OhForAGreavsie

This is ridiculous. Watford's CMs are, individually, better players than ours. Wow we're in a mess.

I think I'm the exact opposite to you. Having watched a fair bit of Pato at Milan I formed the opinion that he was another in the long line of talented players who flatter to deceive. They look good, but they deliver little. In other words, I never expected much from him. Now he's a Chelsea player however, I find myself hoping that he really is as good as his attributes make it seem he might be. In a nutshell, my opinion is low, but my hopes are high.

Agreed re Marko, however I'm more supportive of the loan army policy than many seem to be. Twenty-two looks a reasonable enough number to set as a maximum size for the army but I'd prefer to control its numbers in a different way if possible. I'd like us to be completely honest with ourselves, as well as with the young man himself, as soon as a player's Chelsea chances are gone. Once that decision is made a move should be found for him as soon as possible. If a quicker turnover is achieved it will improve the chance that we'll get enough people into the system to find more successes. I say we should do this if possible because wages and contracts will impact when and if a new permanent club can be found of course. It would be nice to think we could make this easier by gradually reducing the value of the contracts we offer to loan army recruits in the first place. This may not be realistic however.

As you've probably realised now, the comment wasn't serious.

I didn't include the text of the posts I'm referencing because they're a bit longer than average. They can be found by clicking the swirly arrow in the top right of the blue boxes above. If you do that, and find you have not already read them then I recommend that you do. They contain 100%, well thought out, good sense. The argument @Peace makes in those two contributions reminds me of one of my favourite Winston Churchill comments, "Most people don't think most of the the time so the majority opinion is nearly always wrong."

I am, and always have been, less worried about Ruben's level of activity when the oppo have possession, than I am about the situation when we have the ball. When Ruben has the ball himself he's fine, but otherwise he's got to up the work rate to make more of an impact. I started to review yesterday's game to look for evidence to back up my comment and didn't have long to wait. At about 0:01:33 he chased a Fabregas pass down to the corner flag, flicked it over the left back's head and was unlucky not to draw a foul when he was bundled over. Then, at about 0:10:44, he collected a pass from Brana on halfway and dropped a simple, first time, ball back to Matic. In the intervening 9 minutes plus, Ruben touched the ball once. Even then it was not because he engineered himself into the passing pattern. Rather it was because he closed down the left back and got a block in. That's 10% of game time; time during which his team was utterly dominant and created numerous chances. Yes, it is possible for a player to make important contributions without touching the ball, and yes, any player might experience a passage of play like that from time-to-time. This is not a one-off for Ruben however. I've been banging on about this aspect of his game for three years. This is not about Ruben's team mates failing to pass to him, this is about Ruben working harder to support play, find space and make angles which enable him to receive the ball. Ruben has to be helped to acquire the knack of getting into possession. Only then will what he can do with it make enough of a difference for his team. Even Butch Wilkins noticed and commented on Ruben's lack of involvement yesterday. Edit: Anyone who has read my opinion on Ruben before will already know this but just to be clear, I'm a huge RLC fan and am desperate that he should make it with Chelsea. If that is to happen, he will have to pay attention to this issue.

Pure guesswork but, based on Guus's changed response to questions about the chances of him getting the job permanently, my feeling is that a deal has already been struck with the new manager. Pep or not Pep, the thought that the new man's plans are behind this decision is just one potential explanation that occurred to me as soon as I heard the news. To extend the speculation a bit further' if we consider Lewandowski's comment about Pep knowing where he's going and knowing what he has to do to get them playing much better then the odds that it might be United or us just got shorter. (I don't think it'll be either of those teams but the odds could still be affected but that comment.)

That's not what JT reported the club to have said. Typical media type; make up the facts then blame Chelsea for them.

No I won't. What's that got to do with anything? The issue is do we continue giving JT contracts forever, or does there have to be an end at some point? Since the answer to that question is known, the contention becomes when. There will now be a fuss but there would have been one had this happened at the end of last season, or if it had been postponed to the end of next season. It had to happen sometime no matter how great a player or leader JT is. The decision has been made that it should happen now by people who know all the factors which have influenced their thinking. Meanwhile a group of my fellow fans, who know none of those factors, want me to join them in chastising the board. No thanks.

