pachman40

There are absolutely 2 sides to the coin for Luiz. Make no mistake, he's currently my favourite player in the world bar none but that doesn't make me blind to his drawbacks. I think that there will be veteran forwards that will exploit his youth for the next couple of years, he will get the odd 2nd yellow or give up that mistimed penalty but it happens to the best of them. His positives far outweigh his negatives and as others have said I believe he will be considered top 3 defender in the world in a couple of years. Right now he isn't even close because he needs those lessons that only experience can teach but as far as raw talent he's unmatched. Until then there will be mistakes and we have to live with them. Also, having Terry alongside is massive. He had Luisao at Benfica, solid as a rock, which allows him to do what he wants when he wants knowing that there's cover. Also, having Brano alongside is a huge difference-maker. I honestly believe that Luiz would not have had the same initial impact if Bos was on the right. I don't think people realize how much Brano and Luiz interchange positions throughout a match as needed and that's the subtle difference that allows Luiz such freedom and ultimately the glory. I hope that Carlo continues with this backline because its a perfect blend of offense, defence, and overlap which gives us that extra dimension. Also, while he gets the glory for his offensive skills, that doesn't mean he's a defensive misfit. When the situation/opponent calls for it you won't see him making those out of position runs. He's extremely smart, knows when he can take those chances and when he needs to stay home. Let's not downplay that side of his game in order to raise up another.

I'm sorry but maybe I wasn't clear with my post. I like Brano as a player, I just think he's overrated relative to some of our other players and don't think he's "Player of the Year" material. I agree with a most of your comments when it comes to his pros, I just disagree that those pros justify calling him player of the year. I mean seriously, just because he's fantastic in the air, or he works hard, or he'll sacrifice himself, or he's composed then he's POTY? Those are all fantastic qualities but he is far from the best player on the field at his peak performance level compared to Terry, Cech, Lampard, Drogba, Cole at their peak performance level. If there was an award for consistent player of the year then I'd give it to Brano hands down.

:clown:I'm sure that was meant at me Sorry, did a quick vote for Cech initially but then when I started to think about it I realized the error of my ways (not that Cech isn't a bad choice). I didn't realize I could change my vote, still a relative newcomer to the forum.

I don't get why people think its mission impossible? There's no doubt we have a decent shot at it. We're currently 9 points back. If we win our game in hand its down to 6 and if we beat them at OT then its down to 3 without considering anything else that Arse and manure do. Now considering they play eachother there will be at min 1 team dropping points in that game (hopefully both). They each have some tricky fixture and to be honest I don't even think we need to win out to take the title. ASSUMING we beat ManU (big assumption) then the league becomes tight tight tight and any of the 3 can win. On a percentage basis I think currently we're at about 25% to win the title. BUT if we win at OT then honestly I think we go up to 65-70% to win it all. BELIEVE!!!!!!

People are gonna flame my ass but I'm sorry, Ivanovic doesn't deserve to be on the list. He's a good solid player, very versatile and fills a utility role for us. He's like a handyman, good at everything but great at nothing. He's an important player for us but he's nowhere near our best player of the year. That has to be either Cech or Terry with my vote going to Terry. I just can't understand how people on this forum think Ivan is the cat's ass. Let's put it into perspective, if our whole team was healthy and Brano went down there would be zero drop-off from a quality standpoint in our backline. You can't say the same about Terry, Cole, or even Luiz now and what does that tell you? Terry is the leader and the legend, and he's been playing top shelf...he's the player of the year for me.

I wouldn't say frustrating, I would say that we're resigned to the fact that the money is elsewhere and as long as the financial rules are what they are then we can't compete with the big boys. That doesn't mean we can't be competitive but being able to hold onto players for another year or two makes a huge difference. Imagine coming up against us next season in the Champions League if our starting 11 included Luiz, Ramires, Coentrao, DiMaria, Saviola, Aimar. Those 6 started for us 2 years ago and next year I believe the only one left will be Saviola. It sucks, but we can't control it. The more successful we are, the more sought after our players are, and the more we end up rotating our squad. Same thing happens with Porto. If we end up in the Europa League final against eachother like a lot of people are predicting then it will only accelerate the cycle but all we can do is enjoy the ride and hope that one of our homegrown boys goes onto legendary status.

