Bir_CFC

City and Liverpool just going all out attack. Could turn into another City - Arsenal scoreline for either team. Still think we can do good against both these teams. Play similar to how we played Arsenal. 4-3-3 pack the midfield and play on the counter, best way to get at both these teams. How shocking was that offside decision against Sterling though, one of the worst I've ever seen.

Criticize the finishing and the strikers, but if you're crying about the performance then fuck off. We fucking DOMINATED that game but like always no end product to put an exclamation on that domination. Gotta sort it out, it's getting beyond ridiculous now.

Great video. Luiz was awesome. JT amazing and can't believe he got a small interview with Roman too. Amazing. Love Chelsea!! Great kid too, Oran.

I can understand people wanting to go for the win against Arsenal, but let's be honest we haven't been in form and players haven't really been playing that confident either. A loss at Arsenal and it well and truly would have caused massive panic attacks everywhere. That said, we have to win next two home games against Swansea and Liverpool.

I would have been happy with a point before the match. Our recent results, low confidence I was fearing the worst and not only is the result a good one, the performance was good. Btw, the final action was missing on the majority of our attacks but a couple counters, especially one with Willian and Hazard was one of the fastest and most amazing counters I have ever seen in my life. If that somehow would have resulted in a goal, it would have been one of the greatest ever Chelsea goals. Willian took the ball, sprinted by like 2 Arsenal players, passed to Hazard, and without hesitation he dribbled right into like 3 more and still kept the ball and passed it off to someone else and another pass or two and it got misplaced, but lord have mercy blood rushed into my penis during that attack. Willian and Hazard is the way to go. If we can improve the midfield so we dont have to resort to a 4-3-3 then Hazard, Willian, Schurrle in a 4-2-3-1 for the big games is a counter-attacking MONSTER!!

Love you man!!! YES GOT ME PUMPED TOO!!!

I have no doubt we'll split possession with them at most 60/40. Arsenal link up quickly. It's his slowness (combined with Terry's) that worries me the most. I'm sure we'll be playing pretty deep. It shouldn't expose our CBs too much. At least that's what the game plan looks like.

With us playing on the counter and with Mikel in front of them, he shouldn't have to be in too many 1 on 1 situations. This kind of game is a little more suited to Cahill imo.

If it's 4-3-3 then I think it's a good lineup. Hazard and Willian on the wings and both can get at their opposing fullbacks. And Lamps will be able to get forward and do what he does best, which is score goals. This is how Lamps should be used, because the way the team has been playing, he's the only one I'd always trust to score a goal if given the chances. Better be a 4-3-3

Have you seen Eto´o there ?Yeah I do. He's on the bench.

Wtf has Eto'o done to get in the squad over Ba? <br />Happy that Willian starts, def deserves it. But not sure why we couldn't play Schurrle or Oscar RW, have they let Mou down on their defensive work? Unless it's a 4-3-3.

So nervous. Would bust a nut if we win, but I'll take a point. <br />Mourinho's gotta earn his worth tonight. Firstly he's gotta get his tactics right and secondly, gotta instill some confidence in the team because it's gotta be pretty low right now. Come on Chelsea, give me a sexy ass early Christmas gift.

We have Mikel who completes 92% of his passes but does nothing with them. This guy might not be as consistent a passer but there's a lot more adventure in his play and that's what we're lacking in that midfield, especially against teams who sit deep and defend for 90 minutes. If this guy has a shot in the 5th minute then in the 24th he might draw a defender out of position who thinks he'll have another pop - that creates space. He can also take the ball through the first line rather than waiting for Oscar to drop deep and take the ball off him, and he's got a decent physical presence. This could go either way but I'm hopeful that Jose sees something in him to remedy our woes. I think he'll def help, but I don't share your optimism, hopefully I'm wrong though. He's an upgrade to Essien for sure. Another option to spell the others and really he won't be worse than the others. To me he's being brought in so we don't sabotage our season if another mid goes down with injury. I also think he's dynamic in his play compared to everyone else other than Rami but I still rather have a clever passer in there who is able to find the immensely talented Hazard in good positions rather than run through the first line themselves to create a goal. I just want to put our attacking mids in positions where they can do what they do best rather than a player who creates a chance himself. I want the guy who will make the pass before the assist cause that means he's making others around him better.

