Socrates

Nice one, Willian! The draw is still on!

Ivanovic beaten again for the goal. Jose is just being stubborn here.

Hazard gets a rest. Matic is dropped. Ivanovic can do no wrong. No recall for Terry. Oscar doesn't make the bench. At least Costa is back. A draw would be a good result I guess.

433 to stop us getting overwhelmed in midfield. And Ivanovic benched. Begovic Azpi RB Terry Cahill Rahman LB Mikel Ramires Willian Hazard Costa Pedro

We're set up to sneak wins on the break. Problem is we have an invisible midfield and a defence that's leaking goals. Which makes us look pretty stupid when we go 2-0 behind. Our strategy is then to go gung-ho so we either end up losing by three or clawing it back as we did today. All a bit of a shambles really and coming back from two down just papers over the cracks.

Maybe Jose should give the players a rocket before the game starts. That first half was shocking. I would just drop Ivanovic. Get it over with. Stick Terry in the middle and Zouma on the right if need be. Or just play Baba Rahman and start Azpi on the right where he belongs. Enough of this nonsense. Midfield of Matic and Fabregas has had its day. Time for Jose to think outside the box. Big opportunity missed today. Only Ramires and Willian did themselves any credit. And they were sitting on the bench for most of the game.

Thought Jose would've learned a lot from last night. Ramires had one of his better games. Kenedy took his goal well and showed some decent touches. Pedro is a class act. Cahill was solid. Remy works hard and can finish when called on. RLC making steady if unspectacular progress. OTOH, Baba Rahman made you wonder what was wrong with Filipe Luis. Ivanovic is a disaster waiting to happen. Terry has a fight on to be first-choice. Falcao was comically awful. Good work out overall.

You got to laugh: And so Gabriel kicked him, or rather flicked a leg back at him – bingo Diego! – right in front of the referee. At which point Costa became instantly the guardian of the game, football’s last true gentleman, shocked – shocked! – to see such rough play, shaking his head sadly as Gabriel exited pursued by a steward.

Zouma, Costa or Mike Dean. Oscar was good too. Went with Costa as he never let up and the Gabriel sending off swung it in our favour.

Two players I really wanted to start, Willian and Pedro, are both out. Damn we've been unlucky with injuries so far. I expect Jose to bring back Matic, Terry and Ivanovic. Costa to start upfront. Would like to see Loftus Cheek partner Matic but Jose might go with Zouma or Mikel to be extra cautious. Personally, I can't see Jose dropping Ivanovic for this one even though I think Azpi should be nailed on as our right back. Begovic Ivanovic Terry Cahill Azpi Matic Loftus Cheek Fabregas Oscar Hazard Costa

This article says it all really. Jose was screwed by the Board's failure to land his key targets or even any suitable alternatives. Jose's been left, more or less, with the same 11 players from last season. From reports, Jose said he needed a new spine and a quality alternative to Costa. Jose got none of it. So this year we’re older, our weaknesses more apparent, and trying to keep up while every other team has strengthened and improved. In other words, we have fallen behind and there's no easy way out. The problem now is we might not get into the top four which means our recruitment (and income) next season will be limited. So we'll end up falling behind further. That's what the two Manchester clubs understood and that's why they spent to upgrade. We didn't and now we're paying the consequences for the Boards incompetence. Frankly, I'm surprised Michael Emenalo has still got a job. No wonder Jose is looking pissed off.

Robbie De Matteo. We might need to win the Champions League if we're going to be useless in the league.

Sorry to hear about your loss, mate. It kind of puts football and all the melodrama and complaints of us fans in perspective.

Problem that Jose has is that he wants to win our next two games as well but he doesn't think that bringing in fringe squad players is going to make that more likely. That's why he'd rather resort to the tried and tested. Even if that isn't exactly working. It's a Catch-22. We go on playing badly and losing, so we need to win our next games but Jose can't risk it with untried squad players he doesn't think are ready or good enough. Best we can hope for are a couple of tactical tweaks. Maybe Azpi switching to right back to take Ivanovic out of the equation. Maybe Oscar will make a difference in midfield and then just hope that Hazard and Costa regain their form.

Champions League already? A welcome distraction from our struggle with relegation. We're so off form that this is a good excuse to try something different. Maybe Azpi at right back? Bit radical I know. But it might work. As long as Jose doesn't decide to play Ivanovic at centre-back. That would really be taking the piss.

Thought Willian looked busy for the ten minutes he was on. Er... That’s it.

We should've started this A. Traffic Cone instead of Ivanovic...

From here, third would be a great achievement. But that would involve us getting our act together and Jose finding a winning formula. Which seems a long way off. Even when we were playing poorly for the second half of last season, we were grinding out results. Now we're playing poorly and getting soundly beaten. How long before Jose tires of losing and decides we're going to park the bus for the rest of the season? Just think we have gone backwards this last transfer window. Failed to upgrade in key areas, failed to have a contingency plan when our main targets were out of reach and now we're paying the price. Any old mid-table side is capable of beating us. Never mind Man City.

Can't argue with that. Having no real alternative to Costa is only part of the problem though. Everton, or should I say Naismith, took their chances. When we were 2-1 down, Terry had a decent chance from a header over the bar, and on a breakaway Costa dallied around when he should've shot. Thought we should've scored from either chance but it's tough when you create so little. Thought our set-pieces were average and don't recall Ivanovic getting a cross in, no matter how often he tried. Even so, the fact that Costa was often found deep and even crossing on one occasion, tells you something ain't right. My own feeling is that it's midfield where we're really paying the price for a lack of quality. No cover, no attacking threat, no pace. Just getting sliced open every time. No wonder our defence is taking so many hits and our forward players are getting no support. Doesn't help when so much of our attacking play passes through Ivanovic, a converted centre-back. For how much longer though?

Thought Stones was superb today. We should've offered crazy money for him. Think we still will. Only it'll be more than 40 million now. Would be the backbone of our defence for 12 years that kid. He can really play.

Closer to 100 million from reports. Looks like it would've been money well spent from where I'm sitting.

Bit worrying to think that Jose had two weeks to think about this game and then decided to start with Ivanovic and Mikel. In what football universe does that make sense? Might as well give Baba Rahman and Loftus-Cheek a go. How much worse can it get? It's not as if blind loyalty to the old guard is getting us results.

Don't see where we go from here. Dropping Ivanovic is only part of the solution. Our midfield is a disaster area. From Lampard, Makalele, Essien and Ballack to Matic and Mikel. WTF is that about?

More here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/crystal-palace-set-michael-hector-6369333?

Optimistic write up on our latest recruit: http://www.squawka.com/news/scout-report-chelseas-new-4m-signing-michael-hector/453689