Watching the game tonight i realised only bayern and madrid could really claim to be better than chelsea this year. no-one domestically can touch us either. A treble/quadrouple looking at tings realistically, is a very realistic target. Lets go get it!!!!
Hoping to win the league plus a cup. Bayern Real little better than us. Barca Juve as good maybe. City too if they sort defence
We'd turn Juve over easily in my opinion. Too many people hyping the Pogba factor, when Juve have been poor in Europe against teams like Olympiakos and Malmo. Barca might not be what they once are but they have 3 guys at the top of their attack that can win them game on any given day. Bayern can be got at and we could beat them over two legs if our strongest XI is out. Madrid I'm not so sure, but I think we are on of the few teams that have a chance against them as we are not a team that piles forward and leaves the gaps that they like to play between. I'd take reaching the final this year, progress. As for domestically, anything and everything is winnable.
How have you worked that one out? You haven't got anyone that would get in Barcelona's attack and they've all got years left in them.
Lol love your optimism Jimmy, but unfortunately i'm not as confident. With Mourinho and his pragmatic nature, we stand a good chance but we won't dominate possessionally the big games because that is not in our managers nature (plus our players are less technical). We will win these games as a team but it will always be a tight one
I have felt like this many times about United, reality usually kicks in around January when Premier league teams have started to play for top four or for survival and you start to play the better teams in Europe. Good luck in th CL though, we need someone to keep the flag flying
Easy really, an attack is only one part of a team, Barca used to have the best midfield in Europe with Iniesta and Xavi who have lost their effectiveness in supplying that would be great attack. Like Lampard & Mr Slippy they are still good players but no longer as influential as they were. Also that defence that was once good is now hanging on to being ordinary. In short Barca, yes still a good team but now not in the top 5 in Europe's elite.
It's not outside the realms of possibility, you certainly look odds on for the title, but a lot can happen in six months, and 1 off cup games during a fixture congestion with few injuries could really **** your season up (which would mean 2nd rather than first). Certainly looking good though.
I dont take anything for granted. CAN we win everything? Yes. WILL we win everything? Unlikely.....aswell as huge amounts of talent and skill, to do a treble, for instance, takes HUGE amounts of luck aswell. Everything has to fall in your favour to achieve such things, and thats an unlikely scenario.
I'd take 'just' winning the league and a decent C.L run to be honest. P.L is the priority this year. It's looking good and a great performance last night but such a long long way to go.
This. 100% agree. Winning the PL is priority 1, if we get to the CL semi's ill be chuffed. Anything else, FA Cup, League Cup etc, will be a bonus to be honest.
This current team is unbelievably good - I would fancy our chances against anyone right now. But come the business end of the season, and with a fixture list pile up, it's going to be tough. I still worry that a couple of injuries, especially in defence, will really screw us. Let's just take each game as it comes, eh? 'Just' winning the PL would do for me! Mourinho is always moaning about this, but he has a point - English teams get very, very little help from the fixture list around European games. It's definitely tougher going for an English team to win both the League and European Cup. Manu Utd did it in '99, but it was a close run thing, won the league by one point and a very late goal on the Champions league final.
Hopefully we can sew the league up if our rivals remain inconsistent then we can do a rafa and rest our players for the rest of the year so they can concentrate on CL. Less worried about an injury to our defence, we have good backups and having a solid tactical structure means we can just slot players in and out of the defence. I'm more worried to an injury to Costa or Fab because lets face it, we don't really have a like for like replacement (Remys not bad, but doesn't have the present, Drogba is slow as and we don't have another controller type player in Cesc)
Aye thats my point. That year the league finished 1. Man Utd 79pts 2. Arsenal 78pts 3. Chelsea 75 pts Was so close! We threw it away at home to West Ham (losing 1-0 ****ing Kitson) and 2-2 home game against Leicester. Those games still haunt me to this day. Anyway, Utd had HUGE amounts of luck that year, we nearly did em at Old Trafford. finished 1-1 and Babayaro had a belter of a shot right at the end that beat Schmeichel but hit the post! Then there was Giggs little moment of magic against Arsenal in the FA Cup semi.
Except Hazard and Costa. You'd be foolish to think any team in Europe wouldn't find a way to get them in their team.
Dream season for me would be in order: 1 Winning the league 2 Winning a domestic cup really smashing Spurs or another rival in the final 3 Good Champions League run including a really stylish performance to beat a marquee team: Bayern, Real, Juve etc
Remember that season well, we will never know how it could have panned out of Casiraghi hadn't got crocked (and career ended) so early on. Had a season ticket in the East Upper in those days. The row behind us must have been bought up by an agency, and was ALWAYS taken up by casuals and away fans. I remember that Leicester game being particularly feisty and a few words were exchanged!
Absolutely love your optimism JF but Christ alive, steady on mate. I'm a glass half empty type of individual where Chelsea are concerned and we leave ourselves open to dogs abuse talking about doubles/trebles etc. Yes, we're playing well but let us not forget that less than a month ago we scraped by dross such as QPR so for now we need to tread carefully and determined. All my life I wanted to be Champions of England and that will always be my priority. Carefree!
