hjperdeath

You can literally see their fingers shake as they type to desperately try to cling onto every little piece of excuse.

He's on the right track, a bit more of support from the main man, and he'll be back.

Even after a brilliant win like this, you have to come back to read shit like that. Instead of living in the moment and enjoy what's happening, you need to over analyze. Need a hard long look in the mirror and ask yourself why you're supporting this club when you want this man out. I'll take the warning points, fucking scum.

Nah, I coach attacking football.

or this

Bump before today's game if anyone missed it. Two major injuries in the form of Carrick and Blind. If Blind's out, Fellaini is crippled.

Nah, thats Cesc in his true form.

Yeah I skipped it cause of lack of time. I've started working fulltime with my coaching, but I really wanted to come up with some sort of report. But I can extend a little on how the midfield works along with Rooney. A lot of us were watching MNF and Gary explained it quite well, so I'm not taking credit for this explanation. It is not something I came up with. Okay this is a simple situation or scenario that United aim to create as much as possible. It's their biggest chance creation outlet, rigorously practiced via drills and its easy to fall for if they execute it to perfection. With Carrick on the ball, the midfield three in this case, in specific Herrera, Mata and Fellaini will aim to spread the midfield out so that passing zones pop up. It's like an unused false wall, when you find it , you think its of some use, but it actually isn't. The same way, Carrick gives it to Rooney, who in turn lays it up to another player who loses his marker. That pretty much destroys the mix of zonal and man-marking. Here it can be seen clearly how Carrick picks out Rooney after Fellaini and Herrera pull the midfield horizontally to create a clear pathway. If even one of the midfielder realizes and aims to block it, he has to be 100% sure he can sweep up that area, or else by pressing that high, he's creating another zone. That's Rooney laying it up for Fellaini. One of Rooney's primary roles is slot himself in between the center-backs and pull both of them towards each other. When it's a sole striker system, center-backs can be more versatile ( usually playing roles where they both can rotate responsibilities in aggressively marking him out of the game). Rooney however keeps dropping as the ball comes forward, attracting both the center-backs with him. This is where Fellaini does his job brilliantly along with Young. He drops into the pocket behind Yaya. To quote Gary, "In Kompany's mind, is just to watch the back of his shoulder there, the same with Demichellis. Then Fellaini can get inside the channel behind Yaya Toure. Toure in this occasion has every right to think his center-back would be covering for him ( subtle hint at how defense's prepare against sole striker systems) but Wayne Rooney has taken Vincent's eyes away." Rooney's always been known to drop deep. He loves the ball at his feet, that's been the notion. He loves to drop in midfield because he has a hunger to create himself, which granted does work out. His ways have been changed by LvG though. He now drops in to help out defenders, and instead of running at the defense with the ball or entering/combining with a midfielder, he plays it back safe to the open left-back and drops back to his primary role of sucking the defender's in. A difference of 5 seconds between the two pictures. He is energetic as he always has been, but he's turned a lot more disciplined in terms of a oriented strategy. The next picture backs up how well he's gelling into his new role. I do realize it's selectively picked, but it says a lot. 35 touches is the least amount of touches Rooney has had in his entire PL career with United. I forgot which goal it was , but it was scored by Mata and it was a peach of a goal clearly exhibiting Rooney's new role. The Rooney before this year, would run in towards the ball giving Fellaini an extra option but that would completely close out the zone Demichellis opened up by trying to press aggressively on Fellaini. Rooney stayed put, infact pushing more towards the right to take Kompany with him. The ball was passed onto him, Mata ran into the free highway, and an easy easy goal was scored. It's really simple if they execute it perfectly. So it's true what you said, the midfield is where it's going to be won. One reason why I'm not in favor of Ramires starting alongside Matic ( unless Jose comes up with another plan) . I don't know if it's been discussed, but in an ideal situation, I see Mikel-Matic play and Ramires starting on the wings. Blind-Fellaini-Young relationship is also crucial to how they set up their transitions and you really cannot underestimate the flanks in this game. If Carrick doesn't play, more of a reason to be confident. Schurrle was a good point. If you are able to switch the balls quickly enough from flank to, which the likes of Fabregas , Matic, and maybe even Mikel is well capable of, then we'll have a stronghold in the middle. Schurrle would have been a brilliant person to feed these balls in, but yes Remy will be crucial. If Drogba starts, we're going to see a long night of us relying on set-pieces, I have no clue how else Jose is going to set us up to score via him.

*cancels ticket to Belgium and friendly shipping of Belgium beer*

It's been a while.

