Miguelito

i would be interested in helping anyway that i can really. i dont write as much as i should for this site, but i love writing about soccer and have always wanted to write for a website. btw i also live in charlotte as i attend UNC Charlotte. it is a great place but yes, i am really extremely interested in this so let me know please

well it might be a bit late to write my analysis on this game, but ive been busy all weekend so i figured better late than never. i was so pleased with the way we played for once and it was great. we had so many times where i would be say "well done or great job or oh wow". it was like we learned how to do great one touch passing overnight. we got out of so many tight situations using it and it was a real joy to watch. even when it was just getting us out of the back or just to get the ball out wide, it was lovely stuff. i thought ba was a massive part of this and honestly thought he was absolutely superb throughout. his performances sometimes go under the radar but for me, he was our best player along with cech and oscar. i thought basically our whole team played well, even from individual standpoints everyone did good. i thought lampard and azpi were our worst players, and thats saying alot as neither of them had a bad game by any means. moses did do bad when he came on, but it wasnt for long, so i am excluding him. cech- amazing, what else is there to say. the best goalies in the world are ones that even when they havent done much for awhile that they will come up big in situations and he came through cole- was good, nothing spectacular but solid ivan- thought he was good, again nothing amazing but a lot of times when defenders go unnoticed they played well and did their job Luiz- he was great, had many vital stops and started attacks from the back well Azpi- he is just really good defensively, but didnt offer much going forward ramires and lampard- i dont understand how sometimes the pivot looks so good with them two and sometimes its awful, but i thought they did really well, ramires in particular. lampard had couple wayward passes and other ones that i saw that really put the player he was passing to in a bad position, but he was good at shielding the defense. hazard- this guy is a gem, that one run in the 2nd half was mesmerizing. he was really good throughout, but was surprised at how many times he fouled the other team mata- semi-quiet game by his standards, but still kept the ball moving and helped our attack click so well oscar- he was the star of the show going forward. he was absolutely everywhere and involved in basically everyone of our attacks. hope his recent form continues because when he's like this our entire attack improves tremendously. everything is so much more fluid and hes just a joy to watch. its sad he missed his chances because he deserved a goal or two. ba- he was brilliant, he held up the ball extremely well and was a nuisance throughout. and most importantly, did what great strikers do, scored the winner. i loved the entire game. we played some of the best football ive seen in awhile and even though we deserved more goals, but it was nice to see us hold off in the end, showed resilience. well done boys

Yea I definitely agree. We should have kept Essien and sold meireles. Essien has showed he can still get it done, whilst not like he used to. (Even tho I do think people have been overrating some of his performances) meireles is a great squad player for any team and it wasn't the smartest to sell him, but it seems as tho we got a good sum of money and thought it would be good to balance the books. Even then it's scary how thin we are. I'm not sure what's going on with Malouda behind the scenes but I wish he could play, he'd also be a good squad player. I really think that kdb would have gotten enough playing time, but I rate him soooo much so I could be blind to it. And since piazon isn't getting much playing time that loan is a bit odd, but I will wait til the end of the season to judge the loan. Hopefully the situation will get better. Anyways I do think we have been paying for the consequences of such a small squad in the past few months, and as you said I hope we will reap the rewards eventually of these players getting experience.

Not trying to add fuel to the fire again but it just bothers me when people say out loans are awful, I think most have been good. Obviously there is some baffling but I think overall they are good. Well most of our loans this season actually been successes. KDB is playing a tremendous amount of minutes and has improved leaps and bounds. Now I wanted him to stay cause i thought from the beginning he was good enough for Cortoius is obviously playing non-stop football in a good team. Mceachran and chalobah are both getting a great amount of game time and improving also. Lukaku is doing ever so well at west brom. Not starting every game but long has been in great form as well this season and lukaku plays well off the bench too Kakuta. Pva, kalas are all playing and from what I've heard and read they are doing well also. Omeruo is also impressing in holland. Essien is a loan that baffles me but I'm happy to see him doing alright. Todd Kane was playing i believe until a new manager and is now back from Blackburn Hutchinson was playing a lot and doing well at Nottingham before his injury. Even thorgan hazard is doing well on loan. I agree that in the past years a lot of our loans have been a joke but this season I think that they have been great for the most part. It's not like you can every single loan a success tho. That's ridiculous to suggest. And it's not like each and every player can have guaranteed playing time at the club they go on loan. They have to EARN IT. It doesn't matter if they are on loan, it still works the same way as at their parent, they need to earn the time they get. It's down to the player and also the club. The players that you said can make it next season all are doing well on loan. Piazon is still finding his feet so I won't judge that loan yet. And all of this stuff that you are talking about lampard, drogba, and cole...everything about their contracts and stuff has basically been the media. I don't remember any place with real quotes saying we went back for drogs (I could be wrong). We don't no what happened behind the scenes with Coles contract situation. And for lampard, I agree to an extent, but its still the media freaking out.

