Rival watch

De Bruyne was a poor decision, but I'm not sure about the Mata one. He's not really looked the part at United and despite his impressive stats, he seems to drift out of games an awful lot. Couldn't see him fitting into this Chelsea team, anyway. Plus, they got nearly £40m for him.

 

Mata was Chelsea's best player when Jose arrived. Mourinho's a stubborn manager and would never have changed his system to suit players but he should have. Mata has been a disappointment at United but in his defence, he's playing in a team that are pretty disappointing overall. There's no point getting exciting, creative players and then having them play bland football.

Mourinho just beats the creativity out of his teams. At Real he played Modric as a number 10 for the first half of the season despite the fact that it wasn't working and he still did it for big games after that. It's been the same story with Fabregas. Anyone can see how much better he is playing in a deeper role yet come the big games he's always pushed forward, where he was ineffective for Barca, so he can fit another defensive player into the team. What's happened to Willian has been sad, he was such an exciting player to watch a few years back, scoring great goals and now he's just a right back playing a bit higher up the pitch.

The same would've happened to De Bruyne and Mata if they'd stayed but they were still poor decisions from Mourinho to sell.

 

Nonsense. City would've been out of sight by HT had it not been for Begovic. Terry was pulled b/c he looked like an old has been trying to deal with the best striker in the league. Zouma brought pace and strength.

Even in the second half when Chelsea were admittedly improved as Sterling and Aguero tired, City still kept possession with alarming ease for extended periods of time. There just never looked to be much urgency to Chelsea today, which is very unusual for a Mourinho team. Not that I'm complaining

 

Sounds like Mourinho needs to see a doctor .

 

We've barely reached the middle of August, yet so many pundits and fans have already reached conclusions about how teams will perform over the course of a season that has nine months yet to run! Four seasons to go in fact - the rest of summer, autumn, winter and spring.

 

Football debates/phone-ins/forums need people to say with confidence how they see the season panning out and which team will be champions or reach top four, no sitting on the fence Luke, can Spurs get top four and will City win the title?

 

What do I think? Erm,....Spurs can get top four and City can win the title, but I wouldn't say will to either. I think most sides will still do some transfer business in this window and that may have a bearing.
Spurs need more players, otherwise you face the same problems as last season with two games per week, which takes its toll.

If I was a betting man (which I'm not - it's a mug's game), I don't think Spurs will get top four. I see this season panning out much the same as last with the top four keeping their places, although City might edge out Chelsea. I'll say that they will because Chelsea had their transfer business sorted out early last season and the players they brought in (Costa, Fabregas & Matic in particular) had an immediate impact. This time, they haven't been able to get their targets, the squad is a bit thin and they've started poorly. They are already playing catch up.

 

It wasn't a great weekend for us, but the Chelski result has cheered me up a bit, particularly after all the antics by the Special One during the week. Let's not forget that his rants during the week stopped proper discussion of a very bad performance by his team last weekend which they deserved to lose.

 

Citeh back in their binary groove it seems.
Why they cannot put up a good showing the season after they win the PL
is beyond me.

 

In Mourinho's defence(not often I do this!) he did say after we lost 3-0 at Stamford Bridge last season that the scoreline was unfair on us.

I get why he might feel aggrieved by the scoreline as Hazard had a great chance and Ramires had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside(although it was near impossible for the lino to see it). City were a always a threat throughout the game though and created far more chances. Chelsea were really only in the game for about half an hour. Regardless, City were the best side in every department and by a distance so 3-0 doesn't flatter them at all.

 

I quite like Jose, he managed one of my favourite foreign club sides, with Eto and that inter milan side which won the treble. Most fans get taken in by his arrogance but I find him to be a reasonable man that understands the game and generally gets on great with his players.

The media side of him is just that, him playing a game (which doesn't always work).

 

I enjoyed him at Inter, and I wasn't too fussed about him at Real. At an arms length he's quite tolerable, especially when he was taking forward an underdog like Inter were when he won the CL, or even with his battle against one of the great football sides with Real trying to take on Barca.

When he's in the Premier League you can't get away from him though, you're stuck with him at close quarters and you can't ignore his childishness. He just lacks any class, just like the club he's at. So far he's blamed medical staff, gouged a Barca coach's eye, talked up ridiculous conspiracy theories, repeatedly walks out of press conferences, threatens the media, tapped up players when clubs aren't selling to him and numerous other problems. Even when he's winning he's insufferable, he frequently goes well beyond what's acceptable in talking about Wenger and other managers, he tried to shake hands with Lambert and Keane before the end of the match and generally goes out of his way to behave like an arse. In keeping with his personality, the football he plays is also extremely negative, which is fine when you're fighting the odds as an underdog but with the millions that Chelsea put in there's really no excuse.

I was trying to be fair to him with the reminder that he said the samething when he beat us 3-0 but these moments are few and far between. Instead of accepting that his side were well beaten on New Year's Day at the Lane, he went on about how he didn't get a penalty and how that changed the whole game.

So yeah, we disagree about Mourinho, basically

 

Basically he is an abnoxious twat who's teams play boring football.

 

Nailed it

 

Stop saluting the fans Brendan, they're applauding the team, not you. Come on Bournemouth.

 

Every time I put the football on these days Alan smith is co commentator

 

Coutinho clearly offside

So much for this new rule.

 

I absolutely can't stand that Nazi salute type celebration that Brendan Rogers does.
And totally agree YV you can imagine if it had been Bournemouth it would have been ruled out for offside. And it rubs salt in the wound that Bournemouth had a goal ruled out for what looked like something very innocuous.

 

Liverpool? Benefiting from crap refereeing? At home? Against a smaller team?
Surely not