g3.7

his form has massively fallen off a cliff but I think we need to persist with him (rather than putting batshuayi or willian in) until the end of the season. then we need a definitive answer to whether he wants to be a chelsea player. he's a better player than anyone we could likely replace him with, but only when his head is right- and that is not guaranteed.

he wasn't bad but it is true that it isn't the most natural role for him and more importantly, it is the only position in the back three I think he could play and he's up against probably the best defender in the league. if he goes out on loan then I reckon playing for a manager who uses a back three would be more important than staying in england.

aguero is a good level above him and nearly always shows it, but not today. that was his best game of the season, and what a time for it- under huge pressure and alongside luiz unfortunately having his poorest game for a while and a rusty zouma. proper captain's stuff.

massive result with the pressure on.

spot on. incredible result really, and at the absolute worst time given our upcoming fixtures.

we've played really well but two big lapses have punished us. no need to panic yet (although for me pedro is always going to give them a chance), but in saying that if palace frustrate us (or score) for 20 minutes we'll be in big trouble.

if that is pedro at wingback then against zaha or even townshend then that is a big potential weakness for palace to exploit.

well if conte wants him, that'll do me. for what its worth he's very much the more attacking of the two monaco midfield players and stylistically is similar to vieira (but he has some way to go to be as good). it is pretty clear conte prefers midfielders who are all rounders rather than specialists (defensively or going forwards)- bakayoko fits the bill in that respect.

matic was instrumental in our last title win and has been an important figure in our season so far. if our next midfield signing matches his influence that would hardly be a failure.

great, great win. luiz the best player on the park by a mile, thought moses looked troubled by his injury all the way through though. their pen was a bit soft maybe, but that incident aside we did everything required in that type of atmosphere. sound the performance of champions klaxon

in spite of the clear dive by suarez you have to (or at least I have to) say that was an amazing comeback. psg were pathetic though. absolutely useless. such a shame, I've seen them play so well in the champions league a number of times, and the football they are capable of is of the quality of a side that should challenge to win the competition. mentally though, they have never been there. every time they find a new way to throw it away.

gerrardesque.

That's because we're not prepared to pay for any of it anymore.

Have a bad feeling about this game. It's gone from a gimme to, I think the technical term is, a potential banana skin.

great to see him close to his best again, he was arguably the best pure no.9 in the world at one point. awful pen, but that chip was as good as you'll ever see. there's no guarantee that a player can come back strong after injuries like that, either physically or mentally. I guess he needed two years and the assurance that he'd start every week to recover...

they're not really digs though are they? it is just standard jose really, he is using the same media tactics he always has (and from which we have profited in the past). is he doing badly? then he'll butter up his teams' support in order to ingratiate himself. is he doing well? oh well then he'll criticise his supporters to provoke a reaction in the stands. he'll play down the achievements of others and play up his own. he'll make it appear like his job is harder than it is so that he is judged by a measure of his own determining. he'll be abrupt and pretend not to care about things he cares about. and he'll act like he cares about things that he does not. this season he has gone through the motions of his greatest hits as far as his comments in the media are concerned. but it is 2017. every single person who watches football knows what he is doing. it is all manipulation to get those accumulated marginal gains. but because everyone knows this, they no longer shock, and they no longer convince like they did. he's like brando with an earpiece. so with that in mind, I can't understand how, in 2017, chelsea supporters- of all sets of fans in the world- could be frothing at the mouth, hanging on his every word and scrutinizing them as if they were anything more than hollow or transparent. you're acting like someone who has gone to the pantomime and decided to wait in the alleyways after dark so you can give the person who played the wicked witch a severe kicking for all of those nasty spells he cast.

this episode is one of the few black marks this season which has been brilliant on nearly every level. I think the club have done poorly- firstly this seemingly laissez-faire approach to letting talented young players contracts running down has bit us here, as it nearly did with ola aina last summer. it is no secret to anyone at the club that this lad has talent so why did the club not have a deal sorted with him before he went to vitesse? secondly I have no idea how stopping him from going out on loan and not using him much in the various reserve levels helps us- it seems incredibly petty (the latest example of such behaviour coming from the club, and I would say it appears to be pathological). it was hardly going to convince him that we had a long term plan for him and it probably doesn't send a great message to the other lads in the academy either. I'm not saying he should have been given 50k a week (as reported, and one wonders how that 'fact' is out in the media), but I doubt he'd have been asking for a sum even approaching that if the club had managed him properly. never mind though, we'll get a couple million if he stays in england. otherwise he'll go to scotland and we'll get much less. then if he does well we can spend £30m+ bringing him back. good times.

tough tough game in the end. didn't think we looked comfortable with the 442 matching burnley up in 1v1s across the pitch. they are a good side at home and in that weather and on that pitch I suppose a point isn't an awful result. feels a bit disappointing to get ahead and not win but once they equalised I'd say they were better and we never found any rhythm in our play.

silly, but he's young and hopefully he'll learn from it.

I agree completely. realistically though, who could we get that fits the bill? there aren't guarantees anywhere. at least with lukaku you're getting a player with scope to improve and with the peak of his career in front of him.

he's still a streaky player, but when he's on form he can do pretty much everything. given his age I still think we'd be making a good decision to bring him back. and who knows what working with conte could add to his game.

I seem to remember him turning arsenal inside out when at everton. maybe when he was on loan so not included? also put a hat trick past united when he was at west brom.

give him a chance, he's typing in a second accent.

Maybe go for more populist "conte is good" type contributions and fewer esoteric player ratings that upset and infuriate in equal measure? No one knows what you're talking about half the time and that's even when they read your posts in a real accent.

well bobby it isn't that simple because it is a matter of opinion not a matter of fact. for example, I don't agree that he had a run of poor games; liverpool away he didn't get into the game often and second half against hull he struggled but otherwise I haven't seen too much to criticise. more fundamentally, I don't think that a player deserves to be criticised for every poor game or mistake they make- IMO that is immature and unrealistic. and that is a general view- when you're talking about a player who has done it for the club on countless occasions over the years, lead the club to a title and has been a key player in a side that is unexpectedly top of the league in february, never mind by 9 points, I think that player shouldn't be questioned severely (not necessarily by you in fairness) because he goes a couple weeks without giving an 8/10 performance. and then when you remember the player is eden hazard, who is an attacking player, and an attacking player who doesn't lean on an outstanding physical attribute to be effective, and who plays nearly every game and takes more physical punishment than any other player in europe, then perhaps even more slack could be cut for him? I can only imagine what people would be saying in this thread if he put in a performance anything like alexis sanchez' on saturday.