MrExcalibur100

The number of African players that lie about their age is very, very few. Age cheating is very much a thing of the past. Players that come through the youth ranks at international level are required to take MRI scans. What Mourinho had to say about Eto'o (which was hilarious btw, and harmless) is irrelevant to that conversation.

Do you have a link to where he says the team is "very tired"?

Scored a goal that any striker would score, but his general play was hopeless again. Can't wait to see the back of him. At least he scored though.

I personally don't think we are as tired as people are making us out to be. The way we played against Galatasaray is similar to what we did against Schalke away from home. We made a decent side look like Bayern. We've played disjointed football all season and the process of building a new team is going to take a while. We haven't looked like a TEAM all season. We have defensively, but we haven't offensively. The style of play is even worse than last season with even more flair players in the team, the question is why and the answer is simple. Cautious tactics. This season is not about "evolution", but about restoring the winning mentality at Chelsea and getting us back to a respectable position in the league. Our best players this season have been defenders......and Hazard. It's fine by me, but the style and philosophy has to change. I'm certain new signings to improve the squad will change things. We are carrying to many passengers in the team at the minute. Some players aren't good enough and we all know them.

holy fuck! And I thought I typed a lot. Good effort though.

Madrid's midfield: Xabi Alonso, Modric and Di Maria Chelsea's midfield : Ramires and 35 year old Lampard. Add to the fact that we have Torres up front who is completely hopeless in keeping the ball and the fact that our fullbacks barely overlap anymore. Last season, we had Ash/Bertrand on the left and Azpi on the right. They were given a license by Benitez to overlap a lot. This season, Ivanovic alone overlaps with regularity and he's not that good at it. I watched the replay of the Madrid-Schalke game. They had Benzema, Ronaldo, Bale, Modric, Xabi Alonso, Di Maria and Marcelo all starting! Any time they attacked, the midfield didn't try and play hopeful, quick chipped passes to the striker like we did for 90 mins, instead, it was controlled possession. Spreading the ball outwide to Bale and Ronaldo, with crisp quick passing and the likes of Marcelo or Carjaval on the overlap. When they did counter attack, they did so with intent. They had 5-6 bodies arriving in the box at the same time. This is something we seem incapable of doing and something the other top teams do. Madrid, Man City, Barcelona and Bayern all play this way. That's how you play good, attacking football. Controlled possession, switching play quickly from right to left, attacking full-backs and attacking with numbers. We have Hazard and Willian, yes, but we don't have the central midfield quality to retain possession and dictate the tempo of a game, and it's more alarming with Matic (who is probably our most important play right now) not playing. Azpi also is not that comfortable on the left. There are times when, instead of making a forward pass, he turns back and does a backpass with his right to Terry or Cech. I remember Gary Neville being surprised when he did overlap to create Torres' goal. So a combination of a weak central midfield and cautious tactics is to blame for our recent performances. We can't do anything about that midfield until the summer, but we Mourinho can become more positive in tactical approach, IMO. If we want to become a great European giant, then we have to be more proactive and impose our will on teams like Galatasaray, home or away. Bayern, Madrid, Barca and even Man City impose their style on the opposition, we don't. We were sent out to counter their style, and when Mancini changed from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1, we looked clueless and our "counter-attack" impotent. The pressed the front 3 behind the striker, and when a decent team press Chelsea's 3 behind the striker, they have a decent chance, because there is little quality coming from elsewhere. And I don't understand Mourinho's pre-match press interview, because his words don't match up with the reality of the game I watched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pvi8Tl-2eY&list=UUnQvCx33v1mrgleEwVH4DxA&feature=c4-overview

Exactly. Dropping points here with a West Brom esque display will be typical Chelsea, though Matic just being the world-classplayer he is and also being fresh will give us a big boost. Is that Apocalypse in your avatar?

Savage is usually hopeless, but this is one of his better ones. http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26358771

CM = Kroos, Gundogan, Fabregas (I can dream. No chance though) or just stick with MvG (still don't know how good he is) LB = Shaw, Rodriguez from Wolfsburg, Alberto Moreno (preferably the English guy, because of the coefficient) CF = Diego Costa, Cavani. Pick anyone from all 3 and this team is as good as any in Europe. What bothers me the most is the alleged "evolution" in style of play has not been evident this season. Perhaps if we can get a dream pivot of Kroos-Matic, that will completely alter the way we play football.

