Styles

The players were tired. Pressing and counter-attacking at 200mph is not sustainable against a team who can keep the ball as well as PSG did.

I am nowhere near done supporting Jose. If there is a manager I want to get it right at Chelsea it's him. I just wish he was more progressive and had better ideas than what he has shown so far. Maybe he/the club needs to hire an attacking coordinator to work underneath him?

Of course there's a plan b. Plan B is to counter-attack at 300mph instead of plan A's 200mph. Tactical genius.

It is luaghable. Especially when he said this recently: Make up your mind Jose.

Mourinho 22/9/2013:

Better players next to him...behind him...ahead of him. Luiz and Ramires in midfield ffs

The sad thing is he was this bad from his very first game in a Chelsea shirt. His debut was one of the worst performances I've ever seen from a Chelsea player. It's been 3 years of utter shit, it's just relentless.

Thought we lacked balls tonight

The way some supporters talk as if we're just one striker away is nuts. We have deeper issues than just a striker.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but I still believe a more technically balanced team would be able to provide the quick interplay that you're talking about. The attacking players rely a lot on those behind them to initiate moves and play intelligent passes that allow to receive the ball when/where they want it. Look at how most top clubs have fullbacks that are essentially playmakers, they have technical ability that most (if not all) of our CM players don't even possess which is insane when you think about it.

Every player has a technical ceiling, they can't improve when they're already operating at their best possible level. When we have CBs like Luiz in midfield, Ramires in CM and Ivanovic at RB we're obviously going to suffer.

The truth is our team still lacks technique in several areas.

We've been more competitive than we have been in YEARS so it's a success. We still have issues but compared to recent years we're comfortably better so that's an improvement.

That's very impressive but surely that's an anomaly for Lukaku? I'm not averse to having him in the squad as I think he'd be a useful player but in my mind we need extremely technical players leading the line more than we need big physical strikers. Liverpool are currently scoring at will against teams with two technically gifted forwards. No big man, battering ram in sight. He may be sold to fund another transfer or because he won't settle for being more of a squad player rather than first choice. Jose can be petty at times but I don't think he'd get rid of him because of a small disagreement to be honest.

There are times when he finds a pocket of space and wants a quick pass so he can turn but the player on the ball just ignores him and plays a safe pass out to a fullback. He shows a lot of frustration when that happens quite often in a game.

Well we hardly had any guile or trickery against Palace so how do we know that it wouldn't work? That's exactly what we need more of in the team to provide a balance to just running at 100mph and playing counter-attack. We don't need a battering ram with sloppy technique to compound the problems. I don't see what Lukaku could have done to open up a team like Palace. Now I bet Sturridge would have been able to create something from nothing because he has dribbling ability, touch, technique and acceleration from a standing start that creates a yard or two of space.

He needs more help.

And that only came about via a deflection.

Yup, it's taken the players a lot of balls, grit and determination to overcome such obvious shortcomings.

Two clear chances in 90 minutes by my count. I do understand why supporters want a fantasy striker like Costa, we create so little that we need somebody that's really clinical.

I've seen a few Atletico games and they are what Mourinho is building us towards which is a very hardworking and efficient team. I think their tactics work better in Spain where there is a culture of teams trying to play and being open. We don't have that luxury in this league; teams are more than content to stick 11 men behind the ball even at home. We need more in our locker than pressing and counter-attacking.

Hazard's skillet doesn't include 'beat 8 players and score a goal or make a chance'. You're giving him too much credit if you think it does. Yeah it'd be naive of me to suggest we roll over teams like Palace but I've done nothing of the sort. I'm suggesting we should look to have enough ideas to at least create chances and know how to manage games that pan out this way. Torres is a crap but yesterday was more of a systemic and tactical issue than anything else in my opinion. Costa or whoever will struggle to score goals in this team. A better striker would just be more efficient with the scraps he's given, he won't single-handedly improve how the team functions or develop our play beyond what it is.

Because asking an individual player to waltz through 7-8 opponents is not a tactic. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone refer to an individual players’ contribution as a tactic in a team sport. When faced with teams that play like Palace we’re almost always clueless. No patters of play or rehearsed moves, just Ivanovic aimlessly lumping the ball into the box ad nauseam. I can't agree with your grit/determination rhetoric. Torres is crap, we've known this for years, comparing him to one of the best strikers in world football doesn't excuse what happened yesterday.

How did they lack balls exactly? Give clear examples of incidents throughout the match that lacked balls. It's such a convenient excuse to wheel out when you don't want to examine what happened. The players were committed as always but simply had no idea how to break down Palace. But forget quality or systemic problems, they just don’t have the fortitude because that’s easier to live with. How is saying we rely on Hazard magic when our one and only game-plan fails a contradiction? Are you implying that relying on a player to do something extraordinary is a viable alternative to actual tactics?

Strange comments after the game. The team needs more balls? What? Nonsensical. That in no way describes what happened yesterday. And obviously most supporters buy that and think a lack of balls is the problem. The team only really knows how to counter-attack and not much else. In almost every game we need to take the initiative and break teams down we struggle to create and rely on Hazard to make something happen.