didierforever

so arsenal, tottenham, pool/united will be out in the 3rd round itself. nice.

no way. by uefa coefficient we are 4th in europe. also arsenal are still in pot 1 and i seriously cant remember the last time they made semis.

cahill-JT.

damn... pot 3 looks more dangerous than pot 2.

celtic are tough... respect.

he is good. would have done nicely as a 4th choice. i hope we have a buy back clause in his deal.

casillas is satan in pope's dress. he was the one who DID do all the player mutiny in madrid. what was worse was that he leaked all the privy information about the club to the press (his gf's a reporter or something). lamps on the other hand was much more professional then casillas.

accepted.

yes, i am sure jose will deploy such tactics against all team who have as good in countering as united. even villa is good in countering (ask arenal), with the likes of weimann, gabriel and benteke upfront, but we did try to play our own game, because it made sense. against united it would have been suicidal. united with persie, welbeck, rooney and valencia were set up to counter us, and they would have ripped apart our defense which is half as slow as them. instead we disrupted united;s game plan, and it was pretty evident by the way they played. jose forced them out of their comfort zone, which was what good managers do. also we were NOT totally negative. if jose wanted to be totally negative, then we would have fielded a mid-field 3 of lamps, rambo, mikel. we were set up to counter but united themselves dint want an open game. hence we settled for a draw. there is a difference in being defensive and being negative.

no that is not what champions do. do u think bayern had the ball against barca, as much as they had against other teams. NO. you have to change your game as per the opposition. you cant just mindlessly go into every game, irrespective of the opposition or where you are playing and who you are playing. life is not fifa. in a 38 match league, chelsea will have to sacrifice their attacking instinct many times. and that is what THE CHAMPIONS DO. did you see the united vs swansea game. how much ball did united have. 35% compared to swansea's 65%. united let swansea play in the middle of the park, commit men to the attack and then countered their asses off. thats the stuff of champions. being champions means adapting ursekf to the situation (unless u r barca). what game did united play when they came to the bridge last year. they were defensive. they had all the 10 men in their own half from the 1st minute itself, and then they countered. 2 counters = 2 goals and then it was literally back to the wall stuff from them. if you remember correctly for 30-35 minutes, united could not get the ball out of their own half. and that is what home and away fixtures mean. as for pundits , i just saw motd and alan shearer agreed with jose. micheal owen and whoever was there on espn agreed with jose. and if you are getting so bothered about pundits and united fans, you are going to have a very hard time supporting chelsea, because no matter what we do is never good enough for those guys and the media.

so u think moyes is so inept that he could not have countered our play? tell me one reason why we needed to take the champions in their own den to make a statement. all the pundits, fans, every1 knows that after city we have the strongest squad. infact it was united who needed to take the game to us. moyes' first home game, that too against fellow title contenders. we were set up to counter united but even they dint over commit and were happy with a point. why should we have gone all in and all guns blazing at the home on the champions?

so far i ve heard that martinez, thiago, ribery, neuer, and bastian are out. can any1 tell me exactly what the situation is?

u mean a dead rubber where ramires tackles rooney,lamps collects the ball, 3-4 touches on the ball, plays it to mata who tries to play it to torres, evans intercepts, ball comes back to mata, who passes to rambo, who takes about 3 touches then back flicks to oscar who passes to mata and we score. and in all this time rafael is no where to be seen in the picture. do u actually that would have happened today? that match meant nothing to united. on a couple of occasions in that match their full backs dint fall back, anderson had weight issues and was probably having a harder time controlling his belly than the football. do u actually think that this game was in anyway comparable to that. as for the 2nd last game, united had come from the CL exit. it seemed they wanted to be anywhere except on the pitch. also we were dreadful in that victory at the bridge and a very awesome goal from ba decided a very cagey and poor game.

what do we discuss. he has done more in his 20 minutes of substitute appearances and pre-season matches than torres and ba did the whole last season and still he is on the bench.

maybe its my expectation out of him, but i expected him to be a lot lot better than he was yesterday. defensively he was okay but he did leave cole open a couple of times. in attack, i feel he was poor, no other word to describe him yesterday.

that game and this game were very different. last season we were the aggressors, we needed that win to get CL. today we were trying to shut the shop. very different scenario. thank you for the compliment,

hahahaha... lukaku, yes but mata no. i agree with what jose said in his post - match press conference.

