didierforever

thank god for this. really important game this one. cant afford to drop points. man city wont (they are playing at home), arsenal are playing away to cardiff, and so far cardiff have been brillaint at home in big matches. so we can extend the gap between us and the likes of united, tottenham, southampton themselves while closing the gap with arse. cech azpi luiz JT cole rambo mikel schurrle mata hazard torres. oscar looked damn tired in the game, lamps played pathetic and looked tired, iva will get murdered against lallana and would probably end up giving the ball away by dawdling on it awkardly and he is a definite "do not start" for this one. just have a feeling that luiz would be a good choice for this game. GC might get bullied off the ball by lambert and also luiz's ball play might come in real handy. i still dont get why schurrle has stopped starting after scoring a goal against city and generally being really good all round the season. his directness and his tracking back may keep shaw/clyne real quite and help our full backs too... expecting a real hard fought game.

if he starts against southampton and against the likes of lallana, he will get murdered... not kidding.

can u please start the southampton match-thread. this one is depressing, also can u look what i wrote in the lampard thread. PLEASE.

^how is this guy still not banned is BEYOND ME. u can blame "tapa" for being a spammer but atleast he made sense sometimes if u removed all his LOLs from his posts, and yet this guy keeps on trolling every thread (mikel, lamps, mata, cahill, match-thread) and is still not even given a warning on anything. wake up @ALEX, @BLUESMASTER etc....

why is not there a southampton match thread??? just put that up already!!1

screwed up real bad today. and the defeat has to be on him. very poor team selection plus no difference in tactics of how to deal with salah&stocker who owned iva-cole even in the 1st leg.

during the start of the season jose had said that FL will be used sparingly, like makelele, what happened to that? why the fuck was he started today. a draw was a good result, was no where near to an importand/must-win game, it would have been hard for any 35 year old box-to-box mid-fielder to get himself up for this match. hence, no doubt FL was downright pathetic.

very true. lamps and rambo were giving the ball away every time they touched it. etoo could not hold the ball upfront if his life depended on it. mikel was playing literally as a 3rd CB, oscar was not in the game at all but our CBs should try and play out of our own box. brilliant!!!!

horrible performance. simply dint turn up. i feel a lot of blame has to go on to JOSE for this defeat. he should have wrung the changes for this match specially since we ll be playing southampton (h), sunderland (A) and stoke (A) in the space of 6 days. the tactics were to sit back, invite them in and then counter but nothing worked today. lamps and rambo had an absolute SHOCKER. oscar seemed disinterested and etoo could not hold the ball to bring the midfielders into the play. these result are killing us by not letting us getting any momentum whatsoever. the only silver-lining, we are still top of the group and have qualified already. cant see how schalke would LOSE to basel at their home so even if we get a point out of the last match, we have pretty much topped the group too. cech - MOTM. saved our asses from the scoreline to become a basketball scoreline. 9/10 iva- another pathetic performance. got owned by salah/stocker thru out the night. he needs to be and should be dropped for the next game. southampton are really good at pressing and i can already visualise iva costing us some points just like he did against wba by just sticking to the ball. also i have no fucking clue what he was doing for the goal. 4/10 GC&JT - a good performance. apart from cech, these 2 seemed to be the only ones who actually wanted to play the match. JT was phenomenol with his heading and GC covered iva's ass numerous times. 8/10 azpi - should not play on the left. bertrand is still a better LB and i have no idea how he is not making the team (forgive me if bert is injured). his positional sense is really poor as a LB and he gives insane amount of space for the wingers to run in, though he does close them down too. is not good with his left foot too, hence fluffed his clearances and could not force the issues with his passing from the left. also, losing headers to stocker/salah is just not done. 6/10 mikel - had a decent game. made some interceptions but his poor range of passing just could not get us out of our own half as he could not find that perfect pass.7/10 lamps - i hope every1 is down out of their lamps high from the last game. i remember he lost the ball 4 times in a row he touched it. he is done and dusted. i dont get how jose is unable to see that. 4/10 rambo - just one of those days for him when his tackling goes off, his passes go hay-wire, he fluffs the 1v1 or good positions that the team gets in. but its good that he got this match out his system before the 3 PL matches. 5/10 oscar - passenger. he was probably tired from the internationals then the whu game where he ran himself to the ground. he should not have started. infact dint see the need to start him. but a poor performance. simply could not get into the game. could be the link up man and the hopeless passing from the 3 midfielders dint help. 6/10 willian - full of running but simply brain farts of choices in passing and when not to pass. should have done well to cover azpi against the winger too. 6/10 etoo - poor. could not hold the ball if his life depended on it. lost the ball everytime he touched it just like the time he got injured. torres should be the no.1 man. 5/10 subs - torres - was a breath of fresh air. fought for aerial balls, tried to run behind the defenders rather than just standing like an idiot in front of them like etoo. but some of him decision making during the counters was off too. took players on when it was not needed and a simple pass would have sufficed. 7/10 hazard - was good. our only attacking threat. changed the game completely for 20 mins after he came on. it seemed we would nick a goal thru him at the end but it simply was not to be. 7/10 kdb - i still have to understand why iva was shouting at him after the goal. anyways not much time on the pitch to do anything. jose- tactics were alright, a perfect away day tactics, but the execution let him down. but have to say, his team selection was pathetic tonight. why did lamps, oscar, iva start is beyond me. why was not mata and schurrle specially given a chance tonight is just way beyond me. 5/10