Wouldn't it be nice to have 65,000 strong waving blue flags? Sorry, can't help you there, but you're welcome to come visit during Champions League games next year

To be honest, I don't think we're sick of you guys yet. We know we're a selling club, there's no sense pretending we aren't. But as long as our pricey players continue to be successful when we sell them (DiMaria, Luiz, Ramires) and get exposure on the bigger stages then it only ensures that Benfica has high visibility for future sales. Make no mistake, Coentrao will be another success just like I told you guys about Luiz (although he has a tendency to flop around a little bit). At a buyout of 30M euros he's honestly a bargain. After that Benfica might need a couple of more years to develop a couple of more stars but keep your radar open for Nico Gaitan and Franco Jara (you heard it here first).

Honestly I've never rated Malouda to be honest but lets look at this from a different perspective. Everyone here agrees that while Torres is not scoring he still is displaying great movement and taking defenders with him thereby opening space for others to score... Now if that is honestly the case and if Malouda is not used to movement in the manner that Torres is providing out there, then Malouda may simply be seeing different space then he's used to seeing and is instinctively going to that space. You and I can see that he's making a mess of it and being perceived as greedy/ignoring Torres but in reality he may simply be trying to take advantage of the space that Torres is providing him. That being said, Malouda is shite and he needs someone from off the field to go to him, have a talk with him, and explain what he's doing wrong as opposed to "letting them figure it out on the pitch".

JUST LIKE WATCHING BENFICA YOU MEAN Awesome game, Chelsea gonna make Manure sweat until the end of the season.

Agree with most of the first post. I see Cech being dominant for quite a few years, Luiz will be the best defender in the world once he calms down a bit with his tackles and is definitely "spine-worthy", Terry will be here for a few more years. Ramires is the one that can take over Lampard's spine-spot. A lot of people look at him to takeover from Essien but I honestly believe he will slot in as a box-to boxer like Lamps and he will score goals once he gets even more comfortable in his role. Torres has to be Drogba's replacement in the spine or Chelsea's board are crazy for spending so much on him. So there we have it....Cech, Luiz, Terry, Ramires, Torres, our spine right up the centre for the next 5-6 years. If you're looking at additions that don't need to be long-term veterans with us, we need a complement to Ramires in the centre, and a couple of true wingers. In the back, if we really want to keep slow and steady Brano on the right (I don't like that idea) then we need a contrast of speed and explosiveness on the left. There is no better choice than Coentrao in that role. Honestly, I think Chelsea are on the right path and already have that new spine, we just need to mould the rest of the team around them.

Fuck Yeah!!!!! Luiz = Legend!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really? You mean the guy standing beside Nani? Or do you mean Brano who had his thumb up his ass or Lamps who was late to react?

I agree, once he gets a goal or two he'll be off to the races. Also agree that he should have stayed on to play alongside Drogba and cause some disruption in Fulham's back 4. Tactically we needed to change things in order to breakdown Fulham a bit more and it made no sense to do a like for like swap.

I dunno guys, part of me wants to come in here and bash the boring predictable football that was played last night but the other part of me thinks we're simply on the wrong side of the luck right now. People are saying that Torres didn't play well in our system last night and the tactics are wrong. I disagree and say Torres brought the wrong shooting boots, he had chances out the ass including that beautiful long ball from Luiz at halftime but Torres simply couldn't finish. People are saying we played terrible yesterday. Well I say we played better than we're giving them credit for and we simply couldn't put the ball in the back of the net. There were definitely negatives out there (Essien's behind a step, Lamps is lost out there, and Anelka was wasted in his role. That being said, we were 100% in control except for a couple of dangerous counter-attacks, we basically camped out in their half, and if we had 1 breakthrough I know I was feeling that the floodgates would burst open. I will say that we seemed content with our control and looked uninspired. There was no urgency until the last 20 mins and there was too much standing around. I dunno, there were positives and negatives in the game, if we popped in a goal obviously the mood would be different around here and we'd have some more positive reflection but I guess that's natural. By the way, didn't I tell you guys about Luiz????? He's a stud and will only get better once he settles into the team a bit more and plays within them instead of on his own. He tries to do everything himself though and I could see it kinda unsettled a couple of our players cuz he was all over the field and they kinda stood back and watched him do his thing instead of helping him out. They were like "who the F is this guy?". He is our future no doubt!

