OhForAGreavsie

Wish I could disagree with you.

I preferred the first. The second looked an easy finish to me. I mean, the ball sat up and begged to be lobbed which I'm guessing 100% of right-footed footballers would have tried and 99% of them would succeed with at least 90% of the time. The first on the other hand, was a real finisher's goal. Stayed calm, simple but well executed little touch to set it up then put it away without fuss. Great finish in my opinion.

I have an unusual take on this but, by way of background, I'd like to remind everyone of a couple of things and tell people something about one of my attitudes, an attitude I suspect is shared by all of us who use this site. 1) Thirteen years ago Bruce Buck told us that Roman was in love with football, that he had a database of information about thousands of players, and that if you named any footballer Roman would be able to tell you all about that individual. My take, then and now, is that the database could only have been Football Manager because Roman would have had to employ hundreds of people to put it together independently and that would have made no sense. 2) Twelve years ago, asked if the manager had control of transfers, Peter Kenyon tried hard to avoid being clear but gave away a lot when he said it came down to group input from a number of people. The clear inference I took was that all our suspicions were right and that Roman was picking some of the transfer targets. 3) If I had Roman's dosh I would 100% have tried to buy Chelsea and, if I had succeeded, I would 100% have insisted on having the final say on player recruitment. Any manager who could not accept that would not have gotten the gig. My unusual take is more of a speculation really. Is Michael Emenalo actually a cover for Roman? Is Roman adding 'projects' to the squad and allowing the world to believe that they are being selected by Emenalo?

You've sold me on giving Baker another chance but Bamford will take more work.

I confess that I am guilty of 'abandoning' a player when I don't believe in them. So, for example, I'm not watching Bamford or any of the Vitesse contingent any more because I've decided that only Solanke has any hope with Chelsea and even that is a very, very slim hope. This means that if such players have a surge in form I don't tend to be aware of it until I read about it here. What you've told me about Lewis is therefore news to me. I'm pleased for him and maybe I should check him out again but the truth is, although form comes and goes, I don't believe he has the required quality to be a Chelsea player. I'll let you know if I watch him and start to change my mind. With Bamford, although I have watched him from time to time, the truth is I wrote off his Chelsea chances before he even went on his first loan to MK Dons. I've seen nothing since which encourages me to revise that view. On the other hand, I watch every minute I can of Musonda because there, I do have belief. I've also been following Christiansen, Pasalic, Boga and Ake.

Facial injury.

I foresee no Chelsea future for any of the last three on that list. Especially not the two Bs.

The should be a fine and suspension. Hope the DFB are looking at this. It's not on.

Shop window? Ditto? The z and the a are reversed. I'd have liked that but following Guus's press conferrence, when he said that youngsters were more likely to get chances after the international break, I didn't expect it. It's clear from his pre & post match comments that Guus is very proud of the record, and rightly so. Let's see how things go after the break.

That's an interesting question. Charly has started every game since he's been at Betis; one wide right and seven wide left. The problem is that Los Beticos are not that good a side. Stationed out wide, there have been long passages where Charly has been starved of the ball, passages when Betis simply haven't been able to set him up with good possession in good areas. As a result, in several games their manager has shifted Charly to the centre in an effort to get him more involved in the action. This, for example, is exactly what happened at half time last night against Malaga. Here's the thing however, that switch hasn't always worked. Speaking just from memory, many of Charly's most impressive moments for Betis have come when he picked up possession in a wide area. There is no question that Charly is at his best when he has the chance to carry the ball but in the centre he has found himself relying more on his passing than his dribbling. That has, in my opinion, robbed him of something. Certainly against Malaga he gave the ball away a number of times and he found himself playing a few of those first touch pop it back to the defender passes that are necessary but are not what we want to see from Charly. Two of the three best displays I've seen from Charly were in the Modric position for our 21s, and one from the left for Betis. As I type this however, I don't remember seeing an outstanding display from him when he started in the ten.

Well let's hope the day will come when you will be proud to have said this.

I hope and I pray that everyone in the decision making chain is as aware of this as we need them to be. I don't blame the club for their supposed statement that no major restructuring of the squad is necessary. It's the right thing to say for public consumption. As long as they didn't mean it...

I simply do not agree. At all. He was young, mega fit and capable of it. If not the metrics would have shown him in the red-zone and he's have been rested. In any case, if you can't outpace someone that might be because you're tired, but if you can't control the football on the dribble because your technique is too poor then that has nothing to do with tiredness. Oscar never suffered a deficit of energy, he suffers a deficit of talent.

Those stats can be affected by too many external factors to be a reliable indicator of anything. When I see him play, I see the same footballer that I stoped believing in a very, very long time ago. I'm not obsessed by Oscar. I'm just bemused as to why there are still people wiling to hold out hope for a miracle.

A bit self-serving, but fair enough. Oscar is still only 24, so I feel that despite his lack of progress, it may be premature to proclaim he's done for. Only one of us can be 100% wrong on this one. Players do not improve in the fundamentals; in the things which are related to their natural talent level. Oscar was never, ever going to improve the things which make him unsuitable for Chelsea. As some of us were saying three years ago. I don't agree that he's regressed. People have just given up on the he's tired excuse and are no longer prepared to deny the evidence of their own eyes. If he's coming in for severe stick these days I'd say it's because people feel let down after they stuck with him and gave him so many chances over such a long period of time. When I jumped ship before Christmas 2012, I was told but he's only 20. I predicted then that people would still be offering that excuse when he was 23. Can't remember if I said anything about 24. It is just an excuse though. Oscar simply isn't good enough and even if he manages to stay super fit till he's 50, he still isn't going to be good enough. Practice and experience just allow players to make better use of what they've got but if they ain't got it, they ain't got it.