I'd rather sign lewandowski for 48m then falcao for 48m. Really not a fan of falcao. As great as he is, I don't want a striker like himBut with this being the courtois thread, it would be genuinely stupid to let him go. He can be a cornerstone in our team for the next 10-15 years if we play this out right

The funny thing is we used to have matic. I always thought he was very very good and I wanted us to give him a chance. He went as part of the Luiz deal and fair play to him for doing well at benfica

He never says he's not trying to improve, in fact he said he has been improving recently.And yes you are right, if mata is performing not good enough he should be benched. Nobody is good enough not to be benched when underperforming. Sometimes people (not calling you out) take every little criticism about hazard out of context and act like he should be immune to it. He shouldn't. Credit where credit is due and criticism where criticism is due. (Btw he was a boss last game)

such a great post man. we should definitely appreciate the good things

I mean I think he'll never be number because he just isn't good enough. I'd say he's a decent shot stopper but with the ball at his feet, I get reallyyyy scared

Oh yea, no doubt Turnbull will never be no 1 here

I actually think that Lindegaard is better than de gea. And to be fair they are both better than Turnbull

That is rather gross haha

absolutely agree. i hope we decide to go do this, what we are doing now isnt working well enough

i could see us going to a 4-3-3 or 4-3-2-1 of sorts. something like this Cech Azpi-Ivanovic-Luiz-Cole Oscar-Lampard-Betrand Moses-Hazard/Mata Torres now i do want ashley cole rested, but i could see betrand coming in to the midfield to add some defensive stability. lampard will also need to stay even further back than usual. I also would want marin to get a start and piazon and saville to play some since its the capital one cup but its leeds and rafa's going to want to win this

went for rmpr. always gets his point across and in a way that is normally respectful like everyone else said he's brought quality and quantity "The only place to be" was great nearing the end of the month too

i was watching this the other day on youtube. not sure if its the full thing, but it is entertaining

it's like a primadona of sorts. someone who is high maintenance, stuck up type of person that they always want things a certain way

ive actually found that sturridge is really good in fifa. i started him because of how bad torres is in real life and realized that he's a boss in fifa

we know that you have a man crush on lamps, but this is a bit out there. lampard and mikel play completely different roles to the point that there is no point in even comparing them. not every single midfielder has to be like God Lampard. and i see mikel making crucial tackles, and also interceptions (i think there was one against shaktar iirc, where if he didnt get to it, it was basically a breakaway). also, something people dont realize is the holes that mikel fills. he clogs space where potential dangerous passes could be placed. my theory is prevention of dangerous attacks in the first place is more important and effective than dealing with recovering and reacting to them when they occur. like @ said mikel keeps balance. probably the most underrated thing in the world of football in balance and mikel does it for chelsea and busquets does it for barca. and i agree with ryan again here in the fact that as much of a prick that busquets is, he is probably the best in the world at it and has been for quite some time. he's been a mainstay in the barca and spain team for years; he is way more than average. he's world class .

