EskWeston

Chelsea's U18's in FA Youth Cup action again tonight again Norwich away at Carrow Road. If you have never seen an FA Youth Cup game then i advise you watch this, always very entertaining - Live on CTV from 6:30pm kick off at 7:00pm. Likely team for tonight: ..............................................Blackman................................................... Kane.......................Ake...........................Pappoe............................Nditi ..............................................Chalobah................................................... .................................Swift.........................Baker...................................... Piazon.......................................Feruz...........................................Affane The only difference could be that they may not risk Pappoe from the start, in which case Chalobah will drop back, Piazon will drop into midfield and Kiwomya will start as the Doncaster game. But the above team would be the best team we can play.

Game Highlights:

This whole team is exceptionally talented and CAN develop into great players. But the next 4 years are crucial for them and they can go in any direction. However from Blackman to Feruz they are all top quality players.

A decent draw for us, we beat them recently 2 - 0 using mostly the youth cup squad:

Feruz is a beast. Can be an absolute brilliant player (if he develops in the right way)

We will never be able to replicate the set up they have there. To have reserves playing in league football is a huge bonus. Schooling combined with football is something only now we can look at. 2 teams at each age level, we have a limit to the number of players at each age group. Plus the monopoly that Barca and Madrid have in Spain is unreal compared to the premier league. As much as our Academy is improving every year (and make no mistake our youth players are bloody good and getting better every year), we will never be on a par to Barca purely on the restrictions we have.

Lewis Baker didn't get hold the game enough for me as he should playing in the 6 role. The midfield on the whole was a bit overwhelmed. I like this team a lot, some great players especially as a lot of them are first years and schoolboys. Hope they can grow into this cup run as a team because they can be deadly.

A few quick points on the game last night. It was a tough game and an a different prospect to the type of games that the U18's are used to, very physical and tight. This group could gel together well and go all the way this year. Nathan Ake was the suprise package for me, brilliant defending all night, competent and confident. John Swift excellent with the ball at his feet and able to make things happen, took his goal very well, calm and confident. Amin Affane has developed so well, some brilliant skill out on the wing, a type of Mata winger in the making there. Islam Feruz is somthing of a beast, some ridiculous touches of skill and a very determined player, works very hard. Can understand the comparisons with Rooney. Wasn't totall clicking last night for them but it is a supberb team of players, playing against a team with more about them i think the upped pace of the game will suit them. With Loftus-cheek back for the next game hopefully Piazon will be more confident out wide, drifted in and out of this game too much.

Personally i like him sticking it to the press. F**k em, like they have every been kind to us even when we had Mr Nice guys likes Ancelotti and Hiddink in charge. Then everyone was pining for Mourinho and now we have AVB giving it to the press people don't want him to do it.... AVB could kiss the arse of every reporter that comes to the press conference and they would still write s**t about us. I say tell them what he thinks

Another player who should be leaving this club. Would rather be giving minutes to Lalkovic than continue to give Kalou minutes. That goes for a number of players in our squad. We need this re-build.

it was always a very strange one when Paulo was given his last contract, which was a long one. Never made sense and he should have left back then.....

It is great to see players like Bruma and Kalas doing very well in Europe on loan (Courtois too). We seem to do better when our players go to Europe (Stoch in the past). The difficulty is integrating them into the team once they come back from loan. Our youngsters but not have high hope of breaking through at the moment as our track record is poor.

I have lost faith in a big number of our players, for sure. I have faith that AVB can turn it around given the chance to bring players in that he wants and will work with his style of play, the players he brought in (Romeu, Mata & Meireles) all are working very well for AVB and his style of play. We need to continue with that process. What i am less sure of is if Roman and the board will allow that to happen without another knee jerk sacking. Everyone can see that we have needed to be making the changes to the squad over the last few seasons, but it has been allowed to stagnate for a number of reasons and we HAVE to allow a manager to oversee a big change. ANY manger would struggle to get the required performances out of the squad we have.

We badly need a winger and a creative midfielder. But more importantly than that we need the balls to be able to drop the older players and really build for the future. I would be happy to see us let anyone go if it meant the future was being built. The fact is in January it will be very hard to bring many if any top players in, so don't expect wholesale changes then but we are going to need something..... We are being let down by our senior "pros" and we need to sort that out.With a dynamic midfield of Romeu, Ramires and Meireles at the weekend we played so much better. But when we bring in Malouda and Lamps the supply to the forwards disappears and the pace drops off. Over the next 2/3 transfer windows we need to let go and replace Malouda, Anelka, Drogba, Kalou, Bosingwa, Cole and reduced roles for Lampard and probably Terry too.

Glad to see the links i post on my Youtube videos are paying off I think if i remember rightly i found the original incarnation of this forum via a link on the Official Chelsea Website chat page which i used to browse, think the link may even have been posted by OxfordBlues..... Posted a few times and never looked back, think it was the second half of the 2004/2005 season....

