mjcreswick

As good as it is that we don't have one stand out player and that its split across the group, I think this may be our come down when it comes to where the title ends up at the end of the season. Even when we had Drogba I know people will argue that he wasn't just there to score goals he had a bigger influence on the team than that. But to win the league I think you need one, maybe two stand out players. If we had a player in the form of an Aguero, or a Suarez, that top 5 looks like a title winning 5.

Discussion at work on what our best 5 a-side team would be, then onto who would win the league and Champions League if it was a 5 a-side indoor tournament. My CFC team; Terry(GK) Luiz Oscar Hazard Willian Barcelona would be pretty scary, as would Liverpool's as much as it hurts to say it!

There's 9 of us coming up on the friday, any idea where Chelsea fans will meet Saturday morning?

I'm not enjoying our comparisons to Arsenal, whose squad is super thin compared to ours. Yes they've started well, but once they get injuries and/or suspensions to key players around christmas time is when you see the teams with the best squads really take over. With 4 competitions to play for, we've got 3 strikers, 6 attacking midfielders and more than adequate cover in midfield and defence. However, I firmly believe we need to realise our best team, or even if we can't do that, decide on a starting line-up for the next month and stick to that as much as we can, even top quality players need time to adjust to one another.

A lot of people stated when Benitez left that our main transfer targets should be a centre forward and a centre midfielder, we haven't strengthen either with enough quality. Our team would look so much better with a De Rossi style player holding, and a Rooney/Lewandoski up top. My first 11 at the moment would be ; Cech Ivan/Dave Cahill Terry Cole Mikel Oscar Hazard Mata Schurrle Eto Cech and the back 4 speak for themselves, defensively we are fine. While however much I rate Lampard, and dont rate Mikel, he needs to play if we are playing this system, someone needs to sit - he's the only player we've got who can. Going forward, the problem we had last night was that the attacking midfielders all wanted to do the same thing, playing Schurrle out right might give us a outlet, someone who will get his head down and run at his defender - exactly what Moses did! Centre forward can be one of three, none have done anything to be put in above another, however for me it has to be Eto or Ba.

Undecided on this one. Part of me thinks that it might be good, get him another season of playing every week, Eto's is the short term option for one year and then Lukaku will be ready to go. The other half of me thinks a club like Chelsea plays a lot of games, we could easily afford to keep him and play him once a week. If Eto'o doesn't settle and play well from day one then again we've got ourselves 3 mis-firing strikers.

It's because the strikers you name wouldn't improve us that much. Rooney is an obvious choice if he wants to leave United, he's proven in the Premierleague, and in a World Cup year he has to deliver. City would never of sold Tevez to us, while as good as Gomez, Aubameyang, Osvaldo and Bony are, I dont think they are miles ahead of Torres, Ba and Lukaku.

By the way, what pubs are we looking at going to before the game? Or do most people drink in the ground?

I'd be very suprised if we didn't go 3 in the middle. Oscar could drop in; Rami Oscar Lams Or leave out Oscar/Mata; Essien/Mikel Lamps Rami

I bloody love cereal

Stop it!

If I had to call it now, I'd go 1. City 2. Chelsea 3. United I think we will definatley challenge, but come up just short, which our young players will learn a lot from. I think we with Lampard playing less games and no world class striker we lack someone who will win games when we are really up against it. We are relying on a younger player having a phenominal season, HOWEVER this is a possibility. If Hazard or Lukaku have outrageous seasons then there's no reason why we cant pip City to it. I think we are a De Rossi and Rooney off the title.

There are a few of us looking at going up to Newcastle for the away fixture at the start of November, on the Friday and coming back on the Sunday. Just wondering if anyone else has sorted out travel up there? Cheapest trains are around £85 which seems quite pricey considering we went up to Sunderland last year for around £40. Cheers

I seem to remember a certain Mateja Kezman coming from the dutch league and scoring for fun in pre-season.

Decent first game, however was hoping for Southampton or Palace away. In terms of United away, from past experience does anyone know if that game will go on loyalty points from last season?

Absolutley delighted for Lamps, however can't get over how poorly the club have handled it. We need to keep Lamps at the club for the next 20/30 years in some sort of place!

I don't think Rafa even thought about bringing him off. With Benfica having used all 3 of their subs, and the game potentially going into extra time their players were tiring. And Rami can bloody run!

Any reason why they haven't got a star above the badge?

I dont think this one is going to go quiet. Based purely on Sky Sports reporting that they expect United to announce their new boss in 48 hours, I think means that its not Jose. Theres no way they could of got him out of his contract in less then a day (rumours on Fergie broke last night). However, I dont think this means he's 100% coming here, will Roman be willing to spend another £10 million on getting a manager out of his contract? I'm not too sure. Even so, if I had to put money on managers/clubs; Jose to Chels Moyes to UTD Martinez to Everton Rafa to Wigan

I unfortunatley cannot afford the trip over to Amsterdam. However, as I read it correctly, GROUPON are currently doing a 'getaway' offer to Amsterdam, prices for anytime in May are £189 for two nights flights and accomodation, I think you have to book minumum two people but thats by far the cheapest option I've seen! Hope this helps Come on you blues!

Had this dicussion with a few people recently and I cant help but feel that with the majority of teams playing 1 up front, formations and set ups are moving away from having simply goal poachers or scorers. We need a player for than anything that can bring people into the game, scoring goals is an add on to that, if Falcao can bring people into the game, hold the ball up and score a few goals then that is decent, but could Lukaku do that? I think theres more of a need to have someone who can bring Oscar Mata and Hazard into the game rather then score tap ins.

“ We could charge more than £104. “Let’s say we charged £300. We’d get £2m more in income but what’s £2m to us? In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan. We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody. That’s the biggest difference between us and England''. Uli Hoeness, Bayern Munich president, discussing the club’s affordable ticket pricing plan - 120 Euros for a terrace season ticket. One third (12,500) of the club’s season tickets are at this price.

Jack Cork

Once again having slept on it, my views on Benitez have not changed. When he first was appointed, regardless of any negative feelings towards him I wanted to support him as it was clear he was going to be here untill the end of the season. However, yesterday summed up exactly why the board made the wrong decision appointing him, and also sums up exactly why he won't win over us CFC fans. I dont have any massive questions over his starting line up, Ivan and Luiz have done well recently together, and with Lamps playing mid-week it always seemed Mikel and Rami would start. On Torres, its always going to be one of two. However his substitutions baffled me, when we needed to bring someone on who can keep the ball he called Youssi, who must of touched the ball once or twice, and brought off our only really ball carrier from defence to attack. He only brought Moses on because Oscar was injured, and Torres did absolutley nothing all game. Going into the last 10 we needed someone to hold the ball up, we could of put JT upront and he would of done a better job at that. Finally, his interview after the game was a disgrace, he couldn't bring himself to defend one of his own players, and was too busy thinking about how it would look on Liverpool FC. If you want to be there so much Rafa please don't come back south. Keep waving to that Kop you love so derely and let us appoint someone who gives a damn about us.

1) Mata - We look nowhere near as good without this man on the pitch. 2) Luiz - Massive improvement on previous seasons, and the ability to play two roles. 3) Cech - As good as ever. Big gap 4) Azpiliqueta 5) Ramires