OhForAGreavsie

Knowing Wisey, I wouldn't rule out the posibility that he lost a bet and the headgear is the forfeit. Hope that's what it is.

The key thing that needs to be stressed repeatedly is that we might also have conceded fewer.

I'd have started with Ake & Cesc. Lining up with a midfield trio of Mikel, Oscar & Ramies isn't asking for trouble, it's standing on a platform and screaming for it. Not everyone agrees that Oscar's passing is a problem but most would accept that it's definitely not the strongest part of his game. Rather than having others around to help him exploit his strengths, he found his team needing him to be the main distributor because his two partners yesterday are not up to it. To get away with that team selection we would have needed a slice of fortune. It didn't arrive. Let's remember also that a weak attack piles extra pressure on the defence. It's not for nothing people say that the best defence is a strong offence. We have a strong first team so let's use it over the next six days. Pick up a couple of wins and we'll banish yesterday's horror show.

My feeling in the ground yesterday was that the players wanted to believe that they could outplay Bradford. What some of these people don't realise is how lucky they are to be at Chelsea. There are a number of those players who, if they were at Bradford might be struggling to get a game. Some of our players are very ordinary. We've made progress over the last two windows but more needs to be done.

He was never going to. The line up vs. Bradford was always going to need the cavalry off the bench, not the cadets.

For the first time ever I am disappointed with Jose. The minute I saw his line up I was depressed and knew this could happen. Gary Neville apart, I have no respect for professional pundits so when they talk nonsense about Chelsea's wonderful squad I just laugh it off. I don't expect them to know that today's collection of footballers is not good enough but Jose must do. What was he thinking sending out this line up? Passing is the key denoter of a quality team. At the heart of such teams are players with the technical ability to create comfortable possession when they receive the ball, the vision to spot, and select, the right passing option, as well as the skill to execute their choice. Not a single member of our starting front six today offers reliably good continuity play. If someone asked me to select what I considered to be our worst possible line up chosen from the first team squad, many of today's starters would be in it. To those who say that whatever line up we put out should be good enough to beat a League One side, I say it depends what you mean by should. Yes, if we recruited our players as well as we ought to do, any collection of Chelsea professionals would be expected to outplay lower league opponents. We have not selected well however. Instead of being filled with quality throughout, our squad has many members for whom passing is not a strength. The chances of us stringing together a dozen effective passes with today's line up is vanishingly small. The probability of any of them giving a poor pass is high enough to make it near certain that, within a chain of twelve, at least one of them will give the ball away. So, yes, our squad team should be able to outplay League One opposition but that is not true of this squad. Jose picked a really bad team and he is to blame for this loss.

The short answer is that I think the club were right to accept Wolfsburg's offer for Kevin. The long answer is: - I doubt there are many, if any, bigger KDB fans around here than me. I watched him play half a dozen times for Genk after we signed him and liked what I saw. Loved the way that it was all about the pass with him. He has other strings to his bow, such as the better-than-Beckham crosses he was delivering, but his game was constructed around power running to win space/time then exploiting it to play an effective and threatening pass. I especially loved the way he would spot decisive passes in situations where many CFC players would just lash boringly, frustratingly, wastefully at goal. I did take note however of comments from KRC fans that those five months were his best ever and that he had never looked so consistently good before. Nothing unusual there I thought; just what you'd expect from a young player with a developing career. I became a big fan. So big a fan indeed, that I then watched him play twenty plus times for Bremen (no exaggeration) as well as in every single appearance for Belgium between the time he joined and the time he left. What did I learn from all that coverage? Some positive things, particularly from the internationals, but overall I wasn't that happy with what I saw. I know KDB received rave reviews for his time with Werder but in the games I watched, there were more performances which disappointed me than there were which encouraged me. Many times I felt sure he would be dropped but he never was. The general reaction to his German loan seemed to me to be filtered through honeymoon eyes. Kevin got full credit for everything he did well, but escaped criticism for the many things he did not do well. By the time he came back for the first pre-season of JM II, I was cautioning people to tone down their expectations. Kevin started two of our first three games but clearly failed to show Jose enough to earn further chances. Around the same time he played in a World Cup qualifier against Wales in which he gave up tracking Aaron Ramsey halfway through a run. Ramsey continued into the box, collected the ball and scored. That would never have happened if KDB had stayed with him. I remember thinking, "I hope Jose didn't see that, he won't be happy." It was all downhill for Kevin after that as far as Jose was concerned and I can't say I'm surprised. I still believe that there's a great player in there somewhere but to get time to develop your career here, you have to show enough on game day, or in training, to encourage the coach to believe that it's worth giving you extra chances. Zouma is doing that and his star is rising at Stamford Bridge but Kevin did not. I hope his star will rise somewhere else. Here are some examples of the kind of stuff Kevin was doing when I fell in love with his game. Sadly this is not the player I watched at Bremen.

