The Prophet

Christ on a bike, booing Ramsey and chanting 'Ryan Shawcross' as he runs on to the pitch. Fucking grow up man.

Wasn't aware the window had closed.

How has the first team been strengthened? With everyone fit and available the starting line-up is exactly the same as ended last season. I'd class Anita as a starter like. We definelty have more options in midfield. In place of who? Anita gives us a midfield option like we had with Guthrie. But anyway, that's your idea of strengthening? Replacing one decent player with another? Anita is a far superior player to Guthrie. His work rate, pace and bite in midfield make him a better option before you even start taking technical ability into account. I think he'll be played instead of Tiote against the lesser sides of the league while he'll be interchanged with Jonas a lot too. That alone means we're not as dependant on those who played last time out, it gives us another quality option we never previously possessed. We also have Amalfitano and Birgirimana as raw but viable quality options in the cup competitions meaning we should avoid debacles such as the Tiote Stevenage scenarion we had a the season before last. Don't get me wrong I still want to see more faces through the door (we're crying out for a striker) but I do think we're stronger coming out of this transfer window providing we don't flog anybody, even if it's just a wee bit. Fair enough, I've not seen anywhere near enough of Anita to be able to make that judgement as you have. Agree about the youngsters replacing Smith etc. I want Debuchy and a forward, that would be upgrading the first team and replacing Best. Not convinced anything will happen. Definitely.

How has the first team been strengthened? With everyone fit and available the starting line-up is exactly the same as ended last season. I'd class Anita as a starter like. We definelty have more options in midfield. In place of who? Anita gives us a midfield option like we had with Guthrie. But anyway, that's your idea of strengthening? Replacing one decent player with another? Anita is a far superior player to Guthrie. His work rate, pace and bite in midfield make him a better option before you even start taking technical ability into account. I think he'll be played instead of Tiote against the lesser sides of the league while he'll be interchanged with Jonas a lot too. That alone means we're not as dependant on those who played last time out, it gives us another quality option we never previously possessed. We also have Amalfitano and Birgirimana as raw but viable quality options in the cup competitions meaning we should avoid debacles such as the Tiote Stevenage scenarion we had a the season before last. Don't get me wrong I still want to see more faces through the door (we're crying out for a striker) but I do think we're stronger coming out of this transfer window providing we don't flog anybody, even if it's just a wee bit.

How has the first team been strengthened? With everyone fit and available the starting line-up is exactly the same as ended last season. I'd class Anita as a starter like. We definelty have more options in midfield.

We've strengthened this window but we still need a forward. We look woefully short up top.

If we had a bit more depth I'd snap your hand off if a twenty million plus bid came in for Tiote, as it stands we're short enough as it is.

Does it really need explaining again how this lots transfer policy works? We don't operate on a budget for fucks sake.

Aye, they'll do Copenhagen on their own patch.

Surely Anita won't play his third game in a week? Especially if Tiote is out for Villa.

I think we'll do this lot playing a slightly stronger side than last time out. Beat these and Villa and I'll be more than happy with our start to the season.

Aye his injury record is becoming a bit of a worry.

He clearly has far more ability on the ball than Tiote. I really like the look of him despite the clumsy challange leading to Chelsea's opener.

Given a striker is now a priority for me, I wouldn't mind this going through at all.

Taylor's posy match comments pretty much summed up my feelings. The damage was done in the first half, we gave them far too much respect. The midfield was ten yards too deep leaving Ba and Cisse completely isolated up top. This meant most service came to them in the form of a long ball. Even then you felt if we could go to ther break in a single goal behind we might have had a chance, the second goal really was a killer and it allowed Chelsea to take their foot off the gas in the second half. Having said that we were much better in the second half when we got Santon and Ben Arfa on the ball a bit more, Cabaye still looks knackered which considering his importance and influence is a bit of a worry. Bottom line is we lost 2-0 to the European Champions who've invested a significant amount over the summer, however the worry for me is we still look a team that doesn't know it's favoured formation and style, as well as having a couple of players that still look off the pace. If we beat Atromistos and Villa it'll have still of a been a more than satisfactory start to the campaign.

'...and what is Arbeloa trying to do there? Woeful, just woeful.'

Wow.

'If Valdes decdes he's going to cum, he cums' Ooo er...

Can see us going down to an late, undeserved, spawny goal.

For the 'would rather spend the money on a RB/CB/LSFAM' brigade. Has it not become obvious we don't operate like that? If a player becomes available in a position we're short we'll set so much money aside for that player, if the clubs valuation of the player exceeds our own then we back off (ala Debuchy). We're way past the days of, here's x amount of pounds, go and spend it.

If we absolutely had to sell one of our big players, Tiote is the most expendable. Not that I actually want to sell him.

Man City can go and f*** themselves.

Have, Ivanovic, Hazard, Torres and Pogrebnyak. Probably made more tonight than I did at the weekend.

Green. With. Envy.

Can't believe what I'm reading (from albeit a small minority). While fourth should be a legitimate target given our squad and performance last term, a handful of other sides will also be thinking along similar lines and it will take a monumental effort to finish in the CL spots after 38 games. Furthermore the willingness to berate the transfer strategy that has been the cornerstone of our relative success (without full knowledge of the facts) due to missing out on a talented but untested centre back is ludicrous. If the speculation is proved correct and he joins Fulham, fair play. They've got the pull factor of being based in London and a successful Dutch manager who is putting together a tidy little team. A small squad and a perpetually dreadful away records means they probably aren't properly equipped to challange for the Champions Leage spots but they could easily be looking to pick off any of last seasons top seven stragglers, which could easily turn out be ourselves. In that respect it would be little disappointing to lose out but it's hardly decisive, you can't win them all.