i made a topic trying to get people to relax and be realistic in where we should be right now and i stand by that i am proud of where we are, but we do have problems Obviously, the striker position is a main problem because torres just obviously isnt getting the job done and needs to be in the right position so much more often that it's embarrassing, but i dont want to talk about torres. that debate is old and useless A deep-lying playmaker is necessary for us and would help alleviate all sorts of problems. We need someone who starts attacks and makes plays from there. we need a playmaker in the double pivot. I think that once rami and mikel get the ball, our 3 attacking midfielders have to come too deep to receive the ball and then just dribble up towards the opposing defenders. by the time we get in to really attacking positions, the defense is already set and we dont have too much to do. I think this is why we have had problems creating chances. if we had someone who could really pass and even find a killer pass from deep, it would make us so much less predictable and the 3 attacking midfielders could stay higher up the pitch. We have to transition from defense to attack faster for us to be more successful and we cant do that with mikel and rami in there. as much as i love them and know that they are giving great individual performances, we need another type of player to help how the team plays. Once of the 3 maestros drops deep to get the ball it creates a problem. we dont have enough options to pass the ball forward. the opposition has enough people back they can man mark or even double team players. i think teams have started to figure out that if they pressure our double pivot and make them get rid of quickly then it greatly reduces our chances of attacking successfully. if they continuously press them, then hazard, mata, and oscar have to come deeper quicker and therefore eventually stay deeper in general during the game. The last thing is that we should start to press higher up the field. if we do this right, we can win the ball higher up the pitch and counter a lot faster. i think moses would help a lot in this sense because he is built for the counter and he would be a great outlet for it. this will also allow our 3 attackign midfielders to stay in a more natural and attacking position. this is my view on it anyways and i think that kdb would be perfect for the double pivot so i dont want us to buy anyone else for. oscar could do the job there now too.

i wrote in the beginning of it that this is merely my prospective, i know that it is just my opinion. but i think that it is kind of obvious that we are transitioning from the fact that we are changing how we play and who we play on the field. Even all of the players say that we play different than last year and we have to get used to it. and possession stats can often be misleading. You can be a very attacking team and not always have the ball; it's what you do with the ball in the time you have it that matters. i thought they did a good job of pressing us, but we also looked a bit tired and misplaced too many passes. anyways, this is not just about the liverpool game, idk how you can base that we are not transitioning on one game.... and the part about i am a loser and the reason i am failing doesnt make any sense. we are not failing, we are doing well so far this season. it was always going to be tough and that was the point in this topic. This is not just directed at you, but people need to be more realistic and realize everything doesnt come as easy as we believe

I almost wrote an article before the season started about the expectations for Chelsea and what I wanted to see from the season, so now I’ll what I think so far. I know that some people agree with me, but I'm sure others don’t. I'm sure that some people won't see the point in this article either, but that's fine; I just wanted to put my prospective in to it. Honestly, the season so far has far exceeded my expectations. Our start to the season was incredible and I'm not quite sure how we did it. We came out all guns firing and even had luck on our side. I had to tell my friends that are Chelsea fans to calm down, that we needed time still. There was always going to be time when things got difficult and the results suffered, but that is part of transition. That’s the thing; this year is a transition year. I didn’t think we had a chance this season at winning the league and I was just hoping for a third or fourth place finish. Di Matteo did the right thing, as the manager of team, in slowly integrating a new style and fazing players out. People started out having lower expectations for this season, and then we signed some of the best, young talent in the world. In Hazard and Oscar, people knew we had two future world beaters. I think many people then saw there was going to be a change in our play and knew they would have to be patient. Then the start of the season wowed way too many people. Everyone thought that we were going to be amazing and their expectations went way too sky high. They needed to be more realistic. This season was always going to be really tough, but I know that we will reap the rewards in the future. I was expecting that there was going to be a really slow start to the season with so many new additions not knowing each other’s games, but that did not happen. I even got pulled in to the hype a little that this season was going to be perfect, but I still knew to hold back. From just a fan prospective, this season has been insanely entertaining. It has had everything; from controversy, to amazing play, to late winners, to the down right ugly. To think that this team of young, attacking players to gel this fast is outrageous. Yes, it may seem like we just let the players try and figure things out on the field but they are still new to each other. When you have so many players that are pretty similar, it is going to take a while when to know when to take over and when to take a backseat. The fact that they are all unselfish helps a lot, though. Now that we have hit a blip, everyone is freaking out and saying that we are out of ideas. If you gave me third place at this point before the season, I would have grabbed it and ran. Patience is something that we all need to use in this situation. Yes, we have problems, but this is a year of change. The potential for this squad is unreal, but in the present we need to be realistic.

His turn at 3:25 and again at 3:35 is pure class. Such an amazing touch

none of us are completely sure of the situation but it does seem it is maloudas fault where he is in that he wont take a pay cut but the one thing i do applaud him on is that he hasnt gone to the media and talked a bunch of shit about the club or really anything at all

I would say that he is really suited to english football by his style of play and England wont kill him. his long, direct balls that are so perfectly placed are sometimes what is needed to break down a stiff defense he brings something different to a team with his passing range and crossing ability. Vision is something that you are born with or you dont have it. he does