Celery1989

Too right. When I was born (1989) we lived in SW6, about 500 yards from the Bridge. Moved out and settled in Kingston ultimately. Fulham was such a dump back then, how times have changed.

Get the sense that Big Petr will stay until January, at which point we may sell him.

Quite refreshing to hear a Man City fan say this. I think that's exactly what is holding you back in Europe. 2 in midfield is just too risky, particularly when one of them (Yaya Toure) is a liability defensively/tactically.

I do still miss having Mata as an ambassador for the club, by all accounts he's a top bloke and I used to love how he would make a concerted effort to connect to the fans through social media etc. However, I have to say that, watching the way our team is evolving at the moment, he simply wouldn't fit. It irritates me slightly that he plays for Yanited but selling him was the correct call overall. I feel a bit sorry for him though as he's been left out of the Spain squad now on the back of a miserable World Cup. He should be coming into his peak years, but does he really want to spend them trying to sort out the mess that is United? I don't see them back in the CL for at least 2 seasons.

Fantastic start to the season by Branna. One of our top 3 players so far without a doubt. A great example of how increased competition improves the incumbent. I would think the long term plan is to put Dave at RB and Luis at LB (why else do you spend £20m odd on a 29 year old LB?) and to also rotate Ivan at CB. I think Jose made some comments to that exent recently. I think someone above alluded to JT's fitness, and it's worth keeping in mind that he's had a long standing problem with his back - apparently he has to take some painkilling shots before games to be able to get through them. I'm sure with age the pain only gets worse, so with this in mind it would be good to see Ivanovic rotated in at CB when possible. I'm not sure Zouma is quite ready yet.

I love the fact that we play in such a nice part of London, but in some ways that very fact makes it that much harder to find a suitable site to move to (if we had to). Areas like Seven Sisters etc are such sh*tholes that it's not difficult to find a spot for a stadium.

This transfer window has been unreal. At the end of the season I made a mental list of what I wanted us to do and the club have addressed it all: 2 new strikers New left-back Deep-lying playmaker Courtois in goal Sell Luiz for an extortionate price It looks as though we've even managed to keep hold of Cech too, that's how great the Summer has been for CFC. If was being completely greedy then I'd rather have signed Shaw and also brought in Pogba but not complaining .

Not in London of course but worth remembering that historically a lot of our fans have come from Surrey as well - places like Guildford, Woking, Redhill etc.

I was born in 1989, first house I lived in was across the road from the Bridge. I'd say my first Chelsea memories are from the mid 1990's, and I started going more regularly from about 1999 onwards. I'm not sure what team I'd consider to be my Chelsea, perhaps it would be the one which won the FA Cup in 2000 as this was the time when my best mate at that point (3rd generation Chelsea fan) started taking me to games in the MHL. Unfortunately we've drifted since but was fortunate enough to bump into him in the pub after Leicester the other day.

I'm sure he knows. Given that Lukaku left because he wasn't willing to compete, I bet Jose stressed to Loic the situation he'd be coming into.

Yep fair point. Just have to remember our track record with strikers isn't the best and to not get carried away. But the initial signs are extremely encouraging. Now we need to create a proper chant for Diego.

On the positive side, Torres won the corner that led to the equaliser in Munich, his goals throughout the Europa League, not just the one in the final, were obviously essential in us winning that competition. And whilst it didn't directly mean anything the goal at the Nou Camp and the emotions that it evoked are something I'll never forget. However, I'm just happy and to be quite honest relieved that the Fernano Torres saga is now finally over. He's been nothing short of terrible for large parts of his Chelsea career, cost us managers and better strikers either inside or outside the club whilst Roman chose to persist with paying his £175k-a-week wages. To be fair to him the club should have cut their losses long ago, but I think the main issue for potential suitors were Torres' ridiculous wages. My biggest gripe, though, with Torres was his attitude. I don't buy the argument that he worked hard, he didn't. He loafed about sulking most of the time. The fact that he publically criticised the club for not playing him the day after Munich really pissed me off. On what merit exactly did he deserve to be picked? But one thing that hasn't yet been mentioned by anyone was the fact that Torres almost totally ignored us, the fans. Some of our supporters chanted his name relentlessly, game after game for the past 3/4 seasons regardless of how useless he was on the day. I've never seen any other player receive as much support in my 20 odd years of being a Chelsea fan. All we ever received as recognition was the odd perfunctory clap. I suppose I wish Torres well, but in truth, I don't really give a sh*t.

