The Chels

And yet over the two legs he comprehensively outdid us. What does that say? Why would they discuss their match with Bordeaux on a Chelsea forum?

The irony of that quote. It applies perfectly to Jose's big-game approach.

2-1 down now thanks to some more awful defending

He's only on 7 yellows, unfortunately.

Can he stop giving extra motivation to other teams? He practically did PSG's pre-match talk for them.

Mourinho will probably sell him some more false promises at the end of the season but I don't think he'll be naive enough to believe them. I hope that a top team who actually appreciate his talents (preferably Atleti since he is the pefect Simeone player even though a lot of their fans now hate him) will buy him back after their recent Chinese investment. We'll be taking a pretty big financial hit though.

You could tell how excited he was to move here with his first interview, his tweets about the score (even when he didn't play) and the story about how he told Courtois he'd 'see him in London' when Atleti had just beaten Barca to the league. Mourinho undoubtedly sold him false promises.

It wasn't a great career move for him but there are some positives in it. It really is a shame to see someone with his technique, intelligence and intensity rot on the bench while the untouchable Ivanovic continues to neglect his defensive duties, vacate the entire right wing and regularly gift the ball to the opposition in dangerous positions. I'll be very surprised if Luis is here next season.

He'll win a couple of titles and earn good money. I hope he goes back to Atleti next year though. They are a perfect match.

The match played out in a similar way to the reverse fixture and I thought the second half was very good to be fair. That said we lost another 1-0 lead and the defending in the first half, especially down our right side (shock horror) was awful.

Expect this same line-up for the rest of the season.

Nice rotation and unpredictability there then.

Gary was criticising us during commentary but unlike the scousers on the show it wasn't out of bitterness. He seemed genuinely disappointed: he clearly rates us and Mourinho very highly and wants English teams to do well in the CL. Like the rest of us he couldn't believe we were playing with such a lack of intensity. Still he defended us from all the vitriol about crowding around the ref, saying it was nice not to have a naive English side. Oh, and this is great too:

Really want to know what was said in that meeting. We need our own Marca/AS where pretty much all the goings-on get leaked

Jose did(!) but thankfully he ended up going for Matic instead. The deal apparently stalled because of wage demands, else he'd probably be here now lol

Good point. How many of our players would you say are consistently able to make the right decision when pressed (and not just in their head à la Terry and Cesc who are intelligent but not mobile enough)? Personally I'd say Luis, Hazard, Matic and arguably Azpi (only when at RB though). That's it. I know it's unreasonable to expect 10 outfield players who are all intelligent, mobile and technically excellent but to have only 2-3 of that kind in our starting line-up is very underwhelming.

How apt for that to happen in this thread.

If Barca win the CL this year then I'm fully subscribing to this theory

PSG are a very good team and definitely deserved to go through over the two legs. Personally I think you would beat any team except for the 3 Spanish sides. Bayern still look quite vulnerable to the counter attack this season so I don't think they would be the worst team you could face. Luiz is a great player for the big games. He has character, passion and was excellent in this fixture last season also. He's still prone to lapses in concentration though as we saw in the first leg and whilst I would have preferred we kept him (mostly for games like this) £40m was too good an offer to turn down. Veratti is a brilliant player with a bright future but I think he takes too many risks sometimes, both on and off the ball. He is quite reckless in his challenges but the refs were very lenient with him in both legs and I think he is sometimes too arrogant on the ball too. Our pressing was poor and lacklustre (as you probably noticed!) so we never really got to test that out. If you were to face a team like Leverkusen or Atletico who press with great numbers and great intensity then I think whilst Veratti would sometimes beat the press thanks to his agility, he would probably also give the ball away in quite a few dangerous positions.

A strong, physically imposing and ball-playing CM to partner Matic (in the big games especially) should be high on the list. It's interesting to note that Tiago and Thiago Motta, who fill those criteria, were both probably MOTM against us in the recent PSG and Atletico home ties. They're both getting on a bit now and would only be short-term solutions. We definitely need someone similar though.

Why do you say that? There are still some good sides left, most notably Sevilla, Villareal, Wolfsburg, Napoli and Roma.

I agree but it doesn't help that our right wing of Ivanovic-Willian/Ramires is often an attacking (and defensive) abomination.

The comparison is pretty damning.

If we played a back four of Azpi-Zouma-Terry-Luis our pressing game would instantly be so much better. We might have had more possession but we did not dominate either of those teams. Lukaku missed a sitter for Everton and we only had to hang on for a few minutes after Willian scored. Henderson also missed a sitter for Liverpool after we scored and they definitely created the better chances in the first half.

I completely agree with the first paragragh but I'm not so sure about the second. How many of the first 11 players does Jose not really consider one of 'his' players? I'd argue very few (if any) even if he didn't buy them all. Last year he kept talking about how it was all about 'next year' and that we would have a phenomenal team. Well here we are 'next year' and we've actually regressed significantly in the big games/CL. I've been moaning about the issues you mention (disorganised pressing, huge gaps, poor transitions, relying on luck) for a while because it was obvious it would prove costly in the CL. I think a lot of fans want us to dominate possession and constantly be on the front foot in the big games. Personally I was never expecting that because that's not Jose's style. I would be more than happy if we just showed some intensity off the ball and if we showed that we were defensively solid. The way we just allow the opposition to move into dangerous positions, the willingness to allow crosses in (even if it's causing mayhem at the back) and the number of times we allow big gaps to develop is what I consider most disappointing. Cech/Courtois have been our MOTM far too often. The part of Jose's game which is supposed to be his strongest (organising defensive systems) has been letting him down and we've seen the same amateruish mistakes repeated all season. The bottom line is that our attacking play in the big games has been almost non-existent this season but we've still somehow taken the lead in pretty much all of them. If we knew how to defend a lead properly (defensively solid, play on the counter as the opposition becomes more desperate) then the performances would not look anywhere near as bad come the end of the game. Being unable to attack well is poor, being unable to defend well is poor, being unable to do either is horrific.