Cosmin

From my point of view, liking someone is not the same thing with thinking that that certain someone is flawless (like some people here seem to think about Mou). I am a big fan of Mourinho and I was very happy to hear that he's returning to Chelsea. But there are things that he does and that I don't agree with. And as long as I am free to do it, I will criticize those aspects and praise the good ones, because I think that it is the right thing to do. It's not disprespectful, IMO, it is just fair. Mou is the greatest manager that this club has ever had and one of the greatest (if not the greatest) in the history of football. He's passionate and he loves Chelsea and I respect him for that. But he's not perfect.

Good news! Schalke-Maribor 1-1 FT.

Outstanding performance by Patricio.

So damn close.

Costa looking tired there.

Nani is still a diving little prick. Fake Ronaldo.

Love how Cesc takes these freekicks.

LOL Diego running like he's Usain Bolt

Yesssssss, Willian in!

Crappy finish by Oscar and Nani almost makes it 1-1. Come on, lads, score another already.

I love the Cesc-Matic pair. Great display so far, but we need to score another one just to be sure.

Sometimes I forget Costa is only 25. When I see him behave like a kid, I always go, "Huh?" before remembering that he's actually younger than Cesc and Willian. So he's 25, looks like he's 35, but sometimes behaves like he's 15 Imagine if he was playing for Arsenal. He would already be out for the next 6 months or so. Thank God we have a great medical staff. I hope he doesn't get the call from Del Bosque.

In Brazil, a referee got murdered on the field one year ago, so I don't think that bringing the Brazilian example is a smart thing to do in this situation (no disrespect to the Brazilians). I'm not the one who threatened to leave the forum because there are people with a different opinion than mine, so I don't know who's the one 'arsed or bothered'.

That's the kind of overreaction that makes me believe that for some people Mourinho is God. Someone just said that, from his point of view, it's disrespectful to leave before the end of the game and you start complaining about how it's harder to come back on this forum and threating that you won't do it anymore one day.

Imagine if it was Manchester United / City / Arsenal / Liverpool / West Ham / You name it's manager doing that. It's disrespectful. Stop being so biased. Some of you seem to believe that Mourinho is God. Well, he is not and he does wrong things sometimes. Wanting to shake hands before the end of the game (only when he's winning) is wrong and disprespectful, in my opinion, because when you're losing it's annoying to see the other manager coming to you like that. At the end of the game, it's something else. You know that it's over and you are over it.

Fair enough, but I think that the "away to the champions" part is overrated. What if we would've played the second game against Man. Utd., last season, on their ground? They were the champions, but they were clearly not in the best form. We were poor with our ball retention because retaining the ball was not what we wanted. We didn't actually try to retain the ball for long periods and build goal scoring opportunities based on that. That's where the 'way too defensive' part comes in. If we weren't overly focused on defending, maybe we would've been able to attack more and be more effective. That's the way I see things. I'm not claiming that my opinion is the best opinion, but I'm also not being an asshole towards those who don't share it. And I'm not talking about you here, your posts are fair.

There's a difference between "Defensive" and "Way too defensive". And the second part of your post partially makes sense only if you think about a FIFA match between Chelsea and City. They were and still are in a poor form. Not to mention that no one claimed that we should've opened the game up, leave massive holes etc. As said before, being less cautious than we were against City (which is extremely cautious) doesn't mean going ahead like brainless chickens. Football is not only black and white. You can be solid in the defence, but also smart and unpredictable when you have the ball. Just like we were home against them, last season, btw.

Firstly, I would like to say that I really appreciate the fact that you stay on topic and try to bring arguments in order to prove your point. As it can be seen, other people prefer to adopt a childish behaviour which makes it very hard to develop a serious debate. Secondly, I don't think that it was the best option to play the same way as last season, because they were expecting us to do so. That's why Pellegrini tried to anihilate our midfielders and asked his players to foul everytime it was necessary. I agree with the third part of your post, we were really good at home last season and I enjoyed every single match against the big boys. But, I never claimed otherwise. I understand: the plan is to beat them at home and to at least draw against them away, but from my point of view, if we tried just a little bit more against a damaged City, we could've easily won that game. I am happy with the point, but that IS NOT the point, as I said many many times before. If we play against Atletico in the UCL, don't you think that they'll expect us to be defensive away? It's predictable and when it's predictable, you should try bringing up the element of surprise, if you have what it takes. And to be honest, I really believe that this squad has what it takes. Chelsea never had a better attacking force than the one it has today.

There we go, you have my like! I am sure you expect more! Come on, you guys, feed him!

As expected, more childish behaviour. But what can you ask from a man who has that kind of picture as his avatar?! Nah, I don't crave brainless football like the one Wenger makes his team play. I crave a little bit of courage from a team like ours and more than 0 shots after one half of the game against a good opponent. I explained myself many times before, I don't understand why you keep bringing the Rodgers and Wenger argument up to discussion, since it clearly has nothing to do with what I'm saying. P.S: After what Chelsea's attacking players showed yesterday, do you honestly believe that we can't try more against a team like City?

So I guess this is how things are going to be from now on. After every convincing win, some people will start acting childish. The game was excellent, great passing and nice team goals, hands down. Beating Villa like this is great and I am really happy about it, but it has nothing to do with what we've been discussing on the last '5-10 pages'. And it doesn't change my opinion regarding the other matter (the City game, to be more specific) and it doesn't change the fact that we were EXTREMELY defensive against City and way too precautious. So before being so sarcastic and full of himself, someone should understand the difference between the two matters.

You are not a racist, you're just ignorant. I might be from Eastern Europe, but at least I know the difference between "your" and "you're". This is the kind of man who thinks that if he has the money to go to every Chelsea game, then only him and people like him should be entitled to an opinion. And the sad thing is that he is not the only one who thinks like that. Why don't you go create a forum just for you and your buddies who travel to every game? That way, you could be happy and avoid stupid Eastern Europeans like us.

Even if I agree with most of your thoughts, I can't agree with this one. He can't be blamed for scoring against us and you can't criticize him because he didn't miss that opportunity. He was right to score, it was just the right and professional thing to do in that situation. The damage was already done, in my opinion, and him scoring against us has nothing to do with it.

Well, since it's pretty clear that we won't reach a conclusion, the only thing that we can do is to agree to disagree. It's not like there's a law saying that Lampard is a Chelsea legend and he's untouchable. If people choose to consider him a traitor, let them. If people choose to consider him a legend, let them. This so called 'debate' is useless and it's got way too far, in the moment when people started taking it personal and judging others. Time to get over it.

I have an idea for you guys moderating this forum: make two areas of it. One for the fans and one for the "fans". Apparently, we, the "fans" (a.k.a. those who criticize more and have unpopular opinions sometimes) are very numerous on TC and there are Gods like this guy that I quoted who can help you sort us.