The Chels

Surprised that nobody's yet to have said anything in this thread after the game. I thought he pressed well and did his defensive duties, but was poor on the ball giving it away too easily. I fear that offensively he is really only good at 1v1s and doesn't offer much otherwise. Very similar to a certain Brazilian midfielder of ours!

Hoping this match will be the one in which we see the rebirth of the Matic-Luiz pivot! I don't expect Schurrle to be playing after his poor performance yesterday.

Willian played really well in his relatively short appearance including some very crisp passing. Too bad Eto'o couldn't score when Hazard wonderfully flicked on Willian's great cross-field pass. That would've been some goal!

Everyone always thinks that probably assuming the manager realises Ramires is awful on the wing. Apparently not though, as all of our recent managers play/ed him there.

Ramires on the wing again... wtf? Willian is much better than him there.

He hit the crossbar actually!

Cech Ivanovic - Cahill - Terry - Azpilicueta Matic - Luiz Schurrle - Willian - Hazard Torres

Our results after only 48 hours' rest have been really poor this season though. And Liverpool's results after their usual 1-week rest have been very good and like Mourinho said this is a big advantage because not only do they have more energy for the game they are better prepared tactically also.

Most people have thought that Mourinho's been saying one thing to the media ('we can't win it') and another to the players ('we can win it') and I suspect this quote does imply that to be true: "The first half was really bad for us, I didn't know if Fulham controlled us or we didn't start. I was really disappointed because before the match we said they cannot have more motivation than us because although they have big motivation because they need points to stay in the Premier League, they cannot have more desire than us because we also have our objectives."

Yup it should say this season.

I'm getting bored of slating him but honestly... Awful once again; he just loves giving the ball away and falling over at the slightest bit of contact!

I said lower expectations, not low. But I do feel that the semantics of the price would reduce expectations. I've found that players bought for twenty-something million pounds, like Oscar, are much less constantly reminded of their price tag when they perform poorly in comparison to those who cost £30-something million. I understand the actual difference in price is very little, but I'm referring to the connotations of the prices and how costing only slightly more can increase expectations disproportionately. I agree though in that he ought to be doing more offensively because he is capable but hasn't really shown it much.

I do remember hearing the figure to be around £25m (when we began hijacking the Tottenham deal), which roughly equates to €30m. I think that the British press, which they are quite often accused of doing, may well have simply changed the € to a £. You'd think that they'd actually convert the figure first but they are known not to do so sometimes and then that figure spreads like wildfire across the media. When a club buys someone for £30m+ the fans expect that player to be world class or at least with the potential of being so, which Willian hasn't really demonstrated from an offensive viewpoint. If the figure was indeed £25m I suspect fans would have considerably lower expectations for Willian even if the actual price difference isn't much.

Well this is awkward... http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_07.htm

I think Sheva's point is that Torres is (much) faster than Eto'o.

Oh here comes the whole 'I don't like what you're saying so I'm going to pretend it makes no sense' pathetic response. What's so difficult to understand about the concept of Ramires hindering us from playing possession-based football because of his technical limitations and because of the FACT that he constantly gets dispossessed and forces the team to retreat? Do you think that if the Barcelona/Bayern/Madrid etc. midfield were so poor with the ball at their feet and couldn't string a couple of passes together without being dispossessed, particularly when under pressure (i.e. Ramires), that they could dominate possession? We were in the Europa League though, and to be fair that's probably Ramires' level. Should ship him to Tottenham lol. But in all seriousness I think many of us had forgotten what seeing a top class CM playing for Chelsea looked like. Matic is quickly reminding us.

Cech/Courtois Azpi Terry Cahill Shaw Matic Luiz/van Ginkel Willan Oscar Hazard Striker ...On paper at least that looks good to go indeed! It's only 2 signings as well assuming Luiz plays in the midfield.

