The Skipper

We'll see at the end of the season, but I really think a few more points were up for grabs here and we failed in that aspect. I'm not saying I expect us to win those games in general but the response was more towards us being impressive in top 6/top 8 games when that is not true at all. We've been average.

Sorry for the late response, Christmas and all... Hazard wasn't the only sub Mourinho made that and I wasn't talking about merely his subs either - it was the tactical approach we took after his subs were made that bugged me the most. Honestly I thought we were fine as we set out initially, and Mourinho's approach after the subs invited even more pressure unto us, in my opinion we could've so easily lost had Giroud been more clinical on two occasions. I never said that I expected Mourinho to go for the win but my argument was that we invited even more pressure onto ourselves by the tactical approach we took after our subs were made. The Luiz sub at the end was the most frustrating one as it really confirmed he'd allow Arsenal to keep possession and distribute it amongst themselves and everyone knows that's when they're the most dangerous. Yeah, Arsenal were at home and were pressing to look for a winner at the end but those moments could've been avoided if Mourinho kept the same tactical approach and we could've even nicked a winner on the counter had we been even the *slightest* of more adventurous as Arsenal obviously opened up even more towards the end of the game.

£48m?

He has the ability to keep hold of the ball very well yes, but to say he has better playmaking ability than Mata, Oscar or Willian is proposterous. Just because out number 10s aren't performing like they should do (which is due to our system more than anything) doesn't mean he's better in that aspect. He's lacking the final ball in his play, barely has any assists this season despite playing a lot more and being the side's main playmaker.

Incredible. Well done CFC.

Adding to this - we don't seem to be developing a clear philosophy either. Like you said, the way our team is set up is way too rigid - when we lose the ball all 11 players should be contributing towards winning it back in unison - when we win it all 11 players should be made available to make a decisive contribution in attack. To this day I still can't believe we try to boot it up to the striker (especially when someone like Eto'o is up front) route one style, bypassing all of our most creative players. We aren't the machine we used to be, so why play like it? Our style of play needs to complement the players we have.

We've *tried* to be offensive and it hasn't worked. Most of the time we look clueless going forward especially when we have a lot of the ball in possession. Against bigger teams it's understandable why we play more conservatively as we obviously have a bigger threat to face but against smaller teams we should be taking the initiative. Jose's "offensive" (or whatever you might call it) system that he's tried to implement here hasn't allowed us to do so, so obviously we reverting to the style of football he knows best - counter attacking football - but our squad isn't really set up as such. You're also getting it twisted - I didn't say we should go all out attack like we did against Stoke; going an all out attacking 4-4-2 would've been suicidal. All I was asking for was that Jose kept the same system we implemented in the first half and just brought on like for like replacements instead of going even more defensively. The initial system was still solid enough to get a result (i.e. the draw) and I doubt Arsenal would've created the chances they did; but it could've also increased our chances of perhaps nicking a winner. Instead of bringing Luiz on for Torres he should've just brought on a forward.

So far? Howard Coleman - JT - Koscielny - Shaw Yaya Toure - Ramsey Rooney Suarez - Aguero - Sturridge

Decent performance but as Tomo said above an elite striker like Suarez or Aguero would've nicked the game for us.

Assuming this is directed at me so... If you read my post again you'll see that I understood why we set up the way we did considering our recent performances... I don't know how you missed that since it was the first part of my post. Again, as I said in my post, Giroud takes his chance or Azpi doesn't clear the ball off the line and it would've been a very different result - it wasn't a coincidence that Arsenal started to create their best chances after Mourinho made his subs and made the team even more defensive as we surrendered the ball even more to them. He should've made like for like replacements and kept the shape we had in the first half in my opinion because they created jack all when we played like that, that's why I said his subs were poor. I don't think the fact that we got a draw justifies his subs at all since as I said before, Arsenal created their best chances when we altered our shape because of those subs. The problem has never been about conceding against big teams. It's conceding plentiful goals against teams that we should be beating that has been the problem. Not sure how you can use this game, the result or the way we set up tactically in this game as proof that Jose has worked out how to stop conceding goals against the lesser teams that we should be beating... Are you seriously suggesting that we should set up this conservatively and play for draws against teams like Stoke, Sunderland etc?

