chelseafc9010

Or lost two.

I think Rakitic is overrated as well. Look at him in the El Classico he couldn't deal with the pressure, was poor on the ball with his passes, didn't really help Barca at all.

The touches against City were mostly passing to Terry and Cahill and back. He rarely ever had the ball with enough time to make the difference further up the pitch.

I'm not talking about his passing mainly, I'm talking about him being marked out of the game.

People saying it's an overreaction to one game, he was the same against Man City as well, less so against Arsenal but it is worrying. He seems poor on the ball under pressure in big matches.

What?

About what? We are discussing about Jose's tactics after going a goal up, and your here rambling on about players being robots and stuff, I see no arguments or stats.

Nevermind.. you miss the point.

Completely agree. Kalas is a big favourite of mine, he is young, fast, powerful, great on the ball and knows when to tackle, and he has guts. But I'm not sure about him because you know how we are with youngsters.. we never give them a chance and Kalas is on a horrible loan deal at the moment. The deal with our centre backs at the moment, is like already been said; they are rather slow on and off the ball. This means we can't play a traditional back 3 or 2 like most top teams do these days on the attack. For example, the fulbacks push up, the defensive mid sits deeper between two centre backs who push wide. This enables more width and numbers in attack, I'm sure an attacking left back would improve Eden as well. With Terry and Cahill, they aren't that type of covering defender, more of sitting defenders, old school defenders. Kalas is a no brainer but I doubt he will be given the chance, Zouma is more of a Terry type of defender it seems.

We had basically a full squad against Shalke and City and did the same genius.

But this is the modern game, back in Jose's spell it was different. Now teams are more adventurous and will go for goals no matter what, and Jose should of known that being 1-0 up at Old Trafford and United had nothing to lose. Their defending was always poor, but because of our poor attack they were allowed to bring on more attacking players and attack. Surely we should have brought on people to counter that, instead we brought on defensive players, and basically said to United show us you can score a goal against us, that is not being in control at all.

The reason we couldn't attack the spaces is because of the lack of options and poor passing, notablly oscar. That's why Jose should of brought on Mikel and Shurrle like I said, Mikel would ensure the defense is covered and Matic and Fab could push up higher to support the attack and keep pressure on the United defence.

1-0 up in a big game like that where United are obviously on the attack and have nothing to lose, and we are on the defence with everything to lose, that is not control. We were defending and hoping they would not score, if we was in control we would of kept up the pressure and gone for a second and kept the ball well.

Needs to find a way to use him in big games because he is easily marked out. Oscar was so poor yesterday though to be fair, United didn't really have to focus on him instead of Fab. I do think Oscar needs to play deep, so we play a 4-3-3, with Fab and Oscar as the more attacking mids, I think that would improve Fab a lot.

He should be playing more central for me and further up the pitch. Apart from that, he should spend the whole week working on finishing, because he has everything else. He is now getting into goalscoring positions reguarly, he just needs to be more selfish and score.

Does that mean Ivan is available for our next league game?

That's not controlling a match. Controling a match is when you have the control of the outcome, did we? No obviously not as they had more shots than us, more shots on target, more passes and more possession. We brought on Mikel to tighten up the midfield because Fellani and Fab handled and Matic couldn't do everything on our own. Did anyone really feel we were in control? It was de ja vu from the City game, we brought on Mikel as a safe option, allowing them to get more of the ball in our half as we were dropping deeper and deeper, thus creating more of a chance that they would score, just like in the City game, that my friend is not in control.

I'm worried about Eden. He has to step up, his finish was poor on that 1 on 1 chance. He is playing way too wide and too deep in big games and small games, if we want him to become a big star he needs to play futher up the field nearer the striker, this is probably Jose's choice and not Eden's mind you, because Eden's favourite position is cam, so I doubt he is the one choosing to be so wide.

If we were so in control how come we could only score one goal, create less chances, have less possession and have to bring on Mikel to shut up shop? Courtois being our man of the match speaks volume, he saved ours ass a couple of times, I can't see many other keepers saving one of Van Pussey's 1 on 1's in the first half where he got out to him quickly, we didn't dominate at all.

The three 1 on 1s Van Persie had maybe? The chipped shot that Courtois did well to keep out? Courtois was motm for a reason.

The stats prove it, we had such good chances as well though in Drogba's and Eden's, we should of scored more no doubt. Mikel isn't the problem, he is useful for wasting time, keeping the ball and parking the bus. Jose is the problem for parking the bus in the first place and bringing Mikel on just to make our team deepen.

The other way around I'm afrain, Eden needs to step it up big time. Although I disagree with his role given by Mouriniho. He is way too wide and deep most of the time to affect the game.

He was back to his old self today like last season; awful on the ball, very wasteful, was pretty lost, got out done physically.

I'm pretty sure I said bring on Mikel and Shurrle to go up a gear and win the match, you said it yourself our midfield was tired and carded, that's why Mikel should of come on earlier while people like Cesc were still lively. If you think we were in control you are deluded, they had more possession, more shots, more shots on target. If it wasn't for our man of the match Courtois (which says a lot) they would of scored way before we scored with the Van Persie chances in the first half. Courtois saved our ass, apart from the poor refereeing, United fairly deserved a draw, they outplayed us in the first half and after Mikel came on and we parked the bus.

I agree about Mikel, we were tired and our midfield were on cards we needed fresh men. But apart from that, what game was you watching? We were completely dominated in the last 10 minutes, all the Mikel sub did was make Cesc push further, but since he was tired he didn't do much of that, so we eneded up with Cesc being in a midfield 3 and Drogba dropping even deeper to play a defensive role where Cesc should of been. We were dominated and barely created any chances after the goal, when really we should of brought on Mikel and Shurrle after the goal and stepped up our gear and go for the winner, 1-0 is never enough, Jose should of known that after the City result, but he did the same negative tactic again because he was scared of defeat, Jose always talks about the team growing 'balls', I think it's time he grew some himself.