chrismada9

Ouch! That must have been a real nightmare!

Great signing! He's English, which is a really important factor, and he's argueably one of the Premier League's most recognised defenders.. getting him for £7m wasn't bad of a deal either! Welcome to Chelsea Gary

I don't care how much we're in need of another striker, anything more than how much we paid for Torres last January shouldn't even be considered... if we paid £80m for Hulk, I would be intensingly worried about him joining Sheva and Torres on the Chelsea "fail train" ... the media faps over big money transfers like this, and like to go into so much detail about them... suddenly, the player in question is pressured to do well, otherwise they get slated, and then that's when their form drops!

So near and yet so far, that's all I'll say to that! Barcelona's only shot in that whole game was Iniesta's last minute strike, and as for us and the referee... well we should all know that well enough!

Good player, but then again, he isn't one of the younger generation of players is he??

With the way he's been playing, I would have to say he's more that getting the pure benefit of it... I wouldn't be surprised that top players like Mata at the club have inspired him as well!

Absolutely!! At the end of the day, you don't enter a different country and a different league to make enemies within the club because you're failing to win games, you go there to learn about the way the game is played. Sir Bobby may not have been able to win trophies at Newcastle, but he won so many supporters with the Newcastle faithful because he got the club to high grounds, without his philosophy, they wouldn't have been able to revive their Champions League status after losing the first three group stage matches... I believe that was during the 2002-03 season! I'm so confident of AVB that I believe he can make this philosophy work... it might not be this season, but consider it as a learning curve for him, so that when next season comes around, he will have known the mould of the team, how the bigger teams play their game, and would be able to get us winning on a regular basis... thus winning big trust from the supporters! You don't expect to squabble about the team playing badly and then suddenly, they play fantastic the next week... teams make mistakes, managers make mistakes, things are changed through trial and error... "Rome wasn't built in a day!"

Hope you're having a lovely time in NZ Kerry! Have you seen any Rugby players doing Haka dances yet?

As far as the current situation with our club goes at the moment, we need this more than we need anything, and I'm sure everyone on here will agree with me.... but before everyone starts to squalour about something else, hear me out.. AVB has been at this club for what... 5 months? (okay so he had a backstaff stint beforehand when Mourinho was at the helm but that's kind of irrelevant because Mourinho was manager at the time!) ... however, the fact of the matter is this... Boas is only 34 years old... he probably has more coaching certificates and "trophies" than any other manager within his age group, and, more to the point, he does know a lot about the English game, a lot more than the likes of Scolari. The point I'm trying to make here is, some fans on here annoy the shit out of me because after just 5 months in charge at Chelsea, they suddenly want AVB out and then they want us to bring back Guus Hiddink because the vast majority of domestic results haven't gone our way because of so called "lack of spirit"... okay there's no denying it, when Hiddink joined us for that brief spell in 2009, he turned us completely around, from possible domestic dimwits to FA Cup winners, but just because he did all that, does not mean that he is the answer to all our problems! He managed Turkey when they crashed out of the Euro 2012 playoffs to Croatia, and to my understanding, some of the Turkish fans blamed him alone for some of the dire changes he made during the game, resulting in their atrocious bow-out of the competition. Some people seem to forget that AVB is still a young man with a big future! You don't just win a Europa League with a big club like Porto and not learn anything from it... he learns anything and everything wherever he goes, what type of formation to play against this team, which strikers to play against that team. But that's not all the moral here. Abramovich is partly to blame here for his dimwitted patience with these managers that have since come and gone from our club... it always seems to be "ahh you're not good enough, if you don't deliver us trophies, you get sacked!" My dad's an Arsenal fan and sometimes, when I get annoyed about Chelsea not winning games, he always seems to say to me, "You're in the top part of the Premier League, you've got nothing to worry about.... fans of the likes of Bolton, Blackburn and Wigan have something to worry about because they're rock bottom of the league! We need time! We need as much of it as we possibly can for AVB to understand his philosophy and give some of these players like Sturridge, Mata, Romeu, McEachran and Torres the chances they deserve. I honestly believe that if we can hold on to AVB for a few more years, we would have cracked it because we would have kept the same mould, the same players, and the same spirit within those players to go on and win some silverware, I'm one of those members on this forum who recognises this rather than someone who foul mouths about how bad the manager is, or how bad Kalou or Malouda is (I'm not mentioning anyone here) ... every player is equal, and if they are good enough or do well enough in training, I say they are good enough to get on the field and show my beloved football club what it means to show some team spirit... to be honest with you, I'm fed up of slating these players and saying that they're not good enough to play for this club... each and every one of those players who puts on a blue shirt and walks on that pitch is a legend, and if you're a proper Chelsea supporter, rather than a plastic one (and I use the word "plastic" very loosely here), you would understand the meaning of that. GIVE THIS CLUB THE TIME IT NEEDS, AND KEEP THE BLUE FLAG FLYING HIGH!

