Viper22

We need a scapegoat though

I'd have Kalas over Luiz at CB all day . Also i'm not sure Ba will want to stay here next year after how he hasn't been played. Other than that though I broadly agree. We need Shaw, a top striker and a DLP. They are musts and to be honest there have been a lot of people mentioned for those positions and i'm sure most of them will work just fine.

I said in an ideal world. Obviously there are other options out there we could get for around £30million. Vidal would be best but I think Gundogan (if he recoevers from his injury) would be a more realistic prospect.

Cole is 33 and Shaw is 18. If Shaw plays for us as long as Cole has then we'd have paid £2million a year for him (+wages). Also,, the difference in wages between what we're paying Ash (200k p/w) and what we will pay Shaw (around 50k p/w) will be huge so that's a saving of 150k p/w which is 7.8million is 1 year alone. EDIT: I had a rush of blood, Ashley isn't on that much p/w.

Personally I don't mind the football as I prefer Chelsea to win, no matter how they do it. But maybe that's just me. I truly think that we'll play better football next season, during Mourinho's time at Chelsea before we actually did play some very nice stuff, I think this season we have been forced to play like this because Mourinho knows that we have a lot of young, inexperienced, new players who wouldn't be able to compete in a gung-ho game of attacking football. I guess we'll just have to see where we go next season.

Easy on the absinthe. It does terrible things to your liver .

Do you remember Rodgers' first season at Liverpool? It's knee-jerk reaction people like you who would have sacked him quoting *stability is earned, not given* after his first 18 months in charge. Now look at them. We need stability. I for one wouldn't care if we didn't win a trophy next year as long as I can see that the club is heading in the right direction but I know that won't be enough for fans like you and possibly RA (unless he's grown out of sacking people at the first sign of trouble, which I truly hope and believe he has).

Honestly? I couldn't give a flying f*** about the League or FA Cups, we've won them tons in the last 10 or so years and we don't need to prove ourselves any more in them. It's all about the PL next season, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect us to win it; we beat City home and away, Liverpool home and away, Arsenal 6-0, Spurs 4-0 and Arsenal 2-0 away in the cup. On top of that Jose will have the whole summer to plan for next season and hopefully buy exactly who he wants, so we should be winning the league. Not suggesting it'll be easy, but we have to expect and aim high. CL is a hard one, always nice to do well in it but I don't think it really matters any more now we've won it. PL is far more important. Once we've won the PL 2 years on the trot or something, then we can focus on dominating Europe once again. That's just me though.

What can I say? I'm an optimist . I've been generous with the fees for Shaw and Gundogan though and could afford to not sell a few of those players in the out list and only be £10-£20M down which wouldn't be too bad.

In an ideal world this would be my ins and outs: In: Cavani (£60M) Shaw (£30M) Gundogan (£30M) Total In: £120M Out: Torres (£12M) Ba (£10M) Ramires (£20M) Luiz (£30M) [if Barca are willing] Marin (£10M) Romeu (£10M) Ivanovic (£15M) Chalobah (£5M) Cole (Free) Kakuta (£5M) McEachren (£6M) Omeruo (£5M) Eto'o (Free) Moses (£7M) Hilario (Free) Total Out: £135M First XI for next season: ----------------Courtios----------------- --Azpi-----Cahill----Terry-----Shaw-- ---------Matic-------Gundogan-------- --Willian-------Oscar--------Hazard-- -----------------Cavani------------------ 2nd XI: ----------------Cech--------------------- Wallace--Kalas---Zouma--Bertrand -----------Mikel---------MVG----------- --Salah-------Piazon------Schurrle-- -----------------Lukaku------------------ 3rd choice GK & ST = Schwarzer & Bamford Squad Players/Loaned Out: Blackman, Delac, Ake, Christensen, PVA, RLC, Atsu, Lalkovic,T Hazard, Traore, Davila, Perica.

I might get crucified for this, but I thought Costa proved last night that he wouldn't work as our no.1 striker. Yes, he may have scored (from the spot) but I just saw him getting extremely frustrated very easily when he couldn't get much ball. We want a top finisher (which he is, granted) who can stay calm and patient when we are playing against the shit teams in the PL who sit 10 men behind the ball - they've been our problem teams this season. He got frustrated in the first half and looked sullen and like he was going to kick out and get sent off any minute. I'm not a Costa basher, before last night I thought he was our best option, but the game yesterday has made me less than excited about his prospects if we do in fact buy him... But then who else is there? Benzema or Mandzukic? Not convinced by either.

Who's been saying that? I think you'll find that the vast majority of people on here have wanted him back as our no.1 for quite a while now. The man is a beast. Who is better in the world atm? Hart makes too many mistakes, Buffon is too old and also error prone, Lloris and De Gea are good shot stoppers but always have a mistake in them, Cech is on the decline (though still very good) and so the only one that leaves is Neuer, and he was hardly convincing against Real and hasn't been his usual self this season. I truly believe that Courtios is the best goalkeeper in the world and as such, he should be between the sticks for us next season.

