OhForAGreavsie

I seriously hope that Jose will survive even if we fail to win a trophy. My view is that, although we are an improved side, any success we achieve this season will still be ahead of schedule. We could debate whether or not the problems we've solved were the big ones, but we'd probably agree that they definitely were not the only ones. We still have unresolved issues which are holding us back in my opinion.

I like WAGNH. Never read their twitter page, or even knew it existed before now, but I visit the site daily. I can't say that I agree with every opinion expressed there, but they do try to report as many Chelsea related stories as they can so I find it a useful way to catch up. What's more, they write well. It's a rare pleasure these days to read articles by people who know how to use the English language.

And of course winning the league this season is more important than ever. The new seeding system, starting next season, means that it will be virtually impossible for us to be one of the top seeds in the Champions League unless we are champions of England, or of Europe. Being in pot two isn't the end of the world but it would make life noticeably tougher.

Agreed. There were just too many weak links in the chain so we never had any hope of getting our game together on Tuesday night. Still, it's not all bad. Despite Liverpool fans clogging up the airways to tell us, in their oh so humble way, that their brilliant team put in its best performance of the season, and despite the fact that it was our worst 90 minutes of 2014/15, we still didn't lose. What's more, and this is a real bonus, there's a chance we won't have to go back to Anfield till 2016. Now that really is good news.

In the world of the imagination, the one where I can pick the team but don't actually have any responsibility for delivering the result, I could go even more off beat than that. Mind you I probably wouldn't try to pick Sheffield Wednesday or Swindon players! How about this for a slightly, but not altogether, scatty line up: - Cech or Courtois Azpi1, Cahill, Zouma, Luis2 Fabregas3, Ake Schurrle, Colkett4, Boga4 Remy Subs: Cech or Courtois, Drogba, Hazard, Ivanovic, Loftus-Cheek, Matic & Oscar. 1 Needs a game. 2 Hasn't played much so there should be enough miles in his legs to handle three games in eight days. 3 Just had a sun and sand break so hopefully is recharged 4 Well I did say a little bit scatty plus they are surrounded by experience on the pitch and backed up by starters on the bench.

Charlie has a beautiful left foot, excellent vision, his passing is more often effective than I remember was the case with Josh, and he doesn't shy away from a tackle*. I think Charlie is the better of the two, but time will tell. *Not that I'm saying Josh does. I'm just commenting that this part of Charlie's game is in place.

I'm guessing, and it's a pure guess, that FIFA regard U21 teams in England as equivalent to 'B' teams elsewhere and, since 'B' teams take part in more than one national championship, their games have to be regarded as official. Hopefully FIFA will clear up the confusion by removing the 'B' team designation from English U21 sides rather than by insisting that The FA must do it their way.

It would be really nice to see but, to be honest, I'm pinning my hopes for the next home grown first teamer on other lads, not on Nate. Don't believe Nate is going to make it here.

FIFA count U21 fixtures as 'official' games, whereas The FA do not. Nate's one appearance for the 21s and his outings for Burnley mean that, as far as the international body is concerned, he has used up his quota of two clubs during the current FIFA season. The FA however are not treating the game vs Man City U21 as an 'official' fixture so if Nate appears for Reading, The FA will see them as only the second club he's played for this term. I'm sure FIFA will act to standardise the ruling so that there will be only one interpretation in future. In fact I'm surprised they aren't already insisting that their ruling takes precedent. That's normally how it goes with anything concerning transfers.

The criticism of Oscar does not stem from his having a poor 45 minutes. In fact I specifically said, after his horrendous first half vs Newcastle, that it would be wrong to judge him on such a display. If people mentioned 45 minutes against this team, or that team, it was only as yet another example of his poor play and not as a sole reason to be unhappy with him. The criticism exists because the sloppiness has been going on for as long as Oscar has been here. At first it was not commented on because everyone, quite rightly, wanted to be supportive and give him time. He benefited from a honeymoon period during which people were determined to be pleased with everything he did well, and equally determined to forgive, ignore or excuse, everything he did not do well. Honeymoons don't last forever however, and eventually the situation could no longer be avoided. It was then that the negative observations became more frequent and then too that it became fashionable to blame Oscar's poor displays on tiredness. It seems unlikely that you and I will ever agree on the reason for Oscar's sloppiness, we perhaps won't even agree about precisely how long it's been going on, but we can agree, can't we, that it's been a good while now? As for the Mata comparison, I guess @yuvala is the best person to defend the point he was making.

yuvala will correct me if I'm wrong but his point seems to be that Oscar is playing for a better team and therefore it's reasonable to expect his numbers to be a little elevated by that fact. Or, to put it another way, it would be reasonable to expect Oscar's numbers to be a little less good if he were playing for Man Utd this season instead of for Chelsea. yuvala is therefore arguing that comparing Mata's numbers with Oscar's is not really judging the two players on a level playing field.

