Adnane

Did anyone read what he said after the match ? He said that he had only seen 3 player receive bigger ovations from their former supporters than the new ones : Didier, Lamps and himself. He also said that they are coming back in the future, whatever the role, the three of them. I can't find the original source, but if he really said that, that's the second take on his own team Once a blue, Always a blue.

I am in if needed, i do spend a lot of time on forums ( obviously especially TC ), so using that time improving the quality of discussions on the forum would be interesting. Plus you'de be replacing an arab mod with another one, considering the former turned out to be pretty good, encouraging

Double

Well even our B team is at least as good as Arsenal's starting line-up so...

Farewell CHoulo, haven't been around here for a long time but you have definitely been one of my favorite members on this short period.

Even Chalobah is playing and RLC isn't José is obviously taking this way too seriously.

Meanwhile, it looks like Loftus Cheek is on some serious trouble with Jose, hasn't played a minute since he spent the game walking again against NY. I know he said numerous times that he's staying with us, but wouldn't be surprised if he ends up loaned...

I repeat my question, is he loaned ? No WP ?

WTF !! Is Kenedy already loaned to Vitesse ? This guy is bloody good !

JT's anticipation, header and leadership skills put him light years beyond Cahill. Tho, we can have one "slow" defender, not two, and if there's anyone to drop atm, it's Gary.

Cahill is brilliant playing in a low line, aka Parking the bus ( or at least what some like to call it here ). But his lack of speed and anticipation makes him a weak spot when we play our full pressing game, especially that he is supposed to cover the most offensive of our full backs.

Lacks pressing power in my opinion, and would leave our midfield awfully exposed against bus teams who have fast players on the counter, Matic is pretty good but can't be everywhere at the same time. In a crisis situation, i.e. losing at the bridge, desperatly needing the 3 points, we could used it, Mourinho always switches to 3-5-3 25 minutes before the end when we trail at home anyways, so I'm sure it could happen, just not as a starting line-up.

He gave him minutes and the lad didn't bother defending and running, I am a big fan so I particularly kept an eye on him against NYRB. RLC is actually running out of chances, he should grab his chance if he wants to be a starter here in a few years, there's definitely a spot up for grabs just behind Cesc-Matic on the hierarchy ( ahead of Mikel-Rami ), or even as a starter in the 4-3-3, but it's up to him.

I don't agree with you. You can pretty much state that it gets found out, I don't have a problem with that, but stop putting a "Park the bus" label on every performance you don't like by Chelsea. Did we park the bus against Tottenham ? No. PSG in the CL ? No they were just better, and we could've won it bar 2 minor errors on set pieces ( unusual thing for us ). Still, we lost those games, I know you can get the feeling we don't try enough when we are outplayed by the opponent, but we aren't Bayern/Barça/Real, we aren't the type of teams that dominates every opponent on the midfield, sometimes we just find better than us in that aspect of the game. So I don't think we should call it "Parking the bus", Mourinho's method is way too known to be called like that, he's just adapting all the time to the situation, yes, this is his philosophy, he doesn't go proactive all the time by all means, when he senses that we have a weakness to an opponent, he tries to bring in a defensive answer ( Zouma against Spurs is the perfect example ). So, we can't compare the two methods, Tiki Taka ( which hasn't been found out, it's just that 2012-2013 Barça didn't have the same workrate to implement that model ) and adapting your game plan to the opponent and to the difficulties you face.

I have been reading all day that we parked the bus but I don't believe it's true, I think their midfield was just miles better in preparation than us, which includes an excellent Verratti btw. As soon as they were tired and we got a couple of fresh legs, we were the better side, works the other way round. As for experimenting ideas, I think we pretty much did that with Remy on the left, and especially that 4-3-3 with Ramires-Oscar-Willian. I don't know what to think of this Barizileiro midfield, I still sense it would fall short physically as Matic is probably our most important player with Eden, but then again, Oscar, Willian and Ramires' work rate is decent. What I'd definitely would hope to see is Willian and Oscar playing more on CM, alongside Matic when Cesc is tired/injured.

Actually that was the way the MLS was played a few years ago, no draws, penalties to settle. Furthermore, in this competition, it's 3 points for the winner on regular time, 0 for the loser, 2 points for the winner if penaltys and 1 point for the loser.

Well, looks like we got our decent CM after all 4-3-3 gives us more balance and keeps Cesc protected, since he's the guy opponents target on our 4-2-3-1.

No, we just need minutes, and to get back the right mind set of a professional football team. Expect us to be better against Barcelona and 70% ready for the CS, I don't think we'll win it, Arsenal are miles ahead of us in their prep, so we might fall a bit short, let's hope I'm wrong tho.

The team we're playing now is actually pretty lively and direct.

We're bossing PSG atm, should we conclude that we will win CL ? NO ! BECAUSE IT'S A FUCKING PRE-SEASON GAME, AND IT WORKS THE OTHER WAY ROUND TOO, JUST BECAUSE WE'RE LOSING TO THEM DOESN'T MEAN WE'LL BE RELEGATED ( as some of the moaning here might tend to suggest ).

Moaners will disappear again in 3, 2...

If Falcao is a success. Matic ProperBtoB-Fabregas Hazard Costa-Falcao Unstoppable :blue scalf: ( Kidding ofc, no way we'll see that happen, although Willian would fit perfectly in the remaining spot... )

His name is Oscar, this is what's wrong. At least judging by the standards of some people here I guess

Am I the only one who thinks the kit looks bad on the field ? Ther's something more about it, the approximative cut makes it look cheap to me.

Once again, he was saying the same on the 2013 summer then got Wilian and Eto'o.