Jonty

Depends how he looks in training, one thing frequently overlooked on here is that Jose does get to watch, coach and assess these players every day of the week, not just in matches.

Pulled off some spectacular saves against City, if not for him it could have been 5-0.

1. How was your transfer window, and are Chelsea stronger as a result of it? Begovic for Cech, Falcao for Drogba, Pedro for Cuadrado, Rahman for Luis. Pedro is an undoubted upgrade, Falcao and Rahman hopefully will be, and with Begovic we maintained having the best back-up keeper in the league. So yes i'd say we're a bit stronger but it probably wasn't enough. 2. Why have Chelsea been slow starters this season? Run-over from the end of last season, it was probably the promise of that title being so close that kept us going over the last few months of last season but now that thats over our weaknesses are being exposed. Ivanovic has been beyond awful, really none of the back 4 have played great and Fabregas isn't creating enough to justify his weaknesses. That being said, if Courtois doesn't get sent off at Swansea then we probably win that game and maybe play a bit better in the subsequent matches. 3. What are your thoughts on the Eva Carneiro situation? I really don't care about who our team doctor is. The media have done a good job into spinning it into Jose vs Eva to make Jose look bad when in reality he criticized the medical team, which is not only Eva but also the bloke whose name escapes me. It's been overblown because Eva is a woman. Aside from all of that, Jose's comments about the medical team coming onto the pitch seemed unnecessary. 4. Although it's early, what are your observations of the Premier League this season? The weak teams have gotten stronger and the strong teams haven't, aside from City. I expect they will walk the league this season and the rest of the big clubs will be in for quite a few shock results as we've seen already. 5. What kind of reception are you expecting at Goodison Park? It's always loud there, i'm sure the new Stones song will be done to death while Everton fans ignore the fact that he's probably going to leave next window or summer anyway. 6. Why are your thoughts on Chelsea's failure to sign John Stones? Martinez did his job well and made it look like we'd done something wrong by trying to buy a player. We hadn't done anything out of the ordinary in our pursuit of Stones and no more than Martinez does when he goes after players, but in the end he managed to create such a sh*tshow that he could pretend to justify not selling Stones to us as a matter of principal. From our end I think we stumped up far more than he's worth and didn't really do much wrong, and I expect we'll get him in the next year (or United will). 7. Many said last season's fixture was one of football's greatest games, so what game are you anticipating on Saturday? Well we certainly look capable of conceding 3 goals again, but not scoring 6. Given our recent woes I expect Jose to play cautiously and we'll more likely see a game similar to the one at the Bridge last season. 8. Name the top 4 and bottom 3 finishers. City Chelsea Arsenal United Bournemouth Sunderland Watford

You just followed up a comment that said nothing more than "Word Salad" by calling someone uneducated. Now that truly is Word Salad.

Well now i've seen everything.

I actually quite like Piers Morgan

Of course his replacement in the midfield, which has either been Willian or Ramires, don't do much running or press the ball much, they are both known for their laziness and lack of stamina and pace.

No, Oscar does not stop us leaking goals.

These, and i'd add Trainspotting to the list too.

such a legend

You see now you've f**ked up, because before it was somewhat plausible that you were just stupid and you could actually elicit a response, but now its just obvious that you're a troll.

Well I don't think anyone seriously considers Mikel or Ramires the solution to our woes, which leaves RLC as the only midfield change that could be made. So in questioning team selection it boils down to, do we start wondering if the reason we aren't doing well is because Willian or Fabregas are being played instead of a 19 year old with no top flight experience, in which case i'm afraid my answer is no. If Ivanovic keeps his place when we've just paid 21m for an actual left back then yes I find that inexcusable, but other than that I don't see any positions on the field where there are realistic improvements that could be made from our bench.

Would depend entirely on why we missed out on the CL spot, if we played two youngsters that just played sh*te all year but were excused because of their age and we missed out because of them, then yes I would be pissed off. All this being said, this is a scenario that will never happen, certainly not under Jose.

To be fair Ed Woodward was busy flying to Barcelona to not sign Pedro.

It's hard to answer that question when we still don't really know what RLC can do at the top level. Jose watches him train with the first team every day and so probably has a far better grasp on where he is physically and technically compared to the other players in the squad so if he picks him to start i'll trust he is capable. But if he's not picked I wouldn't have any argument, as i've been given no evidence that he is an improvement on what we have and Jose evidently wouldn't have either.

Did he actually show much in that 20 minutes? He didn't do anything wrong that I can recall although I don't remember having any real influence on the game and I very much doubt he is as likely to be involved in a goal as Fabregas, Oscar or Willian.

Possible but extremely unlikely, I don't think in today's era with so many individual superstars that there will ever be a bland enough field to give the award to a goalkeeper. Every time a superstar moves on , another comes in (Ronaldo then Bale then Suarez then Hazard & Sanchez).

He's just been awarded 5 Guinness World Records: http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2015/08/mourinho-makes-guinness-book-of-records.html Looks like there were literally too many to fit into the picture.

Is there any reason, aside from the fact that he is young and people want to give him experience and help him develop, that people would choose RLC in their starting XI? Has he shown anything thus far to warrant being ahead of Fabregas, Oscar, Willian or even Ramires in the team?

I think the issue of whether a player should run forwards with the ball depends entirely on the manager's tactics, their own ability and who they are partnered with in midfield. For example, for Matic to run up the field and leave Fabregas responsible for defending a counter attack would be reckless. Not that he isn't capable of good attacking football, it's just too risky in most circumstances. So if a midfield 2 of Fabregas and RLC were playing together, and RLC were to storm forward when presumably his primary responsibility is to cover for Fabregas, then yes that would be being a liability. If he's playing with Mikel, not so much.

I always wonder how these journalists know so much more than scouts. edit: That looked like a dig at you, it wasn't. It's just that I just remembered reading an article written by Martin Keown for the daily mail site shortly after we'd signed Cuadrado about how he reminds him of Ronaldinho. 2nd edit: and here it is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2943202/Juan-Cuadrado-great-talent-breathe-new-life-Chelsea-way-goes-past-people-reminds-Ronaldinho.html

Still looks a bit raw but I think he's further ahead in his development than RLC, would probably have preferred to keep Van Ginkel and send RLC on loan, but either way could be set up for a good breakthrough season with a decent team.

nobodji saw that coming

From the sounds of the article, we've been getting screwed by refs for 110 years.

I hear that Arsenal have signed his cousin, Fuken Nobodji.