Peace.

Wow... Teams are ready to splash 15m for a kid that has never played professional football and yet we manage to give him 0% chances ? What the hell ? And the worst thing is that next year we will buy ten average talents for 10m each just to send them on loan or whatso... What is the problem ? There lies a huge incoherence. And did we not learn anything with de Bruyne ? We sold him for 'decent' money—one year after that his price tag went on from 20-ish millions to 60-ish millions... And that only because he had the possibility to play...! This situation—if true—then it highlights two problems. When we have a special talent we fail to recognize him and instead we rather buy thousand of average ones. And the second one is that we cannot even manage to conclude good deals. I mean, the money we received from de Bruyne looks now ridiculous when his current price tag is considered. If you don't want to keep the player for x or y reason, okay that's fine. But at least play him or send him on loan to get the highest fee possible instead of gifting it to the other teams for fuck sake.

José would find that he shares a rather unexpected similar problem with Patrice; they have rats/traitors in their dressing room. Or maybe José was disguised in Patrice during that pc ? I don't know. Anyway, our situation is as bad as the Knysna circus parked bus. And that means only one thing : the situation is really bad and really ridiculous. P.S. oh, bus and rats seem to be a common theme for them; there's something we don't know..

The board needs to take a radical stance. As I have suggested they either needs to choose Mourinho or the (some) players. To make this decision it is important to assess both Mourinho and the squad/players. And a serie of questions needs to be sounded : can we rebuild entirely the team ? are some players expandable ? can we take the risk the finish within the mid table and forget europe ? is the manager the right one for the long term ? is our current brand of football what we want for the futur ? etc, etc.. We can sell the players fed up with Mourinho : Hazard ? Matic ? Remy ?? Oscar ??? Then there are the outdated players : Terry ; Ivanovic ; Cahill soon ? Fabregas soon ? Then there are the ones here for a short ride : Pedro ; Djilobodji ; Falcao. Then there are the not good enough : Ramires ; Mikel ; Cahill ?? Fabregas ?? We are left with Courtois, Costa, Azpilicueta, Willian ? and maybe/probably Zouma (and Begovic ?) as sound foundation for the futur. The rest are big question marks : Kennedy, Traore, Baba, rcl, ... To restructure our team will be a huge effort even without taking into account the clearing of the """anti""" Mourinho players. We have already waisted time and/or money with Lukaku, de Bruyne, Luis, Salah, Cuadrado, Schurrle (Falcao !!! and soon Pedro... and possibly Eto'o and Drogba). We also have lost good players : de Bruyne, Mata, Luiz. We lost a great deal with de Bruyne. It is important to understand that I am not discussing wheter we should have kept or not a particular player but and I am looking at the huge effort already realized. The whole clear out will be a huge and harsh task. I am at unease with the Ferguson analogies as it seems rather anachronistic to think his situation within the current world context. It happened indeed in a different era. And there are too few — if any aside of him — example of a team keeping a manager for more than ten years while enduring bad periods and where the manager successfully won the challenges. There is maybe Wenger, but I doubt he is the sweat dream of Chelsea people. You have also to consider that Mourinho is the one that caused the current break down. Whether it is rightly or wrongly, he's the one that brought the negativity inside the dressing room with the way people have been treated. Who's to say it won't happen with the next players ? It happened at Madrid, it happens now, it has all reasons to happen again. He is also directly the reason for which we have build upon a past-it back four and an archaic and patchwork defense (cb at rb and rb at lb ; non offensive fullbacks ; non ball players defenders); and wasting so many attacking talents. A few weeks after being champions, we cannot manage to sign players from Everton and get the interest of star players. How will we do when we are 10-ish and out of CL football and that our manager has in his last six years C.V. : two leagues won ; two dressing-rooms destroyed ; verbal fights ; many heads flying ; negative football ; more verbal fights ; one eye poked ; a classico turned into soap opera ; DEFENSIVE DUTY ; .. and even more verbal fights. That's not wanking material. Players across the world probably don't give two shit that he is one of us. The two options the board has at his disposal are unbalanced...

