The Chels

@sherry33 You're right about Fernando's contract - I've only just seen he extended it in the last week or so because it was due to expire this summer. He has a £25m release clause in the new contract, which I suspect Man City will activate. But there's no way Ramires is just as good. In fact Fernando is much, much better. He's capable of making a pass actually Our best deep-lying playmaker (DLP) to partner Matic is currently a CB (Luiz) so I do think we need to buy a DLP, allowing us to control the tempo of the game and transition between offense and defence at pace. Matic isn't bad at doing this but he's currently too often the only one capable of doing it (when partnering Ramires/Mikel) and this puts too much pressure on him to focus on parts of his game at which he doesn't excel, leading to stray passes like we saw today against City. Someone of Modric/Gundogan's ilk would be perfect. @nadavTKL We don't need Reus but he would sure as hell improve us massively. An AM with an end product would be refreshing - Willian's and Oscar's is really poor for AMs meaning that when Hazard plays poorly we're scewed. Plus Schurrle seems to have gotten into Mourinho's bad books. The team of... Courtois Azpi Terry Cahill Shaw Matic Gundogan Reus Willian Hazard Balotelli ...would allow us to play both counter attacking and possession football successfully rather than just relying on the former system as we do now.

Atrocious again. And the worst thing is it seems Mourinho really likes him and will not replace his next season. I don't understand all the BS about him being good defensively for the team... since when is a player that wants to spend forever on the ball thereby being dispossessed constantly, that offers no physical presence and can be brushed aside, that refuses to close down the opposition when they're about to cross the ball, and that cannot make the simplest of passes a good defensive option?

He said that the team didn't fail but City were just better than us. Surely he can't actually be thinking that? His team's just given 2 fucking awful performances in a row.

There really doesn't seem to be any plausible explanation for his lack of game time except for Mourinho being on a power trip. Apparently it was Schurrle, Cole and Bertrand who went to Arsenal's Christmas party, and all of them have essentially been excluded from the first team. Coincidence? Doubt it.

Has been poor recently perhaps because of fatigue and the lack of a ball-playing CM next to him. Did well when partnered with Luiz who can actually pass, but with Mikel/Ramires who cannot control the tempo, he has to take the initiative himself giving the ball away quite a lot as his long-range passing has been very poor. A Luiz-Matic pivot should be the way forward from now on.

So Mourinho still doesn't understand that a Ramires-Ivanovic combination gives rise to the most technically inept flank possible. I've said this for a while but honestly Ramires is absolute garbage.

In: Shaw (£25m) Gundogan (£25m) Fernando (free as his contract expires I believe) Reus (£25m) Balotelli (£30m) Courtois (recall) Lukaku (recall) Bertrand (recall) Out: Luiz (£25m) Ramires (£15m) Ba (£5m) Eto'o (free) Lampard (free) Cole (free) Mikel (£7m) Schwarzer (free) Schurrle (£15m) Loanees like Romeu (£10m) That would cost us around £28m net with the following squad: Cech/Courtois Azpi/Kalas Terry/Zouma Cahill/Ivanovic Shaw/Bertrand Matic/Fernando Gundogan/van Ginkel Reus/Salah Willian/Oscar Hazard(/Oscar/Salah) Balotelli/Lukaku/Torres That would be one hell of a team that will have addressed most of our weaknesses, if not all. Unlikely for much of that to happen I know but a fan can dream can't he?!

I think Oscar and Willian are too similar - both are perfect for the high-press system, but neither offers much width (like to play centrally) or is creative enough to get many assists and goals. So I agree with what others have said in that since Willian is playing better, it is he who should continue to play bringing in Salah/Schurrle for Oscar. This will add more width, stretching the play (which is especially important on the Stamford Bridge pitch whose narrowness really hinders our play when breaking down a team, I believe) and overall improving the team's performance against teams that sit back.

A good squad option but he should really be no more than that given how many mistakes he makes in a match. To those that keep defending Ramires, are you honestly saying that you aren't worried about him giving the ball away or breaking down an attack pretty much every time he gets the ball? Because I am, and I'm sure a lot of others are too. I can't understand why Mourinho likes him at all, tbh. Even a 35-year-old Lampard, whose natural position is not the pivot, offers more than Ramires does there. If only he were younger then I'm sure he'd definitely play more often over Ramires. Really hoping we can get a good CM to partner Matic in the summer but I'm not too hopeful as I think we're just looking for a striker and possibly a LB.