Can we have a Charlie Colkett thread in the player database please? He's putting on an absolute master class at the moment against West Ham's 21s. Love this footballer. Steve Holland is at the game but I hope Jose's watching. Big hopes for Charlie.

I would rephrase the question to read is he good enough and I am on record as saying that I don't think he is. I know of course that others disagree.

Just wrote a longish reply to this which has been gobbled up by the system. I'm watching the 21s at the moment but I'll try to do it again later. By the way Charlie Colkett is once again enhancing my view that he is very much one to watch. Love the way he plays football. Mind you I remember saying the same about KDB while at Genk. We lead 3-0 at half time btw. More when I can.

I've had conversations with people who blamed him for the quality of football whereas I always argued that it was the lack of creative technique in our players that was to blame. I know that you, or others, will disagree but I think that view has been vindicated. We now have players who are capable of moving the ball better than was the case during JM I and the football has improved. Give him the players and he can give you the football you want. My current belief is that if we replace Willian & Oscar with more capable players, if we strengthen the back line so it does not require quite as much protection, and if we add depth in the CM positions so that we can rest our two starters without dropping many levels of quality, we will be able to go toe-to-toe with the big teams, wherever, whenever. Meanwhile I simply do not believe any other manager could have taken us as close to a title win last season as Jose did. We handicapped him last time with too many ordinary players then blamed him for the inevitable result and parted company. It would be criminal if we were to blow it again when we are on the verge of getting it right. All the above, is just my opinion of course. Other points of view are available.

It'll only confirm those suspicions for those who have them in the first place. I have to say that I don't. Next year will be my 50th anniversary as a Chelsea fan so I've seen a lot of managers. In all that time I have only had a personal commitment to one of them. I am an arch sceptic; some believe we have a squad full of high class players but I don't even think we can field one XI of such players. I am most definitely not easy to please. The Doc, Dave Sexton, Eddie Mac, The Italians, even Guus; none of them mean anything to me. So, when I say Jose does, it is not something I say lightly.

The point is I think that they have to earn that time by what they show Jose in training, in development games, in the few minutes they do get or while out on loan. I agree it's tough for them but I fear that's the way it is.

Varane was 18 when he moved to Real and Kurt was 19 when he finally came here after his St. Etienne loan back. Yes, Zouma has played less often than Varane did in his first season but that can be explained by the fact that Varane is already seen as one of the best in the world. While no one is making that claim for Kurt, I think he's played enough so that those people who are happy to quote Varane as a demonstration of Jose promoting youth, should be prepared to accept Zouma as another example of the same thing. Jose probably would. As far as academy products are concerned, I'm one of those who believe that none of our prospects were anywhere near the required standard during JM I and that, so far, none of our current crop is quite ready to make the grade for JM II. Zouma played because Jose felt he was the best player available in certain situations but, the others have really only been given minutes to encourage them along. I know that for some people Jose will never get this monkey off his back until one or two of our lads come through, but before that can happen, some development players will have to show Jose that they are ready to move up the pecking order.

The media sometimes forget, probably because it helps them to manufacture stories, that Jose's English, though great, is not perfect. Based on the televised portion of the his press conference, it seemed pretty clear that he meant selected for the match squad, not selected for the team. He did though go on to say, later in the conference, that Schurrle will 'probably' start.

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.