Yes and after there was the two games against PSG. Where as in regards to the League the opportunity was too big to miss and the reward too important to pass upon (and we had also a good opportunity in the league cup), we had slim chances in the UCL (Barça, Real, Munich...) and and Cup too far away to bother... Combined with a negative football, that is how you lose against ten men and eleven third division players that want the victory more than you. And as I have said, the predicament given to some players has certainly affected the dressing room. Ba was a great friend of Hazard and Eto'o seemed to have a good relationship with Eden and influence upon him — and Hazard himself was severly criticized by Mourinho (after the game against Atletico ?). De Bruyne and Lukaku cases have also certainly affected their national team mates Courtois and Hazard. Oscar's position in regards to the Mata saga must have been hard to handle. He involuntarily became the player that ousted the beloved Spaniard. And Mourinho did not really show him a strong backing as Oscar was easily expandable against the 'big' teams. Our Brazilian players also might have been affected by how the Luizs of the long-haor tribe were dumped. The strange case of Schurlle also had impact I believe... He seemed to be a lovely guy that can only be appreciated within the dressing room. There is Salah too... Maybe Bertrand and Cole... and Cuadrado ? Certainly Remy this season... One could even throw the Cech case. To replace him by Courtois was a hard decision but a necessary one. If the atmosphere is serene you can cope easily with that kind of situation. But when there is already a bad atmosphere, it can add unnecessary tensions. And more recently there is many other cases. Eva which seemed to be popular among the dressing room was kicked out of the club and in the process Mourinho — unconsciously or not — implied that Hazard was faking. He then once again attacked Hazard regarding his defensive commitment/capabilities... What happened/happens to Matic was really harsh. It is rude to be substituted after a few minutes — it is even harder when you are a substitute. And now he seems in and out of the team, just as Oscar. And Ivanovic's privileged position might also irritates the already irritated players as he is given a free pass to make as many mistakes as he can — as long as he discuss it with Mourinho (or in other words, that he bends his knee down to him..). That combined with the constant war with the world of Football is probably too much to handle. The situation is the result of many little things that when combined form a really bad thing. 8 games lost out of 16 (9 out of 17 if you had the shield..). 5 wins that aside from Arsenal were against West Brom, Maccabi, Aston Villa and Walsall... We have entered a zone of non-retour either the disapproving ones or the disapproved one have to go.

Definitely, the problems at least started at the start of the year and that Tottenham game. After the said game, everything went wrong and we went on to grind victories. At the time, because we were lacking insight it was impossible to realize how huge the problem was ; and instead we took that for a bad moment and we hailed the grinded victories as the sign of the champion. Although once we were officially champions, everything started to go completely south. It started with the three last games of the season that were more than mixed results. One could have said that it was a well deserved rest but our pre-season was even worse. And as soon as we started the league season, the total implosion started with that infamous game against Swansea highlighted by Mourinho throwing Eva his toys out of the club pram. What we are witnessing now his not the result of something that happened this summer. That is not because of a bad transfert window ; not because of a late pre-season ; not because some players decided the job was done and that one league title is enough. As I have mentionned above, our problems started at least since that Tottenham game. We held together because there was a title to be won, so we were able to go from one grinded victory to another grinded victory — and that was painful. And once the joint aim was achieved, all parts started to dislocate and we reached to current situation where nothing works anymore — as the only element allowing that broken machine to work is no longer here, that is a title at within reach. I will even say that the problems started earlier than that Tottenham game. If we had a positive start of the season, it is most certainly due to the addition of Fabregas and Costa, which have brought positivity and breath of fresh air. But once the novelty became no longer new, and that these two players took the fold, we started to strongly decline : this is the moment we entered the second part of the season... One could then hypothesizes that the problem is even older than the previous summer and take his roots within the first season. Therefore, the addition of Costa and Fabregas momentarily broke a decline that started that season ; and as I have said, as soon as the fresh air became a stale air, our form started to decline once again. Maybe that what happened with Ba, Mata, Eto'o, Luiz and KdB (and possibly Salah, Lukaku and Schurlle ?) is a huge factor in our current situation — a situation where there is clearly a clivage between the management team and the players. We could also think that the siege mentality and the negative football has taken the tool out of them... That is only, of course, speculation. Yet the it is certain that the problem goes beyond purely sportive aspects. Rumours and quotes circulating are maybe inflated and more sensational than true ; nonetheless they are evoquing areal problem, that is a toxic atmosphere in the dressing room. And we seem to go the Madrid patern..