Manchester United won a Manchester derby after a really really long time, boosting their confidence as they prepare to travel to South West London and attempt to put a dent on Chelsea's title charge. I haven't done this in a long time, cut me some slack. These are Louis van Gaal's core philosophy which revolves around the 4-1-4-1 ( a variant of 4-3-3). The limiting of space when in defensive transition, and an aggressive transition to attack when the ball is recovered and passive possession is maintained. Defensive overloading of the weaker sides ( Blind-Young relationship) with the help of Fellaini is also one of their strengths. They love building from the back and are patient. If not pressed enough, they will create chances, especially down the wings. They will make you press and press them and smartly deploy players in the holes that creep up to keep the possession in their hands. When they aggressively transition forward, their outnumber their opponents defensive players by a large ratio, evident from Ashley Young's first goal. Energy comes secondary to intuition, the manager lays complete trust in player decision-making which only comes with experience. Yes, Michael Carrick does drop into the center two, not just because it's his job, but because the distance between the last midfielder and the first center-back is really small. You can see that example right from kick-off. Look at the distance between the center circle and the distance between the center-backs. It took United less than 2 seconds to recover the ball from Manchester City who kicked off the game. United are very compact. There are commonly two zones in a pitch, the active playing zone and the inactive playing zone. The active playing zone is where you can pass the ball around with a high chance of keeping possession ( human errors are null and void ) . In most strategies where high-line is a major component, active playing zones are significantly smaller, and the aim is to keep reducing its size as the match grows. United forced City's APZ into one half of the pitch horizontally. This also helped United's aim to overload City's weaker defensive side. Add Fellaini and his physical presence there, and you have someone who can create havoc. The entire part of the pitch not seen in the image is the IAPZ. For us IAPZ's are usually very small, because we love to spread ourselves out like butter on bread, which also helps when defensively closing out zones in specific areas of the pitches. That's reactive rather than proactive. Our approach to United's tight structure cannot afford to focus around one player as many have suggested ( Fellaini-Zouma love story) Another strange feature is United's growing courage and fearless ability to push up in very close situations which almost always works in their favor. This is a corner United conceded and successfully defended as it gets cleared by Valencia who blocks Demichelis's shot . Keep an eye on the last defensive man ( near De Gea) and the time on the clock. Notice how the players encircled in dotted white are frantically telling their team-mates to push forward and pin City back. Notice the United players spreading forward to ease into their next transition stage and how Clichy ( on the ball ) has limited passing options which will soon be cut down even more. 3 seconds after the corner was taken. It took 9 seconds for the defenders to create a make-shift high line which caught a City player offside as City tried to force the situation. They are insanely aggressive once the momentum is in their hands, and it only stems from their growing self confidence, especially that of the center-backs who reinforce the idea again and again. Here's another bonus from MNF to see how Carrick has a strange pattern of growing into games. If United get their confidence rolling, Carrick will dominate. Jamie Carragher's example of United making the APZ's more compact.

I don't even get the whole appeal from a tactical stand-point of playing Zouma to nullify Fellaini's presence. Firstly its not even enough, secondly it is going to hurt how Chelsea will probably want to set up, which yes does include playing more defensive.

For fucks sake, if I had a thread named in my honor, I'd atleast pretend to be happy about it.

I just haven't been active around the forum cause the matchday threads and certain player threads just depress me after the happiness I felt after picking up 3 points. I've stayed away for a long while. That would be wrong. I have my patience and mine's running out at the end of next season too unless we see some sort of progression in our play style. I have a problem with both sets of fans, one who don't give a shit, and the other that has constant diarrhea. I respect the ones that fall in b/w and you have that from me. I don't excuse them at all. They are glaring mistakes that obviously need fixing but I have come to the personal conclusion that its going to take an entire summer to fix these problems. The moment we lost our drift early on, I decided to settle on mediocre performances and hope that our fight would go on to win us atleast one trophy and we might just end up winning with two. I want to look into these mistakes and criticize them more when we move on to the next season. That's when the problem begins. This is personal opinion cause I've stated it before that I love winning the League no matter what. In fact the worse we do it the better I feel cause the whole league will be complaining about it. It's the sort of tribalism Jose built up the first time he was here. I would love more of Carlo-esque football from our double winning season but I'm never ever gonna be less happier no matter how we win the title. Once again down to personal choice tbf. In an ideal world yes. I still see atleast another year before we implement youngsters in a larger form at all. Plus I don't mind defending with 11, cause like I said before, I don't mind that sort of football. Not seeing it with the purist's eyes of defensive football being coherently weaker. I don't think we have ever been scared of facing them. The chances are they are more scared of us. Defensive football is always been seen as a product derived from fear, but I don't think the same way. Real played on the counter against Bayern last year, I don't think many would say that Real were scared of Bayern. But in an ideal world , we play attack minded football because that is the norm, and there is a lot to change, but Jose has my confidence and support when it comes to that.