I remember rumours in the summer saying that Real Madrid were interested in Ramires... LMAO, no way would they want such a terrible footballer. Imagine Ramires trying to displace Modric in the first eleven

JT-Cahill in defence and Matic-Luiz in DM makes up our best team IMO. Luiz's long passes to nobody really annoy me. It seems like he's trying to take things in to his own hands, make something happen because we don't necessarily have any other players in our team to spread the play but he hardly ever gets the passes right. It's just gifting the opposition back the ball, and he purposely does it when we have the lead - just boots it upfield to no-one!

If, in every one of our PL matches, the opposition were to sit back I doubt we would even make the top 4. We have become so dependent on the counter-attacking system that we are beyond clueless when trying to break down a team's defence when they 'park the bus'. Ramires lacks a footballing brain and any technical ability; our £85m trio of AMs cannot pick out a final ball to save their lives; losing the JT-Cahill partnership really destabilises our defence; and it doesn't help when we don't have a striker capable of holding up play. Sadly we are likely to see more performances and scorelines like this as our remaining fixtures are predominantly against teams in the bottom half of the table who don't play to our system. I actually reckon we have a better chance in the Champions League since we can play counter-attacking but we need to learn how to play with possession too!

Ramires once again proving useless when trying to break a team's defence down - is he able to pass to anyone other than the nearest player to him?

Absolutely Cavani. I don't understand why we didn't just bid for him when he had a release clause at Napoli? It would then just have been a case of convincing him to play up-front in the best league in the world under arguably the best manager in the world with some ridiculously good talent behind him (namely Eden Hazard) instead of playing in some dull league on the wing (albeit we might not have been able to match the wages of PSG). We have no chance of getting him now though sadly. He'll be leading their line after Ibra and they will not sell. I think we may end up getting Falcao but I feel that after his ACL injury and his poor performances in Ligue 1 beforehand, he would be another Torres.

Just a poorer version of Suarez really.

Thing is that even when there are decent targets I don't think Ivanovic is actually capable of making the cross. In the majority of cases he sends it completely over everybody and out for a throw-in. Even if there are no targets to aim for he should at least be attempting to get it into a dangerous area where players may run into.

If we came up against Atletico in the Champions League, would Courtois be eligible to play against us?

When the cross is miles over everyone's head and goes for an opposition throw-in, which is too often the case with Ivanovic's and Ramires' crosses, you can't attribute fault to the players in the box. Azpi's crosses I don't think are too bad at all.

He doesn't half put a shift in and is very pacy but he really needs to do better in the final third especially from corners to take himself to that next level. I've realised that he loves to play one-touch football lol - he does it successfully a lot and it's a brilliant way to help speed up the play. By the way did anyone else notice Mourinho chest bumping him towards the end? Willian looked completely shocked haha!

I think it's to do with possession based football vs a (more) counter attacking system which we used on Monday. His goal was exceptional but his technical ability, which he did defy on that one occasion, is still lacking and because he only really had the opportunity to put one cross into the box which was right at Joe Hart it wasn't really as noticeable especially given the brilliant goal. Compare this to when we play against teams like West Ham and to a lesser extent probably Newcastle on Saturday, and we're likely to be once more frustrated with him and his stray crosses/passes.

Hmm thought he was (once again) very poor. Gave the ball away so very often breaking down many attacks, wasn't decisive or quick enough in making decisions, made his typically wreckless challenges, was easily shoulder barged off the ball and was unable to get the ball past a player... Once again he showed how limited he was technically and how much he lacks a footballing brain. I really don't think he's good enough to be playing at this level. He's not a bad option for a counter attacking system, but is pretty damn shit for possession based football which is the type we're forced to play in the majority of BPL games. I feel a better CM partnering Matic would take us to the next level. Luiz, who is pretty decent there, evidenced that and showed what a proper pivot could look like.

I don't think anyone does, except Mourinho for some reason (and the opposition - they love being gifted the ball!).

Neil Ashton, who works for the Daily Mail and always leaks Chelsea's team news an hour or so before it is released based on what he saw in training the day before, said that Ramires is on the wing and he is pretty much always right with his leaks.

Imagine if we had that team lining up against City tomorrow! I would actually be confident of winning there.

Although he obviously says different I don't think Mourinho picks players based on performance and form all that often. I mean you could argue that he plays Azpi instead of Cole but why do Ramires and Ivanovic start virtually every game? He clearly has his favourites. Ivanovic/Ramires breaking down potentially very promising attacks gifting the opposition the ball time after time is arguably just as bad as Cole getting beat relatively easy by the opposition's winger. In my opinion all 3 should be replaced in the summer but that's not going to happen.