gojo_ed

Just looked at Everton's recent home form in the League: 15 Apr 3-1 vs Burnley 9 Apr 4-2 vs Leicester 18 Mar 4-0 vs Hull 11 Mar 3-0 vs WBA 25 Feb 2-0 vs Sunderland 4 Feb 6-3 vs Bournemouth 15 Jan 4-0 vs Man City 2 Jan 3-0 vs Southampton 19 Dec Lost 1-0 to Liverpool 13 Dec 2-1 vs Arsenal On paper not the toughest run of fixtures, but 9 victories in their last 10 at Goodison is not to be taken lightly (the one defeat against Liverpool they lose every year). More worryingly given our defensive frailties they're averaging 3 goals a game in that time. How do we go about stopping their attacking threat? Or do we just risk it and try to outscore them??

Hopefully the win tonight and on Saturday will give us the momentum to push us over the line. Tantalisingly close, Spurs are due to drop points somewhere...surely?

Good result, and great to see Diego regain the ability of linking up with other attackers. However still nervous that our defence may let us down crucially in one of the final games. A win vs Everton would go a long way to making me more confident.

Quite. In fact his foul throw against Man Utd led us to concede possession in our own half. From that passage of play United scored their 2nd. Needless.

No Pedro surprises me, aside from Hazard I don't see much killer instinct. Anyway we're all master tacticians before the match...c'mon Chels!

Certainly- the defending might be a little dodgy, but the attacking talent on both sides are making this a good game for the neutral.

Dortmund back in it...

Monaco bossing it....Mbappé is going to be quite a player

This year is our first FA Cup semi since we lost to you lot in 2013! You're right that Real do prioritise the Champions League- particularly since they went for José and Carlo. I don't know, it's probably just my frustration with how inevitable it all feels. I'm sure fans in Europe said the same thing when English clubs dominated in the 00s. At the same time though I don't think any of the English sides seemed to benefit quite so much from questionable refereeing (only time I can remember for CFC is Carvalho taking out Valdes in 05 for JT's winner).

Yep the same teams year after year- it's the seventh season in a row Real have reached the semis. They're a very good team, but at the same time in a cup competition there will (or rather, should in all probability) be games where you'll be knocked out unexpectedly. But it just doesn't seem to happen to them in recent history. You know it's something when you cheer on Juve and Bayern as some sort of plucky underdog! Allez Monaco is all I can say.

Surely there has to be a moment when enough is enough? Cricket, Tennis, Rugby have all embraced technology for goodness' sake. Give each team 2 appeals per half and it won't break up the play, but it will prevent absolute howlers like tonight.

I think someone else said it in the matchday forum, but can anyone point to something he's done that's been constructive in the past 2 months? Only the flukey own goal vs Bournemouth, which came from him completely shanking a half volley. He is an actual liability as it stands- doesn't get in the six yard box, can't hold up the ball or link up with the wingers, gives the ball away constantly. Can Michy really be that bad?!

Reminds me of when Spurs beat us 2-1 in April 2010, we were absolutely appalling that day as well. That cut the gap with Utd to 1 point with 3 to play. Let's hope we can pull it back together as we did then- however I fear this team isn't made of the same stuff.

Just not at the races. Free kick that led to their goal came from a f**king foul throw in our own half, inexcusable in this day and age.

Well that was dreadful

Remember when José picked a second XI vs the Scousers to rest for Atletico. This could be deceptively tricky.

To be fair to Claudio had far less money to spend than Luca and Vialli, before Roman came along. I think the season we finished fourth our only signing was Quique de Lucas? Yes he was hugely erratic and the "Tinkerman" cost us vs Monaco (collapsed vs 10 men, sending on a half fit Veron and moving Parker to RB and JFH to right midfield!). On the other hand though he really did set the foundations for our great team of the mid 00s when you think that: -Gallas, Lamps, Joe Cole, Duff, Makelele all signed by Claudio. Cech and Robben were arranged while Ranieri was still boss -He nurtured JT and helped with the transition of captaincy from Desailly in 2003/04 He was also a little unfortunate that he came up against an excellent Arsenal side in the League. Overall we made the right decision to switch to José, but I'll always be thankful for what Claudio did for the club.

Sandwiched between two European matches for United, hopefully they might be knackered by the number of games they've had this month. However this is the sort of situation we've seen José relish in the past however, thinking vs the Scousers in 2014 between the two Ateltico games. I asked it after the Palace game, but is it worth switching Diego given his form at the moment?

Deep breaths...7 points with 9 games to go...yep, the fear is here. RLC to start up front vs City or is that a crazy knee jerk response?

Following on a MBM from Brazil...sounds nervy. From the sounds of it Milivojevic has been doing a Herrera on us, give him a yellow!

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/mar/23/real-madrid-eden-hazard-thibaut-courtois-chelsea Not good, Sid Lowe is fairly reputable unlike the hacks at the Sun/Mail etc. At the risk of astounding naivety, isn't that basically tapping up? Guess in this day and age it's normal, but then again Real Madrid are coming out of a transfer ban.

It's in Mourinho's DNA to be an antagonist, he finds it difficult to do it any other way. Not always a bad thing of course- we know more than any other club that the 'us against the world' mentality in 2005 produced phenomenal results. However he came back to us as the 'Happy One' which lasted about a week before he was up to his usual mind games, albeit much grumpier this time around. His posturing to Conte and the crowd is just wummery, don't rise to it or give him an excuse to play the victim card (in Brazil so couldn't watch but sounds like a minority singing against him?). Let our football do the talking, support our coach and players first- as has been the case all season.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BroadcastMoose/status/818149144585965569 Interesting... Ian Abrahams (Moose)‏ @BroadcastMoose Antonio Conte says he wants to keep Ruben Loftus-Cheek at Chelsea - full interview to come later

Good luck to him, hopefully he can replicate some of his form from when he was at Boro. Though yes, he's 23 in September so although still relatively young, you'd think this is his last opportunity to show his value to us So...in terms of strikers for us that leaves us with Diego Michy Remy (for now) Solanke Plus RLC I guess if he takes up a more advanced role. Sufficient coverage if Remy goes?

Second half was hard work, have to give a lot of credit to Bristol Rovers but I don't think the intensity was there. Was a very warm evening, but that shouldn't be much of an excuse. I thought Moses was bright, but as ever his end product is erratic to say the least. On the other hand Pedro was fairly non-existent in the 2nd half. Matic saw a lot of the ball without doing anything urgently. RLC head the ball up fairly well and showed flashes of his talent. Aina was good until Rovers' 2nd goal- afterwards he made a few simple errors, not sure if his confidence ebbed slightly as he lost the ball for the penalty, or whether it was his injury.