Styles

To be fair to Ancelotti I'm pretty certain he has little to no say on player recruitment so in that sense it's hard for him to establish his own style.

Aguero is currently the better player. Neymar has more potential. Lukaku? No thanks.

I'd rather keep Essien ahead of Lampard in the team if only for his athleticism. Lampard is gradually starting to become a problem. Unlike Scholes in his old age he doesn't have the ability to just sit and dictate possession. He's a box-to-box midfielder that is on his last legs.

Which is a problem of a personnel. We have such an unbalanced squad it's mind-boggling. We have some great individual players but Utd for instance have a much better mix in their squad. We don't have a playing style because there is nothing to build a style with so we have to play the only way available which is go long. Drogba and Torres are great targets so use them and follow up on the knock downs. There was a time when we had great wingers that stretched play (Duff + Robben), a target man (Drogba), a support striker that could link play (Gudjohnsen). It was a great mix.

The premise of this topic is that we have a group of players unable to play the football they are asked to. We don't have passers like Barcelona and we don't have flying wingers like Utd. We are essentially an athletic team that should be playing direct football. Mikel and McEachran aside the current midfield couldn't pass if their lives depended on it. The group of 'wingers' we have are currently the worst of any big club in Europe. They are utter rubbish and wouldn't make teams like Stoke or Wolves ahead of players like Etherington and Jarvis. The only time we look dangerous is when the ball is played directly to our forwards and we gamble on the 50-50's. We need to start playing more direct up and at ‘em football like Stoke and less like a geriatric Barcelona.

I hope Malouda and Zhirkov f*ck off in the summer. We need to move away from 'wingers' like them who can't run or cross or offer any sort of creativity. Nani did more in 15 minutes last night than Malouda and Zhirkov have done in the last month.

Last night just proves my point. One Robben game is worth 10 Malouda and Zhirkov performances. They aren't fit to clean his boots. Our wingers are pitiful. The worst group of wide men of any top club in Europe. Beat a player? Cross a ball? Pah. These jokers would struggle to make the Stoke/Wolves team ahead of players like Etherington/Jarvis.

Agreed. A nightmare season that is full of false dawns. I sort of accepted that we're just not good enough and nowhere near as good as we used to be but still it's no less depressing. Our midfield and attack is just an utter mess, no cohesion at all. We have no style of play, no balance, no options and a rubbish coach. If there are no major changes in the summer things will only continue to get worse because all the other teams are getting better.

Cech 6 Bosingwa 3 Ivanovic 7 Terry 7 Ashley 6 Ramires 6 Lampard 3 Essien 4 Zhirkov 2 Torres 7 (tried his hardest and denied by a wonder save) Drogba 7 (created a lot of problems for Utd)

Lampard doesn't measure his performance on passing or linking up play. He simply measures his performance on how many goals he scores. He can make the sideways pass but will struggle to create angles or forward momentum with his passes. For instance there was a chance to break with Malouda running down the left and Lampard played the ball at 0mph BEHIND Malouda and it completely killed the chance to attack. Awful play which just sums up his game since coming back from injury.

This. He is a fraud but the weak squad we have is not helping to be fair.

New manager come to Chelsea and drop Lampard? Highly unlikely. He's getting 150k a week for the next two years. I'm amazed the club gave a 30 year old player a 5 year contract. Just shows how silly the people who run the club are.

Oh and by the way Lampard was shocking tonight. He is getting even worse with every game. He is going to be a big problem for us in the next few years; a declining Lampard that will still be guaranteed to start week in week out because nobody has the balls to bench him.

It's all well and good saying 'expose Valencia' but nobody in our team can beat him for pace and nobody in our team is tricky enough to cause him problems. And even on the off chance somebody can get by him who can deliver a cross? Nobody. Our wingers are pitiful, that's why we always go through the middle. And even then the creativity in the middle is shocking but that's another story. We are devoid of any pace, creativity or crossing ability. Utd have Rooney, Nani and Valencia that can provide all 3 of those things in attacking areas. Only Drogba is likely to make something happen and he was unlucky tonight.

And Gomes profitied twice off his 'selfishness' in the two games. Robben is an incredible football player. Even if he plays 30 games a season it would be worth it.

I would love it if he came back. LOVE IT.

Which goes to show just how badly Malouda is playing.

Oh so because we don't sell out even the dead rubbers we can never have a bigger stadium? We could easily fill a 55,000 capacity 95% of the time imo.

Was only joking (thought that was obvious) but why would we sell a 23 year old incredible talent with 10+ years ahead of him. I see Mikel as a future captain, the idea of losing him makes me sick.

Stamford Bridge is usually sold out. Using the Copenhagen game as an example of poor attendance is silly. Who wants to pay £57 to watch a dead rubber against a bunch of journey men? No thanks.

If Mikel is sold I will stop supporting Chelsea. :mellow:

If Lampard had any sense about him he would have retired after the World Cup.

Yeah he obviously forgot to put this smiley in the post.

He was fantastic in his first two seasons at the club. He became more of a squad player after that but his effort and commitment is incredible. We can all agree he is one of the good guys. I do think he might be off sooner rather than later. We can only have a certain amount of foreign players in the squad and Ferreira is fast becoming surplus to requirements.

This is the game Torres scores his first goal*. *Unless he gets injured on international duty.