You feel its embarrasing to be called Champions. Good on you. That's your opinion and I respect opinionated people. But you can't complain when people are going to be against it now can you? Champions of football or Champions of math, Champions of first place gets you a trophy not a Champions of fourth place with 'attractive football' written in quotations on the pedestal. We have been doing it for too long due to unstability. I think that's a pre-conceived notion here isn't it? People watch football for entertainment. I for one love entertainment but I take a team's win over entertainment any fucking day of the week. Once again, different opinion. That doesn't indicate depression, I didn't understand that analogy at all. I'm the happiest fucking guy in the world right now, I'd still not complain about the way we won against QPR yesterday because 1. I don't expect beautiful football by Champions in the last few games of the League, that hasn't happened in over a decade or two. 2. We beat them in the harshest way possible, which I fucking loved. We gave them the belief that they were in the game and would have point to close the gap against Hull by a 1 point and crushed their dreams. Fucking loved that it happened to those scum. Those some people are crazy to you. People like you are crazy to me . You get my drift? I dont give a fuck what pundits and history archives think. They can spend a 60 minute history show talking about how bad we were for 59 minutes over the course of 10 trophy laden seasons, but they will always end that 1 single minute saying what we won. You talk about the neutrals. If you haven't noticed it yet already, I'm not a football purist. I find football in any form, played in any manner absolutely fucking gorgeous. I don't prefer attacking or defensive minded football better. I don't believe that Stoke's football is boring either. They played fucking gems under Tony Pulis, which I honestly enjoyed so much from a tactical point of view. It looks simple only if you're Brendan Rodgers. Manchester City are entertaining you aren't they? Arsenal too yes? Liverpool surely do as well. Lets not forget the mighty Manchester United. Who's going to remember their performances after this season? I didn't get the yahoo analogy too. In this point of the time, a marathon of a season, results come above anything. If you don't like this level of football, no one is forcing you to watch it. Come on down at TalkChelsea and complain about it, and you'll get the same number of people complaining about you. Opinions are free. At this stage of the season, considering how battered our team is, results are the only thing that matter to me. That is not me being in denial or contradictory, that is me being realistic. I have set my bar, maybe you and the one's you speak for are in denial cause you are expecting more from this team and a manager whose speciality has never been attacking football in the second season with a handful of games left to go.

I don't understand what he said or what the context is. You do your discussion, no one is stopping you. No one has the authority to stop you unless you cross a line and then the mod's need to come up. I never said Chelsea's style of playing is brilliant. It's bad, at times its borderline pathetic. But that was going to happen this season, I had set my bar low cause 2 seasons is not what it will take a manager of Mourinho's play-set to come up with beautiful football. I do my analysis, I do it full-time professionally. I used to do it for this site, before I stopped because of time constraints and also because quite a few educated members left to be replaced by ones who will go from 'Mourinho is god' to 'He should be sacked if we don't win anything this year' in the span of 45 minutes. You shouldn't be enjoying the football. You should be enjoying the fact that Chelsea are on their way to win the League after 5 long fucking years. You think I like the fact that we are not dominating our opposition? No I don't, but right now I know that is not happening. But I fucking loved the way we won it yesterday and as a whole I'm fucking delighted how things are going on. People are beating themselves down on the silliest things. Like I genuinely believe if we are a minute away from the title few people are sitting with crossed arms going ' We could have dominated' . Like fuck your domination, this beautiful club just won the League and I'm fucking happy. I have no problem whatsoever , this is a forum, there has to be a bit of negativity from people, but it's being outright criminal now.

Watch us win the League and people being unhappy that we picked the trophy up the wrong way. Blame your ambitions for the team, not the manager.

It was a joke guys. blimey, this place is too grouchy for a team that must be running away with the title.

Scores a hat-trick , takes off his shirt to reveal the words , "Fuck off TC " while doing a back flip.

Yeah that kinda proves his point. Helps the acoustics.

We needed this. If we drew here, the players would continue fucking it up. Should never have lost the 2 goal lead, but fuck it. What matters is result, when we're lifting the cup, people will remember the score, not the performance. Get in boys, lets keep the momentum building.

Sanchez , Aguero or Hazard, in that order for me.

Aha this is where the subject of the situation is important, I'll try finding the vid off twitter. edit : couldn't find the video, I'll retract that argument. it doesn't sound weak to me at all. It's justification for a team that didn't suffer a loss and drew to the poor circumstances they did. I do not think Chelsea's performance alone warranted a 2-2 draw. It was very poor indeed, but still very much doable once we went 1-0 up. People are criticizing, that doesn't mean they should sit-back and not say anything. They are given the platform to voice their opinions and it's open to be viewed as people want to the same way he has his own freedom of viewing the kind off flak the team is receiving after a poorly conceded draw. Mind you the criticism wasn't just about the performance, considering what the pundits were talking about in England.

That's what Gary was addressing when the journalist asked him. Who said we were winning it pretty too? The whole two games consisted of two teams performing well below their standards, apart from being defensively brilliant in open-play . I don't see the logic of talking about the first leg when Gary was specifically addressing those people who were saying something was really wrong with the team and had to improve starting from Hull City after they drew 2-2 and 1-1 consecutively.

Yes we did go out, but we didn't suffer a heavy defeat. PSG weren't scoring left , right and center. The club has always had high standards, but questioning the season after a draw that only happened due to two poor set-pieces hardly calls for serious criticism for the whole season.