duren batu

how many games in Costa's career has he missed due to suspension? exactly.
and what exactly is terribly bad that has been turned into a positive? just because I dont have meltdowns and am not fickle doesn't mean I turn everything into a positive, I am calm about our start as I don't rate Man City as highly as the fickle fans who thought they were invisible because they started off well, I have seen it before with us, have a great start to the season, then implode, I don't panic so easily like yourself.
Costa has behaved the same his whole career, and at 26 years old, he has had a brilliant career so far, so keep acting like Costa is a terrible person, I will keep supporting him, as will José, as will his teammates and as will most Chelsea fans.

Why would Mou ever want to go back, the media used to announce where his kids were and people would turn up and throw and swear at them, the players hated him, he hated the players, the media absolutely despise him (at least the press here acknowlege he makes half of their sports section), the players are old, the club employs a Galactico policy which means he would be unable to get the players he really needed.
That's not even mentioning the affection he has for Chelsea and the fact he's currently planning to finish his club coaching career here. The RM fans should be singing the name of Jose because he was right. Lopez WAS (is) better than Casillas. The players he brought in were the right ones. The video got taken down but many here will be familiar with the documentary video on Youtube called 'Real Madrid's Weak Spot' and explained it perfectly.

Very unlikely. Juve's Achilles heel is that they HAVE to build from the back with the CBs having the major share of possession. Barca's high pressing will kill them. And I say this as a Juve fan as well.
I'm not comparing trophies, or even who is better overall. I'm just saying that this Barca are capable of adapting and changing when needed. If they played each other, I'd back this current team.
Midfield is of course settled but this team can actually defend, while with 2011-13 Barca, every attack they conceded looked like a dangerous chance. I think if they played each other this team can defend fairly well again the old team and still create a lot of chances on the counter.

But but but, Barca don't deserve the win according to some on here. They only had 45% possession AT HOME. They must have parked the bus. They should be ashamed of winning 3-0 with such little possession at home!!!!

If juventus win against madrid, I expect them to win champion league. Kind of tradition anyone who beat last season champion in semifinal will become crown champion.

If juventus win against madrid, I expect them to win champion league. Kind of tradition anyone who beat last season champion in semifinal will become crown champion.

Lmao

You surely can't expect him not to praise the premier league now he's here. He's right that it's more competitive here, you can't seriously admit that a team can win the epl 4 straight years like Juventus did in Italy. The real reason is the top english teams are poor in quality compared to the first teams in the other top leagues(two in Spain). When he was in Madrid, he directly said that every other team will come third behind Madrid and Barcelona. He never really said it was the best competition in Spain. He was right.
The Italian league was far stronger when he was there, evidenced by how only one team can make it past the group stages.
Ibrahimovic and Cavani used to play there so the quality has dropped drastically from 2009 compared to now. Only Juventus is strong now, no inter, no Milan to contest now.
Mourinho lies here and there, mindgames but he tells the truth as it is most often.

Fabregas is magic
He wears a magic hat mask
He could've would've signed for Arsenal
But he said, "No, fuck that" the idiots didn't ask
He passes with his left foot
And He passes with his right
And when we he helps us win the league
We will We'll sing his song all night.
Oh...

From a game theory perspective, some teams play with a more exploitative style. This also opens them up to being exploited. When you're well better than your opponent this is the obvious option to choose. It gives you the most opportunities to exploit your opponent, knowing they lack the skill/ability to exploit you equally in turn.
In big matches where teams are closer in skill, Mourinho plays for a more game theory optimal style. He finds an equilibrium that makes our opponent indifferent to their choice of actions. By "indifferent" (in game theory terminology) we mean they can do no better [and we can do no worse] if they change up their strategy to try and exploit ours. That is of course the whole point of finding an equilibrium.
It's really quite brilliant from a strategic point of view as very few managers can adapt between an exploitative and GTO style like Mou does. This is why his record against the top teams is so far above the mean (despite rival managers swearing up and down that "defense is easy"). From a fan perspective, I'll say I like pretty triangles, backheels, link up play, gobs of possession, etc. But I also like winning, haha. Whatever it takes.

He also said he wants to start next season like how they started this season, with dominant and attractive football. The thing is, he was in quick adapting to the situation and was not so stubborn to keep on playing the same style without the right players. (Cesc and Diego injured/suspended)
If you're a chef in a kitchen during a cooking competition of 30 minutes, and you see the salt (Cesc) and pepper (Diego) are overdue , would you be stubborn and continue to make that salt and pepper chicken dish, (Rodgers, Wenger) or would you adapt to the situation and make other dishes with the ingedrients you have left? (Mourinho) That's for me, the difference between a normal manager and a brilliant manager.