His work-rate is neither bad nor excellent. It is just fine. And more importantly, it is perfectly good enough for the role Hazard has, i.e. our best (by far) attacking threat. Anyway, you just do not want your best attacking player to run too much after the ball... And if you deem your team not defensively good enough because your best attacking player does not run like one of those work-horses such as Willian/Ramires, then it means that you are looking in the wrong direction — and you should actually take a look at the defense and the defensive systeme, maybe ? I mean, come on... If Barcelona was regarded as one of the best defense under Guardiola, that is not because Messi was chasing the ball like a mad dog. I really do not know what Mourinho is trying to achieve here with those kind of comments. They are not to motivate Hazard as you do not motivate an attacking player to rediscover his attacking impetuous by saying he is a defensive liability... Is this a way find excuses for having benched him ? That would be a bad PR talk... Is it what he really thinks ? It would be just confessing that he himself is not that good as a coach since the defensive solidity of his team depends on the work-rate of an attacking player... I do not understand where he is coming from as this kind of comments is so wrong on many levels... P.S. maybe he is trying to say to him that he should call him more often like Ivanovic does ?

That is not stability, this is not true. Stability cannot be attributed to players or managers... They have a relatively short football life-span while clubs last for many generations. For instance, Mourinho coaches for a tad more than 10 years while the club exist for more than 100 years. Players and managers come and go and their profiles change just as regularly. How can such unstable elements bring stability to an entity that out-life them ? They do not and they cannot. Stability is not human flesh, this is a concept. A concept that transcends players, managers and even presidents. Actually, stability is none other than a clearly identified identity. Barcelona is the perfect example. In ten years they had four managers : Pep, Tito, Tata, Enrique. The players have also changed : only Iniesta, Messi, Alves and Piqué are remaining from Pep's first season. Despite the changes in players, in managers and in presidents, during all these years Barça enjoyed success — aside of Tata's season (where he still was not that far away from winning the league). And they did so while playing with the same identity. Of course their game changed a little bit from year to year. Yet its identity remained the same, i.e. an offensive and good-looking game based upon a highly technical group of players where the collective is greater than the individuality and a desire to do their game no matter the opposition. This clearly identified identity is a major aspect of their constant succes in the last decade, because this identity is shared from the academy to the first team players, and from the supporters to the presidents. That is stability. Another example : Arsenal and Wenger. During the last decade of his management at Arsenal, the club went from the Invincibles, to a group of teenagers trying to emulate Barcelona, to the actual group of mediocre mid-twenty players that pride itself in finishing fourth. That is not stability. That is a roller-coaster in terms of identity and in terms of results. Let's go back to Chelsea. Where is the stability ? Where is the identity ? We went from an "ok" game, to a delightful game, to an ugly game, to.... The 16th place. It has also been — and still is — a roller-coaster. If there was no stability since Roman took over, that is not because he sacked managers every new moon. That is because we hired managers that had nothing to do with each other and because we bought players for the sake of it, without any policy. In other words, we were unstable because we did not have any identity. And funnily enough, since the Torres debacle we are trying to build an identity (we mainly bought young, dynamic and up-coming players that are at least decent with the ball)... but it is all going up into smoke as we are speaking. Right now, the only stable element at the club — in regards to the sportive side — is Ivanovic's starting spot. Sacking Mourinho will only make one thing unstable : Ivanovic's starting spot.

