The Chels

Is it just my hearing or does Jose always pronounce Willian as 'WilliaM'?

From recent interviews Mourinho is clearly suggesting that the Sunderland and Villa defeats can be justified (and not categorised in the same boat as the Palace game) because of the controversial refereeing decisions. I hope he doesn't actually believe that it was solely the referees' fault we lost those games — we were very poor and it's a bit delusional to think otherwise.

To be fair SAF was also widely hated.

Ivanovic, Ramires and (soon) Costa almost epitomise Mourinho's favourite type of player — one who is technically inept but hard-working.

Only the elite really and even then they don't do it that often. It's disappointing that we weren't desperate enough for a good striker last summer as to spend big on Cavani/Falcao. I'm pretty sure we'd have been willing to buy them now if they were available for £50-55m. Instead we'll end up with Costa, probably the poorest 'best striker available' in a long time and he won't provide the ingenuity Jose's talking about. And then in the following summer there'll likely be some much better ones available but we won't have the money to buy them — just our luck really.

Costa isn't that kind of player either though.

It's not necessarily the board who think he's good enough: it's Jose. After his performances this season most managers would have given up on him. But you have to remember that Mourinho wanted to buy Ramires at both Inter and Real; and not once has he publicly criticised (and Jose is hardly averse to doing so) or dropped Ramires this season in spite of his many ridiculous displays of petulance and incompetence... Instead he is constantly defended and made an untouchable — if that's not a manager-player obsession then I don't know what is.

Pointing out a player's mistakes/faults/weaknesses doesn't make you any less of a fan. Surely you should know that given how you've been criticising Oscar recently!

I think everyone agrees with that — including supporters of other teams who rarely watch us — except the one man that matters.

Hah lots of people here are going to be in for a shock next season when they realise that Mourinho WANTS to play Ramires; yesterday he had no choice but you can bet your bottom dollar he would have and will continue to start Ramires — there's a reason he wanted Ramires at Inter and Madrid you know.

Since... last season!

One thing this game highlighted is the importance of fullbacks that can actually attack. Two of their goals came through their RB, whilst many of our attacks broke down because of ours - Ivanovic gets so much of the ball whenever we have to break a team down, but he's completely useless with it and his decision making (trying to skill everyone up) is pretty poor too.

I assume so. It's not unfair to say that the team look to him to provide the attacking initiative a hell of a lot, and if he has a bad game we're screwed.

'I'm often asked to do it alone. It's not easy' is what he said, so the translation is definitely right. He makes a very valid point though.

He was definitely one of our best players tonight and deserves lots of credit for the goal. Sky Sports showed him drying his eyes when he was being subbed. Were those images not broadcast there? I guess you can see it if you check out the Sky Sports' showing of the match (full match will be on livefootballvideo.com).

Worried about the Ivanovic-Kalas partnership against their movement and attack.

"Yeah I'll just transfer you to them" haha it's probably just the same scousers ringing again and again.

That assumes they will have a fixed transfer budget though; sounds like they're just going to go all out.

Then they would surely go out and buy someone with power + footballing ability, the latter of which Ramires doesn't have.

The funniest transfer rumour is the Barcelona one: ...Yes because the club at which you have to be technically very skilful to even be a goalkeeper is going to spend £20m on a CM who is reckless, brainless and can't pass to save his life, when so many other much, much more talented CMs would love to play there. Complete BS.

Jose has now commented: @MiguelDelaney Mourinho: "I wasn't aware of the news that Tito Vilanova's condition had got worse. I was very saddened to hear this and I send him my very best wishes.” Edit: just read that he's passed away. So sad. RIP Tito.

A brilliant and unbiased article on the FA charge: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/10785801/Can-the-Football-Association-successfully-prosecute-Chelsea-manager-Jose-Mourinho-for-sarcasm.html

https://twitter.com/DiMarzio/status/459089842677493761 We're definitely in for a striker, and a LB too given all the rumours (Luke Shaw initially and now Moreno apparently); but still no indication that we're interesting in buying a CM which will be a crying shame. LB and ST are definitely two areas that need addressing though.

Indeed. Jose has lost 5 out of his 7 semi-finals thus far, and I can't help but wonder if he should adopt a less conservative approach. Our aggregate score in the 3 CL semis with Jose — 1-2 (second leg against Atletico still to be included) Our aggregate score in the 3 CL semis without Jose — 8-6 Interestingly in our 4 meetings with Liverpool in the CL knockout stages, we lost twice (both with Mourinho) and won twice (both without Mourinho).

More offensive? Yes (I don't think it's possible to be any less). Conservative still? Extremely, and in my opinion perhaps excessively. @RichJolly Chelsea's CL semi-final scores under Mourinho: 0-0, 0-1, 1-0, 0-1, 0-0. 1 goal scored in 480 minutes (inc extra time).