The Skipper

Fair enough, was just going by what they're saying on their website where they have him down as returning this previous tuesday and that he's facing a late fitness test.

It's not like he's choosing United, we haven't even made an official concrete offer for him. United are the only ones that have.

It says late fitness test on there. I expect him on the bench at least.

Loan at least for him next year hopefully.

No, we haven't.

That's not hard when Robben has been average this season and Ribery has pretty much been injured for a lot of it.Reus is class but you're overstating it a bit. We have to sign a ST, CM and LB before we even think about reshuffling our AM deparment.

Except Atletico aren't a possession based side, so you can't really compare them to Bayern in my opinion. Whilst Real's style of football and players they have at their disposal is a great match up against Bayern's style of football (so do ours but to a lesser extent obviously, providing we implement the right game plan), you can't say the same about Atletico in regards to their comparison to Bayern, who are just as uncomfortable in possession as we are from what I've seen from them.Of course because Real have those players at disposal they can play on the counter more comfortably, I mean they are obviously the best counter attacking team in the world, we on the other hand didn't even really attempt a true counter attack in the game though even though we are capable of it and have shown that we can be devastating i.e. against City. To me, there is a notable difference between counter attacking and merely parking the bus. Real did the former, we did the latter, against a side that isn't even good in possession. I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot but in my opinion it was far too conservative and we aren't that inferior to Atletico; we showed them too much respect in that regards even though we had a few players out; in fact we aren't inferior at all when we have our full squad available, we're slightly better because of the effect an on form Hazard can have on a game.

Just put him on the ignore list, most on the forum have.

Those stats aren't true at all because Reus is on 22 goals this season. Hazard is on 17 and Di Maria is on 11. He's had a few good weeks recently, doesn't mean he's putting our AMs to shame.

I was thinking the exact same - if we did get rid of Ramires (which is unlikely), Koke would be an astute replacement, considering he can play on the right wing as well.

Troll.

Obviously a bindipper...

That's what I basically said.

That obviously goes without saying? But if you think that we'd be so defensively vulnerable if Torres had support from two more guys on the counter and if you think we simply can't risk that because Atletico are so dangerous going forward then bravo, because I don't. We're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one here. Yes, decent, considering he was up there on his own. It might have been good or excellent if he had a couple of players that supported him when going forward on the counter. Oscar has generally been good in Europe for us. This would've been a decent game for him to play in. Schwarzer is going to play at the Bridge too, does that mean we should also go as cautious as we did in Spain? Of course not. And I'm 100% certain Jose won't go as cautious either. He isn't a bad goalkeeper. Yes, he isn't highly experienced in the CL but he's still a good goalkeeper. We lost JT at around the 70th minute mark, so I don't think including him in your analysis is relevant because we could've still committed more men on the break before that. If Jose went this conservative after the injury but before that he at least tried to allow the players to counter attack better by committing a few more forward on the counter then fine, I wouldn't say anything because that's perfectly understandable, but that wasn't the case. Well you're wrong if you think we don't have any sort of disadvantage because the away goal rule is clearly there for all to see. If you were an Atletico fan or rather yet, if we were at the Bridge in the first leg and we played out a 0-0 draw would you say that we have no advantage at all going to the Vicente Calderon with the away goal rule there? Of course you wouldn't. You don't have to patronise me on that, can we not just debate as two intelligent Chelsea fans? I'll say it once again, I seriously don't think committing an extra two men going forward on the counter whilst the rest of the team remain deep would make us so vulnerable that Atletico would punish us. They aren't that great going forward when there's still that many men behind the ball. We'd have enough men to close off any spaces Atletico might attack whilst the rest of the team that went forward on the counter come back and recreate the shape we had started the game with. Simple. Apparently say anything that doesn't remotely praise Mou on here and you're instantly seen as the enemy by some. You don't need to remind me of his achievements, we're not discussing his ability as a manager in the CL as a whole. Of course it's a difficult trophy to win, that's not the debate here at all, but to say he usually does well in the CL semi finals isn't correct. I'm not knocking Jose in any way, just stating the fact that he has lost five of his seven CL semi final ties. I'm not talking about winning CLs back to back, I'm talking about his CL semi finals record. That's not knocking him as a manager or knocking his CL record, it just is what it is. You can't try and spin it and say he's done well in CL semi finals because he hasn't. It's how in the same way he's won every CL final he's been part of. That means he does well in CL finals. I don't know why you're trying to spin it into me saying something sinister or bad about Mourinho. The original discussion was about people comparing Real's result with ours and I was trying to convey that we were way too conservative to even compare the two results/performances; we parked the bus, they had a true counter attacking approach; we were away, they were at home; they created plenty of chances to bed the game, I can't even remember us creating a chance on goal; they have a complete team, we don't. They were two complete different scenarios. It has now somehow conveyed into a unnecessary discussion between us both, you think that Mourinho's plan was 100% perfect and has given us a great advantage and no disadvantages, whilst I think that his plan was very good defensively, but that we could've played better on the counter, not as conservative - instead of sending just Torres and maybe Willian or Ramires forward, we could've sent one or two more because Atletico aren't good enough to punish us with the rest of our team sitting deep - if we leave back 6 men for a few seconds we really won't be as open as you're trying to portray we'd be - and that could've perhaps nicked us an away goal because I think Atletico are capable of grabbing an away goal at ours themselves. I think it's best we just leave the discussion where it is because it's spiralling into a needless, repetitive argument now.