I refuse to believe one second that Mourinho is getting more stick than Benitez. That is a ludicrous thing to assume. We asked for the spaniard's head even before his first game, and the general consensus throughout his stint was the eagerness to see him fuck off of this club. There were a few people that assessed him impartially, though the vast majority — including myself — was ready to throw him under the bus at any occasion. Whatever could happen, it was because of Benitez. You can also compare the Terry situation. When Benitez benched him, it was a national drama. When Mourinho does it, there is barealy any discussion regarding it. Even though people were rather complacent with Villas-Boas at first, as soon as Lampard started his act, people were calling him a fraud. And I do well remember that we were only a few to defend AVB on this forum. As for the players... When AVB decided to get rid of those who were not "bad" elements, people unilaterally destroyed him because he casted away poor Anelka, Alex and Kalou.. There were players that were criticized, such as Bosingwa, Torres, Mereiles, (Drogba ?), though nothing special. As for the actual situation, don't tell me that only Mourinho gets the stick. And no it is not only the usual suspects that get criticized; Actually, two third of them are not criticized right now, namely Ramires and Cahill... Overall, people desperately hope Ivanovic gets his fifth yellow card to be suspended... People are sick of Fabregas... People are acknowledging that Matic is significantly below the standard he set when we bough him back... People are worried about Hazard being a ghost of himself... People are labelling Falcao the second Torres... People are acknowledging that Remy is not all that... People are frustrated regarding Costa's production... People are as well frustrated regarding Willian... And Oscar... People are claiming that Terry might be hindering us (regarding the proactive defense, at least)... etc... People are also aware that the squad is not good enough as well as our starting eleven. Yes, our squad is also criticized ; a lot. Yes, our players are individually criticized ; a lot. Actually, the situation is exactly the same as it was with Ancelotti, Benitez, Villas-Boas and di Matteo ; i.e. the manager is criticized and his players as well. The only difference is that maybe... maybe there is a bigger amount of comments criticizing Mourinho... But there is also a lot of posts claiming people that dare to criticize Mourinho are not true fans and so on... And even if Mourinho is more criticized than the others, that is logical. He is after all the self appointed "Special One" ; he is the guy that only improves year after year. He is considered the best coach in the world... It is kinda logical to criticize more heavely the best coach for a poor job than the not so good one... The bottom line is that Mourinho is not criticized more than the players — the pooor boy —, that is just a fallacy. Players also get their fair share of stick ffs;..

Well, since it is a "game" based upon results... Not having good results might be just one problem but that is a huge one, isn't it...

Exactly. Somehow I do not want him to get axed, because I dread the club to be once again in a managerial merry-go. Even though, the time will come — probably sooner than later — when we will have to part our way with him. And to be honest, I think he just has a few games to get things right. Unlike Manchester United, we cannot afford to undergo a few dark years. We neither are a major brand nor have we that "history" to fall back upon. To stay at the top, we are heavily dependant to successful results. A year without CL football could prove to be catastrophic for us — especially if that happens after a season dotted with fiasco such as what happened with Carneiro, i.e. a very bad publicity for the club. Moreover, comes May, Manchester City will most certainly have as many PL trophies in their cabinet as us... Just let that sink in... Our rank within English football could take a huge damage... We clearly have to make things happen — and quickly. However all the odds are against Mourinho here. First off, his past history advocates against him : his first stint at this club, and his spell at Real... and as for Inter one could say he left the ship before it sank. Furthermore, our troubles are not new. They are visible since the start of the calendar year — and I put emphasis upon the notion "visible", as they existed long before that. Though, nothing has been done last season ; the situation was not addressed this summer, quite the contrary ; and nothing is being done to change things right now, i.e. same line-up and mentality/tactics over and over again. Bearing that in mind, one could certainly wonder is the right manager for the futur. And by that I mean both the end of the seasons and forthcoming seasons. Whether you like it or not, his position at the club has to be questionned. Regardless of the results, if he is not even able to change his intents, whether it be the strategy, the style of play, the tactic or the starting line-up... Then he does not left the club with many choices but to sack him...

