Chippy

I don't get why we have to keep comparing our players? Is Willian better than Shurrle? who cares? they both belong to us and if one's getting a rest and we can go out and get the points without him then thats good use of the squad. I would imagine if Palace drag themselves level we'll see Shurrle get some minutes but I'm hoping that isn't necessary.

Its all about the squad and the long season, if we keep going in all competitions everyone will get there cahnce to have a run.

Lets hope we score enough to catch up with City's goal difference

Just been watching the Cricket...6-3 at the moment

I think Jose's using the squad pretty wisely, a lot of games ahead of us and Oscar getting some rest and for me more important against the more attacking teams, Shurrle must be bursting to get back on the pitch as he only had a short run out in the CL and defenders getting a bit of rotation. None of our strikers do enough to be nailed on so for me Torres is still getting a bit of an easy ride, that said he might just be the hardest worker.

Any winnings, half gos to the site. 14 Dec 2013 - Chelsea v Crystal Palace - Correct Score Chelsea 2-0 @ 6/1 Stake : £5.00 Estimated Returns : £35.00 And 14 Dec 2013 - Chelsea v Crystal Palace - First Goal Scorecast Fernando Torres / Chelsea 2-0 @ 14/1 Stake : £4.00 Estimated Returns : £60.00 Come on lads

Bo***** walcott wrecked my bet...best get the Chelsea score right then

I'm on 3-1 so I hope it stays like this, also had Nasri f/s and 3-1 so he's bound to pop up late on and ruin the bet .

Butch, sorry to make you have another recount mate but I didn't make a prediction on this game...I forgot all about it (check post 78 in the matchday thread ) I was gutted as its the first one I've missed. Ta.

I'd prefer a City win for a couple or three of reasons, one being if Arsenal go there and win it, we have to believe they are the real deal and could go on to win the title, two the confidence it would give them would make our game with them more difficult and three if one of these two is destined to end above us this season I'd prefer it to be City. I have a lot of mates who are gooners and the smugness is already unbearable, a title would be unthinkable.

Just to be clear, I never said RDM was perfect, I don't think any manager ever will be and I have disagreed with every managers decisions on occasion (Benitez more than most) but what I won't do is come on here or even privately start calling our players Donkeys because they make a couple of mistakes or our Manager clueless because I disagree with his team selection or tactics. I've screamed for different subs and tactics and shaken my head when the choices were different but I can assure anyone that if I had the opportunity to sit and discuss those tactics with the manager after the game, regardless if we had won or lost, he'd talk me in circles and make me look and feel like my knowledge of the game is a piss in the ocean compared to his. I might have opinions but when the Managers decisions and choices are different to what mine are from the comfort of my Settee, I don't imagine for minute that its me who is the better judge. Managing is a tough Job and no manager will please all the fans all the time but a bit of respect for the decisions they make and the trophies they've helped bring home is the least we can give. I have respect for every manager we've had bar the one and I feel they were all brought in and given an agenda to work to that has been very difficult over the short term and trying to change a style here and still challenge has been an almost impossible task for most, Jose is hopefully going to be given time to be the exception. I hate to hear anyone putting down Robbies massive achievements and find it hard to believe any Chelsea fan doesn't hold him in great esteem or have anything but huge respect for him.

I didn't say they had good games in those matches,Mikel is a decent player who doesn't always play well and Cech has had more clean sheets in the premier league than any other keeper and you call them Donkeys...you defend Benitez who was left a game away from the club world cup and sitting handily in four competitions because we managed to win the Europa and ask when RDM was perfect when he came in and rescued our worst season in Roman's reign and went on to win the F A Cup and Champions league Double. You're not worth debating with.

From the same person who called Mikel and Cech Donkeys in the last couple of man of the match threads...your knowledge of the game knows no bounds.

Defending Grant was almost a one man mission on this site when he was here and I should know as I was that man. I don't think Benitez is doing a good Job at Napoli, I think he'll forever make bad and like for like substitutions that have little to no positive affect on the game and I think he's an average manager that has an overblown reputation. I don't correct people, I ask why they choose to defend a man who done f**k all for us and claim he improved things while sitting back and saying nothing when people have a go at any other ex manager or the one here now. I'm not interested in hypothetical questions but for fun I'd say hypothetically if Robbie had been in charge of Napoli, I think they'd have qualified top of the group.

Well you seem awfully upset that I compare the way people dig out past and present managers and I find it odd that Benitez has people jumping in to defend his name, I can slag off AVB, Grant Scolari etc and nobody will say I'm being hard on them but the fat twat? people eem to be a bit prissy then. Rather than awfully upset as you put it, I'm just surprised that when you have a shared interest with people like the supporting of a football club, that peoples ideas are so far from my own.

Robdog, thats not my take on RDM or any of them,...just some of the things that have been said about them. I love RDM and had nothing against any of them trying to do the Job except for Benitez.

Knickers in a bunch are you sure? I'm talking about since he's been gone, obviously while he was here most people slagged him off because they didn't want him, we didn't need him and he claimed credit for everything even when he totally f**ked it up. Since he's been gone though and we have less of the scousers coming on pretending to be Chelsea fans, I find it surprising we have anyone defending him.

