Cosmin

Did the really 'sing their heart out'? Hahaha! Well done, Demba!

Well, he's right, but Tottenham fans should not feel offended. Almost everytime the away support is much better when English clubs play at home, in the European competitions.

Yes, I think he had a huge role today. The players were tired and Sporting seemed to be very close to finding their way to the equalizer, but then he came in and released the pressure. To be honest, I think Matic and Cesc were great too, but I was surprised by Mikel's performance.

I said that he brought some freshness to OUR GAME, which means that the whole team, as a group, looked better after he came in.

Good performance again today, against Sporting. He brought some freshness and calm to our game.

Normally, we should win this one. But I think that it will be much more difficult than we expect it to be. First of all, we need to be cynical with our goal scoring opportunities. No more wasteful football. They are sloppy in the defense and we will get our chances, but we are also sloppy in the defense and they have some great players up front, which means that they should get their opportunities too. We need to be more effective than them.

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.