It would be so typical if Falcao ended up at Man City and if Arsene Wenger went and bought some no-name forward from the French league. Really hope we don't see Falcao in England unless in a Chelsea shirt of course! Man United have sold Kagawa back to Dortmund for £6m. A real bargain for Dortmund if you ask me. Firstly United buy players at overly inflated prices yet now they've sold Kagawa for peanuts. Ed Woodward = Economics Genius.

Unreal game of football, one which will stick in the memory for years. If Jose can sort things out at the back I can see us utterly demolishing a few sides this season. Thought Fabregas showed his class again, Costa was an absolute beast of course and I felt Ramires had a pretty good game overall. Very much of the thought that this was one of those crazy games that happen every so often, I wouldn't read too much into our poor defending. City lose and have Arsenal away up next. Then we travel to the Etihad. If we can take care of business we could open up a bit of a cushion on them.

Fantastic start from Diego, how refreshing it is to see a proper no.9 leading the line again. I was very skeptical about his chances of success when we signed him but I think it's fair to say I've changed my tune. However, as has been pointed out, he's only played 4 games for us so far; Mutu look like a worldbeater after a handful of games too. So long as Diego can keep fit, work hard and channel his aggression properly then he could have a huge season for us.

Really happy with this signing. £10.5m - bargain IMO. Off the bench Remy could be valuable asset to deploy against a tiring defence but most of importantly he'll be able to share Diego Costa's workload. Remy's flexible too in that he can play as second striker or as a wide forward in a 4-3-3, although I wouldn't think he'll have to perform the latter role too much given how strong we are out wide already. Overall, a terrific transfer window, starting with the David Luiz sale and culminating in the acquisition of Remy. Absolutely delighted with the work that the club have done.

I wouldn't take the club's stance on this at face value just yet. Yes, they've said it's only 'minor' at this point, but they would say that to alleviate our concerns for the time being. The proper prognostic scans haven't been done yet. Bear in mind that injuries of this kind tend to take in the region of 4-6 weeks to recover from, so the very best I think we can realistically hope for is that he's back for Swansea after the international break.

I would expect that it's a 4-6 week job. There's an international break coming up so that's 2 weeks of no club games. Might be a case of damage limitation for the foreseeable as he'll miss Everton, City away and Arsenal at home.

Not yet, but Rob Beasley by and large is correct when it comes to us.

That's the real concern here.

If it's a strain then it's gonna take about 1 month to 6 weeks I believe. If it's a tear, a couple of months or worse as far as I know.

Just gotta find a pub with a dodgy Greek satellite or something, none of them around in SW6 though.

Doubt you'll get anywhere in Chelsea showing 3pm games. You'd probably have to look a little further afield.

Please Chelsea, do absolutely everything in your power to get rid of Torres. I don't think I've ever wanted anyone to leave Chelsea as much, not even Benitez. Torres is useless, I'm so sick of watching his futile 'efforts'. His presence and wage packet has been a massive reason as to why we fell behind the likes of Man City in England and Bayern etc in Europe and are still catching up, albeit to a lesser extent now. The sooner he's gone, the sooner I no longer have to hear the Torres fanboys chanting his name when he successfully manages to close down an opposition defender 5 yards away. And the sooner we can consign this ghastly, 517 page long thread to where it's been headed for 3 years: The Abyss.

He might work for the Sun but in fairness Beasley's track record with us is pretty decent. For example when there was talk of Jose possibly coming back, he declared in March/April that it was already a done deal.