I think Jose style suit us anyway and it works really, we just have to accept it. Cheers people.

I think you rate our squad more than you should. There's something that we all want to see in Chelsea - the ability to play stylish football, more proactive. I'll elaborate what it acutally means - the ability to create posseseion game, to press high, play a higher line in defense, link up play between attackers, midfielders, full backs.
Posseseion game - Lets take a look at our midfielders first- Matic, Cesc, Oscar, Willian, Hazard, Cuadrado, Ramires, Mikel. There are exactly 4 players out of this group who can play posseseion football in a descent enough way against quality sides- Matic, Cesc, Willian and Hazard. Oscar, for his role in the 10, just cant. Oscar loses the ball, Oscar misplace simple passes, Oscar cant take the very important role of being the second playmkaer next to Cesc. If a team presses Cesc, we cant control the ball, Oscar wont be the guy to run the show. Every top team who plays for possesion have at the very least two Playmakers in their line up - Real (Modric, Kroos, Isco), Bayern (Thiago, Schweinsteiger , Alonso), Barcelona (Iniesta, Xabi, Rakitic. and Rakitic isnt that great like Barca would like, thats why they cant keep possession like they used too with Xabi-Iniesta, thats also why Real completely controlled the El Clasico in the first half for example). We only have Cesc to create possession from central midfield, thats not enough for a team who wants to control the ball. How can you control the ball against the better squads this way? its too hard and its too risky. You're talking about "attacking coach", i dont know what you mean by that at all if im honest. imo our problem is that we cant have the ball enough.
Pressing higher - Lets take a look at our first CBs for this season - Cahill and Terry. You just cant press and play a higher line against quality sides with such slow central defense, you'll get punished. I believe Zouma will take the place of Cahill next season from the start. That would be the right step.
This team is still a work in progress, we have some players who can play more proactive, but the others cant. You're right about Hazard, Cesc, Willian etc, they can play differently, but others still stall the team from making real progress. I dont see a reason to think its the manager who stalls us. When we'll have another playmaker and a line up with better technical players, the ball will stay in our feet more, in a natural way, we would lose the ball less. If Mourinho wants it? i think he is, but thats the only question. If he doesnt want it i will be upset about him like you, but we should see.
About PSG - Imo our performance was just awful in the bridge. The players didnt show any urgency, energy, it was the opposite of yesterday. When you play this way, thats one of the risks, people are right to say you cant play this way all the time, because its hard for the players. I believe if we played like yesterday against PSG, we would have go through. But playing for possesion? we cant do it against this side, like we cant do it against Arsenal.
About Mourinho in Real - The problem imo was that this team wasnt able to create possession good enough. Ronaldo, Di Maria, Ozil, Khdeira, all of those players not contributing enough in keeping the ball. That was their biggest issue imo. They also couldnt break a defensive formation good enough, for the same reason - too many very direct players, not enough pure magic.
"The brutal fact is, there is no big team in Europe playing this sort of football."
First of all - Atletico. But Mourinho is very different from Pep or Barcelona or Real Madrid (as clubs), he doesnt care about not playing pretty, he can play ugly and stay happy just about winning the game. Those clubs and Pep and the likes of him dont want to play only for results. Mourinho before every game thinks what is the best way (in his opinion) to win the game, or not to lose it. And every way is acceptable for him. He knows what he can do with his current team and what he cant do, or what will be too risky and what will be less risky. And if playing like yesterday was the best option, he'll do it. I dont see it as a weakness at all. When our squad will be better fitted for more proactive football, im sure we wont see performances like yesterday. When we'll play against Bayern (with Pep) or Barcelona, im sure we'll play on the counter, no doubt, because Mourinho know they play for possesion and the best way to score against those teams is to let them play the ball, steal the ball and counter, but im sure the apporoch will be slightly different if we get the right players, like pressing higher. Bayern 2013 destroyed Barcelona with counter attacks, thats the ultimate goal for Mourinho imo. A team who can do both.
Another thing - if Mourinho is so anti-possession, anti-proactive football, why did his Real Madrid side played this way against Barcelona when he felt they are good and talented enough to do it? he actually did it in the first game when they lost 5-0. Because of that lost he played more conservative in the next games against them, and in the second season and third he tried again to play more proactive and also succeeded most of the time.