Crazy how much Frank looks like his dad.

It's barely a change of tactic, it's simply about committing more men forward when we get the ball. Our counter was led by Torres (who did a decent job considering he had no one else up there with him) because decent counter attacking players like Schurrle and Oscar were left on the bench. It's hardly risking the tie committing a few more men going forward on the counter attack to increase the chances of grabbing an away goal. This does not translate into us going for an all-out attacking gung ho approach. I think everyone does, but you seriously have to be kidding yourself if you think we'd be so defensively vulnerable if we committed a couple more men going forward on the counter attack. Our transition into attack was poor because of that very reason. And they nearly did, Cavani had a golden chance but lucky for us he didn't put it away and we punished him. I didn't dispute the fact that we're in this tie, of course we are, if you read what I said again I said that people are overstating the advantage we have. It's still advantage us, but only slightly.Plus, Atletico aren't PSG. They are far more adept at sitting deep, defending and hitting teams on the counter, and they'll punish us for it too. Just to reiterate, as I said above, it is advantage Chelsea due to us obviously getting back some key players but it's slight. I'm not criticising him, merely stating facts. If you think that winning only 2 out of 7 CL semi final ties in total means that he's done a good job in these circumstances then yes, I have run out of things to say.

We're basically saying the same thing. I understand what he did as well and certain aspects of how we played were fine, but even the smaller PL teams commit more men forward than we did against them. Honestly, committing 3 or 4 men forward on the counter instead of 2 doesn't suddenly make us completely susceptible at the back. We'd still have 7/6 men behind the ball which is fine. You seriously don't need 10 men behind the ball for the majority of the game against Atletico.

He assured that by going as conservative as he could, which I didn't have a problem with to start, but it was when it was clear that Atletico just wasn't going to break us down that he could've perhaps afforded to commit more men going forward on the counter to grab an away goal, that doesn't mean I wanted us to switch to an attacking approach; all I'm suggesting is that on the counter we should've worried Atletico a lot more. I'm not disputing the way Jose set up the team, as I said in my previous post, defensively we set up very well, but it was on the counter that we were way too conservative - committing two men forward was pathetic. Yeah sure we don't have Hazard but in my opinion, Oscar, Schurrle and Willian are all good enough players to worry Atletico on the counter. Committing at least one or two men extra on the counter attack wouldn't have hurt. You don't need to commit that many players to defend against Atletico, they aren't that good going forward. Atletico are leaders in the La Liga but it isn't due to their goal scoring ability, which is what you would've been made to believe had you just watched that game and the way we approached the whole game. Atletico are top due to their pragmatic system which is very similar to ours, not due to their "amazing" attacking abilities. Why? Contrary to the popular believe on here, in my opinion a 0-0 doesn't make it that much favourable to us. We still have to go out there and beat Atletico by scoring against them. Yes, we have the home crowd advantage but all Atletico need is a goalscoring draw, which they are very capable of. Atletico can be as difficult to break down as ourselves, so if they grab a goal it'll be even harder for us because we need to score ourselves if we want to go through, unless Jose is planning on a penalty shoot out. Not in CL semi finals.

Prefer this tbh: Hart Johnson - Jagielka - Cahill - Shaw Gerrard - Wilshere Sterling - Rooney - Lallana Sturridge

Only one for me. Henrique Hilário Meireles Sampaio, commonly known as Hilário.

apparently Benzema is nothing more but a poacher as well and has poor/average link up play... Let's completely forget the fact that he started the move of the goal by holding on to the ball excellently in his own half and breaking his neck to get into the box to score it, plus the fact that he should've had an assist if Ronaldo scored his clear chance (apparently the only reason he has high number of assists is simply because he plays with Ronaldo and Bale, but nothing to do with the fact that he has a good creative head on him).

He is a fine player but if we were hypothetically looking for someone to replace Oscar it wouldn't be Koke... He doesn't play there, and I wouldn't put him down as a creative number 10. Most of his assists have come from crosses and set pieces (IIRC).

Here's the team I'd like to see: Mark Ivanovic - Luiz - Cahill - Cole Lampard - Matic Salah - Oscar - Schurrle Torres

Hazard - De Bruyne - Januzaj. Not bad.

It really depends on us making an offer for him or not. It's not like we've matched United's offer and he's picked United ahead of us.