It's because Mourinho had faith in Drogba.. Avram Grant even somewhat had faith in Drogba.... but people like Shevchenko and Torres have been somewhat left in the shadows of the manager and haven't been able to show their true quality!

I shall be calling him "Le Carlo" from now on! Good luck King Carlo!!

We desperately need to win a game at the moment, but sadly, I don't see it coming from this game. I see this being yet another draw for us at best... unless we start learning how to take games by the scruff of the neck, dominate the midfield and make our chances count, the best we can conjure up here is maybe a 1-1 or a 2-2. For some reason or another, Villa are one of those sides who turn up and immediately know how to play against us. Agbonlahor and Bent are going to be tough players to track down, especially when our defence is leaking goals left right and centre, and when our only domestic clean sheet at home all season has come against Wolves. Mata and Torres really need to start linking up, because much as I really enjoy Mata playing and seeing him creating assists here and there, I don't think his partnership with Torres is there yet. Maybe it's probably because Torres doesn't get enough games, or even to the fact that both of them get in each other's way, like when Mata scored our goal against Fulham out of nothing.. I seem to remember Torres going for a shot before Mata intervened and scored the goal himself. I honestly agree with a lot of people on here when they say that we need to go by AVB's strongest set of players along with the right formation and then stick to it for the remainder of the season, because rotating the squad may be a good idea to keep everyone happy, but it just isn't the right approach.. it may have worked for Mourinho a few years back, but with a different manager, and a different philosophy altogether, it certainly isn't working now! What AVB needs to do with the players, is get them working on tougher training regimes on the pitch, along with different kinds of tactics, and then tell them, that if they're not training hard enough, they don't get to be selected for the next game...

To tell you the truth mate, I'd rather see us keep hold of Romeu! That kid has impressed me big time! I'd rather see Chelsea keep him than possibly selling Torres to Barcelona.

I honestly believe we will sign him, and it's not a bad signing come to that... he's English for one thing, but also, he's highly talented in his position, and he's played alongside Terry for England, so for us to sign a player who could have cost double what were paying for him this time two years ago is a real steal for me, I just hope he lives up to the expectations and be a good replacement for Alex!

When I saw "Three Barca players" in the headline... I was hoping they would be decent players, but if all they're going to do is offer us 3 young players that no one really knows much about, I would just say fuck off to them!

mostly this forum to be fair... I don't want to single out some people, but some of the stuff they come up with is abysmal

Exactly... it's like I was trying to explain before... People bitch and moan when Torres isn't playing, but when he is playing... all they seem to do is abuse his ability and wish he wasn't even playing... I don't know about you, but that kind of attitude pisses me off! Sounds very plastic if you ask me...

Very good point!!

This is the sort of thing I don't like seeing!! It's like nobody can be satisfied on this forum whatever the situation... we have people on here whining because Torres isn't playing (well merely, a lone 2 minutes to be exact at the end of the game) .... then we have people on here who slate him and wish he wasn't even playing at all.... for the love of Roman, please have a bit of faith in these players!!

How about... I'd accept any place in the top half of the table if Arsenal carry on being trophyless!

Still a long way to go yet guys! I'm not giving up... I get frustrated and I abuse the players for not playing well, but I still never change and I still never give up!

he's not the only person who decides the players to sign for us though, is he?

I agree!! We need to be signing more players than just Gary Cahill... If we don't bring in someone creative in January, we're fucked

We need to sell Boshitwa because he is doing my noodle in... all he ever seems to do is cross cross cross, and it never goes anywhere, and we just lose the ball!! Ivanovic is so much better in his position... and I know he's injured at the moment, but I was wishing he was there at RB instead of Boshitwa!! Overall... our performance was shocking... as far as I'm concerned, there was only 1 half of football to watch for me today! I'm actually glad I missed the first half judging from some other bretheren's viewing of it... ... great, we drop yet another 2 points and let Arsenal into the top 4... good going .... good fucking going ... I'm pissed off... but I'll feel better in a minute!

We drop 2 points against another struggling side and possibly drop out of the top 4... fucking disgraceful!