Castiel

Oh I do believe it is pronounced, and the statistics seem to support this notion. Funnily enough Liverpool has suffered the most from this phenomenon in recent seasons.http://5addedminutes.com/2012/09/24/the-europa-league-and-the-thursday-night-effect/ Thankfully we've got fans in this sport obsessive enough to figure this sh*t out!

The fact that they're out of Europe is the main factor for me. No travel to gruelling European away matches in midweek. That's going to make a huge difference for them and give LVG an easier time to establish himself over there. I'd prefer they failed again because it'd really wreck their finances.

Perhaps we should add "most creative incorporation of Torres bashing" into the Shed End Awards.

Therein lies our problem. Even the maths checks out. Arsenal also have known striker woes.

Because we watch these players every week, we know what's accurate. Too many of Hazard's highlights for us involve nothing becoming of the great chances he creates.

What's our score without Schurrle? He played as a striker a few times but for most of the time he was certainly a winger, tracking back and all, and I don't believe he ever scored as a CF for us. If you include him you might as well include Hazard. We do spread the goals around a bit but that doesn't make up for the advantage Liverpool and City had over us with potent strikers knocking them in every week. Hopefully Costa is at least part of the answer.

I'm disappointed with his attitude. I was always a supporter of his on here, and I still wish he'd made it, but he let himself down. From what I understand he asked for the loan last season, and he probably instigated the transfer this season when Costa was bought. He didn't want to fight for his position, he expected to be handed the start at a club like ours. That's just delusional. He could have stayed last season and beaten out Torres and Eto'o on his own merit, and been our main man today - or preferably in competition with only Costa. But it seems he'd rather be a big fish in a small pond. I wish him well with Everton but I think he'll grow to regret it. Everton are a notorious almost team, they just won't be able to beat out the other contenders for that contentious CL spot over a season. It's ultimately bad news for us because our striker problems looked over with Costa and Lukaku, but now we're relying entirely on Costa unless a surprise is on the cards.

That was a magnificent save against Breman. He also managed to recover from it amazingly quickly to be in position to collect the rebound. Gonna be interesting to see how that position pans out this season.

If we get him on a free I'd be pretty happy about it. I think he's really underrated on here.

Disappointing game mainly because of the performance. I was hoping we'd start looking sharper by now but Jose is probably concentrating on fitness at the moment with double sessions. We've got a series of games in quick succession coming up to finish off our preseason, I suspect things will be looking different by the time we get to Sociedad.

He was but he also worked in spurts. He went for half a season being anonymous the season before he left if I remember correctly. Then he exploded into form after Christmas. Hazard is generally more consistent over a season than he was, but Hazard isn't the goal scorer he is/was either, not yet. If you watch Hazard highlight reels on YT, there are a shed load of incredible runs he makes only to have his outlet (often Torres) fluff the chance, or find nobody has made a run into the box leaving him with no options. To get the best out of Hazard he needs a reliable outlet, and hopefully that outlet is Costa. The addition of Fabregas also takes creative responsibility off his shoulders. Many times last season it seemed like Hazard felt he had to do everything himself. He starts on the left wing but often ended up moving around to attack from all sides, and to drop into CM to create; all while doing his defensive duty down whatever flank he was manning. Hopefully he won't have to take all that on himself any more and he can focus on driving at players from the wings since Fabregas can take those playmaking responsibilities and someone can pick him out for a change. We were almost asking him to fulfil two or three roles at once. This is why I was originally annoyed with Mata leaving, it just put a bigger burden on Hazard since Oscar isn't the silky passing type. Those two used to combine often, with great results, and hopefully we get that back with Cesc.

https://twitter.com/RAWK_Meltdown That guy spends his free time looking for the funniest comments from RAWK. I didn't watch their game but I think Liverpool are the most vulnerable in the top 4. They'll be coping with CL football again, which means no more week long breaks between games, and they've lost their best player without adequate replacement. United however will have the same light schedule Liverpool enjoyed last season, plus a manager who isn't a complete clown.

I don't understand why Jose keeps playing him. Chance after chance and he hasn't gotten any better. Only 2 more years to go.

Sure we can. Most squads at this level have at least 2 top forwards. United: Rooney, RVP Barca: Messi, Neymar, Suarez RM: Ronaldo, Benzima, possibly in for another (Falcao)? City: Aguero, Negredo PSG: Ibra, Cavani, Lavezzi Juve: Tevez, Llorente Bayern are an outlier in being a little light for an elite team but they have Lewandowski and Muller who works in that false 9 system. Costa is the only man we have who can stand in that company. Torres should be our second, but he isn't up to it. We could absolutely use Cavani and Costa, but only if Torres goes.

