MrExcalibur100

Of course this line-up has the potential to backfire spectacurlarly if Atletico get an early goal. But Mourinho is playing for the result again and not the "evolution" of the team.

Atletico notoriously tire in the last 15-20 mins of games because of their high pressing style. We need to at least try and retain possession. I don't want to see what I saw in the second half of 1st leg vs Galatasaray.

And Ramires on the right to stop Koke. I trust in Jose anyway. I'm sure he's done an incredible amount of homework and has decided to be pragmatic knowing fully well we are not yet ready or good enough to go to the Calderon and play for a win. To do that this line-up needs a Matic, Kroos, Hazard and Diego Costa. Schurrle, Oscar, Willian don't just cut it now for various reasons.

The line-up makes sense because Jose realizes that without Hazard and a "real" striker, we neither have the quality or experience to beat this rugged battle-hardened teams. If the likes of Schurrle, Oscar, Willian struggle away from home against the Palace's, Sunderland's and Aston Villia's of this world then we might as well play very defensively and go all out in the return leg. We just lack the quality right now, tbh.

Chelsea starting line up: Čech; Azpilicueta, Terry, Cahill, Cole ; Luiz, Mikel; Willian, Lampard, Ramires; Torres. #CFC So Mourinho is going for the plan I thought he would, defend deep and instead of long balls like I suggested, counter attack. It looks like a 4-3-3 to me.

Really, really pumped for this one. The atmosphere is going to be insane, maybe even more so than against Galatasaray. I was watching the Madrid derby a couple of weeks ago and I was amazed by just how vocal their fans are. In that game, they managed to stifle the likes of Benzema, Ronaldo, Bale, Di Maria and Modric for 75 mins till Atleti players began to tire out. It's just a shame we wouldn't be at our full potential for this game with Hazard doubtful and both Matic and Salah ineligible. Now to the game. This would be my line-up: Cech Azpilicueta, Cahill, Terry, Cole Luiz, Lampard Ramires, Willian, Schurrle Ba That's pretty straightforward, but I want Ramires to play on the right wing as a "defensive winger" to deal with the threat of Koke. The kid is one of best young players in Europe and combines physicality with Iniesta-esque playmaking skills. Everyone is talking about Costa and Courtois, but Koke is a seriously talented player. He likes to cut inside a lot to "overload" the midfield area when Tiago and Gabi sit deep. Ramires could play a similar role to what he did at City. If Ramires and Luiz can combine together and cut off Koke's supply lines, then we've successfully nullified half of their attacking power. (Of course they also have the deadly Diego Ribas who they can call from the bench to perform a similar function to Koke) Willian instead of Oscar as the 10 because of his superior strength. Oscar has been woeful in almost every physical game we've played this season, especially the ones away from home. Willian's pace on the break is vital and his passes are almost as good (if not on par) as Oscar's. I will start Oscar in the 2nd leg though, but let me not get too far ahead of myself. Ba ahead of Torres because assuming Hazard won't start, I don't have the confidence in Willian, Oscar, Schurrle, Ramires to deal with Atletico's pressing game. Those players have shown many times in the past that they are not comfortable under pressure and as a result, lose possession easily. Hazard is brilliant at holding on to the ball and drawing defenders out of position but with him doubtful, we have no other player that can do those two things well. We need Ba, because I'm certain we are going to play more direct, route one football. With Hazard out, we don't have enough quality in attack to hurt them a lot, so we might as well bypass their midfield by lumping it to Ba and hoping he can be a good target man, a'la Drogba. I think we can get a draw if we stick to the game plan of defending deep and playing direct football as Atletico don't really have a lot of pace in their side to trouble our back-line.

Yes, yes they can and will. If we are to let go of Mikel and Ramires then we must buy someone like Kroos. We need more quality not less.

Chalobah is nowhere near ready or good enough to be a Chelsea player.

Lamps is still a good player and Luiz is more than useful in that position. Ramires is currently our worst midfielder alongside Mikel.

Oscar will never be as technically gifted as an Isco ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ as mentioned above but that's not the point because Oscar will never be an Isco or Thiago Alcantara and those players can never be an Oscar. So it's not a question of what the player is not but what he is. The point is that, and it's a point emphasized by Mourinho this season concerning Oscar; The kid needs to get physically stronger. He has the body of a teenage girl and as a result, he loses possession far too often in the final third and this leads to a high percent of broken down plays. His legs look like twigs for god's sake. He doesn't have the awareness and fleet-footedness of a player like Mata, so he can't compensate for his physical limitations like Mata does. There's no point comparing him to Hazard, Willian or Salah as they are far more muscular than he is and Schurrle has started to put on muscle too. Another thing he has to work on over the summer are his through-balls. Although his passing range is impressive in general, he hardly ever makes those defense splitting passes that make the difference in the final third. I've watched him play over 100 games for us and I will never doubt his talent. He is an enormous talent and a cracking kid with a fantastic attitude and humility rarely seen by players his age nowadays. He just needs to work on that body of his and of course his through passes and he'll be okay.