TBF, Barbara is hands down one of the fairest and most objective commentators on here. I do agree that those three are a problem though. I'm not to worried about Oscarinho, cos he'll be aight, but Willian and Ramires, i dunno. Many people were quick to praise Willian for his hard-working style, but so far he's only scored 2 goals and 1 assist in 13 starts in the PL. That's not good enough for a 30 million pound player. To think he was only 2 million pounds less expensive than Hazard is a joke. But we should have seen it coming. Look at his track record. He doesn't score goals. His skill-set is also very predictable in the final third. "Step-over, step-over, do a ground cross and watch it get intercepted.". That's not a 30 million pound player. We've paid that because Spurs were willing to pay that, and initially, we were fearful of the players and team they were building, so we high-jacked it. He's worth no more than 20 million pounds. Even in today's ridiculous market. We would have done well to sign a goal-scoring winger like Greizmann, to make up for the team's lack of goals. But that's too late now. As for Rami, the less said the better. It's already been over-flogged and we know his limitations. His defensive contribution is even slightly overrated. Just not a top class footballer. Unfortunately, there are a lot of overrated players coming out of Brazil these days.

Nothing like a good Minerology exam to calm yourself. Okay, I might have been over the top with my criticism of that second half performance, but I'm worried. How is it that we can't at least dominate possession for a fairly decisive period in the game? I was really disappointed to see Cech hoof the ball long to oblivion time and time again. We constantly put ourselves under pressure. When are we going to learn? I know we terribly missed Matic's quality in possession through the middle. All Galatasaray had to do was press the three behind the striker (Schurrle, Hazard and Willian) because they knew that both Lampard and Ramires can do fuck all with the ball. They can't retain it, dictate the tempo or spread crisp, accurate passes. But is that an excuse though? They had Melo and Inan......... nuff said, This team NEEDS a top quality CM to partner Matic. It's that simple. Still Mourinho could have made this tactical change: Oscar for Schurrle, with Oscar dropping deep (like he did against Newcastle) to at least give us a strangle-hold of the central midfield. Instead, he went more solid, sensing that Gala were getting stronger and he did Mikel for Schurrle. Didn't work Surprised this was not mentioned, but when Mancini went from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1, the entire game changed, and our play on the counter was non-existent, a'la Man City FA cup. Our style of play away from home in Europe, and against big teams is to counter-attack. It's worked against Bayern, Schalke and Man City. It didn't against Arsenal, Man United, City FA cup, Tottenham. But its weaknesses were ruthlessly exposed and Jose couldn't counter Mancini. It was similar to Man City, FA cup. We need a plan B. We need to instill into our younger players that counter-attacking football shouldn't be the way we want them to develop in. When the counter attack doesn't work, we get the shit we saw in the 2nd half. Anyway, 1-1. The West London derby can't come soon enough.

How many games this season have we played even decent football? Not many. It doesn't have to be amazing, but what we saw tonight was fucking cowardly. Where is the "evolution" in this team. What was the difference between that second half and the CL final against Bayern? Nothing much. And no neutral remembers that Chelsea side too fondly because of the turgid bullshit we played. If you ask me for my favourite game in the CL that season, I will go with Napoli at home, because we played with balls. We are basically an expensively assembled team that can string two passes together. Why? Why was Cech hoofing so many balls forward, even though we kept on losing aerial duels? This is a CL match. A match that the whole world watches (players of other teams, fans of other teams, football journalists, Roman, Roman's football loving friends, celebrity chelsea fans etc). We've parked the bus again, but we've packed it with Hazard, Willian, Schurrle and Torres. The so-called counter attack hardly ever worked in the second half and we had no plan B. If you think this sort of games are only about results, then you're wrong. This is not some random PL game. A lot of football people watched this match and we were shit, again.

But at least we played proper football with an inferior team. The football for most of the season has been shit and forgettable. The only fun part is that we are winning. But if we win no silverware this season, it will be a failure. Mourinho speaks of evolution in style of play, nothing so far. It's not just my opinion, Roman must feel the same way too. You don't invest an insane amount of money to watch THAT football. Why do you think Roman bought the club? To win AND to play good football. The second part has been missing all season. And this is not a go at Jose, because I love the guy, but I just call it as I see it. We shouldn't just accept that display. 1-1 is nothing special away to this Gala side. Madrid destroyed them in their home, and they were lucky to beat Juve on a mud pitch.

