Laugh1ngMan

can't believe this shit anymore, penalty after penalty

LOL at some of these comments. We haven't even kicked a ball yet and the place is in meltdown bashing Mourinho

Obviously Drogba is still struggling with injury or he would have started. So what do people expect Mou to do, put in a youngster who hasn't played a single minute in the premier league in a potential title-decider????

I wouldn't have picked Kane, Coutinho and Cahill. Aguero, Cazorla/Cesc and Fonte in their stead would have been better i feel

LOL, Mou might have trouble keeping a 1-0 lead this season but Pellegrini can't keep a 2-0 lead to save his life

To be fair, i rather have a 37 year old Drogba over a 29 year old Torres. At least Drogba can play some nice combination football with our AM's. Torres truly was a waste of space last season that hardly did anything noteworthy during a match.

I reread the last few posts and can't see nobody 'demanding anything else' then what he is doing right now, so why are you on your high horse all the time interpreting any seemingly negative post as an assault upon which you need to reply. We were just discussing what a possible move to Madrid would mean, nothing wrong in that. And if you don't like the posts in between match days, just stay away then, whats the problem?

Naaah, you really think Mou would be withouth a chance in any game against those 4? As much negativity you have towards him/his tactics, the one thing you have to concede is that he always will have a decent chance to win agains them, like Atletico Madrid under Simeone. Not by playing at their game ofcourse but definetly by playing ours. But whenever you come to the realisation that we are not at the same level as the top tier teams yet, you can't blame the 'negative tactics' he uses. It's the only way you can get results at times. Look at Man City/Arsenal with their righteous way of playing!! They are naive and getting nowhere.

Watching the champions league games this week, they just confirm my opinion of the strategy Mou uses in big games. In the end it is about getting results and you use the tactics that will most likely get you the positive results. Mourinho would have been bashed to hell if he played like any of the teams that lost. Yes, it's nice if you can play 'entertaining foorball' getting the right kind of results but we have got to be realistic about the state of our team. Last season we were in a transition period and we made excellent changes in personel in our team to transition into a premier league winning team. But when we are comparing ourselves to the likes of Real Madrid/Bayern Munchen etc. it's obvious we are still one step beneath them. But if Mou is as diligent in his recruitement as last year we should be closing the gap even more and we'll come closer to the kind of football some of the critics are looking fore.

This, I really like Remy, i think he is everything you want from a second choice striker when he is fit but he seems too injury prone to be relied on imo. The one thing that is most important when being second choice striker is to be reliable and at the moment he isn't just because of his frequent injuries. And altough i think Drogba has done reasonably well as an old third choice striker, I do hope we go with a young inexperience third choice striker next year

To be fair, if you are realistic, Hazard is never gonna be a big a star as Messi, CR7 etc., they were way more prolific at 24 than Hazard is right now and Hazard is never gonna be a goal scoring anomaly so the chance of him being a legend at a club as big as Real Madrid is very slim imo. Offcourse it's very human to give it a try nonetheless but as i said i judge Hazard to be a player who is content with what he has and he might want to settle with being one of the best PL stars ever.

good point, they will be well into a rebuilding fase after Ronaldo retires from Madrid and Hazard will prob be in his prime years. Can't see a talented guy like Hazard not giving it a try at one of the 'big clubs'. The only thing that makes me optimistic why he might stay is that he is a humble guy who doesn't have the need to be in the spotlight and rather be a legend at our club

Not really the kind of player that City need imo, they got alot of firepower already, they need to fix their CM/DM first and foremost. So i'm not complaining, means they will have less money to spend on these area's, altough it would hurt if he keeps on producing like he is now

: You are right, it's better to stick with your principles and keep bashing the same players/managers with the same arguments on the same things over and over again instead of trying to read comments and watch a game with an open mind and possibly altering your view of the game/players Was really hoping Matic stepped up his passing game in the game against United since with Zouma as a partner in the pivot we needed someone to string the passes together deep in midfield but he didn't really delivered. I genuinly tought he was better at it but after paying some real attention to it the last couple of games it's fair to say i'm dissapointed in it.

The problem is that our 'philosophy' of our normal play style kind of sucks. I remember when Mou returned he spoke about implimenting a high energy pressing system with a high block (as instructed by Abramovich). But he has implemented a pressing system without having to sacrifice his defensive solidity. He basically asks Costa, Oscar to press 4 people (goalkeeper, 2 CB's, and the deepest midfielder) while the rest of the team just marks their man. Therefore when we come up against a good team who can string passes together with some ease our press is practically ineffective so when we score first, the press is often sacrificed since it doesn't amount to much and it takes alot of energy out of our players. He acts the same way when we are in possession. He doesnt want to sacrifice his defensive solidity imo, hence why we never split out centrebacks when we are in possession and our only option is to pass it back to the keeper who in turn can only kick it up field. Don't mind this strategy too much, it's just his style. But what i do mind is him not even changing it when we are up against an inferior opposition like against QPR or against ten men like the PSG/Man city game

So you are basically saying you would have to be a brave person to do it at a top club and playing like the fans want you to is the easy way

Our best bit of play apart from the goal was prob at the 0:20 mark, loved that interplay between drogba and hazard Quick passing and movement, that is what we have been missing since the first half of the season, dunno what happened to it, players don't seem confident enough to try it

The problem for Cesc is the lack of runners. he needs people to move when he has the ball but only our striker does this and it doesnt pose great danger anymore, hence he stopped being as influential as the first half of the season. Early in the season we had at least Schurlle to help out and i can even remember Hazard started doing some off the ball movement, which was lacking in his game and i aplauded him for it. But all that has come to a stop for some reason or another. Especially in games where we are being pressed since our passing is so bad our AM's have to drop so deep to help out, that in turn Cesc hardly ever has someone to pick out. I remember him trying a couple of through passes against QPR for Drogba but that wasn't working for obvious reasons. I was hoping Cuadrado could at least give us that, and he has shown some of that movement but his all round game has been too suspicious too give him playing time at these crucial moments.

Defensively one of his better performances really, prob because we were playing compact though and he didn't need to cover half the ground by himself. But he was one of the main problems why we were so poor in possesion and it hasn't been the first time, def needs to up his game and improve on that

I'll try to explain the game from a tactical point of view for whoever doesn't get it: When you are up against a possession based team you have three options: - run around like amateurs to try and get the ball (what we did in the first 30 minutes) - press aggressively with the enitre team (which we didn't have the right personal to do, with the absence of Costa/Willian) - sit back deep and counter (just like Real Madrid did against Bayern last year) So the way we played was the only viable strategy we had to win the game. Everybody knew we would play Zouma in midfield to counter Fellaini because it was our only option (hell, even the pundits were predicting it) So anybody who thinks we should/could have played differently is simply wrong and any misgivings about how we won are misplaced. I believe in Mou, he spotted our faults previous seasons and fixed them perfectly. I have no doubt he spotted our mistakes this season (not being able to see out 1-0 wins/not dominating teams that we should, like against 10 men PSG) and will rectify them by bringing in the right personel

Altough it would break my heart to loose him, I would very much like to see what he could achieve in a team full of technical superior players like himself.

'Nuff said

Great win today. Said before the game that if we win this the title is definetly ours!!!! Ugly first half, very decent second half were we didnt give away anything, congrats to everyone EDIT: oh and Herrera really is a typical spanish diver, saw it already in the first half with the challenge from Drogba were he barely touched him

Matic really has to start to learn how to pass, it is again horrible

Thats betta, oscar