Styles

To be honest, Oscar almost always looks on the verge of tears. I don't believe Oscar lacks confidence, he's just been unfortunate to miss some of the chances you mentioned.

This not a insult to you so don't take it personally, but I've seen that suggested a few times and I just think people are really desperate to shoehorn Mata into the side somehow. It's even more surprising to suggest that after Oscar just put in one of the most brilliant tactical performances you will ever see from a young attacking player. Mata couldn't have provided that sort of performance in a game like that in his wildest dreams. How can you advocate putting Oscar in DM after the game last night? It just doesn't make sense. If/when we play Bayern, Barcelona, Madrid, Atletico, Dortmund and Utd/City (i.e. the big European/English teams) Oscar will always play CAM unless he's injured. I doubt Mata will even play against those teams let alone displacing one of our most important players from by far his best position.

I think he shut up a few people last night. Very good performance from a talented and extremely hard-working player.

Excellent news. Future captain.

Because it's getting too damn hot in herre at Chelsea.

Good thing we have an international break after the game tonight; Eto'o (and Willian for that matter) can spend the next two weeks getting fit and settling in London. Everton away on the 14th, a brief cameo of 20-30 minutes there wouldn't surprise me.

I think you two will enjoy this great video :tophat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQmvIBkivZI

Pecking order: Eto'o Lukaku Torres Demba loan/transfer. Lukaku is likely to cause more problems coming off the bench than Torres. Look at the impact Lukaku had against Villa: he put himself about, created one good opportunity for himself that he narrowly missed and was a real presence. Now contract that with Torres coming off the bench against Utd, his sole contribution was to very nearly cost us the game with a turnover with about 30 seconds to go.

Kalouda

We sat very deep and Utd had the territorial advantage. Of course the game was slow, we were playing defensive/counter-attacking football and it became a tight affair as a result. My issue is when we were in possession Ramires-Lampard do not provide the sort of precision play and ingenuity I think we need in that area. If they are going to be first choice then it doesn't inspire much confidence in that regard as I don't think either will provide that from the middle of the park.

Control the tempo? I must have watched a different game. Dogged defensively and credit to them for that but they did not control or provide any telling passing whatsoever.

I wasn't sure when we were first linked with Willian back under AVB, but after watching him play well against us twice I can see he's a brilliant player. To anybody who is still sceptical ask you to think back to last season when Oscar, Hazard and Mata were played to exhaustion because Benayoun and Marin were the alternatives. Think of that time we played Bertrand at LW in a Champions League final. Now look at all the options we have. Absolutely amazing.

I would have been afraid to face the perfectly balanced and machine-like Bayern last season but they haven't looked anything like that under Guardiola. Think we'll see more reactive, counter-attacking football as Bayern dominate possession. We just need to be better and more precise on the counter than we were against Man Utd.

Tough luck. Torres' salary means he can't be moved on and Lukaku is a long-term player, that leaves Ba as the easiest player to move on out of the three forwards. Wish him well for the future.

He made a lot of of unforced errors, several times there was little to no pressure on him and he got relatively simple balls horribly wrong. This wouldn't be so bad if at least one of the pivot players was somebody who controlled and linked play, but alongside Lampard we just lack so much precision play and ingenuity in the middle of the park. That just compounds the problem with Ramires' shortcomings. I absolutely understand why he is a valuable player because the athlete that he is is very rare in football, but something has to give with the pivot/central midfield sooner rather than later.

What disrespect? Point it out. It can't be my comment about Lampard's age in relation to his game time so far. I'm baffled as to how that can be interpreted as disrespect, there has to be something else so let's hear it.

Do ignore my comments if they reduce you to a swearing mess. The player preferred Ajax but the close relationship between Chelsea and Vitesse changed things considerably.

Van Ginkel should have been strong and pushed for Ajax. He would have Champions League football and a real chance of 2014 World Cup. We already had plenty of young midfielders to waste in the youth team. There was no reason to spend 9m for another one.

Bet he regrets making the move. 15 minutes of football in the previous two games and sat in the stands today watching a 35 year old play his third game in just over a week. Wouldn't be surprised if he heads out on loan at the last minute.

Send him on loan and stop wasting valuable development time that he will never get back.

I don't think Mata will start tonight and won't start against Bayern on Friday. Very evident in the Shakhtar game at home too. And Villas scored like that with Benteke last week.

Really want Azpilicueta to start this one. Hope Luiz is fit too play as well.

One thing I'm looking forward to is finding out what the actual transfer fee is. I doubt it's the 30m being reported. The transfer is starting to make sense to me the more I think about it. I think Mourinho, having spent more time with the players and played some games, has had a rethink and the line-ups/rotations he planned have had to be altered or even scrapped. Something has changed and I personally think it's to do with Mata's performance against Villa. He was obviously not fully fit but perhaps Mourinho saw something he doesn't like? Might sound extreme and it's just guesswork but I doubt Mata will feature at RW, he'll be competing for CAM with Oscar. De Bruyne/Willian - Oscar/Mata - Hazard/Schurrle Moses unfortunate to miss out after a strong pre-season. Or maybe he stays part of the AM rotation and Schurrle moves further forward. Will be very interesting to see how this works out.

The thing is, Ashley isn't able to do that any more. He has lost a lot of pace and doesn't carry the offensive threat of a Marcelo or Shaw. He's a defensive full-back now and doesn't contribute much going forward besides sporadic decoy runs to open up some space. I feel we are missing out on having somebody at LB that Hazard can link-up with. Look at the understanding Baines and Pienaar have, it's absolutely tremendous. We don't have that on either flank.

This is nothing new really. Ashley has offered very little going forward for a few years now. Compare that to somebody like Marcelo, who in the friendly against Madrid spent virtually the entire game in our half causing problems. If Ashley has a great game nowadays it's when we play very defensively and he just has to worry about marking his opponent and covering his CB ala the Champions League final. I honestly can't remember the last time I watched a game and thought 'Ashley has done a great job going forward'. It was probably in Carlo's first season, that's how long ago it was. I really like the kid Shaw at Southampton. The way he carries the ball and beats players, he goes both inside and out and is a real threat. His performance against West Brom on the opening day was brilliant and he won them the game. I really hope he is a Chelsea player in the future.