Torres!!

Took us a while to get going again but a decent win in the end, another clean sheet and after waiting over a year for Torres to score an away PL goal he does it twice in consecutive games!!

Early games are always tricky. Great too win though and we can now sit back and relax .

What a buy Hazard has turned into. So glad he chose us over City and United

3 away wins...3 away clean sheets. Hope that's us finally over our terrible away form.

United next. Rather we not play for a draw this time.

It's a shame that hull tried to kick hazard off the park.

Pleased with the result today, think we looked very good and very comfortable. Never looked like anything other than a win for us today which is great.

Top of the league as well, atleast till tommorow. I think Jose has been the difference this season - he is a winner and i have no doubt we will be around the top at the end of the season, as well as there in the cups.

Man Utd will be a massive game as always, lets hope Jose goes out to win it. I dont think we should be scared of Man Utd, we could easily give them a hammering if we show up. Rooney wont be fully fit and RVP still out so there sno better time to play them IMO.

Not really, he is going to come across this more and more as he gets better and better and by players better at kicking players out of games then Hull will ever be. It will make him a even better player as it did with Ronaldo when he played at Man Utd.

We still not there yet but it finally seems we getting closer and closer to getting there. Every single player is playing really well.

More evidence for me today that Luiz is a captain in the making when he was fouled and the Hull player tried to have a go and Luiz just got him away from the crowd of players to sort it out. Showed great maturity.

They are not our competition this season, so we should go out without any caution and lay waste to them.

Yes, excellent result yesterday. It was vital to get those 3 points to keep the pressure on our rivals.
I was especially pleased to see another "Mourinho style" performance. We were efficient and got the job done, but played some good football as well. Everyone seemed to be working on the same page, something that wasn't clear at the beginning of the season.
It would be a big bonus to see Newcastle and Villa get something from the games today and tomorrow, but I can't see it happening. I still think it will be between Man City and ourselves in the final shake-up, with Arsenal falling away to battle it out with the rest for third and fourth place.

I have never understood this playing to win etc, I think it's part of the media's agenda to dumb down the game for the readers of The Sun/The Mirror or those who call Talk Shite.

Jose sets his team's up in a intelligent way one to suit the timing of the game the team we are playing where we are in the league our aims for the season and where our rival's are and what is the likely outcome of their games. He takes everything into account. Yes it might not fit into the English mentality of "going over the top and gung ho" Jose will set out the team that will get us to our objective for the season

You seriously need some new lines.

So it seems KDB is off to Wolfsburg, and we are heavily in for Matic. Is that a good swap? I dont know about Matic, seems a bit mad to bid £20m+ for a player we basically let go for free in the Luiz deal, only 3 years ago. It wouldnt surprise me if KDB became another big hit in the Bundesliga, yet another young talented player who never got a chance with us and fulfills their potential elsewhere... Although i guess a £9m profit is not to be sniffed at, and he is beyond a luxury as he is never going to be playing regular for us when even Mata cant get in the side.

Matic never had a chance with us before, although seems to have done well at Benfica. Would he get in our first 11? I cant see Matic joining us if he was just going to sit on the bench for another few years again. Also where does it leave Van Ginkel who is out for the season but likely will return next season?

I remember thinking Matic looked like he had decent potential from the few games he played for us, and wasn't too impressed that we included him in the Luiz deal, so it would be good to bring him back. It's poor business letting him go on the cheap then having to pay significantly more to re-sign him (if we do), but on the plus side he'd return a better player who will have benefitted from playing regularly these past few years.

As much as it's disappointing that De Bruyne never really got much of a chance with us, I would say that Matic is a player that we're in more need of right now. Hopefully we're smart enough to have some kind of buy-back clause in place for De Bruyne though.

I have no idea where it'll leave van Ginkel though when he returns from injury.

Kdb will be an excellent player, it is a shame that we have too many fantastic players in the same position.

Hazard and oscar even make mata surplus to requirements!

Moses is on loan, and we bought in Willian and shurrle, the buying of attacking midfielders was crazy.

Unfortunately I would sell mata to buy Rooney, and sell Kdb to buy a top quality defensive midfielder and get rid of deadwood like Essien and milkkel.

de Bruyne should have been tried in CM. Sounds like Joses's not too happy with his performance in training, so maybe it's better to get a - surprisingly high - fee for him while last season form is still in peoples minds.

As for Matic....looking forward to seeing him and Ramires together. I don't remember watching him play for us before, but he's become very highly rated and sounds like the exact type of player we've been missing in CM.

By the end of this season we'll have 2 CM players in need of replacing, so there will be room for van Ginkel. It's almost certain he'll be loaned out though to make up for his lost year with us.

Ram, matic and van ginkel for cm places next season

Will frank get another 12 months?
Essien should go, what about Miikkel? I say sell him.

I always forget Mikel. Can't sell a player nobody wants.


Regarding our recent good form, we haven't conceded a goal since Ivanovic went off injured against Liverpool. Coincidence?

Ivanovic wasnt playing well for sure for a couple of months before Christmas.

Matic deal officially completed.

Glad the Matic deal has gone through. Will be a shame to lose de Bruyne, but we are overstocked in his position. Matic only has van Ginkel (next season), Mikel, Essien (till summer) and guys like Ake competing with him. We've been after a solid DM for ages so it's nice to finally address a problem area rather than buy for the sake of it. Hopefully a striker is also on the shopping list, if not now then in the summer.

I think he will be above Essien / Mikel in the pecking order but probably behind Lampard and Ramires. Lampard is getting on and wont play every game so im sure he will get plenty of game time. Lets see what he is made of, hopefully he can make our midfield more solid.

I think we should keep Essien around atleast till the end of the season, he is a good utility player for us to have even if he is never going to be at his best. Injuries could cause him to get a run in the side for example. Its good to have a strong squad and our squad feels very strong compared to the last few seasons now.

Lacking maybe one CB and one top class striker but other than that our squad is looking good now.

Sad to see Kdb go, but we needed a dm player instead of attacking midfielders.

It is a good swap deal effectively. We dodged a bullet with Fellini last summer, and cost united 27million for a paperweight

Essien is absolutely finished at this level and alas needs to be shipped out ASAP. He cannot get a run of games and was a complete liability in an important league game this season.

Its ridiculous really us selling Matic and then buying him back. Its a symptom of not giving youth a chance really. Not helped by the constant change of managers.
Hopefully Jose will stay around long enough to give some chances.