I don't think Everton will be happy with this draw at all because even with the lost at PSG we are playing some great football i think they are probably way more worried than we are at the moment and we shouldn't we worried. Players are starting to tick hitting top form at the right time. We can and should beat them.

Grand Old Team forum seems overall pretty pleased about the draw. They were more scared of West Ham and Arsenal.

The fans will be hungry to avenge the offside goal.

I'd say it's 50/50.

They won't be so pleased when we turn up and turn them over

another tough draw at least we're going to be on tv again

 

surprise surprise arse getting another home and fairly easy draw, it's called emirates cup for a reason i guess

Dont give a sh*t what the Arse gets. Chelsea play Everton who are a good opposition and I do hope we trash them and get to face Arsenal and trash them too. 

Great result for us, great atmosphere in the Matthew Harding too.

Grand Old Team forum seems overall pretty pleased about the draw. They were more scared of West Ham and Arsenal.

The fans will be hungry to avenge the offside goal.

I'd say it's 50/50.

It's the sort of tie that the home team automatically thinks they have the upper hand.

We'll be up for it though.

He cannot do more. Comes on and scores. That 3 in a row for him now?

 

But hang on, it was only MKD, Newcastle and a Man City second XI, so it doesn't count, we can't just go throwing youngsters on the pitch until they have scored a hat trick in a real game.

Thought it was a great team effort again today

It was Pellegrino who picked his 11. Guus was prepared for the bluff and the miserable faced 1 protested at his fixture congestion - lol

Should been more goals really but that's just petulance

Team seems to be on a bit of a roll so bring on the mousers

Excellent win!

Pleased with the performance, pleased with the result and quite happy about the next round draw. All in all a very satisfying afternoon/evening.

 

Just had a feeling that Oscar was going to mess up that penalty though, I even had a bet on it with the mate I was watching the game with.

 

Still happy though.

Great win even against a weakened side we still played some great stuff and it's good to see, won a few quid on bertrand traore to score last too so all in all good day

pedro is starting to look more like the player we expected, hope he keeps it up

Worst goal keeping performance I can remember seeing in many years.

Very satisfying result, regardless who they put on the field. We needed to bounce back after Wednesday, and players showed up on the day. Hazard is getting some form, there's no attitude problem once he started creating and scoring, right? Baba is keep improving, I think it will be a real welcome dilemma when JT is back. Costa is consistent in scoring goals, and Willian started to chip in more. Only disappointment was the missed penalty, how hard could it be? Surely no more penalty for Oscar this season.

Where is that City fan, Kinkladze or whatever? Interested to hear his views on City's performance and Pelligrino's weakened team selection

Well that was a weird one. Atmosphere was better than it has been but it felt like a friendly at times and even though I thought this was going to be a relatively easy win against a weaker team, I didn't expect Pellegrini to put out a team that was mostly development players.

 

The funny thing was that they were probably the better players and it was the older, fringe players who let them down. Caballero put in one of the most inept goalkeeping performances I've ever seen and the other senior players were uniformly average. It was the youngsters who impressed and really gave us a game before the inevitable lack of fitness allowed us to pull away. Part of me found Pellegrini's approach funny, part of me thought it was great to see young players being given such a stage, but it'll be interesting to see where they go from here. 

 

It might be unfair to focus so much on City's team and you can only beat the team in front of you, but you can't really talk too much about our performance without looking at who it was against.

 

They committed the cardinal sin in that match - they gave Fabregas time. It meant he could dictate things and it was very much a case of a man against boys. It's football at it's absolute best to see him pinging the ball around and I'd love to see more teams give him acres of space purely for the spectacle of it.

 

The rest of the team was pretty much performing at the level you'd expect against such a team. Costa worked hard and took his goal well but won't get that space against top teams. Willian was electric after a rocky start and it was great to see Traore get another goal. Hazard was better than he has been and went looking for the ball but there's definitely something missing. The X factor that made him unplayable last year just isn't there and he's going to have to work hard to find it. Hopefully he gets there.

 

Next week is a far tougher game though and there's a run of them which will be against grown men fighting for something each time. I don't know if you can take any more from this game than you would've the 5-1 win in the last round but the goal was for us to progress and as the only team on the pitch making that their sole focus, we had an advantage from the start. 

 

Happy with the win.

Fantastic win, big 5-1 against City. 

pedro is starting to look more like the player we expected, hope he keeps it up

I thought he had a tremendous game today.

Some random thoughts. I was only able to watch the last 35 or 40 minutes.

-Pellegrini's disregard of the FA Cup is infuriating. Even if the Champions League is of greater priority, you do not tell fans that they shouldn't even bother to buy a ticket.

By so blatantly insulting the FA Cup you are insulting all of English football from the Premier League down to the small boys and girls kicking a ball for fun. You are insulting everyone from the last 144 years who has loved the game.

