Blue Charm

Fairly damning:

Clearly, Mourinho's plan was to bring Rooney to Chelsea in 2013 use him as the focal point of the team for the tail end of his career. Then sell Lukaku to Everton in 2014 so that Lukaku can be bought back to Chelsea with Rooney going to Everton to sweeten the deal. Since Mourinho was unable to get Rooney to Chelsea he decided to go move off to Man Utd to complete his masterplan. Joking aside, I'm glad Chelsea didn't manage to get Rooney back in 2013. Would have been a disaster considering his wage demands and how quickly he has declined of late. But perhaps we would have managed to bring Lukaku in this season.

Agree with your points regarding many players being solid but unspectacular. Conte has been doing a great job and the team has been the best managed of the top sides so far. Passing is clearly not a strength of the side and Chelsea has therefore been unable to boss big games in terms of possession. Apart from Luiz and Hazard, I can't think of many others that started the game against Liverpool that are great at passing the ball. Conte has done wonders mitigating this flaw.

Has Mourinho perhaps made the mistake of stikcing to the same coaching staff for too long? Alex Ferguson used to change assistant coaches every few years. Perhaps Mourinho needs some new backroom staff to challenge him and for new ideas?

Unlucky that Courtois didn't manage a better clearance. Had to get something on it, since there was a Stoke player waiting for the cross at the far post. Wouldn't lay the blame on him. Much more annoyed at Willian for losing the ball in the first place. The goalkeeping position has not been the issue this season. Anyway, for intercepting crosses, Cech hasn't been the that good lately. Just for the sake of comparison, here is the goal conceded agains Stoke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQfiDrXu1TE and Swansea's second goal against Arsenal:

Awesome tackle but not a big fan of defending with hands behind your back. Would prefer seeing Zouma try to close down Martial and block his pass. If the ball does strike the defender's arm (in a "natural" position) from that distance then it is not a penalty.

https://twitter.com/ChelseaFC_Lat/status/681614596101255169/video/1

Mata is probably not overly excited about that prospect either.

Would be interested to see how he would do in the slower paced Serie A.

Don't want to see Zouma at Rb. Much rather have him at Cb. His passing and ball control isn't the best and if Liverpool play a high tempo pressing game Zouma and Cahill may find it difficult to get the ball up the field. Remy should hopefully be able to exploit the space behind their defence.

That scenario would make an interesting read in the morning papers! What I meant is that the youth players better start making Jose better porridge for breakfast. Hopefully that will get him in a better mood and smiling again Or rather, what I meant is only in a season that is "just right" (not fighting for 1st or 4th) will jose give a lot of chances to youth. If you liked the analogy, going for 1st place would be like a porridge that is too hot and battling for 4th it is too cold.

Well that's been his plan all along http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/11283101/Jose-Mourinho-If-Chelsea-dont-bring-young-players-through-then-we-should-close-our-academy.html But in all seriousness, considering the way this season is shaping up and Mourinho's tendencies, it doesn't look like a good season for integrating youth into the squad. Looking back at what Mourinho said earlier this season (http://www.espnfc.com.au/chelsea/story/2636750/jose-mourinho-ill-just-play-the-kids-if-chelsea-fail): "If the season goes in one direction, that it becomes closed and we can't win [trophies], I will go just with the kids. It makes no sense, when you have nothing to win, to play the older players. I'll play the players we're waiting for instead." If the above is taken literally you'd expect more young players to play more minutes as of late. However, we've seen very little of that so far. Kennedy looked very lively coming off the bench and looked like he could at least be a good impact sub this season (what's happened to him?). And if Jose sees Baba as his future left back, wouldn't he want to blood him in? Would need some Goldilocks scenario for Mourinho to start playing the youth. He'll rely on the tried and trusted if the team is chasing a CL spot. Can only see a lot of game time for youth if the team has secured a CL place.

Considering Jose's recent track record with integrating players I would be surprised to see the team buying fringe players or prospects midseason. By the time Jose trusts them the season may be pretty much over. Hopefully there have been some lessons learned with the likes of Cuadrado/Salah.

To be fair in his first seasons Ivanovic was competing with Terry/Carvalho/Alex for Cb and Bosingwa/Belletti/Fereira for Rb. Rahman only has a really out of form Ivanovic to dislodge.

How inconsistent can you get? Not sure whether mentioned before, but strangely enough Halsey reckoned that Gabriel should have been banned for elbowing Arnautovic a week earlier: http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2015/09/14/15329752/arsenals-gabriel-faces-ban-and-naismith-escaped-red-card Can't find a video but it was at around the 70th minute of the Arsenal - Stoke match. If the FA follows the precedent set for Diego (which they won't), they may set a new record for retrospective bans.