Yes we do. This guy has the tools to be exactly what we need. He's capable of putting a good pass in, he can run well with the ball and he can shoot from distance. Those last two are what we've missed in that midfield. Teams don't have to worry about our midfield doing much more than passing sideways and it's got to the point where even Lamps looks reluctant to shoot from distance. This guy's biggest problem is his consistency. If he can find some under Jose then he could be an important player for us. If not then he fills a role for a few years as the new Mikel. If he was a good passer then I'd agree with you. But I don't think he is a good passer. Every time I've watched him he's looked sloppier than Ramires on his worst days.

He's not a world beater but he can press, he covers some ground and we currently lack dynamic/mobile midfieldersNo we don't. We lack a ball playing mid, not another runner. Sure another runner won't hurt, and will be able to spell Ramires but our weakness is that our mids have zero ounce of creativity within them. None of them have the confidence to be able to put in early balls to our attackers. Luiz is the only one who even attempts this and he's not a mid. We need someone who has the ability to pick out an attacker positioned between the lines, not when they drop deep and receive an easy pass and then turn around to face two banks of four.

But you can argue that all of our options at CM atm should be squad players and what we need for that position is a world-class player. Plus 18m for a squad player? Then there's that he doesn't really fit a 2-man central midfield, and that there's better options available for about the same price or even cheaper...etc Are there more options available? Not calling you out, I'm just curious. Imo it's a good deal because as I said before, he won't solve our problems but he'll ensure we don't completely sabotage the rest of the season by not reinforcing the midfield at all.

People are looking at this like Jose is bringing him in to solve our midfield problems. No, he isn't going to solve anything. Solving should have been done last summer, now it'll be done next summer. Guarin is only coming in to make sure they don't get worse before we can find a solution next summer. At least Jose has identified that the midfield needs help.

Damn, sucks for AVB, especiallly considering he turned out PSG to stay at Spurs.

Not going to say he's the answer to our problems, but no reason why he can't become a part of the squad next season. He's got great physical attributes for the PL.

Why do this? We don't need him. Leverkusen are interested in KDB too. Let's do a swap for Lars Bender. Does that not make a lot more sense??

Maybe he should have gotten more game time. But guys like Willian and Azpi were in the same boat as him and they made their chances count. He got two starts after he was initially benched early in the season, and was the worst player on the pitch both times. Unfortunately, after that he hasn't gotten any mins to redeem himself, but that's how it works. You can't give him minutes just cause he hasn't played for a while, how do you justify to a guy like Schurrle? Who doesn't get a match for two or three weeks and comes back and scores a brace in his first game back. Or Willian or Hazard who have probably been our best players past 2-3 weeks. The real problem is why wasn't a player offloaded when Willian was bought? That's whats causing this problem. There just aren't enough minutes available to satisfy everyone and it's even more unfair to take minutes off someone who deserves it just to give it to someone who hasn't got much till date. But I can also understand that Jose didn't want to offload anyone when Willian was bought because he still didn't know who his best players and team were. But he's gone in January for sure, doesn't make sense for him or Chelsea to keep him. A loan is also pointless now, he's good enough to play here so it's not cause he isn't developed, he just doesn't fit Jose's team it seems. Just sell him and wish him all the best.

We need to just play Eden and Willian every match now. They have started clicking and just keep playing them and build that partnership. Once they begin linking up like Mata and Hazard used to last year, they could probably dribble through a whole team themselves.

Thought Mata was good. Got subbed only cause we were loosing control of the game. Willian was great. Hazard had 1 amazing play and then 2 sloppy ones, that's how his whole night went. Torres was just awful, played the whole match like it was the 90th minute and we had 10 seconds left to score, calm the fuck down and do the basics right first before please, don't know how he lasted as long as he did, Ba should have been on way earlier. Oscar was horrible in his cameo too. Ivan was at fault for majority of the bad defensive plays imo, was caught out of position way too many times and just a simple lob over him was getting Palace behind our defence and Luiz was forced to cover the flank way too often, can't let that happen. Torres was also awful on set piece defending, lost his man almost everytime, no way he gets a start for a while now. Ba deserves a few starts now imo, not cause hes very good, he's been decent but the other two have been just shocking. But, at the end of the day, 3 points and 2nd in the league. Ivan is suspended for the Arsenal match which isn't too bad because Azpi will finally get a chance at RB now.

Stupid tactics by Arsene. Let's go all out against a team that scores 6 without breaking a sweat. Not saying they would have got a better result, but at least don't get embarrassed.

He's doing good and impacts the game, but he lost the ball several times as well and was very weak other times. He does have a great workrate though, he leads Vitesse's pressing high up the pitch. We'll probably make a decent profit off him, but I doubt he makes it here with the other wealth of talent we already have.