However, I hesitate to blame Pellegrini directly. He wouldn't have done it unless he got the message from the chairman/board. At the very least, the chairman/board said it was acceptable.I feel like we're possibly shooting the messenger when the money hungry guys in the back room are to blame. f**k them.

-Would love to know what Guus, JT, and/or Ivanovic said at half time. Sure looks like it worked!

-So happy for Eden. He looked quite emotional hugging his teammates. Still lacks confidence and looks hesitant. That opportunity near the end, just go for it! He seems scared when he has a break away opportunity. Happened against Newcastle too. (Or was it MK Dons?) It was clearly a matter of confidence. Needs a meeting with Costa's sports psychologist :)

-Guus clearly likes Traore the most among the youngsters. He's been gushing about Traore, said he has a great attitude and work ethic. I'm a big Traore fan too. Always tries to contribute and make himself helpful. I don't know what's happened with Kenedy. Either he's injured or he did something to make Guus unhappy.

-Glad to see that it's not just Costa scoring. Guus warned about becoming too reliant on Costa. The other players seem to have gotten that message. I wonder if that's the reason he took Costa off first.

-Didn't expect that from Cahill. Well done!

-Against Everton, we need to be at our best from the very start, not after the first half.

Last but not least, f**k you whoever threw the coins. I hope you end up arrested (the West Brom thrower too) and never allowed inside Stamford Bridge again.

Edited February 21, 201610 yr by offside

I think pelllegroanies a right c##t for putting out that team today...not just because he let all the citeh fans down but for disrespecting the oldest club competician in the world..how many times have we had fixture congestion going into big games but weve always tried to play a strong 11....anyway great performance today despite the "weakened opposition" ...forza Chelsea!!!

Great training game, or that is how it felt. Don't know what Pellegrini was thinking when he came to The Bridge with that team, but the youngsters from City didn't deserve to be used as a training punching bag for Chelsea. And they did well, it was Caballero that has had the worst performance I've ever seen, quite a poor keeper. Still, good news for us that we seem to be playing better, not too long ago we could have easily lost or draw to today's City team. And I think Fabregas and Pedro have been outstanding today. Hazard has played very well too, but he lacks confidence when he's got the chance to strike. We saw that on the Newcastle and today's game. Also we had a bit of a scare with Cahill, hope he is well, otherwise we may have some trouble in the defence line. And a good atmosphere for most part of the match, we appear to be picking up with the team! We are going to beat Everton, it will be tough, but we are playing at a better level.

2 seasons ago we were in a similar game against you know who, at Anfield. We rested key players too, only difference was we stepped up on the day. I completely see Pellergrini's point of view, and he probably aware even if he picked a couple of key players, it would still be a tough game to win. Why risk it when bigger games coming up? We still needed to play well, like Arsenal wasn't able to beat a team a division below yesterday.

2 seasons ago we were in a similar game against you know who, at Anfield. We rested key players too, only difference was we stepped up on the day. I completely see Pellergrini's point of view, and he probably aware even if he picked a couple of key players, it would still be a tough game to win. Why risk it when bigger games coming up? We still needed to play well, like Arsenal wasn't able to beat a team a division below yesterday.

 

Excellent point. Pellegrini went a bit further than Jose but he also forgot one thing.

 

He's not in the same league as Jose. He can't coach a team to work within their limits and produce a result they shouldn't get. He only knows how to coach one way and if he has the best players to play for him then it can work. 

 

That's a talented bunch of youngsters but he didn't protect them. He tried to play his usual way and they got exactly the result they deserved.

Just saw the extended highlights. Only got to see the first 45 mins and then I had to step out. It was a fantastic display and I am glad we beat a hapless City who had their kids excuse even before the game kicked off. 

 

Also, I hope this match proved to our board why Pelligrini should definitely NOT be an option. It is fine to put a reduced team so that you can focus on potential bigger prize but to go and highlight that fact in the media is just plain distasteful. 

Just saw the extended highlights. Only got to see the first 45 mins and then I had to step out. It was a fantastic display and I am glad we beat a hapless City who had their kids excuse even before the game kicked off.

Also, I hope this match proved to our board why Pelligrini should definitely NOT be an option. It is fine to put a reduced team so that you can focus on potential bigger prize but to go and highlight that fact in the media is just plain distasteful.

I wonder if the chairman/board told him to do that, and he was trying to deflect criticism by explaining why.

At the very least, I think the chairman/board told him it was okay. I wouldn't be that surprised if they told him flat out to not hesitate to play the second stringers. We know that they're scummy greedy people who don't care about tradition.

However, the insulting way he presented it is entirely his fault. He could have said, "We have many players who haven't seen much game time. They've been working really hard and have impressed me in training, so I feel comfortable giving them this opportunity."

Instead, he said that fans shouldn't bother buying a ticket. What a message to send to today's players.