The Chels

He's almost been embodying the team's problem: against Sunderland, Villa and Crystal Palace, the smaller sides, he was poor and gave the ball away too much; against the bigger sides he's been much better. His stamina does appear to be a problem though and he is only playing 1 game per week hmm... I'm worried about the Liverpool game too because their pace could cause him issues - in that sense a mobile CM who has great stamina seems like a good partner for Matic, but Ramires has to be the worst top-level CM of that mould you could think of!

Sunderland fan hoping for a Ramires ban so as to increase their survival chances: http://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/ramires.907565/page-4#ixzz2zQyuP09D Says it all really - everyone knows Ramires is useless but Mourinho!

I know you're trying to be all patriotic defending your fellow Brazillians, but criticising Ramires for being a reckless, inept and visionless ATHLETE (and not footballer) is surely justified criticism rather than 'scapegoating' - but if you feel that way then more fool you.

I hope we do beat them so City can win it -- anyone but the scousers!

Fixed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlnRZe2IQAAvBmG.jpg:large Sunderland player in the box; should have been retaken!

Ivanovic loves a dive, doesn't he?!

The home record is still intact... Just a slight amendment needed with an asterisk (*) next to it. Perhaps: 77 games unbeaten at home in the PL *with Schwarzer not in goal.

I'm almost certain that will be the case. There's been no indication whatsoever from Mourinho's part to suggest otherwise, unlike with the strikers.

It's not as though Jose is forced to play them two in those positions. How about Azpi at RB where he'd offer a greater attacking impetus and Ivanovic/Cole/Bertrand at LB? Mourinho's actually praised the two fullbacks for their consistency: their attacking displays are anything but so he clearly isn't dissatisfied by their lack of offensive contribution, whose absence is particularly evident against smaller teams; and it's not something he's sought to rectify and nor has he shown any signs of doing so in the future.

He does sometimes in the UK on Sky Sports News LOL!

His statistics are pretty decent, likely because his passes are usually ones that a 2-year-old could make. In fact he never takes the initiative -- I recall that he was being jeered for passing back to Schwarzer twice from a set-piece after we were looking for a goal, probably doing so in the knowledge that if he looked forward for a pass of any difficulty he'd have lost the ball. And during the game itself Matic, who is supposed to be the more defensive of the pivot players, was essentially forced to go forward and look for a pass because Ramires couldn't. Ask Ramires to make a difficult through ball/long-range pass/a pass of any difficulty for that matter, and he will fail in the vast majority of instances: for a CM in his prime who plays in the starting 11 of one of Europe's biggest clubs that is indeed atrocious.

For all his many strengths it doesn't seem like Mourinho appreciates the importance of having adept fullbacks bombing forwards to support the attack; sadly I don't think he accepts that his tactics of playing Ivanovic (whose offensive contribution is negligible) and Azpi (on his weaker side) as the fullbacks takes away so much from our attack. It's a shame because for as much as Mourinho's tactics against the bigger sides have propelled us into the title race, I feel his excessively cautious and unimaginative tactics against the smaller teams have probably cost us it too -- even with this current strikeforce.

Foul by Matic laughably!

True. I reckon he'll say he won't have seen it though (even if he did) because that would surely make him look incompetent to the FA? Not like they care though. Sounds like a great suggestion to me.

Another poor performance from Oscar, sigh. Earlier on in the season it was said that he was playing well because he was scoring quite regularly, but now that the goals have dried up and we're evaluating his assists/creative side instead it doesn't really seem like he has the vision that a true number 10 should have. Haha there would be a complete clearout if you were in charge!

Too bad he didn't get sent off; I was ready to use my 'I knew it was for the best if he got booked last week!' line He's going to be banned for at least 3 games now anyway!

When he went to ground for the Altidore incident I'm not sure if he was trying to block the cross and unluckily made contact or if he was actually trying to tackle. If it was the latter then I'm disappointed; as much as it was obvious that he was trying to rectify his mistake, you absolutely cannot go lunging in from such an angle in the box. It was never a penalty but defenders should know not to give the referee any opportunity to give a penalty. The annoying thing is that I doubt they'd have scored from that bit of open play as the clumsy Altidore didn't seem to know what to do. In fairness to him though he couldn't have know the linesman was a scouser: https://www.linkedin...llin/35/659/560 http://www.liverpool...ey-city-3382790

He definitely would have seen Larsson go down but from the replay Sky portrayed I highly doubt he would have seen the Ramires arm-to-face, even from the corner of his eye.

You think it's a myth that Ramires has horrid passing... Do you even watch any of our matches? Sky Sports showed a replay of it in their post-match analysis (in which Redknapp demonstrated his remarkable anti-Chelsea bias) and Mike Dean's head was actually facing away towards Oscar who had the ball. No doubt it'd have been red if he saw it though and rightly so.

I don't find it surprising. I'm convinced he's absolutely one of Mourinho's favourite players - Jose greeted him after he got sent off against Bayern in the Super Cup (should've slapped him instead), he never gets dropped and I recently learned that Jose wanted him at Inter and Real too. Can you imagine how much stick Ramires would get at Madrid? I mean if the fans deemed Modric as a the biggest transfer flop soon after his arrival and they boo Ronaldo, what chance would Ramires have?!

Not sure if this has already been posted but the linesman is from Liverpool. No wonder he didn't give a foul for the push on Ramires for the header (which would've been a penalty + red card), disallowed Terry's goal because of an apparent 'push' by Matic and awarded them a penalty when Altidore essentially dived. Unbelievable. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jake-collin/35/659/560 http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/other-sport/corinthian-jake-collin-journey-city-3382790

Ramires and Ivanovic, our two most technically inept and and footballing-wise brainless players, yet Mourinho plays them in every game they are available! A long ban for Ramires to follow please FA

Southampton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin: "Since the start of the year we have played well. There was only one game where we clearly deserved to lose, the one against Chelsea [...] on the first of January...They harassed us. Mourinho knows what he is doing. He is not the best manager in the world for nothing." http://www.hat-trick.fr/morgan-schneiderlin-joueur-de-l-ombre/

Funny how we're hoping they're already relegated by then, whilst they're hoping we're already champions by then (see last paragraph of http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/apr/13/cardiff-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-anger-southampton)