Something is wrong somewhere. We've played to many poor games this season. Is Mourinho incapable of putting out a side that plays good football? I know the CM pairing of Ramires and Lampard is not ideal at all, but the team was clearly set-up to play defensive football. What's the point of having flair players if we can't use them properly at the highest level? Remember Schalke away (we won, but they out-passed us senseless. we won purely through individual brilliance) Basel away? Man City away? As soon as a team pressures our midfield, we collapse. Mourinho has to be more flexible than this. Remember, this was the reason why Roman's first choice was Guardiola, a manager whose teams play proper football.. Can any Chelsea fan seriously say he's happy with that game? If we lost 2-1 and we had a proper go, played proper football and kept the ball on the freaking ground, I would have been happier. And I say that sincerely. Mourinho keeps talking about "proactive" football but I only see "reactive" football. There is no evolution in the team's style of play. Maybe Mourinho just doesn't know how to make his sides play good football. Food for thought

I watched a Chelsea team unable to play two passes together in the CL. We've invested a lot in our squad, and we produce that shower of shit for a world audience? It's not a one off, we are known to play terrible football. It might be okay by you, but playing like that does no good for the image of our club. And I'm not exaggerating.

I think he has every right to be angry with the performance. It was really poor and we've lived up to the stereotype of a team that play, boring, negative, defensive, turgid football. And with Hazard, Schurrle, Torres, Willian feeding off scraps for 90 mins? Pathetic. Fuck the 1-1 result. That was disgraceful "football". Give me the Chelsea of Zola, Di Matteo, Poyet, anyday over this bullshit I just watched.

It's shocking really. People are here pleased with the result, but they fail to get the point. This is the Champions league, a competition the whole world watches. Players, fans of other clubs, journalists, managers, ROMAN. We have left a terrible perception of ourselves again. Was the football really dissimilar to the one that won us the CL? Waiting for your write up. Awful game, awful tactics. Only one team came to play football. It's unacceptable IMO, what we did.

At the end of the day, football is supposed to be about entertainment. This Chelsea team is one of the most expensively assembled sides in the world, yet the opposition made us look like a pub team. How can a team with Hazard, Schurrle, Oscar, Torres, and so on, produce such turgid football? Mancini, who is supposed to be a conservative manager has his team keeping it on the ground and passing it. We just lump it forward to oblivion. Look at poor Hazard. Out of breath chasing shadows for 90 mins against Galatasaray. He doesn't deserve that shit. It's not fair on him. He can't even express himself, because the offensive play tactics are basically non-existent. It's a decent result, but can anyone really be pleased with that boring rubbish? And it's been like this all season. What the fuck is happening? As soon as a team pressures us, we can no longer string two, three passes together. Awful Hazard, Willian, Schurrle, Oscar. They don't deserve that shit. They don't deserve to be chasing shadows for 90 mins in big games where the WHOLE world is watching. Mourinho seriously needs to do something about his tactics and become more flexible. It's why Roman payed 100's of millions to buy these flair players. He must be pretty upset about what he just watched. Fuck the 1-1 result. That was cowardly football. They outplayed us from start to finish, I admit it.

At the end of the day, football is supposed to be about entertainment. This Chelsea team is one of the most expensively assembled sides in the world, yet the opposition made us look like a pub team. How can a team with Hazard, Schurrle, Oscar, Torres, and so on, produce such turgid football? Mancini, who is supposed to be a conservative manager has his team keeping it on the ground and passing it. We just lump it forward to oblivion. Look at poor Hazard. Out of breath chasing shadows for 90 mins against Galatasaray. He doesn't deserve that shit. It's not fair on him. He can't even express himself, because the offensive play tactics are basically non-existent. It's a decent result, but can anyone really be pleased with that boring rubbish? And it's been like this all season. What the fuck is happening? As soon as a team pressures us, we can no longer string two, three passes together. Awful

Schalke 0-6 Madrid.

Horrible. Our defense really saves our ass a lot. I don't want to sound negative, but we have better players than his. How can they be so poor in possession?

Mancini has completely won the tactical battle, IMO. Playing hopeless football on the biggest stage is not what Roman or the fans want to see. It's hoofball when we should be trying to impose our will. They are squeezing the life out of that pitch. So much for "proactive" football. And Petr "hoof" Cech has not helped at all. Notice that Galatasaray despite having Drogba upfront did not hoof it a lot. We hoof it with freaking Torres??

We don't know how to play football

What, we destroyed you 0-5 in "the hell" and that's all you come up with?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjYj4_N4x70