Seems a really innocuous point but it's been getting to me for months now; Why can't any of our players take set pieces? I mean seriously, Willian, Luiz, Ivan, Schurrle (and even Lamps now) are all just terrible. I don't remember us creating any goals from a corner or free kick in recent memory... It's really weird and I have no idea why it is. Every free kick/corner either doesn't pass the first man or goes well over everyone. Surely that's a basic thing? Mourinho will get his shit together in the summer and we'll be better next season. He'll have nowhere to hide next season though if we don't get at least a trophy.

Mourinho bashers out in full force today I see. What a surprise that they've crawled out of the woodwork after a high profile loss like that. Where were they when we beat Liverpool at Anfield, City at the Etihad or battered Arsenal & Spurs? Having said that, I do think Mourinho got outfoxed today; playing Azpi in the midfield was a risk and it didn't pay off, and the Eto'o sub was mistimed and smelled of panic. Also, Hazard was another risk that didn't pay off, he was woeful today. Atletico used a similar tactic to us and Simeone applied it better. Schurrle should've started. However, Mourinho does NOT have that much to work with. The Ramires-Luiz pivot was obviously going to be bad, but what other option did he have? Oscar not fully fit and grossly out of form, MVG just back from a serious injury, Matic cup-tied and Mikel and Lampard banned. We all know about the striker problem too, although I do think Torres was good today when he actually got hold of the ball. On top of all of that aswell was the fact that Terry, Eto'o and Hazard were all not fully fit but he didn't have a choice in playing them, and 'lo and behold; Hazard cost us for 2 goals, Eto'o the other one and this was the worst i've seen JT play in my lifetime. Not their fault, it was risk that had to be taken. Think how many times this season Mourinho has won us a match due to his tactics. And then compare to the amount of times his tactics have cost us. (The main ones I can think of was 0-0 against Utd earlier in the season and today). Everyone is human, no-one is saying Mourinho is perfect, and while he was beaten fairly today, he's still the best manager around and that's that. We'll be back, better than ever next season, just you wait!

Oh I see. Hmm. Don't know about that. But I guess it means we could have 2 players on each side marking their tricky wide players. I'd be willing to see how it does . I got all excited about that 3 at the back suggestion there xD.

Like you said he's been awful recently, and while I have faith, I just don't think that'll change. I personally would've tried Oscar as a DLP weeks ago to see if it worked. I mean, he is a playmaker, he's a great passer of the ball and he proved early on in the season that he's a decent enough tackler. I think it's worth a try, because otherwise he won't be starting as Hazard/Willian/Schurrle are all much better atm.

Now THAT would work. So 3 at the back, those two wing backs, Luiz holding, Oscar just in front, then Hazard and Willian off Eto'o. I like it. But I do think that some people were suggesting playing Dave in the midfield duo/trio, which just confuses me.

Why do people attack Mourinho all the time has the same answer to why everyone jumps on everything our club does wrong: Jealousy. They're jealous of the fans (for supporting an amazing club), they're jealous of the club (because the ones they support are shit) and most of all they're jealous of Mourinho, they wish they were even 1/100th of the man he was, but they're not. If they were, they wouldn't be the crawling, snivelling, conniving little journalists/critics that they are.

As a side note, why have I seen so many people proposing Azpi playing DM/CM? Has he ever played there before? I don't think he has. Is it because of Lahm? Lahm was a 1 off, and that's only because he's a top top quality player, he's nowehere near as good at DM as he is at RB.

I'm glad someone else has mentioned this. Thought it was just me... A Luiz-Ramires pivot is going to be a car crash waiting to happen. Luiz-Oscar pivot for me.

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/303589.html?CMP=OTC-RSS ^Read that if you all want a bit of a cheer up. Schurrle and Schwarzer hitting the nail on the head, they're both so right. It's all jealousy - lap it up, Jose loves it! Schurrle - "If people look at us and say 'Chelsea can't play' even when we win, it's just because they're jealous.". Schwarzer- "It's quite amusing to hear the criticism because the bottom line is there was a tactic we employed and it worked down to a tee. We played within the rules and we played the best way we thought we could get a result, tried to frustrate Liverpool and it worked."

The man is a beast in Europe. Has scored so many important goals for us and I can see him coming off the bench to do it again. Just wish his finishing in the PL was better.

If we can get through the first 20mins without conceding then I think we'll be fine and we'll win it. There will be a bit of a problem if they score first as we will then need 2 goals and if Simeone has any brain at all he'll just instruct his players to sit deep, absorb pressure and frustrate us. I do think we'll win though, Chelsea produce at the big games, especially with Mourinho at the helm. Chelsea 2-1 Atletico Eto'o (34), Diego (47), Torres (86).

It's the calm between the 2 storms people. First we dispatched Liverpool, next on our radar is Atletico. On paper, we should take them apart, but we have to remember that they are top of Liga BBVA and have beaten Barca recently so they're hardly pushovers. Having said that, I have every confidence in the boys taking us to Lisbon. We can beat ANYONE at the Bridge. Be afraid Atletico, this is the Bridge, the fan's Bridge, Mourinho's Bridge, Chelsea's Bridge.

If any of this is true, ESPECIALLY if it means Ramires going the other way (I know it's almost definitely not true, unfortunately, but can a man hope?) Then....