He probably will come off the bench and play 20 mins.

Most players in the Brazil NT are overrated nowadays. They are going through a lean spell in terms of REAL quality.

Something gives me a feeling Cole might not even play. The fact that he wasn't even in the squad is an ominous sign.

I actually agree with you, but people will dismiss it as paranoia, unfortunately. But from what I've seen since the Chelsea vs Liverpool game on boxing day, there is definitely something weird going on this season and it blatantly favours Liverpool, which I find interesting in itself.

You haven't watched enough of them recently. Their greatest strength is the man in black, the man with the whistle, not their strike force. I can assure you that Liverpool are dropping no points that will enable them not to win the league this season.

The league is rigged this season. I'm not trying to be funny, I honestly didn't want to believe it, that was until I watched and payed careful attention to the Manchester United vs Liverpool game this season. There has been a concerted effort to ensure that Liverpool win the league this season. 'Pool have played their part and been fantastic, but when they look in danger of not winning, the refs make game changing decisions in their favour. It started after the turn of the new year. I've never seen anything like it before, not Calciopoli Juve or Ferguson's Man U.. It's blatant cheating, but these refs are clever with it and that's what Jose was alluding to in his sarcastic post match conference. And when he's been saying Chelsea can win the league "if they let us". It's almost as if the FA are desperate to give Gerrard and Liverpool their first league title since the Hillsborough disaster, especially after the controversial findings in 2012. Then I saw a strange promo on MOTD a couple of weeks ago and it settled it for me. There have been far too many "errors" in decisive games this season. More so than ever before. I call BS.

That's a huge "If". If only Eden can be fit on time. We look a joke without him

Kaka's opinions are almost as valid as Pele's. Brazilian football has done nothing but produce a bunch of overrated primadonna's and thugs like Ramires. Gone are the days of Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Rai, Romario, Bebeto, Kaka, Dinho and so on, now they have clowns like Neymar, Hulk, Paulinho, Ramires, Gustavo and they barely even have a decent striker. It's a shame really, because they used to be my "2nd" national team to support. I will rather root for the likes of Belgium nowadays. Brazil is badly in need of a golden generation, or at least some real quality players because their reputation precedes them nowadays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y251ES6f95w I don't know how he was able to do it with a straight face

And I'm not disagreeing with that. But this "no striker" business has become too comfortable an excuse. It's not as if other teams refused to sell us their strikers. We've brought it on ourselves. Technically that's true, but the deal was done within a day of each other, everyone knew it. The Torres deal was already "done" but not official. Liverpool didn't have 50 million to spend January 2011. We gave it to them. Now they indirectly have that formidable strike force from us. And we moan about not having strikers. It's ironic really.

It still remains to be seen if our playing style will improve when (if) we bring in Diego Costa. I doubt it, because it's a fundamental issue that goes beyond the striker. The way Jose sets up his team is fundamentally flawed and that fundamental flaw is exposed time and time again against teams that are happy to give us the ball. You can't play Azpiliecueta at LB week in week out because it's not fair on the player. Ashley has had his "punishment" so it's time for him to come back. That slip and fall Azpi had is NOT happening if he's playing his natural position. Anyone who has ever played before can tell you it's harder to check back from your weaker foot to your higher foot. Something similar also happened in the PSG away league for that 3rd goal. Azpiliecueta has been getting caught out with a lot of high balls, but no one ever says anything. He has to return to his natural, most comfortable position. Same with Ivanovic. He's a CB, not a RB. He is not very fast so he rarely gets in behind his full-back. He is not technically gifted so he looks clumsy in possession as most CB's are. Once he gets forward, he just lumps hopeless crosses into the box that create zero threat. He and Azpilicueta are a waste of space offensively and also are starting to look not so solid anymore. Goals against Palace, PSG and today. And Ramires, dear oh dear. He is not good enough to be a starter in a passing team. It's been said a zillion times. He should be a squad player like Mikel is nowadays We need to be proactive in the transfer window. We must do everything possible to buy Costa, Kroos and Shaw. We can't afford fuck ups in the market any longer. Man United are going to spend a shit ton of money. City are going to improve and Liverpool are going to go to a different level now that they will have CL football and can attract better players.