This. Fabregas has two shortcomings. * He is immobile — even the Laocoon statue seems to have more movement than him. This is the main reason as to why he is not a big game player. Big game means high intensity, and he just cannot keep up to the rhythm. * He is "poor" defensively. This is the case not necessarily because he is not powerful, lacks work-rate or does not know how to tackle — to be frank, would he be the "flying-tackler" that he still would be poor defensively. Once again it is intimately bound to his mobility — or rather lack of. Nonetheless, we still play him in big games. He is by default not good because he cannot keep up with the intensity of the game ; but okay that is fine. He should be able to provide goods through his technic. But here comes the second problem : we ask him to relentlessly defend in a team fashioned to be all but technical and offensive. In other words, we have a player that has a "default" shortcoming in big games — but instead of trying to nullify it we do our best to manifest his second shortcoming !! So no wonders we have a piss poor footballer in our hands in such situations...

You are right, Skipper. We have right now many problems, but this one is among the biggest. Your "big game" player cannot be an average player such as Ramires, who is above all poor technically. You especially cannot play him as a winger. As soon as you make this move, even before the kick off, you know that you will concede the midfield domination and that you will play as the inferior team that tries to hold on and get a result. From a technical point of view, this move is bad. But the stance you take when you make it is even worse, this is a bad message. That is why if Oscar cannot play the big games (whatever the reason is, but it seems to become a fact), then it is necessary to find someone to be our starting n°10. Because to replace Oscar by Ramires in every "big" games, it is already bending a knee to your opposition.

My words, he has been programmed on a binary program : 0 = miscontrols the ball1 = miserably falls on the groundRinse and repeat. Though you can mix a bit the numbers if you want to add some fun.

What you are saying is very interesting and can be related to another recent 'issue' : Ivanovic being undropable and vice-captain. The serbian has to be an emblematic figure into the dressing room (after Terry (and Mikel lol) he is our oldest serving player, after all) and by the looks of it, he is definitely Mourinho's "general" (undropable and VC). So if what you are suggesting has some truths in it — and in my opinion, there are many —, one situation could explain the other. He wants a figure of the dressing-room to be by his side to act as a support so he is not singled out by the whole like what happen in Real..

Why, oh why José promoted him as vice-captain ? Ivanovic wearing the armband like today is one of the lowest points since Mourinho came back — and I weight my words. He may be a "warrior" but he is not a leader, far from it... That is not even the biggest problem ; it is that he is the archetype of the anti-leader ! He just is not bothered by nothing : it takes shots thinking he is Roberto Carlos ; he cannot be bothered to defend when the opposition crosses ; leaves his position to play as high as our striker ; etc.. I hope the next time he wears the armband is while playing for the reserve team..

Funnily enough, on that special event our medical staff was, in a way, probably understanding football better than mister Mourinho. It is never a good thing to start the season buy losing points, but there are 37 games remaining to do better. So why would anyone risk to un-attend by far our best player in order to potentially get two more points when we desperately need him to get the 111 remaining points ? Especially when the very next game against City is definitely greatly important as they are the more potent title rival ? It neither was the Champions League final nor was it the last few games of the League. They was no reason to take such a risk. Mr Mourinho can say what he wants regarding our physios, but he would have looked like a proper idiot if Hazard was unavailable for some times — and in this case, it is more than two points that we would lose...

Good, we do not need them anyway.. Mr Mourinho knows when a player is injured or not ; and he understands the Football — he can take care of the situation all by himself, we do not need physiotherapists.