Boring football is part of what I was thinking watching yesterday but more accurately I think is predictable football. It seems we've been figured out and Fulham were properly prepared for us and we just didn't have that talisman, that creative spark, that imagination required to break down an organized team. We were passing sideways and looking for another player to figure it out... except for some new guy that nobody could predict (overhead kick as a cross?).

Let's just admit that some people have certain expectations of Chelsea that are not currently being met and let's just admit that all of these expectations are not being met because the manager is average. How simplistic is that? Let's just admit that there are many squads in the world that need time together to produce at their top level and everything does not automatically fall into place just because the ingredients are in the bowl. Let's just admit that we just made 2 massive additions to our squad and that will impact the team as a whole and have both negative and positive effects depending on the individual and ffs let's just admit that they need another couple of weeks to get it all sorted. There are very valid points in this thread and both sides are dismissing the others for the most part. For me personally I couldn't give a crap about how we got to this point right now because we can't change the past, what matters is what we do going forward and I think the "ingredients" are excellent and need a little tweeking and we'll play fantastic football once again and definitely be in the mix for 2nd/3rd. If Carlo gets sacked then I think it does more harm than good.

OK so I won't come on here and blast this whole thread as useless and ridiculous because its been pointed out how many "good points" are being made here. Can we please bottom line all this analysis and get to the meat of the issue? People here are impatient and think we should be doing better than we are with the talent available. Apparently Carlo doesn't know what he's doing, is clueless, can't motivate, and doesn't know how to use the assets at his disposal to their full advantage. I'd like to point out that on February 1st, 2011 Carlo was just as bad of a manager yet everyone was full of hope, everyone could see us blasting through the remainder of the season, everyone liked the "new direction" of the club, everyone was kissing Roman's feet for opening his pursestrings, everyone was LOOKING FORWARD to the Liverpool game cuz losing was unfathomable. Why? Ask yourselves that question and ask yourselves what has changed in the last 7 days aside from losing to a bitter hated rival? Then you will all see that this thread is more about how painful and demeaning it was to lose to Liverpool as opposed to if we should sack Carlo now. There have been valid points made and we all know Carlo has weaknesses but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. We have the exact same chances of winning the CL as we did on Feb 1 and make no mistake if we get "lucky enough" to win the CL then all the members who don't want a lowly "cup manager" will be the ones out there proudly waving our colours and keeping the blue flag flying high. I'm not saying we're going to win it but lets keep this all in perspective please.

This is such a ridiculous thread, I can't believe how short-sighted some people are. We've just spent massively on two players who haven't had a chance to mesh at all with their teammates and people are already giving up. Less than a week ago people on here were pumped up and convinced that we could become dominant once again. One loss changes this all? Jesus Christ give these guys more than 90 minutes together to show us what they're capable of and in the meantime support the fuck out of the club!

He's gotta keep the hair!!!!!

Settle down, every player says that in those circumstances, but we all know the agents control those things. Plus, it was common knowledge at the time Benfica bought him there was a pre-arrangement with the agent that he would only stay 1-2 years at Benfica, why do you think they sold 50% back to the agent a few months before he was sold to Chelsea. Anyways, I loved him at Benfica and he did make some history there didn't he? He will definitely grow into his role at Chelsea and I see him being a fan favorite by this time next season. We haven't seen the best of him yet and we'll be very satisfied when we do.

Fantastic game, you could see the boys were inspired and had some energy today. Keep it up and before long we're right there side by side with Man U and ready to knock them right back down to their rightful place looking up at the CHAMPIONS!

Agree, Bosingwa's been well involved and hasn't been bad at all, just need a better touch.

Anelka has been magic!

FUCK YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!