The quantity and longevity of what you call his mistakes are the heart of this discussion. There are plenty of them and they've been going on for a long time. First there were the silly he's tired excuses, now it's that there aren't really any failings in Oscar's game and those of us who are discontented with him just can't see straight. Oh well.

I'm not a big believer in stats and it's my guess that most people aren't either but they can't be dismissed altogether. Stats must be a part of the story but the reason people are so reluctant to put their full faith in numbers alone is that, without analysis, they can be misleading. 12 misplaced passes is a number but how to decide if that number is good or bad? It's tempting to think we might learn something by comparing the number of passes misplaced by several players. That could be right, perhaps we might indeed get some answers, but for me they would still be only raw numbers. The real answers can only be revealed by watching and asking yourself questions like; would I have expected that player to do better in that situation? Do I think other players would have made more of that situation? Did the player get it wrong because of something which is lacking in his technique or was he just unlucky? Those sort of questions are more likely to lead to the useful answers in my opinion. Thing is of course, those answers are subjective which is why the Oscar debate is so strongly argued on both sides. Speaking personally, my answers to those questions don't come out well for Oscar. The numbers themselves are not decisive for me but the impression I get from watching Oscar as he puts those numbers together is tougher to shake.

Sounds like an imaginative agent working overtime.

Thanks Barbara. You appear to have misunderstood the point I'm making. Not surprising given that I maybe didn't express it as well as I should have done. I was saying that, despite Mata being, in my opinion, the better passer of the ball, Oscar makes a better overall contribution to our team and that therefore Jose was quite right to make that switch. Meanwhile, I only introduced Mata to the discussion (a few posts back from the one to which you replied) as an example of the fact that passing is not the only contribution a player makes to his team. If Jose always preferred the better passer then I think he'd have kept Juan and sold Emboaba. If he did that however, he would not be the manager we all think he is. As it is Jose did what we would expect, he choose the better player, not the better passer. I am simply arguing that out there somewhere there is a better player than Oscar. A player whose overall package of passing, pressing, and everything else will add more to our side than Oscar does. I think we should be perusing that player as a matter of urgency.* That said, I know you disagree with my assessment of Oscar but these disagreements are the essence of good conversations on a chat forum, are they not? *As a matter of fact I think we have such a player coming through our development ranks but Charlie Colket is too young and, in any case, seems currently to be being groomed for the Cesc role not the 'ten'. Mind you development players are given chances in several roles so that a- they get the chance to find their true place and b- can gain an understanding of all the roles around them.

I was really hoping to watch the game last night but didn't manage to. I'll hunt around for it online when I can but, in the meantime, thanks for your review. I was a little surprised to read one report saying that Traore's finishing was weak because when I've watched him at Vitesse his finishing has appeared more reliable than some other parts of his game. Still, we can't make any valid judgements based on a one off performance. Meanwhile what are thoughts about the next stop for him? Germany, a Premier League loan (he'll get a work permit for sure) or Stamford Bridge?

I agree with you. All of the things you mention are, in my opinion correct however, I meant my comparison in a direct sense. Take today's squad, include Jose as manager, add Mata to the side at the expense of Oscar and there will be a new calculation to be made. We will gain something on the swings but lose somewhat on the roundabout. Will we gain more than we loose? I would not say so.

Thanks Gilvorak.I don't see evidence of Oscar being abused. My reading of it is that people are just commenting on what they see as his deficiencies. I don't agree with you that Oscar has improved in his vision. You and I see the games so if our assessment of what we see is different then that's a simple disagreement and we can agree to accept that difference. For what it's worth I have been calling for Willian to be replaced too. I've been saying since as long ago as last winter's transfer window that Oscar and Willian are the best players we have for their roles in the team but that we should be looking for upgrades in both cases.