And on that basis he gets a new contract for next season?

I agree, not everyone needs to be a workhorse but Ruben does need to be more active. He does jog around too often when he ought to be getting on his bike, particularly when we are in possession. When we're on top Ruben needs to get on the ball more and have a bigger influence on the game. There has been some improvement in as much as we are now complaining about him jogging. When I first observed, and commented on, this behaviour he would often walk. This is not wrong and it is not an exaggeration. Ruben would do something classy in development games then walk while watching play move on and drift away from him. I wanted, and want, to see him follow the ball to support play or get beyond. Waiting for him to do it was often very frustrating. As I wrote a few months ago, he has quality and time. The sooner he sorts this the better however.

That's not the problem. The problem is that I was saying this about Ruben three years ago and it's still necessary for it to be said. The blame for this cannot belong to Ruben alone. His coaches have undoubtedly tried to help him but whatever they have tried has not succeeded in getting the message across. Ruben won't become the player he could be unless he unlocks that urgency. One slight, but I think vitally important, disagreement with you; Ruben is not active enough when we have the ball either.

I love you Guus. Pick a team to win the game. We may win, we may not, but at least the manager's heart is in it.

Not everyone, no. The FA Cup is a grade A competition which is important in and of itself. Were I in charge of the club, I'd have nothing say if the manager messed around with the team and won. If he went out however, he'd be in the board room explaining himself. If it happened twice, he'd be gone. All of this would be made clear to him before he was appointed. The problem here is not the unwillingness of our managers to rotate, it's the hopelessness of our squad. Get that right and the boss might have more confidence about using the options available to him.

Doubt Ola would have played on Friday night if he was in line to start today.

Perhaps this one is a diplomatic injury ahead of a potential move.

Tonight's 21s game will be too soon for any involvement but they have another game on Sunday. Maybe he could get half an hour there. That game is away in Sunderland however so perhaps that won't work either because, with the travel, it would mean losing time to work with the first team squad.. If it were at Cobham, it might have been ideal.

The club has been embarrassed before by premature announcements. Not that the worst case, Robinho, was directly CFC's fault but the world doesn't care about that when they hand out the criticisms. Since then Chelsea have become the most conservative club in the world when it comes to announcing deals.

Yes he absolutely was a very important contributor to the title but it is nevertheless true that the first of his just can't do anything right outings was vs The Swans at The Bridge in that semi-final. He then suffered a dreadful run of form over the next couple of months including being even worse in the second leg of that tie. His displays around that time led me to come up with a wild theory about what was going on with Brana but I'm keeping it to myself because it's not the sort of thing you say without evidence, and I have none.

Not constantly, but since January 2013 actually. As @kmk108 says there have been many excellent games in there but the truly dreadful ones started against Swansea in the League Cup semi-final.

I agree that this is partly true and have always said that if people want to apportion blame to TSO then this is the area where it may be appropriate to do so. That said he was not responsible (read to blame) for all of the recruitment. It's guesswork as to which players were signed at his request but I think there are big clues available. He spoke about some signings effusively, describing how he had sold the club to them during the process and giving reasons why he wanted that player. Compare the additions of Matic, Fabregas or Costa for example, with the silence accompanying many of the arrivals. Other people will have other guesses of course. I disagree with you very strongly that at any stage Jose had a squad which gave him a viable alternative way to play but I'm done to death with that argument. People who see it my way will still be arguing with people who see it your way 20 years from now and not one of us will shift our opinions at all.

No, I'm sure not but if we backtracked it certainly would not help our case if we ever wanted to sign young MLS players in future.

Completely agree, of course that is the situation. It is why Jose played as he did after the fleeting early exuberance of last season had worn off. The genius of a manager is a pragmatist. This collection of footballers can't win playing the fantasy football many here insist on seeing so he set them up in a way which gave them a chance. It's what he does.

There was a statement last night that the unknown Premier League club Miazga will be joining had had to promise that he would play, and not be loaned out, before MLS would sanction the move. This apparently was at Klinnsman's insistence who is concerned for the development of young US national team prospects. MLS own Miazga's contract of course so the fact that they would want to extract such a promise in the first place might be a further clue that Chelsea is indeed the club involved.