nofacej

No, it was clearly Eto'o's fault for giving away the free kick in a dangerous area.

Well at least it will give us a wake-up... hopefully.

To be fair that's 6 players for 3 positions across just 4 games. I wouldn't expect the stats to be very high, though you would hope for a little better from both Hazard and Oscar who have played the most minutes out of those listed.

Referee seemed to favour City on all the big decisions as well. Kind of pisses me off the the way the media and refs treat City compared to the way we're treated.

I thought Schurrle was quite poor, and Eto'o didn't seem to have any hunger. Taking Hazard off was probably the right move given we have a big game coming up, but boy did we look flat and lifeless afterwards. Hopefully Torres or Ba will start against Liverpool. With Ramires suspended, I hope Mourinho rethinks Luiz in the middle, because I don't think Mikel and Lampard are up to the task. Oh, and of course "a win is a win" so I'm happy.

Benitez was appointed on the 21st of November 2012. At the time (19/11/12) we were third in the league and only 4 points behind United who were first. On 26/12/12 we were still third in the league, but a full 11 points behind United. By the end of April (2013) that gap had extended to a full 20 points. The only good thing Benitez achieved at our club was the Europa League. We underperformed in every other competition under his guidance. Stop glorifying a manager that barely scraped a top 4 position in the league from a very strong starting position, and vilifying one who lead us to a first place CL group qualification and has us within two points of the Premier League leaders. And that's without even mentioning Mourinho's past achievements and track record. Winning the Europa League spared our blushes from even being in the competition to begin with, it wasn't a triumphant moment. And let's not forget the embarrassing Club World Cup defeat.

I think we should move Luiz into the midfield again in a 4-3-3. This would free up Lampard to make more forward runs and hopefully score more goals, and might even make us more defensively stable. So much of our success over the years has come on the back of Lampard's goals, and without a reliable striker the reduced number of them is felt all the more. I also wonder if Mata might not be a decent option as a false 9. He probably has the best finishing of any of our attacking mids and he offers the least defensively of any of them. It's got to be worth at least a try given our strikers aren't scoring often enough, Mata isn't being utilised much, and with just one substitution we can swap either Mata or Luiz for a Striker and end up with our currently preferred setup. I will probably get ridiculed for this formation, but here it is anyway: -----------Cech----------- Ivan--Cahill--Terry--Azpi ----Ramires---Luiz------- ------Lamps/Oscar------ Moses------------Hazard -------Mata/Torres------- It's not a long term solution, but until we find a reliable source of goals freeing up Lampard might be our best option in the short term.

Any player in their prime? Didier Drogba because he's a club legend and provides value in every part of the pitch whether it be defensively, wing play, holding up the ball, or scoring goals. Any current player? CR7. He's absolutely deadly on the counter, brilliant in the air, and proven in multiple leagues including the one we're in. I don't think Messi would be nearly as effective in our current squad.

Whilst I want a new (top class) striker as much as anyone here, Torres is still the best of the 3 we currently have available, and I think we should support him right up until he is replaced at the club. I can understand venting frustrations during or immediately after a game, but the sustained level of anger in this thread is really unpleasant. All this negativity isn't helping anyone.

Our defence is so fucking poor.

I can't help but think a lot of the members posting in this thread were watching a different Chelsea to the one I was over the past two seasons. It's true we're not dominating weaker opposition like we perhaps should be, especially given the quality the amount of money we've spent should have bought, but we're still picking up points and could very well be top of the league by Christmas. At worst we'll be 5 points behind the leaders. Contrast that with the previous two seasons where we were sitting a full 11 and 12 points away from first place respectively, and I'd say we've got a lot to be optimistic about this year. Also, can I just say to those who are whining about the money we'll inevitably spend under Mourinho: WHO GIVES A FUCK? If the club can afford it, and it ends up winning us titles I don't care how much we spend to get there. It's not like it's my money being spent. Furthermore, we've consistently outspent the majority of clubs over the course of Roman's reign and that's likely to continue with or without Mourinho.

>crops out half of his own face and part of Mourinho's >frames the two security cameras perfectly >spells Mourinho incorrectly

I'm sorry but what? One of the last things I'd accuse Mourinho of being is a demagogue. Mourinho doesn't appeal to the uneducated masses, if anything it's the opposite; the uneducated masses believe everything they read in the press and hate him for it. It's what makes him such a good fit for Chelsea, since we're equally hated by the masses - mostly - due to the influence of the press.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if we (or City) ended up resigning him. I don't expect him to stay at Liverpool if he continues to perform the way he has been (unless they become serious title contenders again).

Doesn't make much sense to be honest. Why would Mata lose motivation the season before the World Cup? If anything he should be more motivated if the national team was his driving ambition.

In all seriousness, EA should include a bunch of different slips with FIFA so you can swap in the one that represents your team.

