the special one

Hope to see him get more gametime at home to West Ham, Villa, and maybe Lille if we win against Valencia. Maybe we'll have a better idea of where he is in a few weeks. Premier League is different gravy to the Bundesliga that's all I'll say.

Mason Mata

Tactically England were on the back foot for most of the game to be fair - good game for him to learn from. Looked a different player under Sarri.

I don't disagree with you - the question I ask myself is this - we know Kovacic and Jorginho can play together in a pivot and Kante's value must be north of £70m? If we're a better team with Kova/Jorginho does it not make sense to sell Kante and if so, who do we replace with? An upcoming English talent with the potential to be as good as Kante in a couple of years?

Duff, JC and to a lesser extent Robben knew how to graft, personally I'm not convinced we'd get that with a trio of Sancho, Pulisic, CHO. City and Liverpool attack and defend as a cohesive unit.

On his day he's our best CB by a mile - perhaps an exaggeration but I'd even go as far to say when he's on it he's one of the best CBs in the world right now. Over the course of a season however I'd still expect Rudiger to perform more consistently.

Alonso and Emerson are both quality LBs but are both prone to inconsistency whereas Chilwell seems to be giving solid performances week in week out. Is Chilwell approaching "world class" status?

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/liverpool-chelsea-monitoring-lewis-cook-20652850

I was surprised to learn Shay Given is 6'1", I always assumed he was shorter and Kepa has a similar frame - as you say a different perspective

Jose's comments hit the nail on the head but Jody's reaction was understandable - Jody knows the score as an ex player (negativity, or "perceived negativity" can affect morale and performance).

Zouma - arrived from Saint-Etienne for €15m, loaned to Stoke and Everton for a combined fee of ~€16m https://www.transfermarkt.com/kurt-zouma/profil/spieler/157509

Chels 2-1 Kepa James - Zouma - Tomori - Azpi Kante - Jorginho - Kovacic Willian - Abraham - Pulisic

First impressions from the obligatory youtube clips... meh