Tiresias

I imagine the hope this season is that they increase the income to accommodate a larger wage bill, to expand the squad, swapping players for better ones is great, but what really guarantees higher positions tends to be greater depth. I wonder if the stadium renaming was a panic decision if revenues weren't doing as well as hoped. While I'm not condoning the stadium renaming, I'm not sure a sugardaddy owner would be brilliant in the long term. One wonders what will happen to Man City when the owners lose interest? Will they find someone else willing to fund that? I also think that to some extend a lot of the league is a financial stack of cards, how long can this much money wash around the Premier league while the rest of the economy is in taters?

Not sure with all this talk of Mata and Silva are that similar, they're both Spanish and in similar positions but seem fairly different, Mata good, but not as good

Trying to shore up midfield, but Bellamy has been looking very sharp, not a terrible idea, if it weren't that it's henderson so Chelsea will now win

It's been coming too. Enrique to blame lol

Maybe but in a team that's supposed to be challenging for the title and the champions league you should normally make sure you're playing your strongest defense in the games against other teams in similar bracket etc, if he needs time to bed him in, play against lower table clubs a bit and edge him into side. He's too much of a liability repeatedly, or play him in the Mikel role, that he might actually be better at than Mikel who rarely impresses.

I like Villas Boas a lot, but he's come to Chelsea way to soon, a club with an impatient owner, bunch of increasingly erratic old players who can't adapt to a new system that well, a load of player power in the culture of the club in the spotlight with media incredibly suspicious of this young talented manager trying to get 'good old fashioned english players' to play quality football. It's a perfect storm to set back a promising career, he'll either be allowed to buy a load of better young players or be gone soon enough, and another new manager will struggle with the diminishing returns of their squad. David Luiz is a terrible defender. Can see him in midfield maybe, but dunno, just comical, wonder if Abromavitch is forcing him to be played considering how much he cost.

Exactly, good utility player. Still no long term left back, which is really harsh on him considering the goals he's scored, but now he's letting goals in.

Oh wow, ok then, thank god for Aguero's cock up, terrible mistake from Colo and Saylor

I think Aguero was pretty active, our players shouldn't have stopped. It's pretty open to abuse, obviously be offside and when ball passed to you don't touch it just shield it till an onside player runs in in the confusion...

Liverpool are going to give us £20m for him!

He's flattering Simpson to try and sign him, obviously feels he's valuable, worrying if he ditches him for Santon, Simpson'll be straight out the door. I would not be greatly upset to see him go to be honest, except there does seem to be a shortage of decent rightbacks throughout the league so maybe it's hard to find another

I dunno I think they'll probably get beaten away at some middle table team some point, after a tiring Champions league leg and some injuries. It'll be much harder to keep up later next year than now. That said can't see anyone else winning title, though Man U normally charge in second half of season, which works well for them since so often that's when other early leaders start to tire. Having said that Man U flatter to deceive a lot this season, they have some very good players but a lot of workmanlike players too, and I don't see them having as good a record against the best teams in league as City will. The fight of 3rd -6th is the real interesting story of this season imo, very very difficult to call

Tim Howard is a penalty saving machine iirc. If Krull is bad at saving penalties, I'll take that, he's good at everything else...apart from distribution. Hope he works on that a lot over the season, needs improving.

We have enough cover imo with Obertan back soon, Sammy and Santon able to play either wing really, so I have patience, still absolutely gutted that he's out so long. Hope he manages to stay fit for a whole once he returns.

What we need to be doing is pointing at Andy Carroll and saying; look what happens to players when they leave here. (forget to mention Enrique)

The trouble with 4-3-3 for us I think is that while it would bring in Guthrie perhaps alongside Cabaye and Tiote, I'm less sure about the front 3? Best in middle with Ba and HBA with free roles? Leaves full backs with little cover. Having said that a very very tasty midfield so worth a shot. Allowing Cabaye a more forward position would be nice

I suspect it's more that Pardew tends to try to give fairly honest answers a lot, so they asked him directly, and maybe said more than he should have, but maybe thought it'll warn them off sufficiently. Really we need to see if Tiote is agitating for a move, and tbh would think we should be tell him to shut up and stay, its hardly like Modric has gone on strike despite the very public desire for him to go. I think recently the fear of that has led to a lot of players sold just because they ask to go, business wise it makes sense to sell players if they could run down their contract, but don't think that's a danger yet with Tiote. Optimistically if we have to sell him, we've done some good business recently, Graham Carr has been pretty outstanding, if we can reinvest even half the money it's credible we'd come out stronger. I have more faith than I did at start of summer that we can come out stronger from a transfer window than went into it, even if we don't see the large sums thrown around.

If accepting we have to sell him, that's a nonsense anyway, if we want to be competing with the Man Us of the world we need to be able to keep hold of our best players, I hope they make sure to have a replacement lined up immediately, rather than selling then frantically searching around for the last few hours. Fingers crossed will come to nothing The other hope is that we have a gem in Mehdi Abeid, though way too soon to know

Who did Jonas turn around to give a hug to as they were walking out? Nasri and Ben Arfa chatting, then de Jong gave Nasri a gentle shove to get going lol DON'T TALK TO MY VICTIM

Pardew doesn't take people off if they;re playing well, don't think it's anything to do with Santon. It'll tale a bit for Santon to get the same understanding with the defensive line, wonder if Pardew is waiting for a run of easier games to bring him in

sammy looks fine, didnt have the chance to do too much though.

think Best is good enough at holdup, preferable, but it is a role we need to consider, Ba doesn't do it

For me its no coincidence that Raylor has fallen apart against higher quality opposition, Santon needs to play against better teams, but Raylor could be experimented with again against poorer opposition

In a world where torres goes for £50m Tiote is worth all the french league

when Ben Arfa does something it's high quality enough to get a wankfest, it's a question of how frequently in a game he displays that. Hence wanking over what he does, but overall performance not brilliant. He's getting more influential every time he plays though and earned a 7 from me, though that's maybe kindly ignoring his penalty giveaway