LDN Blue

This makes things worse for us. The attraction to Barcelona is much greater than Chelsea.

No doubt. But as a player, he wasn't as great.

Yeah, very true. However, he seems to be perceived as too young, which then creates an underlying problem. Of course the board could not predict Lampard would be injured for such a long period of time and that Essien would have his share too, but the naiveness of the board to not prepare for such scenarios should be something the board should fix asap. That being said, we do have to look forward to Benayoun's return. Several fans have stated, he will fix our problems (like had been said like Lampard & Essien). So let's see if that will solve our problems..

Don't want him to go. This will be a true test of his character. Will he stay and fight for his place or run?

Welcome!

Well if you haven't recognised it by now, I don't think you will..

Exactly! My words exact after that game Mikel has been our most improved player in the last few years. From constant red cards, to a vital member of the squad. Brilliant!

Fair do's mate. Hopefully Mikel will keep his consistency when he's called up, and will sway your mind

Essien was. Until Mikel came along. Essien has so much more attacking flare. He's wasted at DM. That's what "everybody" said, so we asked, and received. He's much better going forward and staying there, and going back to help out Mikel, than he is starting there. This is because we rely on our full-backs for the width. This means we need our DM to stay back and cover. Essien likes to go forward and if we keep him at DM we'll lose so much drive in midfield. Mikel there is a better option for both parties.

Yeah you could be right, thinking about the start of the season now. We all know how blind management became back then, ignoring the fact we'd lost our sense of creativity

Mikel is so important to the team it's unbelievable. He is a much better DM than Essien for the reason Styles stated. His ability to hold possession is something we've severely lacked. More times, than ever, he's kick started our counter attacks with intelligent ball control and distribution. Everyone was singing praises of him in October, now he's gone under as a dark-horse. I believe Carlo makes a mistake when using Essien instead of Mikel.

well that just took apart all my beliefs! Haha But I agree about Henry and Van Persie (though when he's on form, he really is sensational!). Gibbs is good, he hasn't played much ahead of Clichy but I've heard some positive things about him. Van Aanholt is probably better though

Yeah I still stand by that comment. We could've got a much better player instead. Not knocking Ramires, just thinking tactically. Ramires has been a bit of a revelation though. He shows passion and intent, a bright spark when the rest of our players are laggy and lethargic. I hope there is a lot more to come from him though.

Second. Was just about to say something similar.

Van Persie & Vermaelen? Not to mention the likes of Henry, Eduardo (pre-Injury), Ramsay. Ect. But their English contenders too, Gibbs, Wilshere et al.

Well I did. Then I remembered how we said the same thing about Lampard & Essien. Then I just lost hope

Cheers mate. Agreed, you'll find the true fans in bad times, they're the ones who'll stick with the club. Criticising them is fine, as long as the support is there with that

How is Decoded?

Applauded him a lot versus Fulham. He never stopped running, every time he lost the ball, he went back for it again! A very good player and is becoming important for us, considering our weakness on the right-hand side

LOL touché

What's wrong with that? Arsenal have scouted some great players!

A cruel poll this! Nevin - Lampard - Makelele - Duff Zola - Dixon

Right, as we know, this season has been shit. In a nutshell. As a result we've had a lot of comments made from depression and anger. Justified, it must be added, but it seems we've all lost faith in Chelsea. It's safe to say this season is over, in terms of title race, for the first time in 5 years we're in a battle for 4th. While some say, even this is in doubt, I have no worries we'll fail to accomplish this target. So how do we find optimism in this bleak time? The answer lies in lessons learnt. I'm not going to dwell on why we're in this position, because there are many posts in this thread that answer this riddle. My focus will be on what we have to look forward to. 1. Squad personnel It's evident the board and/or management have realised there was a serious error in judgement for not replacing the players we released. Not that I'm saying, we should have kept them. The signings of David Luiz and Fernando Torres clearly show that we needed more players. As the youth system didn't prevail. It could be a safe bet to say, our dealings in the transfer market 2011, are nowhere near finished. 2. Youth A touchy subject our youth. As we came into this season believing they'd be given a chance we've seen Kakuta, Sturridge, Bruma & Van Aanholt go out on loan. Sturridge & Van Aanholt have already made impressions with Sturridge grabbing 3 in 3 for Bolton and Van Aanholt becoming 1st choice left-back for Sven's men at Leicester. While it's clear they won't be involved this season, seeing them take their chances will bring huge smiles to our faces and will only help them in getting the management's notice for the coming season. McEachran is one we all want to see get his first competitive début and I'm sure next season we'll see him being included a lot more (based on the evidence of this one). If Sturridge carries on scoring, I have no doubts the club will seek to intergrate him into our squad next season. Kakuta's yet to get a full chance at Fulham yet, so it remains to be seen if he'll take his chances, as he follows in the steps of Messi (by winning Player of the Tournament at the u19 European Championships) 3. Management Personally, I'm glad Carlo has not received the boot yet. The worst mistake Chelsea could have made is, firing Carlo in January after seeing Ray Wilkins go and the effect that had on the club. We've learnt a great deal from the days we fired Scolari so quickly and had to fork out that massive compensation fee. While many of us will criticise, fairly, Carlo's management abilities, we can all agree that he's not an idiot and firing him now would be awful for the rest of the season. I don't care to speculate where Carlo's future lies beyond the summer, but one thing is for sure, Abramovich has given his full support to Carlo for the rest of the season. The signing of Torres & Luiz could've waited until the summer, for a new manager, but Abramovich decided the time was now and trusts Carlo to use them to get us the highest position we can attain now. 4. Finances While we still have a bit of a way to go before we break even, or even steer in the profit zone, we have been trying to be more cost-effective. Lucrative sponsorship deals were signed on the back of last season, the main ones being Singha Beer & Samsung/Adidas. This, with the realising of players like Ballack, Deco et al, has shaved quite a lot from our wage-bill. The revamp of the scouting department would also help with the costs and us not replacing Wilkins as opposed to simply giving a title upgrade to another member of management has also kept keep costs down. It'll be argued that the £73million we've spent have hindered that, but I firmly believe, the club has worked out their costs to match with these transfers. Bruce Buck has been a very strong supporter of a wage-cap and this is shown evident by details emerging of Ivanovic's contract which sees him on simply £65k/week (I say simply, even though I'd kill for that lol). Rumours are also surfacing that we're set to have another clear out this summer of the "old guard". The likes of Drogba, Anelka, Malouda & Ferriera are all on the precipice of being released, while Bosingwa and Alex are rumoured to be transfer targets of several clubs. Most notably AC Milan. I'm sure we won't make the same mistake twice, of going into the 2011-12 season with a weak squad, but a freshened up one would come. If we can get good money for, said, players and use this to fund their replacement transfers it'll really be a new age for our finances. 5. In conclusion.. So there's my take on trying to put a positive spin on the failures of this season. While 2009/10 was a great season for us, 2010/11 was not. So all we can do now is cheer our players on for the remainder, despite knowing we're not going to win much. FA Cup & Champions League are attainable targets (though the latter is less so). 4th is a must for this season too. 2011/12 leaves me with nothing but optimism. I firmly believe the club has learnt valuable lessons from this horror show. Perhaps a "transitional season" will take place next, where we see the youth integrated WITH the superstars.

My Chinese friends cracked up when they heard it

There's something else going on with Drogba now. The malaria is gone, the fall from grace he's had is unbelievable! But I really hope Torres have given some life back in the old Drog, he showed some of that when he came on for Torres vs Fulham.