i said jose got his tactics right, does not mean everything he did was perfect in the game. lukaku would have suited us better in the way we played, definitely better than schurlle, but that one thing does not change the whole dynamic. here is what i wrote in the post match http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16665-man-united-chelsea/page-14 good result, brilliant tactics, poor team selection and and awful match. cant understand why people are crying over the game. united are unsure of themselves and today could have been a make or break day for them. jose did the right thing by making united take the onus and take the bait rather than going all guns blazing. united's next match is POOL away and 2 weeks later city away. if they had won today, it would have gone a long long way in calming their nerves. while jose's tactics were good, his team selection was poor. there is no point of playing rambo if you are not going to use his running. rambo played a very mikel game, barely out of our own half and just for winning the ball back/marking rooney. mikel would and should have been a better choice. lukaku should have started as a striker. with cech pinting the ball from the goalkicks, there was no way schurrle was beating vidic to it. lukaku would have been a much much greater threat. here is my player analysis - cech - good game. dint put a foot wrong and barely had anything to do. the rooney stop was brillaint. 8/10 ivanovic - solid. dint let evra/welbeck run behind him and also covered the cbs well. 7/10 cahill - good performance. but again instead of putting tackles, he prefers putting in blocks (rooney just at the edge of box). will cost us big. 7/10 JT - WALL. what a performance. brilliant in the air. dint let rvp turn if he received the ball with his back to the goal. simply flawless performance. 10/10 cole - good performance. covered hazard really well. dint let valencia cross the ball rather play it back to jones. tried to do something in the attack (unlike iva) but could not make a difference. 7.5/10 ramires - this has to be one of his worst performances in the chelsea blue. dont think any of his forward passes were correct in the 1st half. let rooney run the game easily. missed marking late runs on a number of occasions and even let people run around him instead of putting a tackle. very unlike RAMBO. 4/10 lampard - slow on the ball. got closed down by cleverly on a number of occasions. dint do much for the attack but was much better defensively than rambo. 6/10 hazard - what is wrong with this guy. among every1 who was been a part of the team in this season's 3 matches, he has definitely had the worst start to this season. valencia OWNED him. the number of times he lost the ball to a valencia tackle was simply countless. the only time he got into the game was in the last 15 minutes when valencia got subbed. very poor decision making too, when choosing to single-handedly taken on jones and valencia rather than pass the ball. 5/10 oscar - good game. man-marked carrick out of the game. had to play cam as well as a deep lying playmaker. could have done more in some of the counters we had. without our best attacking player on the pitch. 7/10 kdb - simply could not assert himself. covered evra's runs very well. was good defensively but gave nothing in our attacks. also playing him on the wings is equivalent to playing mata on the wings. there is no width. 6/10 schurrle - he might not have won any headers, or taken any shot on the goal, or even provided any threat but his workrate is commendable. full of running and closing down, be it on the wing or as a striker. provided some width to us deep in the 2nd half which sometimes did stretch united but simply could not take on evra twice. good performance overall. 7/10 torres - started well, with his run but then lost the ball, many times. his performance was characterised by the last move of the day for us when he mind bogglingly chose to cut in and try to pass in the center at 92 minuted 20 seconds rather than just pass the ball to iva who could have crossed in or got a corner or something. his loosing the ball and then not even trying the fall back for the last move of the game, should tell us exactly of his comitement to the team. he is past it, the sooner we accept it, the better. 5/10 mikel,azpilicueta - not enough time to write about.

so just because we should not pin any hopes on him or put him under any pressure, we leave him out of a match against man united and knowing no one would be able to play better than him. how does that make any sense? yes, we are looking for a new striker because we know lukaku's limitations, but unless we get that mr. X, lukaku should be treated as the no.1 striker.

at this moment he is our no.1 striker. end of the story. what has it got to do with if he is ready or not. he is our best option, so play him, start him and use him. whats the point of playing long balls to schurlle upfront against vidic and ferdinand, that was one bad tactical decision from jose yesterday.

it was a good defensive football. at no moment, until the last move of the match when torres so intelligently gave the ball away, were we out of shape. we dint give you any space in the mid, oscar marked out carrick to perfection, rvp was nullified and the only one who had a good match for you was rooney, and a big part of it was co rambo had a shocker yesterday. except for that united were unimaginative, trust me if you keep crossing the ball in with iva, cahill, jt in the box you are never scoring. also we came looking for a draw, the onus was on united to change that, rather you guys too looked more than happy to just take the point.

oh ok.

oh. the LOL still stands.

the 2009-10 league game vs united at OT, which ultimately played the biggest part in deciding the league, was played when united were playing munich in CL. thats what i meant.

nope. finishing is THE most important aspect of the game.you cant keep anelka on the bench, start torres over him, and then complain about finishing. also barca and bayern and so many matches against arsenal where we defended for our lives then pinged the ball to DD who scored and we won. united on that day were better in almost every aspect of the game than us.