Just be kind enough not to remember I said that when Cuadrado notches up his 100th appearance for the club.

No but I'll wager a hundred quid that, if he does, he'll soon send him away again.

iseah100 speaking his own language works for him but gives a good example of how the world works. Of course people growing up in America should have their own version of the language we share. Of course they should have their own vocabulary and their own idioms. No problem with that so when someone who naturally speaks American English says anyways it sounds perfectly correct or even cool. When a Brit says it however, it sounds to my ears like chalk squeaking on a blackboard and I find myself having to suppress violent feelings. Now, I am not a violent man you understand. I haven't hit anybody since my early years at school but I fear that if I ever hear a Brit saying, "Anyways, I could care less so you do the math.", I am going to loose that proud record.

Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. This does sound promising. Very promising even. On the other hand Rennes are currently in a Champions League spot and, if Dembele stays fit, might even hang on to it. If Dembele then leaves at the end of the season, as is possible, maybe more starting opportunities will open up for Jed where he is. Either way, I think you are right, France is the place for him next season. Of course we then have to deal with the underlying problem inherent in these loans. If their loans fail then no progress is made but, if they succeed, which club, or even which country, do these kids identify with? Already, reading between the lines, Charly seems to be hinting that, given the chance, he'll prefer to stay in Spain and ditto Andreas in Germany. If Jed starts to shine in France* how will he feel? How does Thibaut? We might be able to exercise our contractual rights and bring these lads back to Cobham but where are their hearts? I know the club must be aware of this issue and must also be giving it plenty of thought. *Granted French football does not currently have the same allure as Spanish or German.

My ratings for Charly's games with Betis so far are; OK given that it was a debut, decent, good, outstanding, decent, quiet, very quiet. I don't think we should get carried away about what Charly has achieved, or encourage any complacent thoughts to creep into his head. His time will come for the Red Devil's I'm sure. If I shared your nationality perhaps I'd see it differently but, speaking purely from a Chelsea point of view, I'm quite content with his U21 call up. I know Wilmots was in the ground when Charly produced that outstanding performance but he must have seen coverage of the others too and it looks to me like he's taken a balanced decision.

Yes, I thought it was a nice cameo from Jed last night. For the first time that I've seen (I haven't watched all of his games in France) I felt Jed's average level over his twenty-five minutes or so, was higher than Dembele's across the ninety. Dembele's uber quality still meant he delivered an outstanding goal and an outstanding assist but, in between, I felt he was quite poor. Many of the rising young star's contributions were spoiled by bad decisions or bad execution. Jed, on the other hand, produced a few trademark runs where he carried the ball from left to right across the defence looking to feed someone in with a little diagonal pass. Our loanee also popped off some very simple but nice first time passes rather than look for a third or fourth touch in search of a dribbling opportunity that just isn't there. (As he is sometimes guilty of doing.) More of the same please Jed.

I wasn't particularly impressed by last night's display. It took us a while to establish any control and when we did, it was not the kind that led to the creation of many clear cut chances. In fact there were hardly any chances at all which resulted in their keeper being worked. Even the goal, when it came, was from a set piece. Albeit a well worked one. I'm afraid though that it was really all downhill from there with the second half performance in particular becoming steadily more disjointed as time ticked on. A key reason for this patchy outing was the form of Kyle Scott in the centre of the park. He was energetic and calm in possession as usual but I felt sorry for the kid as he had a wretched night passing wise. A staggeringly high percentage of his deliveries were either misplaced and gave possession away or under hit meaning that they were intercepted, resulted in a tackle or set up very poor quality possession. There had been some pre-game complaints about the pitch so maybe the surface contributed to Kyle's troubles. Either way, when his substitution came midway through the second half, it felt like it was long overdue. Keep your head up son, there will be better days. More positively, I thought defenders Clarke-Salter and Tomori were our stand out performers on the night. Of the forward players, Sterling showed the best form but he struggled for an end product. For the most part Tammy Abraham was starved of decent possession but he wasn't able to make the most of what little he did get. This team has to work harder for their victories than their recent predecessors. They don't have the stand out brilliance of Boga, Colkett or Musonda to rely on and they were without Charlie Wakefield who has probably been their most penetrative player in recent months. I don't know when Charlie will be back but I think he'll make a difference if he's available for the second leg at The Bridge in three weeks time.

Not desperate that it should be as a replacement for JT but am very keen for Chelsea to try to make this happen.

Starting after the break he said about opportunities for youngsters. He also said this was not a promise and that they'd still have to earn it. Actually he said 'knock on the door' but I think earn it is what he meant.

He's been saying that for weeks. I'm no expert in Guusish but I would offer the following translation: - I peddled the "he's not fit" excuse for as long as I could, but now that that won't wash any more I'm having to find some other way to avoid speaking the truth." That truth of course is almost certainly that Guus just doesn't rate Pato.