The Chels

Yes we missed opportunities to kill the game - and potentially the tie - in the first 30 minutes, but it's really simple: the more opportunities you create the more likely you are to score. And I feel we really missed Matic (and Luiz in midfield) because they'd have been much better at playing passes through the ridiculously large gaps between and beyond the Galatasaray defence than the woeful Ramires-Lampard pivot even if it's not their speciality.

He had a release clause though and so all 3 clubs were only competing to convince the player - for Chelsea it was simple enough: high wages and reminding the player that London > Manchester. Here it's the opposite in that we need to get a bid accepted but although we don't really need to convince the player since he's already a Chelsea fan it may not even get to that stage if we are outbid (which is very possible given that we'll be competing with City now). I think it's much more difficult in this situation.

To be fair the officials also ruled Schurrle to be offside when he was through on goal and actually onside, and they also ruled Torres to have fouled the Galatasaray defender when he was also through on goal and did very little to warrant a foul against him really.

But competing with Man City will probably inflate his price to £30m. It also means that we may potentially pull out of the running due to FFP constraints, and then you can't really blame Shaw for moving to City especially considering Chelsea might not come back in for him even if he were to reject City.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/26/luke-shaw-manchester-city-manchester-united-chelsea Sigh. While Shaw is a Chelsea fan I don't think that's going to be much use when Manchester we-don't-give-a-crap-about-FFP City blow us out of the water with a stupidly large bid.

Jose just said 4-2-3-1 on Sky Sports.

Double post

Hervé Mathoux, the chief editor of Canal Football Club, said about Mourinho: "We're fully comfortable with [the] interview. We're surprised by Mourinho's comments claiming it was off the record. The camera was located 50 cms, maybe 1 meter away from him. It was a tight close up. Discussion was informal, but it was held in the middle of a large group of people inclduing our cameraman. So there is no way Mourinho could ignore [the fact that] he was being filmed." [@JohnSinnott] The quality and angle of the video does indeed suggest the camera was close up as opposed to being hidden in the corner and so it does seems strange that Mourinho would say he didn't know he was being filmed.

Yeah I'm not sure why some of the translations I've seen have missed that bit out (I don't have Falcao/Falcao isn't mine) but he definitely said it midway through the conversation and said the striker bit (I don't have a striker) at the start.

I agree with what you say about not necessarily needing a world-class striker, but in fairness to the Guardian I do remember Mourinho saying: 'J'ai une équipe mais je n'ai pas Falcao...Falcao n'a pas une équipe' which they correctly translated. I think Canal have removed the video off their channel now(?) which would perhaps back up the paper's suggestion that Mourinho is angry about it and didn't know he was being filmed.

Better footage than Chelsea TV would ever offer though lol!

According to the Guardian (usually very reliable) the club has said that Mourinho 'was unaware he was being filmed' when he made the striker comments. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/24/jose-mourinho-remarks-chelsea-champions-league-galatasaray?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Very interesting and a great read.

I don't think it makes much difference in fairness. It's not as though he's said anything shocking; he's been implying our strikers are **** for a while now but just because he (pretty much) admitted to it here I doubt it will make them suddenly worse (is that even possible?). Hah! City do have a game in hand though so I'm not sure it's very promising.

How exactly? That Ramires simply running and offering energy was enough to warrant plaudits from many highlights just how low expectations are for him, a CM. Even in his best match in weeks he couldn't cross for toffee, hitting the first man when attempting to do so and once more he demonstrated his limited technical abilities with his usual poor passing. If someone compiled all his actions into one video, you'll see it. He offered more in this game than he has done recently and played well (for his recent standards), but I stand by my original point in that his limitations will mean he'll cost us more points than he will gain for us over the course of the season.

I don't think this was a case of mind games/a 'trying to motivate the players' talk because it was said during an informal, behind-the-scenes type of frank conversation rather than anything pre-planned to feed the media. All signs pointing to Diego Costa, I reckon.

Mourinho was surprisingly very honest in the interviews with Canal+. To the British press he implies our strikers aren't good enough by saying they're not the type to score lots of goals but they work hard for the team etc. and that we're not ready this season (intimates because of lack of good striker) but in these clips he just came out and said it. He said it would be impossible to buy Falcao as he did with Cavani and Ibra, but you do get the feeling that with the whole 'I have a team... I don't have a striker... He has no team' chat the club may pursue Falcao in the summer, although I'd rather we didn't because of his ACL injury, and plus whilst he is a very good finisher I wouldn't say he's a world-class striker (not very good link-up play) and thus wouldn't warrant the outrageous fees we'd have to pay to get him. Pretty much although Namika's translations are paraphrased rather than exact. What's so =\ about it?

The number of times we've lost the ball in the final third is ridiculous. Oscar and Eto'o really can't hold up play and are easily dispossessed when pressed. On the bright side though it seems Willian's crosses from corners and free kicks finally go beyond the first man!

"Rested" again today... Has Mourinho finally realised his limitations? I hope so!

Why would Real Madrid, probably the biggest club in the world, put a release clause in one of its players' contract?

If it weren't for his attitude problems I reckon there'd be a bidding war over him. As it stands though £30m could probably get him and considering that's a similar price to what we'd have to pay for Costa coupled with the fact that Costa is hardly mentally mature on the pitch and that Balotelli is a much more gifted footballer I would opt for Balotelli.

@Barbara (have to @ because quoting doesn't work on my tablet - anyone know if that's standard for tablets or is it just mine?) Yesterday's match against City demonstrated a lot of his flaws and qualities quite well, in my opinion. His pace was an asset in that it allowed him to regain possession, but he mostly always did this after himself initially losing the ball due to i) taking too much time on the ball, ii) making a poor pass - the one to Ivanovic in our own half, where there was no one really around Ramires yet he still ended up misplacing the pass such that it went out for a throw-in comes to mind. He also never took the initiative, but rather passed the ball to everyone and their grandma (and even the opposition) to make something happen instead because, frankly, he was and is incapable of doing so. Does anyone ever remember him making a cross-field pass? We saw quite a few of those today from Willian, Hazard and even Ivanovic! It really says something when you, as a CM, have a more limited passing range than Ivanovic...

Torres-Eto'o or Ibra-Cavani with all players at their peak? Pace v power! Difficult one. Back on topic though I hope Terry is fit to start next to Cahill, with Luiz partnering Matic in the midfield.

Never going to happen. Plus this comes from the Mirror, the same tabloid that said Jose Mourinho was going to rest Chelsea's stars against City today...

As awful as he is, I must admit I don't think there is anyone in our team better at 1v1s. He must only ever practise chipping the keeper in training, and in fairness he excels at it but it's not enough to make up for an absence of other majorly important qualities.