I'll try to explain the game from a tactical point of view for whoever doesn't get it:
When you are up against a possession based team you have three options:
- run around like amateurs to try and get the ball (what we did in the first 30 minutes)
- press aggressively with the enitre team (which we didn't have the right personal to do, with the absence of Costa/Willian)
- sit back deep and counter (just like Real Madrid did against Bayern last year)
So the way we played was the only viable strategy we had to win the game. Everybody knew we would play Zouma in midfield to counter Fellaini because it was our only option (hell, even the pundits were predicting it)
So anybody who thinks we should/could have played differently is simply wrong and any misgivings about how we won are misplaced.
I believe in Mou, he spotted our faults previous seasons and fixed them perfectly. I have no doubt he spotted our mistakes this season (not being able to see out 1-0 wins/not dominating teams that we should, like against 10 men PSG) and will rectify them by bringing in the right personel

Mourinho out.

@MrExcalibur have you forgotten how we played from August till Jan 1st? Where you yourself said sometime during that stretch that "whats amazing is that every game we've never looked like the inferior side, even during the loss against NewCastle."
Listen. Nobody will argue that our second half of the season has been hard to watch. But JM noticed something in our squad, and has decided that pragmatism was the way to go to secure the EPL trophy, and it has worked.
We're 15pts ahead of the Great Man City.. And running away with the league. For many of us, JM gets a HUGE pass because that decision has paid off. And at the same time he's instilling to Hazard, Costa, Azpi, Courtois, Zouma, and Cesc (whose NEVER won like this) how to grind out wins and be mentally strong. How many times has Cesc been on the other side of a game like today against Chelsea w/Arsenal & Barca? Where his team has 60%+ possession and time after time Chelsea still would win.
If we had played this 'bad' THROUGHOUT the season you'd be correct, but that hasnt been the case, and you know that.
So when you, Lionsden, Styles, and MrBlueGuy all harp about how negative and outdated JM is many will defend him because that hasnt been the case ALL season. However i will concede that some of the criticisms are totally legit, like JM's youth policy and such, and its good to see people checking him. But whats amazing is that that same outdated manager has us running away with the league.
But of course. Our rivals are shit, our league is shit, we no longer dominate the UCL like its England's right to do so, So who ultimately cares if we win the league right?

In the first leg, they were the better team and I think we did very well to get a 1-1 draw, in all truth.
In the second leg, we were negative. Mourinho's tactics cost us, but you have to commend PSG. They out-Chelsea'd us. They did to us what we did to Barcelona. It can be harder playing against ten men when they are so fired up. However I maintain a more attacking display that night would have seen us through, so yes, we can criticise Mourinho here. But by the same token we have to commend him for getting his tactics spot on in 90% of matches this season. He's a major reason why we're on for a Double in a year where we haven't even actually been that good!

"The Moaning Thread" is the greatest edit seen on this forum.

IF i was tom cruise, i would be shagging all the women in the world.
IFS.
but somehow u neglected the best part dude. we DID play as good a football as possible for 4 months. much much much better than arsenal's. AND we can still win the games that we should be winning even when we are not playing at our best. THAT IS NOT LUCK. you can be lucky once or twice, not over months. so stop using rubbish arguments. and that needs a FULL STOP.
chelsea dont play to suit your requirements and make you comfortable. we have lost some form and that is majorly down to our best performers in the first half of the season (costa, cesc and matic) either being injured, out-of-form, suspended. and we dont have replacements who can play at their levels. we are still a squad in progress. just 2 years ago, we were barely qualifying for CL and getting dominated by EL level teams.
our recent results show that we have the character and the winning mentality needed to do what is necessary even when not pplaying well. something that arsenal and city and shown that they lack totally.
and while we are dealing in IFS, let me add one of mine
IF WE HAD PLAYED THE WAY WE HAD FOR THE FIRST 4 MONTHS, WE WOULD HAVE WON THE LEAGUE WITH MORE THAN A 100 POINTS.
seems fair, does not it.

Jose`s project has different stages. The main objective of Jose when he return with us is that Chelsea regained the hegemony of English football, and now we are the masters of English football and when (hopefully) win Premier League this year we will have recovered this hegemony.

Next year we must seek the hegemony in Europe. I am sure that the next year we will continue this great trend of Jose`s project and next year we will fight to recover the hegemony in Europe.