It never ceases to amaze me when I come on here how many people dig out Jose for his decisions, tactics, selections or demeanor without anyone batting an eyelid yet when someone mentions that in their opinion Benitez is sh*t, there are people jumping to his defense. A manager arrived after Benitez, who like the one before him has Chelsea in his heart, I'm still in a state of euphoria that the Interim's gone and I don't have to listen to the media hype about how much he improved us, I can just laugh at Napoli and feel for their supporters as he go's about his improvements there. I don't know how people came to Rate Benitez or why but with the usually unjust slagging off most of our ex managers get I find it strange he has the most defenders. Ranieri....Tinker man, ok team builder but not good enough to win titles Jose.......good while it lasted but should never have come back as he's lost something Grant...ugly and his wife drinks piss Scolari...too old and doesn't know how to train the players Ancelotti...too nice and not animated enough on the touchline AVB...out of his depth...bad man management and clueless De Matteo...lucky with the CL but not really a good manager Benitez (shhhhh don't say anything bad about the man who saved us from Robbie) Jose...RB at LB, where's Mata? why no Luiz? Lampard again? no KDB ? letting Lukaku out on loan? Baggy eyes? looks seven years older than last time he was here...etc etc By the way, in my opinion Benitez really is pretty sh*t.

Nice one Giles...tis the season to be jolly after all. GILES SMITH: WHY RUSH? As the festive period draws near, it's simple comforts that are heartening columnist Giles Smith as he makes sense of the last week as a Chelsea supporter… So, the crisis deepens. A measly 1-0 victory last night over Steaua Bucharest, the reigning Romanian champions, means we have only managed to qualify for the Champions League knock-out phase by winning our group. Meanwhile, in the domestic competition, a startling 3-2 defeat away at Stoke City has left a situation in which it is perfectly possible that we may be obliged to go into the Christmas period on top of the Premier League. And I haven't even begun to mention the disaster whereby we are through to the quarter-finals of the Capital One Cup. Sometimes don't you feel like the ceiling of your world is falling in, directly onto your head, all day long? It needs correcting slightly, doesn't it, this impression that our team is somehow presently clinging on rather grimly to a small lump of wood following a shipwreck? True, there had been passing evidence of some highly unusual flakiness in our last two league games - the aforementioned Stoke debacle, and the fine-in-the-end but perhaps unnecessarily see-saw 3-4 victory at Sunderland. Did you spot what those games had in common? Correct: three goals conceded. Twice. Making (let me just do the maths here) a total of six goals conceded in all. Inside 180 minutes plus time added on. Strange, it can't be denied, and certainly not what we're used to. I'm not sure when, if ever, was the last time a Jose Mourinho-managed side gave away three goals in two consecutive games, but I'm assuming it's right back in a time when knights in armour roamed the land on horseback, and a football club couldn't get into the Champions League for love or money. And, OK, last night's performance won't have been anyone's definition of a rip-snorter, nor the major work of demolition, sparing no buildings, which a lot of fans seemed to feel they were owed, following the Sunderland/Stoke situation. Nevertheless, someone on the radio as I drove home last night was talking some very good sense about simple targets and the importance of meeting them.Needing a victory to guarantee top place in the group, our team went out and got a victory to guarantee top place in the group. Contrast - to pluck an example out of the sky - Manchester City, who also needed a victory to guarantee top place in their group, and who also went out and got one, but whose manager forgot to do the maths with the result that his team ended up one goal short and in second place. Or contrast Arsenal, who needed a draw to guarantee top place in their group and went out and got a man sent off and lost 2-0, and so will also be in the pot of second-placed teams when the draw for the knock-out stages is made in Nyon next week: which, when, you look at the teams sitting in the pot containing the top-placed finishers (us now blessedly among them), is less like a draw, really, and more like walking in front of a firing squad with your hand outstretched for the bandage. Of course, there's a perfectly reasonable argument that, if you're in the Champions League in the first place, what you want is to face the big sides: the Real Madrids, the Barcelonas, the Bayern Munichs, the PSGs. And I fully subscribe to that point of view, while at the same time pointing out that there's plenty of time for that kind of excitement later, in the quarters, the semis and the final. Why rush into things? As for the possibility of being top of the table at Christmas, it's a perfectly reasonable prospect. If we beat Crystal Palace on Saturday, and Arsenal lose to Manchester City, and if we then turn over Arsenal at the Emirates on December 23, as history indicates that we surely must, and assuming a couple of other things fall into place, it'll be Chelsea who gather round the groaning festive table with shiny faces come the big day, while Arsenal fans shiver in the cold and press their noses against the frosty glass in the hope of being lobbed a spare walnut. So, like I say, the crisis deepens. Crisis at Christmas? It sounds like a charity. And, actually, it is.

You wouldn't think so reading a lot of the posts here

Oscar, back from injury and right in the mix of everything as usual, not a great game for anyone but my vote's with him

Done enough, its hard to watch us being so obviously superior and not really busting a gut to punish the opposition but it was likely the plan. Clean sheet and top of the group, shouldn't really be too bitter.

Looks like he's coming on next

I think hes been ok but to be honest, if what you say is right then its games like this that will bring his undoubted potential to the surface, he's got the engine, got the ability just needs it fine tuning for me.

Is anyone at all satisfied that we're looking like going through top of the group? that we've given Ba a start or rested Cech? given Dave a rest and Ash a chance to work for his place? seen Oscar back to fitness? Luiz getting another start? Rested Rami? There always will be players left out we'd like to see play but its only eleven at a time sadly.