People keep saying we have no striker, blah blah blah. Whose fault is it that Lukaku is at Everton? Who sold Sturridge to Liverpool? Who panic buyed and bought Ba? Ironically we started last season with only ONE recognized striker! Who bought Torres for an insane amount of money even though it was clear he wasn't the same player? We've basically given Liverpool their two best players. They bought Sturridge from us ( I always had a bad feeling about that after what he did at Bolton) and used the Torres money to bring in Suarez. We "gave" them their strikforce and brought in the pile of shite called Torres. So stop with this NO STRIKER bull, because we brought it upon ourselves by being noobs. Those bastards at Liverpool must be laughing their asses off at our utter stupidity.

We played more matches last season than we can possibly do this season and this season is not yet over as well.

If Cech was ill then I take back my comments on that, but what about Cole? Was he injured or ill too? We've only gotten worse in terms of style of play and it's ironic if you consider we currently have more flair players than we've ever had. It's like buying a Ferrari and driving it like a Fiat. If we at least managed to put two passes together in the final third, then maybe we wouldn't have been in the situation we are in today. The way a team play is largely dictated by the manager and when you have a team of Eto'o, Salah, Willian, Oscar, Schurrle and you still struggle to play well against an awful Sunderland team, then that's a failure on the manager's part. The point is the team hasn't bee maximized to its full potential this season. We are still a team that relies solely on counter-attacking football against teams of similar quality to us and a team that looks hopeless in possession against teams that are inferior to us. This is not proactive football but reactive football. I LOVE Jose Mourinho. More than most Chelsea fans I'm sure. I even followed the man's career when he was in charge of other teams. But I'm also a good listener and I've listened to his press conferences this season. He has spoken a lot about the "evolution of the team". The evolution of our playing style. "Being proactive not reactive." He's so far failed in this regard, I'm sorry. He's brought results. That's the stereotype about Jose isn't it? A winner, but his teams play dire football? Ok, let's see what the results are by the end of the season. I know this is a transitional season, but I swear to god, if we could at least play some decent footie and show this evolution, then it will be so much easier to take. Football is not just about winning trophies. Long time CFC supporters know that. If you think this is not a fair criticism then I don't know guys. I'm very angry as I'm typing this now and I'm typing from the heart and just saying how I feel. I'm not going to berate our club on general football forums like some other fans do. I keep it indoors amongst us. If I can't be honest on this board, then I can't be anywhere else. Honestly I'll take a 3rd place finish and elimination in the CL quarter final whilst playing good football than 2nd place and elimination in the CL semi final while playing the turgid crap we've endured all season. Of course, we are not yet eliminated from the CL, so let's see what happens. And the players also deserve criticism for a spineless, gutless performance. I hope they show some balls on Tuesday.

This is what you guys are quick to forget. The back four's job is not only to defend. Jose is known to to be very cautious in how he asks his fullbacks to play. They rarely get forward as they used to, the CB's rarely contribute to goals from set-plays as they used to (although that might have to do more with Lamps only playing a bit-part role . He's by far our best set-piece taker). Our two full-backs are woefully played out of position.. It's obvious to anyone watching there is a problem there. When your full-backs don't (or can't) overlap well, this puts even more pressure on the front four to find spaces. And when you play on a small pitch like the one at The Bridge, and the opposition is happy to sit back and defend, you aren't going to create clear cut chances. This has been one of our biggest weaknesses this season. It improves us defensively, yes, but it also makes our attacking play predictable and easy to defend against. It becomes even worse when Hazard is not playing. It's true that the squad was inherited, but it's also true that we spent 100 plus million pounds in the two transfer windows. We sold Mata and De Bruyne yes, but they were non-factors in our season to begin with. We've run out of excuses. Jose has not been the best manager in England this season, Rodgers has. His taken an easily inferior squad, albeit with better strikers (one of them our clueless board sold to them!!) and not only are they top of the PL, but they are playing amazing, attacking football. Fullbacks overlapping like mad, one touch, expansive passing, playing with the whole length of the pitch and so on.................. The hope is that when we get a better striker (again, our clueless board and Jose LET Lukaku go) we will play better football, because it's been awful to watch all season. Jose has to prove that he can create a team that plays good, attacking football and that wins football matches. I'm sure this is what Roman and the board briefed him at the start. We've made strides in terms of accumulating more points in the league and being in the Semi's of the CL. We can only move on from here. But I will be lying if I said I was happy with the turgid, awful nonsense our players produce almost week in week out. For a big club, that isn't good enough.