The trend of Jose is completely positive. Day after day we have better numbers. That great information revelead by xPetrCechx revealed regarding our evolution in Premier Leauge demonstrates this change.. To build a big project we need calm and support in good times and support much more in bad times.
It was a shame that we had to play against PSG in Champions League. If we had had the lucky of Real Madrid or Bayern the story would be different ...

For me Jose is doing a fabulous job. Perhaps his only mistake was certain approaches in big games. But the rest is being perfect. We have recovered our identity and the hegemony of English football. Having Jose with us is a beautiful dream.
For me the main problem of certain conservative approaches in big games is that each our defeat is a global drama and it seems that everything we have done before is rubbish. The anxiety that surrounds us is sometimes suffocating.

Hopefully we win Premier League this season to take away this anxiety and to play calmer without the anxiety by the need to win trophies.

I'm sure that for the games against Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool Jose will surprise us with their approaches. He is the best strategist in the world capable to surprise the best teams. I trust Jose.
Regards.

I think I'm very different from a troll ... I am a unconditional fan of Chelsea. If we win, I defend Chelsea, If we draw, I defend Chelsea and if we lose, I defend Chelsea.
Many of us are fans of Chelsea whatever happens.
I accept the criticism of anyone obviously, but these criticisms should be constructive / helpful, not to destroy everything we are building.
This year we have chances to win two trophies and sometimes it seems that our season is rubbish.
I respect your opinion about me but I can not be agree ...
I think should not be confused being a troll with being a unconditional fan.
I think we should be together whatever happens.
Regards.

the league is quality, the thing is the big teams are going through a few peculiar things that should be taken into account.
City has the funds, but no stability and they just don't seem capable of signing defenders and managers as good as the strikers they sign.
United was overachieving with Fergie - and that's all Fergie's credit. Now they're competing with RM to see who spends more money and make more stars signings. It took a while for RM to actually make a team. Those galacticos buys are more for marketing purposes and Perez' vanity than anything else. They don't sign who they should. United seem to be following the same route. At some point it will work, but it's going to be very miss and hit for a while, if I can risk a prediction.
Arsenal is the team with the most potential, but their manager really holds them back. Liverpool is a joke sorry.
And then we have ourselves. We were a mess ever since Carlo left. No manager stability, crazy and pointless signings, key players leaving or entering the descending years of their careers. The team José built was fading away. Then José came back and started building a new team. Those things take time even for giants such as Bayern, Barcelona, RM, United... This transition between a winning generation and the next can go smooth and happen in a couple of years (rare cases) or it can take 3-4 years to happen completely. Chelsea were very lucky and competent when they transitioned from a medium force in the league into a top contender under Roman in a couple of years. That's not the norm. City struggled, PSG even in their mickey mouse league didn't have a cakewalk, Monaco didn't make it at all, nor did Anzhi.
It's a 'bad' moment for English football because the main forces in Europe lately (Chelsea and United) are going through a transition (Chelsea started a bit earlier and is far more advanced on it, but we can all agree we still need a few pieces in our chess board and we're still a young team in age and time playing together). Arsenal and City can't be taken seriously with their defenses and managers (City also have the stability issue). Liverpool is a non-factor. The fact we're talking about 4-5 teams is more than we can do about any other league in the world. La Liga is proving to become again 2-horses. Atletico had an exceptional run in recent years, but they seem to be going down from their high. Spanish teams aren't used to play physical football and it wouldn't take too long for them to figure out how to play against the odd team that chose it. Only RM will continue to be victim to Atletico's style - everyone else is adapting or already know how to play them and leveled things up again - which means there's RM and Barça and then a few miles behind the rest.
Germany has Bayern and that's about it. We don't know what will happen to Dortmund. Wolfsburg is this season's 'one-season wonder' like Leverkusen, Werder Bremen, Schalke, and others were before. Dortmund was the one team that was able to last longer than a season, so I need this Wolfsburg team - who had always had Volkswagen money (a company that hasn't really had money troubles recently), so why aren't them the second strength in Germany for years now? This is how German football has always been ever since I follow it from distance (don't watch Bundesliga, but I keep track of what happens there). Bayern dominates a couple of years, then has a shocker season, then dominates again a couple years, than a shocker season with the odd one-season wonders team grabbing titles whenever Bayern fail. It tells more about how Bayern used to fall apart every few years when they really shouldn't seeing how much money (through more than questionable ways) they have running their machine. Then they came to Barcelona, and watched and learned how they planned their football, academy, how they were faithful to a style and made everything in the club work around that style. That's why I believe they're now going to dominate longer as they should have always had.
So people talk about how English football and the league isn't that great when there are three big teams in the world and coincidently two happen to be in the same league. Chelsea and United were fighting for the 4th spot for a few years, but then went through transitions themselves. Barcelona had been in a transition for a couple of years now. The fact they continue to win things in Spain just show how easy it is to win there... That (ridiculous) thread opened a couple of weeks ago about the EPL champion being the best among a bunch of averages teams could be opened about other countries too, the difference is that Bayern, RM and Barça are well established forces of recent football, but that doesn't happen overnight. United took years to become the force they were in England and more often than not a serious contender in Europe. UCL titles are overrated to no end imo. In a league where the best teams from all countries - and more and more leagues have money injected on them - is a tough tournament to win, but it's also a KO system championship with means anything can happen. No country have been having teams in the SF for years and years. It changes every few years, so I don't get why people are using this as a criteria to decide if a national league is good or not. Whoever draws Shakhtars, Galatasarays, Monacos (LOL Arsenal), Italian sides, German sides aside from Bayern have more chances to advancing. If those sides draw themselves, even more likely. It says nothing about the leagues they represent. European football has three forces currently (Atletico was never one, but just like Dortmund had a good run, one they may repeat or not) - they should draw no conclusion about how strong or not their leagues or other leagues are.
We can laugh at City as much as we want, but getting two of the three giants in the continent every round of 16 is a tough task.

