Arrow in the knee

Come off it mate, give the guy a break. I thought he had a good game, up and down the pitch, breaking up play, passing forward and getting back to do his defensive duties.

No Kovacic so I guess that makes Enzo more likely to start. In which case I presume the tactics will be significantly simplified? Hopefully no start for James or Chilwell unless we are really tempting fate. Ease them in slowly before we play Dortmund

I think it's what got James and Chilwell 😁

Thanks mate. Both ends of the spectrum I guess.

They're all asking for you back home mate. Seriously go back and say hi!

I'd argue that he hasn't been played much this season anyway as his presence in midfield requires another player to mop up the bits he lacks and so precludes any progressive ingenuity. Maybe that's because he didn't actually put himself in harms way that often The fact that he was vice captain suggests he probably was an asset off the pitch. I'd argue however that he rarely led by example on the pitch and that is what we have lacked all over the pitch barring Thiago Silva

If they win they would do it if he was there or not. To be honest his presence in their team is more likely to derail their express and turn them into a goods train.

When the CFCNet forums finally hit the buffers, presumably due to a lack of funds to maintain the domain, I decided I needed somewhere else to vent about our club. I've been a Chelsea supporter for over 50 years, I've been there through the peaks and troughs and cried like a baby when Didier scored that final penalty in 2012. My views swing from being considered and reasonable to shooting from the hip. It will take a bit of time to work out the format of this forum compared with CFCNet but hopefully I will be able to be a constructive voice here in the long term. Born in Wales, lived much of my life in and around London but now living in Scotland, I am the artist formerly known as Holymoly. Peace, out.

Jorginho out 6 months early and with cash coming back the other way is great business. The best bit however is that he personified our negative approach to playing the game over the last three years. Hopefully we will now be more progressive while there is also the distinct possibility that he will stall Arsenal's title bid. No idea why they would want him in their current setup.

Mudryk seems to have garnered huge praise based on 30 minutes against a very poor Scum side to the extent that some people seem to think that he is the second coming. It remains to be seen if he is burned at the stake if his next match is less than optimal.

I don't think it will come to anything this window. Benfica are too set on playing silly buggers. Alternatively if the owners are able to make an offer they can't refuse I can see him being loaned back until the end of the season and he's the one player we probably need to start immediately.

People refer to it being the third time should it come to pass. Obviously that is irrelevant as it's different owners and different players. It's a totally different club apart from we the supporters and Billy the kit man. Trouble is that Jose ain't a long term option. We'd maybe get a season of moderate success with a league cup then the changing room dissatisfaction would reappear and we'd be back to square one regarding the rebuild. We began the trend of the short term, hire them and fire them mentality twenty years ago. Hopefully we're moving away from this with the new owners and developing a different way to achieve success. Whether the present manager will drive us there is up for argument but hopefully it may lead to a more settled period at the club albeit probably without the concentrated number of trophies we've been used to given the larger number of teams now with the finances to compete at the very top level.

Quite honestly you could put Costa into this team and he'd struggle. The reason he worked back them was because he had Fabregas and Hazard creating for him. We're not missing a striker, we're missing a midfield.

I think what you are completely ignoring is the fact that the club is undertaking a root and branch rebuild. This was made plain when the new owners came in. The thing about rebuilds is that they take time, probably seasons. There's no point showing your dissatisfaction after just half a season, and many doing so after half a dozen games under the latest manager. If the problems inherent within the club were so superficial as to be sortable in this short amount of time then it wouldn't be a rebuild, it would be the usual papering over of the cracks that we've wasted so much money on over the years. I suggest you bite your tongue until the end of the season and see where we end up, especially if we are able to get some of the injured players reliably back sooner rather than later. You may not like the facts being reiterated ad nauseum but no side in the league would be able to carry on business as usual with at least ten first team players (mostly starters) out injured for protracted periods of time and this on top of an already hopelessly unbalanced squad. Patience my laddo.

Like watching paint dry. From both teams. I suppose the positive is that we were the gloss and they were the undercoat but still. Thiago Silva has a painting of himself in his attic. When he came here we were worried that he could start every other game. Now he's first name on the teamsheet every game and he's applied to change his name to Benjamin Button. Midfield was better, although it was probably more down to the opposition being rubbish, and our plethora of wingers should ensure, should we ever sign a striker, that the goals will come sooner or later.