If one naively reads throughout this debate, he would end up believing that the pre-season is the bread and butter of the professional footballer — if anyone were unfortunate enough to miss one, he would suffer from inconsistency and tiredness for the forthcoming seasons. In the same way, one would come to believe that Oscar is a modern slave footballer and that he plays twice as many as other players. One counter example : Neymar. Oscar played the JO in 2012, the Confederation in 2013 and the World-Cup in 2014. Okay. Neymar played the Copa America in 2011, the JO in 2012, the Confederation in 2013 and the World-Cup in 2014. Let's compare the minutes played by both players since 2012 — i.e. Oscar's last season in Brazil —, the result is (excluding friendly games with their club and their national team) : Oscar : 13 123 Neymar : 14 582 Neymar has roughly played 1 400 more minutes than Oscar, which equates to 15,5 games (roughly four games per seasons). Moreover, Neymar has played 3 248 minutes in friendlies with Brazil while Oscar 2 153 — in other words, 1 100 more minutes, i.e. 12 games on four years / three games a season. Basically, Neymar has played some seven full games in more than Oscar, and this in the last four seasons/years. Furthermore, he did all that while being the Star of Brazil and Santos and basically carrying Brazil during the World-Cup (and to some extent Santos in the Libertadores). On top of that, if my informations are correct, then he has only played one friendly game when he joined them two years ago. Yet, it did not stop him to be the joint top-scorer of the Champions League with Messi and Ronaldo — and if I am not mistaken, also the first player in history to score in the quarters, the semis and the final of the same competition. Regarding Messi and Cristiano, they amounts to a little more than 15 000 minutes each, in the last four season — and that is solely including their appearances in La Liga and in the UCL... Another reference : Fabregas — he played in the last four seasons 14 032 minutes for in club (La Liga, PL, Fa Cup, League Cup, Copa del Rey) and 2109 for Spain (professional and friendly games). Hazard with 14 903 in club (only including BPL/Ligue 1 and UCL/EL) and 2 720 with Belgium, also in the last four seasons. To conclude, yes Oscar has played a huge amount of football since 2012. But he is not the only one in this case ! Albeit these players have never suffered continuously from a second-half-of-the-season-disappearance. I am agree to say that in 2012/2013 he played too much as he had like one and a half year of continuous football. Nonetheless one cannot attribute eternally his huge inconsistency to too much football (he is not the only one) and no pre-season. We need to admit that he is an inconsistent player and that it is his nature — he is not the first to be like that and neither will be the last. No need to hide his problems behind unsound excuses as tons of players were like this, are like this and will be like this.

To be honest, if there were a player nearing his thirties on whom we should take a bet to reinforce our squad it is definitely Pedro. With the ball at his feet he is very good (as are every player from La Masia), he is good with both feet and can play on both wings. He also can play as a striker as well — even though we would not be able to play him there a lot (in regards to our game style and our league), he may be a more than decent third choice as a striker : he could play at this position for the odd last minutes of a game and even maybe start the unimportant games, in order to rest Costa and Rémy. Plus, as a substitute, he seems to have a good productivity in regards of goals and assists : for 15 games started and 20 as a sub, he scored 6 and assisted 6. In terms of productivity, it is better than Oscar, Willian and even Hazard (if you take into account Pedro's substitute status and his lesser role) — and Bambi on Ice Mark II, i.e. Cuadrado. He has also as a very good work-rate and good defensive capabilities — he was one of the very first of the breed of the modern AM (i.e. an attacking player that does an important defensive role). During Pep era, he was great for Barça and Spain — he was even world-class in that treble season in 2011. Moreover, in bonus, he is a player that has won : 3 Champions League ; 5 La Liga ; 1 World-Cup ; 1 Euro. In other words, he has won a lot and has experience at the highest level.... To make a long story short, he is everything that Falcao is not : he is a winner (the Colombian played just ONE season in the UCl....) ; he is fast ; he is a good option on the bench as he can play in all the three forward positions ; he is a good squad player as he has shown last year that he is a productive substitute (whereas we are left in the dark concerning what Falcao can bring from the bench) ; and more importantly, he is not a pale and crooked copy of his former self and he is not coming from a serious injury. Unfortunately, we chose to sign Falcao... That is a pity because Pedro would have definitely been a better option to have on the bench than both Falcao and Cuadrado... Though concidering we have already Falcao and still have Cuadrado, I am not really sure it is a good idea to sign a player for the bench... It is really important to have enough squad players — but it is a problem when you have too many of them. Though if we were to manage to somehow get rid of Cuadrado, he would be a good option to look for.