Nothing to do with Luiz even, it's just that if we're going to play defensive football with maximum protection in front of our back four then yeah, Terry and Cahill will shine because it suits their game - but we're not trying to play that sort of football regularly, especially against the smaller teams, at least I hope we're not.

Ifs and buts... I don't know about you but I expect more from my Chelsea. It's easy to hypothesise those sort of situations and to use them to justify that it was a great result but people are overstating how good the result was in my opinion. Regardless if Mourinho put on a striker or not, we still almost lost the game - if Giroud took his chance and if Azpi wasn't there on the line, it wouldn't have mattered whether Mou threw on an extra defender or not, they still created their best chances when he did. You really can't justify him bringing on another defender considering the fact that Arsenal's two best chances of the game came when he did do that. We were sort of lucky in that Giroud missed and that Azpi read the situation well and cleared off the line. It wasn't like we stopped Arsenal from creating when we threw on more defenders. It could've so easily been another result. Disagree. The top 6 should also be expanded to the 'top 8' considering Spurs and United are 7th and 8th respectively. If you wanted your statement to be accurate you'd say that we've lost twice to our top 6 opponents considering we also lost to Newcastle who are 6th in the table at the moment. If we look at our results against the top 8 teams we've played so far: Arsenal - 1 point Newcastle - 0 points City - 3 points Tottenham - 1 point Everton - 0 points United - 1 point That's 6 points from 6 games... 6 out of 18. That's not impressive at all in my opinion. I know most of them were away games still, but the only reason why we're still in it is because other teams have been pretty inconsistent as well. The league will be won by whichever team is the most consistent from now on. We obviously still have a great opportunity to do so since we're only 2 points off the top of the table but honestly the result isn't as magnificent as people are trying to make it seem - it was merely a decent result in my opinion.

If we're playing defensive football with maximum protection from midfield, sure.

Understandable why we went for a draw considering we've been poor defensively in the last few weeks but it's not the brand of football I want to see from us considering the type of players we have at hand. It was a good result but I'm not as proud of it as most people seem to be on here. Yes we were at The Emirates, yes we've been poor recently and yes he set us up correct tactically for this game due to those factors but personally I expect more. I was never in the camp that thought we'd not even be able to grab a point at Arsenal either - I believe we could've won. His subs in the last 20/30 minutes could've won the game as well but they were the wrong ones IMO. I know Hazard was tiring a bit but he was still our most dangerous player at that point and the negativity in those minutes were very annoying - I think it allowed Arsenal to open us up a lot more and we nearly got punished twice (Giroud's miss, Azpi off the line). We could've been looking at a loss easily here so personally I don't get why those last minutes are basically being conveniently ignored by most on here. His subs were really, really bad. I've given up on us playing the type of football we can this season regardless but I just hope that towards the end of this one that we at least have a solid foundation set to work on.

What's the point in that when Reus' release clause is £30m?

We were set up in a way that suits Cahill and he played very well. Good game from him.

Decent result but I'm really annoyed at our negative tactics in the last 30 minutes. Personally I think we could've nicked it if we took a little bit more of an initiative.

He had a decent game, I'm not slagging him off but Arsenal are creating more because we're allowing them more time on the ball, Mourinho's gone for a draw, not because William came off.

Lol Mourinho.

Not because Willian is off but because we're sitting so deep.

We're going for the draw. Sitting so deep. Unbelievable.

Loool Mourinho.

Just one goal. That's all we need.

Put in Oscar or Mata please. There is so much space in between their defence and midfield.

YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!111