March 10 represents an important date in the history of Chelsea Football Club - for on this day 110 years ago, over a quiet pint at The Rising Sun pub, the Club was founded.
Chelsea represents something of an anomaly amongst football clubs. Rather than being founded and a stadium being specifically built for that club's purposes, after Gus Mears acquired the rights to Stamford Bridge athletics ground in 1904, all he now had to do was find a football club to play there.
Chelsea's existence today is entirely dependent on Mears being rejected in his attempted takeover bid at Fulham Football Club. Instead, in March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub - now known as the Butcher's Hook and located opposite the present-day Britannia Gate entrance.
Little did Mears know that the Club, which in its second season won promotion to the old First Division before yo-yoing between the top tiers through the inter-war years, would later go on to reach the heights of today.
In 1920, a third-placed finish in the First Division represented the Club's best league performance, whilst five years earlier Chelsea had been defeated by Sheffield United in the 1915 FA Cup final at Old Trafford, in what was to be the last domestic football game in England prior to its suspension, due to Britain's involvement in the Great War.
The arrival of Ted Drake, the former Arsenal striker, in 1952 brought about an instant change in success as the Club exchanged its Pensioners tag, and penchant for playing attractive football and bringing in large crowds despite not really challenging for major honours, for a partisan support and instant silverware - in the shape of the First Division title in 1954/55.
Fast forward another sixty years and the Blues look set to add their fifth league title, barring an absolute catastrophe. 2015 has already been a trophy-winning year for Chelsea Football Club - but what a 110th birthday it would be if José Mourinho could inspire us to further honours!
Despite what the critics may say, Chelsea has an illustrious history. The Club is the only English side, and one of just four teams in Europe, to have won all four of the UEFA competitions - the Champions League, the Europa League, the Cup Winners Cup and the UEFA Super Cup - but it is only when you compare these successes to the dark days of the 1980s that the transformation can be truly appreciated.
After Tommy Docherty built a new young team and came within a whisker of landing a domestic treble in 1965 (Docherty secured the League Cup after an aggregate win over Leicester City, but after winning just one of their last six matches they surrendered the First Division title to Liverpool, who also had knocked the Blues out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage), Dave Sexton ushered in an age of success and glorious football in the 1970s - but what followed almost led to the liquidation of the Club entirely.
An ambitious redevelopment of Stamford Bridge threatened the financial stability of the Club were saved from bankruptcy by Ken Bates, who would later help to secure the future of the Bridge and oversaw extensive redevelopment of the ground, and the tutelage of John Neal, which empowered the Blues to escape relegation to the Third Division in 1983.
Two decades later and the arrival of Roman Abramovich has made those dark days seem little more than bad memories - but Chelsea fans have never forgotten where we have come from.
Happy birthday, Chelsea!
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