The Skipper

That is very true. At Mou's Madrid Di Maria was often labelled a headless chicken, now look at him. It has more to do with the coach's instructions IMO. Ancelotti's teams have always been great going forward because he implements a good system for his front line, that hasn't been the case with us unfortunately, we look lost in attack a lot of the time.

If we manage to get those three in, offload Torres, Ba, Mikel and some of the guys out on loan i.e Kakuta, Romeu etc. it'll be a very successful year for us next year.

You're both right, a striker would've definitely glossed over some of our problems this season but at the same time we need a change of approach/mentality in some games.

Yeah, that was to pay homage over his performance against Man City, by far away his best in a CFC shirt. But yeah, dude is the biggest fraud in football right about now. Gets paid £175k a week, cost us £50m... Honestly, stealing a living. Third season in a row where he's filled the fans up with false hope after some decent performances to begin with.

I was just about to say this. A lot of our players have regressed/stagnated this season and they are regressing at the wrong time. It's quite worrying how Oscar, Luiz, Ramires and even Ba, Mikel and Fraud Torres have completely stagnated or declined as players this season, especially the former three. If those three were in good form at this time of the season we'd easily still be amongst the favourites for the title and also would've played a lot better yesterday. It's a shame, especially in regards to the former three, because I felt they'd all grow even more this season but for some reason that just hasn't happened.

It's difficult to create when you have no striker in front of you in the first half and a fraud up front in the second, and when we have no pattern to our play if we're not counter attacking.

He needs to be more adventurous in the final third, usually opts for the easy pass like he doesn't believe in his ability.

Disagree. I've played as a GK at a pretty high level and I'm telling you, the goal is 100% on Cech. If Cech comes out and challenges the ball (which doesn't look that hard when you look at the replay) the goal has been prevented.

I know Ray usually chats a lot of waffle but at the time he was Carlo's assistant manager so...

Ray Wilkins said that the Torres signing was Ancelotti's idea, not Roman's.

To be fair to Styles, he didn't want Mourinho in to begin with, I vividly remember that. Personally I feel like today was more on the players, lacked passion or any effort in the final third in the second half - Mou tried to kill the tie off by bringing on a fraud "striker" but because we decided to stop our high press game in the second half (whether this was Mou's instructions or not I don't know, looked more like a lack of desire from the players) our whole game plan went out the window, and because there was a general lack of effort around the whole team we conceded two very bizarre and sloppy goals. The only thing I like about the result is that we now have to go at them at The Bridge, which we should've done in the second half but there's nothing to lose now.

I agree with your latter statement, but still that doesn't exclude my point... Hazard was poor in the second half because we lost grasp of the midfield because we weren't pressing high anymore and our intensity dropped a lot. We dropped our wingers back, they both defended deeply... And because there was no intensity in our counter attack from any of the front four in the second half (like we wanted to just go home with the 1-1/2-1 instead of trying to kill the tie off, wrong approach from the team), Eden was anonymous.

A 14 match unbeaten run before the Palace game maybe?

It's pretty well known that Ancelotti pushed for the Torres transfer.

That's what happens when you have to force your best attacking player to come deep and defend... Completely negated in the second half.

I always say that if Luiz has to be our most defensive midfielder he won't perform. Matic makes him look good. He did alright in the first half but I wasn't as impressed with him as some were on here tbh. Right now he's looking like a shell of his former self, which is a real shame. Real shame how he's regressed as a player this year, but I guess that's what happens when the manager's philosophy doesn't suit your style of play.

Cech has a normal game today and we go back to the Bridge with 1-1 IMO.

That's what happens when you try to settle for the 2-1.

No desire from any of these lot at the moment going forward...

I've said it before, Luiz only looks good in midfield because of Matic.

It's so casual from us out there.

Why does Torres just not go for a shot there? Like any other striker would? Gahhhh.

Why Willian? It was a great ball in, not his fault our striker has no footballing IQ.

Cech didn't come out and made it very difficult for the team to defend IMO, but it was a stupid free kick to give away from Luiz (even though it was pretty soft).

Torres comes in, we concede.