As expected the billionaires are just finding their way around the rules. But this way we spread the love around a bit. I'm sure Mallorca fans won't mind the cash injection, especially if Roman cements them in the Spanish top division as a waypoint for talent we can't directly import ourselves. They're usually relegation fodder coming up and down every few seasons. At the moment they're not doing well at all; narrowly avoiding relegation and burdened with debt.

Why do we need a right winger, or any winger? We have Hazard, Willian, Schurrle and Salah - not to mention Oscar and Ramires can do jobs there. Costa can play as a wide forward as well.

No he went to Rayo Vallecano. Seems he wants a Spanish Vitesse though. Perhaps this is his solution to getting around the UK's work permit requirements and tapping into the South American talent pool.

Didn't see a thread. http://www.latestchelseanews.com/roman-abramovich-buy-stake-real-mallorca/ Roman Abramovich is currently in negotiations to obtain a 55% controlling share in Spanish Segunda Division team Real Mallorca. This is according to the Spanish newspaperEl Mundo. After a successful fight with relegation during the past season, the club will play in the second division in Spain again in 2015. Real Mallorca has bounced between the first and second divisions for virtually all of its existence. After 2010’s bankruptcy proceedings the Balearic team has had a tough time both on and off the field, but they managed to retain a spot in La Liga until they were finally relegated to the second division at the end of the 2012/13 season. This year they completed the season just outside the drop zone, barely managing to avoid a free fall into Spain’s lower football levels. If the reports can be trusted, Abramovich’s cash injection might help to solve the team’s financial woes and drive them back into the first league, where his team connections might also prove to be beneficial to Chelsea FC. The club might create a relationship between Mallorca and London that is not much different from that existing between Dutch team Vitesse Arnhem or Cobham and Chelsea. Should that happen, Chelsea would have a great system for developing young players who can either not secure a UK work visa or who are simply not yet ready for English football for a variety of reasons.

Pogba is something special already and his addition to our midfield would turn us into a juggernaut. Matic, Pogba and Fabregas in a 433 is eye watering. That said, I can't see it happening. This summer would be our best opportunity to sign him but it doesn't look likely. I'd move Ramires on to accommodate him, he's like a younger, better version. The only hope I have about it is the fact that Jose rates him highly and some weird sh*t is going down at Juve, but I could see him doing a Kroos and ending up with one of the Spanish clubs next summer when they're better prepared to sign him.

I'd love him, I've wanted him since he was with Napoli and I think he'd do great here. However I don't think it'll happen unless we can unload Torres, which looks unlikely at the moment. I think it might hinge on PSG getting Di Maria and us unloading Torres, which is a big ask. We could absolutely work with Costa and Cavani without issue. We play enough games in a season to satisfy them both, and sometimes we play with 2 strikers in Jose's emergency game chasing mode. Those two would be healthy competition to lead our line, and they're both diverse enough to play as lone strikers, supporting strikers or even wide forwards should the need arise. Most other teams at our level have comparable firepower, we've just grown used to making do.

I'm sold on him already. Looks tremendous. Much faster than I thought he would be and he looks terrifying to play against. He's the sort of striker who is going to cause all manner of problems to opposition defences, and keep it up for the full 90. He'll bully defenders, intimidate them, man handle them, kidnap their children and score in their moment of grief. His own scoring value isn't all he's going to bring, he created a lot of opportunities for our wingers and midfielders to score - and I can't wait to see how this works when Hazard, Oscar and Schurrle are back in the side. Not to mention how much they'll improve with Fabregas distributing from midfield. I'm extremely happy with how Jose has addressed our issues so far. We were only 4 points off City with some glaring weaknesses, and being over-reliant on Hazard. Now we've addressed those weaknesses in a big way. We're really looking formidable.

Learn the offside rule Hull.

Come on Hull at least a point. Hopefully City runs out of legs in the second half after Barca.

If anything they're overly friendly by our miserable standards. Their speaking volume tends to be much higher than ours though and they seem to put salt on everything.

Would we really have played more total games than City considering they got further than us in both cups? They've got congestion from rescheduling, the CL shouldn't really be a handicap with that considered. They can't reschedule on CL nights either. Liverpool is the winner in all this having nothing else to worry about.