nonotnowjim

Just back from the game, first game sat in the shed for years (usually family section with my lad!) - and rewarded with 2 goals in mins right in front of us. Happy Days. Surprised by the very positive appraisal of zappa tonight - as I thought he was poor. At fault for the goal (he was the one who game away an unnecessary freekick?), game the ball away a number of times with some sloppy passing, but more worryingly, despite being in space a number of times, his teammates often chose (after seeing him) to check back and opted against passing to him. Seemed to be a real and regular lack of confidence in giving him the ball. Ruben was in beast mode for much of the game, and Kovacic, Andreas and Kepa were good. Disappointed in Emerson and Zappa who are not doing enough to push for a starting place. CHO looked lively but was crying out for some end product, the crowd really got behind him and gave a cracking ovation. Moses isnt good enough as a winger and cesc looked rusty. Still, a good win, and privileged to have seen RLC get a hatrick in a blue shirt. Hopefully it is not a once in a lifetime experience! KTBFFH NNNJ

How lucky we were to have the privilege of having JT as our captain and leader. His achievements as Captain of CFC are unlikely to ever be bettered. Thanks for the memories JT. Come on the Chels! KTBFFH

Good shout. Was at the game last night, and the amount of times he looked like he was taking it easy without wanting to really try and push himself and the team on was frustrating.

amen to that...... CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES C'MON!

Are you intentionally trying to be a WUM? This will be my last post on the matter to you, because I am here to talk about Chelsea, and not UK foreign policy, But i will make clear to you now.... 1) I am not standing next to anyone! 2) The UK are not bullying Roman. He is free to enter the UK under paragraph 41 of the immigration rules as he is an Israeli passport holder. The UK were however delayed in processing his investor visa after which Roman withdrew his application. So ROMAN made the decision not to proceed with the application. Also, regarding the initial delay, if you look at the UK transparency data on visa processing for that category shows a delay across the board for processing times) - Lets not forget that it was in the height of the summer during peak period. 3) As I said yesterday, unless you work in a fairly high position in one of the few organisations/departments that i listed yesterday, then you are not in any position to say if there is or is not a real reason. 4) How the f**k do you know if I like a country or not? Stop assuming! and remember your opinion isnt as important as a fact! 5) I will admit however that I think that Putin is a dangerous world leader. Russias denial and subsequent charade in how it responded to the salisbury Novichuk attack is a snapshot of why I think he is dangerous. 6) I do not dislike Roman - He has done wonders for this club and allowed us to achieve things that I never thought possible when I was growing up supporting Chelsea in the 80s. 7) You clearly don't know what rational is. I am simply saying that you do not have the facts to be able to make a judgement, and you are wrong to label the circumstances around Romans visa as a UK phobia (which by dictionary definition means an irrational fear of something). 8) - Yes - I am the irrational one here. I am the one saying don't jump to conclusions, don't believe press spin, the UK don't make decisions like this lightly without due diligence and intelligence, don't be sensationalist by incorrectly labelling something a phobia etc etc etc.......right.... I am clearly the irrational one. This is my last on it, because it seems like you have a certain mindset that seems to think that you having an opinion automatically makes it fact. You also seem to like to accuse and make up bollox (I am standing next to someone, I hate Russia, I don't like roman etc etc ), so I will not engage with you any further. Cheers NNNJ

Absolutely - The UK government are not fond, and sadly it is with very good reason. Just look at the Salisbury incidents and how Russia have handled that to see why! But for people to cal it a phobia is plain nonsense. Phobia is an irrational fear of something. There is nothing irrational about the UKs current stance on Russia or Putin - so to call it russiaphobia as Gol15 and others have is odd and not very rational.

Sorry ..not OSCU, I mean OSCT! 15 years doesn't stop typos!

Unless you work fairly high up in the UK government , work for OSCU in the home office, work for the mi5 , work for the NCA or work for UKVI then you absolutely do not know what intel the UK do or do not have on Roman. Anything else is speculation and talk of russianphobia is sensationalism and not helpful. If you think that the UK makes such decisions lightly or on a whim then you are wrong. This comes from 15 years operational experience in this field...

Last season - Firmino scored 15 goals, averaged 0.41 goals per game, and got 7 assists with a shooting accuracy of 45%. He also chipped in with 9 kicked clearances and 6 headed clearances. He had 37 appearances and Liverpool won 56% of games that Firmino played in. Last season - Morata scored 11 goals, averaged 0.35 goals per game, and got 6 assists with a shooting accuracy of of 43%. He also chipped in with 20 kicked clearances and 13 headed clearances. He had 31 appearances and we won 58% of games that Morata played in. Alvaros output was pretty similar, despite playing less games, carrying a back injury and it being his first season in the epl.... ....Now, I don't necessarily believe that stats tell the full story - but I use them as a snapshot to show that the grass is not always significantly greener and we should be careful what we wish for. My previous post on Firmino was to assert (my opinion) that he is not a world class striker. I stand by that. But if he is, then the stats would suggest that Morata is not far behind from a shooting accuracy/scoring/chance creation perspective, and is way ahead in usefulness at defending, particularly set pieces.

why not Gary Cahill? He is a great finisher and last choice for the CB! Or wait....how about neither RLC or Gary Cahill, because neither of them are strikers or an upgrade (as a striker) on what we have already.

Going by some of the nonsense on other threads, we should probably sell him and replace with Arnautovitch? Cash in while we can.

Can't fathom why people are suggesting arnautovitch or mitrovitch. Beggars belief, we will be back to Solomon Rondon and Peter crouch levels next! The grass isn't always greener, and there is (still) a shortage of top class options available. All the time we are on track for top 4 then it is highly unlikely that we will be looking to replace a 60mill player with anyone else in the winter transfer window. As a rule of thumb, Chelsea are not a team likely to put faith in an unproven player, so anyone other than a top draw signing is unlikely to happen. Those players won't be available in the winter window. If we wanted to replace Alvaro, then we would have probably done so with higuain in the summer.

Who are Liverpool and utds top class strikers? Firmino and Lukaku? I would argue that both are anything but top class. 1 is hard working but isn't suited to play as a traditional striker and who would be best served as a supporting role as an ATM (firmino), and the other is a limited flat track bully who misses as many, if not more than morays.

Talk of russiaphobia makes me chuckle. Reality is that Roman is known to have strong links to Vlad, and Vlad at the moment is not a friend of the UK. Just look at the charade around Salisbury. A political decision to restrict (or look into) Romans footprint in the UK is likely, nothing to do with a phobia. Any decision will be well justified and intelligence led. It sucks given how much time, enjoyment and investment that Roman has put into cfc, but there will be a bigger picture here that we can only speculate to.

I enjoy listening to Sarri - find him engaging and good to hear, but i do wish he would stop picking his nose when he talks!