Adnane

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.

Well I mostly write in french on my phone, so if I want to use it I'd have to change from french to english and back all the time

On a pureky tactical level, Oscar is the trigger to our high pressing game, the 5-0 against Swansea is exactly how Jose plans things to be, he sais it himself after that interview, we always play as good, but scoring on your first, second, third then fourth attemot is ridiculous, you can't expect that every game and you just aim to recover the ball as high, quick and much as you can to create superiority in the opponent's area and killing games as soon as possible. Now go back and watch that game and moqt of our home games of the first part of the season, Oscar is not just the guy who triggers the pressing due to his good tackling & tracking skills, but when we recover the ball, he is our first solution with Hazard to amorce the counter, this style of play has granted us the 'beautiful' football we were playing as it gave us much of the ball and we were giving the impression of asphyxiating/trashing our opponents. This is how crucial Emboaba is to our game, when your first asset offensively, aka the guy on which the pressing relies is tired, injured or just out of form, you reasonably lose your edge over the opponent and leave your midfield exposed, and knowing Cesc's poor reacting to pressure, this is what makes Mourinho ask our wingers to drop as deep as they do, hence the impression that we 'leave' the ball ( January to May ), as it sureky would be stupid to try to stick to our game plan without our full strength. We should be expecting two things, for this fella to stay consistebt/injury clear abd thus live up to his potential, or find a replacement that doesn't reduce the quality of the XI, or alter our tactical plan. The problem is, this profile is so rare, because Oscar's range of passing and shooting make him the perfect player for our system, now he whether rises to glory, or Jose brings in a strong CM and switches back to 4-3-3 to avoid midfield exposure and be able to play our football ( or bits at least ) even without Oscar. I know some words are hard to read at first sight but blame apple for the small keyboards :ninja:

I asked some Bayern fans about that, his average/poor form is caused by the fact that Pep plays him on the wing most of the time, according to them, at CAM, he is still as good as anybody. Traore Cuadrado on the right, Oscar and Gotze fighting for a spot on the center, Hazard in his usual set up and Willian who can pretty much play everywhere in AM and we're set, people could say it's too much but 6 players for 3 spots is just perfect and would avoid our poor form as our recovery game relies too much on the 4 players in the front, had Shürrle/Salah lived up to the expectations we surely would've had a better second part of the season. I would definitely prefer Isco, but there is little chance Perez is selling a young talented marketable Spaniard AM for a reasonable price.