The problem is Chelsea will torn it around eventually and we haven't built up anywhere near enough of a lead on them.
Unfortunately out tough patch of form aligns with theirs....

Yeah, we're 3 points behind you and there's not way the board aren't going to splash some serious cash in January. Top 4 is certainly not impossible for us at this point.

Who knows, maybe Liverpool will get comfortable with playing good for once after January and we could hit top 4.

That said, I like how the league is actually evened out so far. Not as much domination like every other year.

Agreed. Arsenal should really be pushing for the title here. Drop everything else, get out of the CL, lose the cup games, everything. Just focus on winning the league. They've finally got Walcott and Giroud both working, and a ridiculously in form Ozil (who is an absolute delight) and Sanchez. And, they have the great Cech in goal. It's idiotic if they don't focus primarily on it.

Well that plan certainly might explain this evenings game by them.

I forgot the injuries though

To be honest I'm OK with that loss. Stoke played their socks off, Chelsea showed some real determination to get back into the game from a goal behind and were playing much more flowing football than I've seen in the last couple of months.

I'm gutted for Hazard though.

Why? What happened to him?

5-4 to Stoke on penalties, Hazard steps up to take the equaliser for Chelsea and promptly hits it straight at Butland. He looked totally dejected. It was even more of a shame as he'd started to show some of the Hazard of last season throughout the game, taking on and beating 4 Stoke players at one point.

Ah. That is unlucky. Just caught it on YouTube.... Amazing save.

We have Bournemouth in the cup tomorrow. Was initially thinking go easy and save it for the Chelsea game. Now I'm thinking just go for the 'W'. Don't fancy us to beat Chelsea whether rested or not and would be good to get that first win under Klopp sooner rather than later.

Well Klopp ignored my advice and played the academy side and fortunately they got the job done.

Some good signs from Teixera, and Firmino which was encouraging. Bogdan is looking a reasonable deputy too. Made a few key saves which were crucial to the final result.

United eliminated on penalties along with Chelsea and arsenal is making this cup look fairly winnable if we want to go after it. Although city will be hard to get past and looked strong again. Iheanacho will go on to be a excellent player imo.

Liverpool just never tend to beat Chelsea under mourinho...

It all depends on which Chelsea show up. If it's the one that she'd up against Man City or Everton, Liverpool will thrash them easily. If it's the one that showed up against Stoke with a bit more luck we have a very good chance of winning. With that said, Chelsea's most in-form players played a pretty intense 2 hour game less than a week before this one, so I'm quite nervous. Here's hoping it'll be more like the Stoke game, where even if we lose I won'the feel completely disgusted by the whole affair.

The problem you'd have if you lost.... It could be a loss where your actually played well enough to win 3-0 but it wouldn't change the media narrative that's already been put in motion by the spin doctors... It would be "Chelsea plumb new depths".

The fact that just about everyone that matters is more level headed than that doesn't seem to count for much.

We didn't have much success on that score under Rafa either.