SOMEONE has to be allowed to rebuild this squad. It has been calling out for it for years and has never taken place. AVB is the man to do that i am convinced. What has dissapointed me and suprised me in the last 2 games is his team selections and substitutuions. Early in the season he was brave and decisive in his choices but gradually the "established" players have worked their way back into automatic choices and "game changing" subs with little reason for it. If we had given a manager the chance to rebuild the squad gradually over the years we wouldn't be in the position we are now where we have to make a lot of changes. As much as i love Frank Lampard the way he likes to play is to occupy the advanced midfield position, but that is stopping us from looking at unleashing Mata there where he is clearly more comfortable, influential and able to make things happen for our attacks. We NEED another winger badly to allow Mata in the middle and Sturridge down the right. With Mata and Sturridge out wide we have no service to them because we have no creative input in the middle. AVB needs to be given full licence to mould a new team. He needs Roman to relieve the pressure and say that yes he can have time with limited success to build a new young team. We need to be playing Romeu much more, we need to be using Lukaku, McEachran and Bertrand much more. To be honest i would accept any of our older "top" players leaving if it was to free us to build for the future.

Have to agree with that. In many ways we are experiencing the same problems we did last year and before that. AVB is being let down by the players. We HAVE to start looking towards changing things that are a way of us building for the future. I would also like to see us try a settled side for a run of games, always making changes fine for making sure playing time is fair but it is not helping the continuity of play. Our most gritty and determined performances have been when we have played in the Carling Cup this season, we need to see players given a chance to impress. .......................................................Cech......................................................... Bosingwa...................Ivanovic.........................Luiz............................Bertrand .................................Meireles.......................Ramires...................................... ........................................................Mata........................................................ Sturridge........................................Torres.........................................??????? This is what i would give a try, with any of Anelka, Malouda or Kalou to play the other winger role until we can bring one in January. Mata is clearly better suited to playing in the 10 role to influence the game. Would play Ash in the bigger games but Bertrand needs much more games. Would also even out the games between Meireles and Romeu and also between Ramires and Lamps. The bottom line is we need to be looking to do something different. Neil Barnett on CTV last night said that CFC want to give Didier a run of games to see if he can play into form. At his age Drogba is not going to improve, who does it make more sense to play into form, your 33 year old striker who is soon off to the ACN or your younger £50m striker who can be one of the best in the world? Lamps also needs to accept a more withdrawn role, we need (and have needed for way too long) a creative player in the most advanced midfield position to influence attacks and playing Lamps there as we do restricts our attacks to very one dimensional plays. We are struggling at the moment, but if we are to be a team in transition under AVB then lets at least be one and make some real changes for the FUTURE right now.

4 Years? Can't believe it has been that long and this is still the best CFC forum around. Top work from Jim and everyone involved in the day to day running of the forum. Life may get in the way too much these days but i am always checking up on here even if i don't always post as much as i did, and always will too....

Will be very good for him to start playing games now, especially before the youth cup which he will no doubt be involved in.

Was always going to happen really. Never allowed to make any negative comments towards officials after a game....

Whoever has the confidence to take one. Penalties are as much luck as anything else. If the keeper goes the other way for Luiz's pen then we would all be saying it was a good pen and should take them going forward. Lamps as missed his share recently. No point looking at this in any detail.....

Agre totally about Roman not sacking managers on the basis of trophies but on the basis of deeper running problems. With Iniesta, yes he may not of been playing for Barca at this stage. But he would have been playing for Barca B which is miles more experience than what Josh is getting. The set up in the UK is not helping us to develop our players. Reserves football is useless as a development tool and loan spells are unreliable. Josh needs games for sure, but my bigger gripe as already mentioned by Badboy is Ryan Bertrand. He should be getting much more games and resting Ashley, Bertrand has buckets of league experience already and always does very well when played for our first team. This is such a complicated issue with so many different levels of problems and issues to deal with. I won't judge AVB on his ability to bring through young players yet that is for sure. Josh should have been allowed to go out on loan this season though.

Such a lack of Drive and creativity in that performance. Once again with Anelka and Malouda out wide we slowed the play right down and was barely creating anything around the box of any meaning. Malouda seemed determined to not put the ball in the box at the right time and wait till it could be blocked by a defender. The only real positive for me was again Romeu. Really starting to see we have got ourselves a major gem in this guy. Not a foot wrong and is always in the right position, didn't give away any sloppy fouls and broke up play. Starting to become a big fan of Romeu.

If we were to have played even slightly better we would have won yesterday. There was no pressing of the ball, our passing was poor and we were sloppy in defence, even Cech was well off his game. This has nothing to do with how we are set up to play. It was just a very bad day at the office, it shouldn't happen but it did. I don't think we should over analyse that game, all we can take from it is to not put in a half assed performance again against a top team.

Not a popular position to play to win Man of the match but Oriol Romeu was brilliant for me. So solid and reliable, broke up play brilliantly and set up attacks. Great game from him. Thought the whole team played well to be fair, with a weaker team against a strong Everton 11 we played well.