Tomo, I agree on the fact that moving Azpilicueta away from the left-back position is not among our top priorities. Nonetheless, it should not be at the bottom of the list of priorities — and if it were to be, then it still should not be considered as unimportant. On the big picture, despite his defensive qualities, playing Azpilicueta on the left hurts and hinders the potential of the team. And anyway, if our top priority(ies) were to be fixed, then playing him on the left side would be rendered meaningless. I do not believe that it is overlooked that his defensive ability on one on one allows Hazard to have a 'free' role. Actually, until recently it was consensually admitted that it was the reason for which he was played on that side (at least from what I do remember reading). Yet methinks it is hardly the case. Hazard produces a lot of defensive work and even though he might be the player with the less defensive duties, he still has to defend too much to suggest he has a 'free role' — do people over here not complain (and rightly so) that he has too much defensive work to do ? As it has been mentioned a few times already on this forum, the real reason for which the spaniard is played out of position is to give protection to John Terry. The latter, despite all his qualities, can barely run and thus is very vulnerable in one against one situations — bar the moments when he is in our box while the game is slow. Without that reinforcement, the left side of our defense would be a major weakness ; and that is true enough that Luis cannot solve that problem whereas Azpi is perfect for it. Yet, I would go even further down that explanation. Cesare is not played there to erase Terry's weakness but because he is our only defender whom is reliable in one vs one situations — and unfortunately his natural position on the other side has been yielded ad vitam æternam to that tugish serbian. The latter believes that he is a striker while Terry's partner plainly refuses to engage into one vs one and would rather drink the kool-aid. If Terry would not have to babysit Cahill, then it would not be fundamental to play what is actually a third defender as a left-back. Thus Azpilicueta is not meant to grant a 'free-role' to Hazard but is meant to palliate Terry's deficiencies whilst Terry himself has to palliate those of his two partners on the right side. And far from granting a 'free-role' to Hazard, it isolates him as Azpi cannot provide him any help. Despite all the genius he has in him, the Belgian cannot do wonders all alone — only Messi can, to some extend, and even him needs a minimum of support. That is why the situation needs to change because it hinders greatly Hazard's efficiency. And to bounce back to your first point, moving Azpi away from the left is not the priority ; the priority is to have a dominant and proactive center-back to partner Terry, that is a proper defender. And once it is done, the next move is to move the spaniard back to the right side and play Luis at left-back or whoever is left-sided and can contribute in attack !

I am agree with you Skipper, a player of his likes would do wonders to our team. As of right now, we only possess two technical superior players. This is simply not enough and it is the reason for which we cannot impose our game when we meet a half decent team. It is not even a question to replicate Pep's Barça — because no team will be able to reach such technical abilities. Nevertheless, football is primordially "foot" and "ball", that is to say controlling a ball with your feet. We deeply need more technical abilities in our team if we want to reach the superior level ; if we want to go from being a very good side to being a great side. Technical abilities can be found in abundance in the best and most successful teams of the last three/four years — I wish we would emulate that. A line composed of Hazard-Götze-Willian with Cesc behind them would be technically very sound ; and while it may yet not be the best, it would help us to control the game and impose a real threat toward the opposition's goal. It might soften a bit our working-rate capacity, but at the end of the day work-rate neither score goals nor make assists. And anyway, if Dortmund could live with him, why should we not be able to ?!

Jorge Mendes is really a double-edged sword, isn't he ? On the one hand he can get you great players — though on the second hand he can get you atrocious deals. Anyone remember Bebé ? Mendes pulled him out from nowhere to sell him for 9 millions to Ferguson, even though the latter admitted to never have seen him play once. The player eventually played twice for ManU and could not even command a spot on Benfica's bench when he was afterward sold to them.