Ease up on the hyperbole bushman. Jose isn't trying to turn Mata into a defensive specialist, he's asking him to contribute defensively when we don't have the ball. I like Mata as much as anyone here, but I also trust Jose to build a great team. Something we haven't been for several seasons now. Without change how are we going to improve?

We've had no problem sending our other youngsters all over the place one season to the next. With the way modern footballers are paid and the infrastructure of European clubs settling in to a new environment is hardly as taxing as it would be for your average person. Also: damn him for being so good already! That wasn't part of the plan!

I agree with everything you said. My problem is that I don't think the situation that he became the best keeper in La Liga should have ever been allowed to happen. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on player development, and maybe this is a bad idea, but I would have thought shipping him to various clubs around Europe would have been a better option than keeping him in the same city and club for three seasons. Maybe not from a developmental perspective, but I think it would have been in our interest to prevent him from getting too comfortable anywhere.

I watched every match in pre-season, and am aware he scored a lot of goals (not in every match though) but pre-season is not a series of top flight competitive matches. He has made two appearances this season in the Premier League for us and produced nothing, and against Bayern he was the laziest player on the pitch. He was probably brought on for his defensive aerial ability, but chose to jog around, high up the pitch, like he didn't have a care in the world. In a cup final against the best team in the world when we were one man down, and trying to cling on to a victory, no less. That's only excusable because of his naivety and inexperience, but make no mistake Torres was worth 5 Lukaku's in that match and I'm sure that was the determining factor when it came to Chelsea green-lighting his loan. To everyone saying we forced him out of the team, that he had no say in the matter, and we've treated him unfairly, I ask you why? It's not like he's on big wages or we're blessed with an amazing strike force. Unless you think Mourinho and the board are incompetent there's only two options: either it was the correct choice for Lukaku's future development, or he wasn't willing to play second or even third fiddle this season, and requested the loan. I'm just sick to death of reading about Lukaku being the answer to all our problems and this notion that scoring for WBA or Everton is the same as scoring for Chelsea because it really isn't. If it was then Demba Ba would be banging in goals like he did for Newcastle.

http://www.evertonfc.com/news/archive/2013/09/13/lukaku-i-want-an-everton-win He recalled: "I had a call about 7 or 8pm from my agent saying there’s a possibility that I could leave and I said ‘yeah, okay, that’s fine’, because at some point I need to play and play as much as possible. I made the right decision and I spoke with [Kevin] Mirallas as I was in the same room with him for the whole evening and he explained about how things were going." Also, leave comments about Australia out of it. I don't even live in Sydney, and it just makes you look ignorant and immature.

Every interview involving the loan deal from both Lukaku and Mourinho indicated that it was Lukaku's choice.

I don't agree with Courtois' repeated loans to Atletico either. The longer he spends time in one place (Madrid) the more settled he'll be. It's even more worrying considering Real Madrid's current goalkeeping situation. Casillas looks like he's on the way out and Lopez is no spring chicken. I think it's almost certain Real Madrid will make a move for him in the next couple of seasons. If we don't call him back next season or at least loan him to a Premier League side (preferably London based) then I don't see him ever playing for us. Also I can't say I agree with your comment about Chelsea players getting hyped. It seems to me it's only the players who don't play that get hyped. The rest of our squad cops praise and abuse in equal measure, and don't even get me started on the comments about Torres and Mikel. And yet he's disappointed when given (admittedly few) opportunities in the first team against top flight opposition. His performance against Bayern was absolutely shameful (and I'm not talking about the missed penalty), and he was ineffective in his cameo appearances in the League as well. If he was banging in goals for us I would understand your position, but if his expectation is that he's our first choice at age 19 without having ever proved himself at a top side then we'd be well to be rid of him. Sturridge was shown the door for the same reason. Drogba had to fight for his place in his first season with us, and I don't see why Lukaku should be any different. I really can't understand this idea that playing for WBA or Everton is the same as playing for Chelsea. It's much easier to score goals when teams are trying to take three points from you rather than one. Also, asking WBA about his loyalty does nothing to endear Lukaku to me. I'm a Chelsea fan; I don't want him to be loyal to WBA or Everton. He had the chance to try and break into our first team this season. He requested a loan, and the club obliged him. We've done absolutely nothing wrong by him.

My opinion is probably going to be an unpopular one, but I kind of dislike him. I get the impression his loyalty is to himself and only himself, and the hype around him seems a little exaggerated to me. I'm sure he'll be a good or even very good footballer one day, but you'd think he was Messi the way some people here go on about him. It wouldn't surprise me at all if after a breakout season he decides he wants to play for Madrid or Barcelona.

Eto'o wasn't the piece of the puzzle we needed, but he's the piece we got. I have my fingers crossed on both hands, and my toes on both feet, that he'll prove to be effective regardless, and it's much too early to judge him (he's still just settling in and the team is hardly in good form) but I have to say that so far we look better with Torres than Eto'o.