Thanks RoTD. I understand the point you're making of course. For example, Mata is a better passer than Oscar, yet our team has been improved by replacing the Spaniard with the Brazilian. As you quite rightly say, there are other factors to be taken into account besides just passing. Even so, I don't agree with the idea we should stick with Oscar. I say that, just as we improved our team by trading Mata for a player able to make a more rounded contribution, we can upgrade the side again by trading Oscar for an even more rounded alternative. Yes, Oscar has made 13 direct contributions to goals and has aided quite a few more indirectly. I would not say however that those would all be lost if Oscar was replaced. Naturally enough, an alternative ten of the right calibre would also make such contributions. Maybe he'd contribute one or two fewer, or maybe one or two more, but by reducing the number of what we're calling sloppy passes, the overall impact of such a player would be more effective. I have never said that Oscar is a bad player but, in my opinion, there really are too many sloppy passes from him. Those missed passes are momentum changers. If they were completed we'd be in possession, perhaps on the front foot, and sometimes in threatening situations. Because they are missed however, all of those good things come to our opponents instead. It is a statement of the obvious that every player misses passes and that the more difficult the pass, the greater the likelihood that it will not be completed. There does come a point however when the accumulation of misses starts to weigh against a player. Someone made the point that we can't have eleven Eden Hazards in the side but I say why not? Clearly the poster wasn't being literal. I think he meant that we can't expect to have a team of players who are all as good at their jobs as Eden is at his but, again, I ask why not? A player who is great at only half of his job is a player that we should be looking to improve on. If, as was the case with Hazard and his commitment to tracking back, that player can make the necessary changes to his game then, fine, stick with him. If not, as was the case with Juan Mata, you have to bite the bullet and make the change. The question then is where do we stand with Oscar. Is his passing good enough for our requirements and, if not, is he capable of improving this aspect of his play. My answers to those questions are no and no. Others see it differently.

It's a fair question and I think I'll wait to see if anyone produces an all touches video of his performance today. If so I'll use it to give examples but failing that I'll come back and attempt a definition we can use as a starting point. I will say however that your definition is far more narrow than the sense in which I mean the phrase.

Stunned to see Oscar leading the MOM voting at time of posting. Even the commentator, whose colleagues usually just blindly assume Oscar is playing at the same level as Eden & Cesc, felt forced to break cover and mention that there was a lot of sloppy passing from Oscar today. And he was right, there was. I saw @Barbara's post stating that Oscar's pass completion rate was 81% but I'd be interested to see his numbers for attempted key passes, that is his stats with the routine passes removed. My feeling is that his numbers would fall dramatically. I agree of course that no one is going to have high completion rates for such passes; they are challenging, space is limited, time is short, angles are tight and defenders are everywhere. Even so, a difference maker, a player ready to make a full contribution to his side's attacking play, should be succeeding with more of those passes than an average player might. Eden does, Cesc does, Oscar does not. Indeed my impression (not statistically verified I admit) is that Oscar almost always fails with such passes. I realise that, in writing so forthrightly about this, I'm going to get pegged as disliking Oscar. That really is not how I see myself at all, but I'm sad to say that I virtually never see performances from Oscar which convince me that he is is the right man for the Chelsea job or even any which give me hope that this situation will change.

A little more than Willian's price tag I believe but, speaking personally, I can't blame the club too much because if I'd been one of the decision makers I'd have made the same mistake. I did not want him here and I did not believe he would be a success at Arsenal. What can I say? Big fail.

What I'm about to say comes from memory and a far, far, less than expert understanding so someone with better knowledge, or better memory, may be able to correct me. In which case please do help me out. So, that said... As I think I understand it, there is a potential loophole to the CPO's ownership of the lease but it's not quite the one you've speculated about. The CPO borrowed the money from the club to pay the £10m cost of the lease but this was on an open ended and interest free basis. That's to say, there is neither a repayment schedule nor any due date by which the money must be repaid. This means that Chelsea can never go to a court and claim that CPO are behind with their payments so there's no opportunity for Chelsea to ask a court to grant them repossession of the lease. If this is right then, with the lease having about 185 years remaining, the CPO and the club could be locked in this marriage for a long time. The loophole I mentioned is, I believe, that the protection which the CPO has from Chelsea does not extend to any creditors of the club. If Chelsea should go bust owing money then its creditors could ask a court to order the club to realise all of its assets in order to meet its debts. Those assets would include the money owed to it by CPO so, in those circumstances, a court could order CPO to repay the money or give up the lease. Of course, barring something extraordinary, there is no way CPO could pay. You'd have to say however that, as things stand, this scenario is a remote possibility. Meanwhile, if anyone knows enough to contradict or amend what I've said, I'd be glad to read about it.

I'm not a Feruz fan but let's wish him well with The Seasiders and hope that he does himself full justice. Good luck Islam.

The move just couldn't happen without CPO agreement, full stop. Without that agreement the land at SB could not be sold/used for redevelopment. Without that income to fund the new development, the whole scheme would be an economic non starter. Mind you this might put The CPO under serious financial pressure. They already can't repay their debt, I don't see who they could reasonably expect to sell many more shares to if the club moved out. Although Chelsea Holdings wouldn't admit it, I don't doubt that the economics of the whole thing weigh heavy among the reasons the club would probably prefer to relocate rather than rebuild. Since the costs of a new stadium, on a new site, can be offset, or even covered entirely, by the profits from redeveloping The Bridge, moving is actually likely to be much cheaper. Perhaps to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. That, plus the possibility of creating a super new home which will serve the club for the next fifty years, at a super new site where we could be based into the distant future, sells me on the move. I know I'm in a minority on this however.