To disregard Costa's performances with his national team is one thing ; to disregard Falcao's performances with his national team is quite another. These are two distinct realities. On the first hand, you have Costa that played only four games at that time : two before the WC and two during it. Four games is hardly a base good enough to judge a player. Furthermore, in his characteristics and his style of play, he is a ufo to the Spanish team and anyway Spain was not meant to play with a traditional striker. Plus, if I got that right, then there were only three players in the team that he ever played with (Koke, Juanfran, Villa), and it happened that they did not play when Costa did play (WC). And of top of that, Spain was in a huge crisis. On a second hand, you have Falcao that has played some 60 games for Colombia and has scored I think some 25 goals. Adding to that the fact that the Colombia team led by him was said to be a team to reckon with at the World Cup, it is safe to say he is familiar with his national team, the style of play and his team-mates ; and that he was at some extent a success for Colombia and a major asset for the team as well. Where there are/were all the reasons in the world to disregard Costa's performances with Spain — anyone knew it would be a failure before he even played —, there are many reasons to be worried in regards of Falcao's own performances with his national side. One might say that the Colombian team as a whole underperforms, although I really doubt it reaches the level of underperformance that Spain showcased. And even so, one can wonder why Colombia did a very good World-Cup without their star. And anyway, there is a major difference. Costa was great before the WC — four poor games are not enough to shadow a great season — and he was good after. As for Falcao, he seems to translate his ManU form into his national team — there are few reasons to disregard his form with Colombia and he is most likely to hold the same form in the forthcoming season.

Look, over the last few weeks he was pretty adventurous with Zouma ; but as soon as something went wrong — i.e. the game against PSG at the Bridge —, he went back to his deep shell and automatically returned, without any consideration, to his classical line-up : ivanovic-Cahill-Terry-Azpi-Matic-Fabregas-Willian-Oscar-Hazard-Costa. Cahill, against Paris, produced one of the most embarrassing piece of defending that I have ever seen ; so embarrassing that even Terry got his mind messed up. And obviously, if that was not enough, it led to their goal... But of course he gets the nod ahead of Zouma, even though the later would have been a better fit in regards of his pace (and because he is simply better). You can add Oscar... He was so useless against Paris that he was subbed off at half time, yet he is still starting the next game (and played 80 minutes of that games). And that is the case for some other players. Ultra-conservatism and a negative approach both in his tactics and his line-up ; as I said, he went back to his shell — because Mourinho is insecure and frail. If you ask me, it is all because of his spell in Madrid, and especially the last year. His results at Madrid have been lukewarm in comparison of what he achieved at Porto, Inter and Chelsea. Of course his last two seasons at Chelsea were not that great and he ended up to be sacked — but he was still the Special One and the young, shining and cocky manager. The difference is that in Spain medias were not buying that "Special One" thing ; and the fact that he "fail" have broken him, in my opinion. And if you compare last season with this one, you can also grasp his frailness. Indeed, last season, when we had the excuse of the "transitional season" and "Torres", he had a security cushion to be "adventurous". We won twice against City, which was a better team than it is this season and the intensity and the will to score that we showcased in the away fixture was incredible. It was the same against Liverpool home and away, Soton away... And Arsenal at home, where we took full advantage of our numerical superiority — something we failed against Paris and City. However, this year is a different story. Each time we meet a half-decent team, we merely resort to ultra-conservative and negative tactics ; we just give up on playing football all together (attack and defense). Mourinho is too much afraid to lose now that he has to win. It is the same situation with his behaviour in the medias. Of course he has always been cocky, but this season it is more than assurance and pride, it is a wounded animal that defend himself by being overly aggressive. Unfortunately, as long as he will not win trophies again on a "regular" basis, he will be that insecure manager that plays (or does not play) to not to lose. I though the League Cup would have given him back some life, but it seems the wound he has will need more than that to heal...

Soooo.... I presume it is pretty safe to say he is saving himself for the Copa America 2015 ?