. even with Joses second season, look at the quality of signings we brought in on the window... f**king hector and do aa dodgy... this is not really what you would call backing the manager. Honestly I think we have done pretty good buisness this year and the squad would be more or less baked, if we had kept chalouba, Ake and Matic but to sell matic with out a replacement sat infront of you is criminal. ive been calm but slow panic is starting to creep in, Changing managers is becoming more stressful then doctor who regeneration process. oh I forgot Carlo

It the one position that RIGHT NOW we don't actually need anything, however, we have all seen how one season you have it, the next it's gone, Ivan and JT both slowing down considerably, Ivan fell of a cliff. Look "tup" north and recall what happens to Vidic and Rio..so while it might seem silly to throw money at the position right now it might be a smart move to secure are defense for the next 5 years. (I started to write this post thinking it was really a stupid move)

I'll call it now, if we sell Christenson he will end up at a top club for plus 50 mill him self

Does the transfer request meen he will have to forfeit some wages or somthing . Some where in the back of my mind I seem to remember hearing it was not financially beneficial for the player to hand in a TR

A couple of years ago, there were loads of posters on here desperate for us to get hold of Barkley now it seems most would treat it with disappointment. It says two things to me 1) He hasn't fulfilled his potential 2) We are oh so easily seduced by those fancy names from abroad who we see mostly in highlights packages but have never head of. I my self and me for example have not seen much more then maybe 5 games of Bakyayoko. . I for one am quite excited about this signing, the fact is the potential was there in the first place, but lets face it he's a big fish in a small pound and there isn't room to grow. He needs to be around better players with the pressure to be on his game week in week out. Lets try this on for a moment. We get in our Tardis (all the contributes to this thread, its bigger on the inside) and we transport the forum back in time to 2001. Everyone get's a memory wipe, you can't see the future. But you have magically and mystically got access to this forum (it's a time lord thing, best not to ask to many questions about it) We have been reading headlines for months linking us with giovanni van bronckhorst - pretty exciting, this is the player that might finally help us break in to that top 4!! The all of a sudden we get a text from out mate: Chelsea have signed Frank Lamapard from West ham for 11 million pound... huh? Lampard? Can't be right? do you mean Joe cole? nope, lampard Surly you mean Carrick... No lampard... We race home after work, wind up that 56K modem and listen to the beep bbaaa booopp and then finally that great sound that indicates on this occasion you will get to use the internet. We load skysports new... sit and wait, sit and wait, sit and wait... finally the screen resolves and there it is bright as anything Frank Lamaprd 11 million... Don't know about you guys but i remember a distinct feeling of disappointment, sure lamps was steady enough but he wasn't anything special, he wasn't going to take us to the next level. Now be really honest with you're self... you have the forum in front of you, the news has just broken.... what do you post? my guess is its probably at least as bad as many of the posts here, maybe worse. I would say Barkley actually looks better then Lamps when he arrived. And yes one does not grantee the other, it's much harder now to break in to our team and we are operating on another level. But let's not forget, frank had a huge hand it taking us to that level and he is arguably our greatest ever player... no one would have seen that coming when we all trashed him n the Theshedend forum (that didn't exist) in 2001....

Pat Nevin identified 2 players 3 years ago and mentioned them to the scouts. 2 players he believed were going right to the top. One was Michy and one was VVD. The latter currently proving him right, and you can only expect him to double down on his other pick to. Kane for me is top 3 in the world but he got there by being given the games. Michy for me looks like he has somthing special about him but needs the games to learn and eliminate that raw element

Some one said the same when I posted this 2 years ago... now looking like he might know what he's talking about a bit

Unfortunately I have also thought this, the man puts so much in to every game, i'm not sure how sustainable it is for long periods of time. He has talked about trying to calm it down though

Im not so crazy about this deal, 50 mill is pretty average sum in whats flying around today. Different players but sigurson is not better the Matic. 50 mill does not cut out passing lines and prevent key passes, incidentally this is something 50 million and Fabregas have in common 50 Mill is not going to mussel players of the ball 50 mill is not going to give the security blanket for our front players to conserve a bit of energy from time to time .... What Matic will do for united Be by far there best DM release Pogba so he can get closer to actaully doing what he does well (don't know why anyone ever thought pogba was box to box or a DM) do everything 50 mill wont do in my above examples. I understand we have a new boy in who has looked good abroad, but why don't we hold of a bit and see how he actually adapts, if it proves that there is really no need for Matic, sell him at the inflated January rate. If it turns out that Baka is not as good as we first hopped Matic is there. This is one of those deals where you don't pull the trigger unless you have someone sitting infront of you ready to sign the contract as you complete the sale at the other end

They guy have a throw in of side, at all would be more accurate

There was a genuine pen for michy in that half ignored and that sh*t given, Jesus weapt

Agree with this. He deff needs to buckle down but has bags of talent . Would benefit from playing with other top players

If city don't win the league they need to take a long hard look at them selves 120 mill on fullbacks alone

Watched the game lastnight on VOD, my thoughts: It’s clear Bayern have played 5 more game then us this pre-season. Alonso was at fault for the first two or could have done better but we should all be happy he makes these mistakes in pre-season. Christanson did nothing wrong but he didn’t do all that much right either. What I mean by that is he needs to play more aggresivly/positive. Luiz attacks the ball; he takes the game to the attacker. Sometimes he will get found out but it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the attacking players, be perfect or this ball is gone. Terry would do the same in his pomp. Even better then Luiz because his judgment is better, Ricky C as well, if the ball is there to be won go and win it. I don’t think it’s a massive problem right now; he’s still young and should probably play with Luiz as opposed to in place of him. Thought Boga was promising again, always causing problems and with the enough game time could really turn in to an exceptional player. A lot of his good work might go unnoticed because it didn’t result in a goal. Michy was great, considering how isolated he was at times he linked the play well, first touch very good and was one of the players trying to take the game to bayarn. Frabregas had one of those days, shockingly bad and we probably needed more legs in the middle of the pitch. Talking of the pitch – wow, they are like late 80s’ villa park shocking and I wouldn’t want my 70 million footballer playing on them

Absolutely meaningless fitness session, more for the local fans then anything else. and A small chance for us to see the likes of Boga who we may never see again

What he did was with in the rules of the game , the ball came flatter then the example you have which still resulted in a KO

@Deino I'm not sure what a video of Neuer KO'sing Higuaine has to do with anything. At every level of coaching a Goalkeeper from the earliest age will told to come, and when they come to do two things. Make sure they get the ball and clear everyone out in the process if needs be.

Goal keepers are aloud to lead with there hands. He did nothing wrong. it's OK to back you're club a bit but lets not be Liverpool fans here... we all went nuts when Drogba got sent of against Barca... it can't be one rule of us and quite another for everyone else