the only person going round and round is you, buddy. u r the only one talking in ifs and talking about things that might happen and could happen, while i am talking about things that are happening and are most probable for happening.

and u r telling me a story full of ifs. our squad has not had the perfect starts but if u take out newcastle and wba, we were really starting to gel in and start to look like a team. there is no need to make another playbook unless this present become useless.

mata IS a fantastic player. no one is doubting that. any1 who does will get there ears boxed in by me. but he is also not the player we need on the wings (imo). mata will have his time. oscar is playing some amazin football at the moment but like with any player he will have a rough period or god forbid, an injury. this is a long season. so far 12 games in PL (less than 1/3rd of the total), have been played. there are 26 more to go, about 10 cup games, and hopefully 9 more CL games to go (including today). so a large part of the season is left and mata will get his chances.

we played a different version of 4-3-3. it was more like ---------cech----------- -------GC---JT---azpi--- ---iva------------------- -----rambo--mikel--lamps---- -----------oscar-------hazard--- ----------etoo--------------- with iva still providing the width on the right, rambo covering a hell lot of ground between right and center. oscar still being mainly on the left while hazard on the left and sometimes interchanging the wings. one thing is for sure, oscar will be the no.10 for jose, i have no doubt about it. hazard is another forward/winger who play every important game. so the point is where does mata play even in the 4-3-3, i dont think jose wants to make a CM out of oscar, no way.

so u want us to change the formation of the team and the whole plays of the team and the complete outlook so that is suits juan? seems fair, right? i am sorry but i seriously doubt this is gonna happen.

mata was not to blame but it also was not a co-incidence that we had a poor performance with mazacar on the field. we dont have significant cover behind him. ivanovic is our RB and if mata plays, he will play on the right wing. hence a no-go.

like against newcastle? we are playing better without mata on the wings. this is CFC not mata FC. we should do what is best for chelsea not think about ways of getting juan in the team. mata on the wings is not the way to go with the football we are playing currently and no way ahead of willian/schurrle.

he played as a winger for chelsea when we were playing 4-3-3 with our only options being kalouda. right now we have schurlle and willian who can play wings better than mata and moreover satisfy mou's defensive appetite for a winger as well. hence mata should not be considered ahead of these 2. moreover mata is a beast as a CAM. let him play there and do his job.

could not agree more.

our kids just beat them 2-1 with goals from baker and swift. 3rd consecutive match in which baker scored and swift's 4th goal in the competition. our kids have 15 points out of 5 games. the only team to have a 100% record in the tournament.

is he starting for the youth team today? any links to the match?

probably this is where we differ. i count performance totally different from goals.

a dortmund player has signed for munich, i find it funny that it is confirmed by frankfurt manager. anyways looking past the rumors, i would say go all out for getting lewa if bvb dont make it to the KO rounds.

^classic DD.

i cant understand the fascination with having mazacar especially when we have wingers like schurlle and willian. none of mata and oscar should be playing on the wings.

very good analysis. its the same way as saying barkley had a pathetic match. why? cos he is a CAM and yet dint score a goal or assissted any of the goals. cos that is the only aspect by which a PERFORMANCE is judged, right? also by your amazing and fabulous argument, mignolet must have had the worst match of his lifetime since he conceded 3 goals, hence overlooking all the amazing 1v1s against lukaku, delefour, mirallas, he saved or in general how good saves he made. brilliant argument keep it up!!!