Surprised by the number of people who are opting for Ramires instead of Luiz in the midfield. Perhaps because you assume Luiz will not be fit, but surely people don't actually think Ramires is going to be of any use given that this is a match in which we're likely to have the majority of possession and at worst will have to break down a bus? This game sadly has 1-1 written all over it. I predict a familar script: we score one goal, miss many opportunities, they start coming back into the game towards the dying stages, we bring Mikel on... and they equalise.

Nice pun lol! But in honesty perhaps it's because Ramires doesn't actually allow for us to play possession-based football and gives the ball away so much that we are essentially forced to play couter-attacking? I agree Mourinho sets us up to play with less possession in the bigger games but Ramires definitely takes it to a whole new level.

You make a very good point and I agree with you that the trio behind the strikers are generally far too static. The good thing is that Mourinho recognises this though and so you'd expect that there will be improvement sooner or later. In yesterday's post-match conference he said: "We create but when we arrive in the final third of the pitch, the correct pass and right movement is something we don't have".

Mourinho, please spare us all from the 'How not to break the Fulham bus by Ramires Santos do Nascimento' horror show, and instead opt for a Luiz-Matic pivot!

I guess that's possible but I wouldn't bet on it all especially for a player like Shaw. They may well be willing to break the bank as part of a long-term investment to, like you say, fill the quota for English players. I don't think they are very serious about FFP though with their owners essentially sponsoring their own club to balance the books. I agree but convicing Shaw is the much easier part. Matching or outbidding a club like City who seem willing to spend whatever on whoever in spite of FFP seems like an impossible task. Like Mourinho has said many times the club is working towards FFP and not grossly overspending anymore. That means that if City do come in with a £30m bid for Shaw I highly doubt we will match their bid, especially with Ivanovic and Azpilicueta now being two of Mourinho's favourites. Then it would be up to Shaw - move to City with huge prospects of winning many trophies and earning millions or pass up on the opportunity and wait on your boyhood club, who didn't think you were worth enough, to come back in for you another time. Frankly I doubt many would be surprised if Shaw thought it would be too much of a risk and agreed to move to City.

Seems like we finally agree on this one! In the majority of games we play, yes we do. Only away in Europe and away to other top PL sides do we concede possession by a big margin. It therefore makes no sense to make Ramires, a player who's so technically and mentally (footballing brain) limited in a possession-based system that he would not stand out in League 1, a part of the team's core. Really? If 'elite' means giving the ball away on the break when you're in acres of space because you cannot pass to a nearby player (never mind a long distance pass that you would expect 'elite' CMs to make) or because your first touch is truly abysmal then sure. I think you're right on this one, although we're yet to see if Ramires will play in CM at the expense of a fully fit/available Luiz or Matic. The last time both were available was the 0-1 win against City and they both played in the pivot leaving Ramires out of position (but somehow still in the team; sheesh he's like a cockroach). I think we will find out against Fulham supposing Luiz is fit.

That slide tackle on the edge of(/in our box) was risky but epic lol! Must've retrieved the ball countless times today but he really needs to stop trying to dribble past players when we've just regained possession because it's likely he will lose the ball and that puts the defence, which hasn't had time to properly reorganise, under unnecessary added pressure.

Mourinho: "Other teams have 3 chances, score 3. We have 5, score 1, that's not a critique of the strikers but it's the profile of the team we have". I don't really agree. Teams very rarely have such high conversion rates and in fact, if you were to look at the conversion rate of the best strikers in the world (plus Messi and Ronaldo) I don't think any of them have a conversion rate of above 30%. The reason they score so many is because they have so many chances; for example Ronaldo had a rate of 20% against Schalke tonight but still ended up scoring twice. Many Chelsea fans believe that we will buy a clinical striker who will score one given one opportunity which really isn't going to be the case. We have to create more and I believe the blame is too quickly attributed to the strikers, who we know are pretty wasteful, but the whole getting-angry-at-the-strikers when they don't score at every opportunity is unfair. The midfield really needs to be supplying more but we have no AM that can pick out a defence-splitting pass which is quite remarkable really. I believe Mata and De Bruyne (first game against Hull to Oscar being a good example) were the best out of the 6 in doing so but they're both now gone for being poorer in other aspects.