lionsden

Another brilliant decision by jose and the board. just fantastic.

If he continues to be stubborn and persists with the same players then he deserves everything he gets (and that includes a sacking). What sort of manager will put favoritism above the team. Unbelievable. I can't stand stubborn people/personalities.

I don't know why you quoted me since i was in agreement with you about oscar. he's the best attacking midfielder to come out of brazil since Zico. We are witnessing greatness right before our eyes . it's just a shame some people are not recognizing it.

You will find styles is actually being sarcastic

Forget the fact that remy at this point in time is superior to falcao, that he has proven himself to be reliable and has earned the right to be our second choice striker. what baffles me the most is How Jose seem to ignore the simple fact that remy offers a different attacking dimension as Costa and falcao are too similar. He can actually beat a defender and create chances for himself, technically good and has more pace. these are all the qualities the other two "favored strikers" lack. Heck forget all of that. How about just playing Remy simply because Costa and falcao have been crap and the team needs all the goals it can get

Tell me another player in the whole of Europe that offers the level of balance, quality, finesse, technique, intelligence and workrate that Oscar brings to a team. oscar's quality isn't something that can be quantified with stats, his quality is so understated and hidden that only a select few can detect it. It's so understated that some might even mistake it for inconsistency and poor performance. Just watch what happens once he returns, we will go on a 25 game unbeaten run.

Hes still doing his best Houdini impression, I see.

I don't ever want to see him compared to neymar ever again. Even when neymar is off form (which isn't common nowadays) he still finds ways to impact the game. Hazard's bottom level is extremely bad for a world class player and he has the tendency to disappear at various points during each season.

i wonder what style/type of football players like hazard,fabregas,willian, pedro,Remy et al are made for. A manager that knows what he's doing will get our team playing much better football. And by better football, I don't mean tiki taka or any of that fancy stuff but proper well rehearsed and well executed football be it counter attack, possession football, high pressing etc. Jose has brainwash some people into believing our squad is only capable of producing disorganized, boring, unimaginative, dull football. It's easy for any spectator to recognize that we are the polar opposite of a well drilled, well coached team. A well coached team knows how to attack, how to defend, how to execute tactical orders down to a tee and doesn't rely mostly on luck to win matches like we have been doing since January and for the best part of jose's second tenure at the club. Don't forget the football we produced in 2013/14 was absolutely dare as well and one can only point to very few matches like the one against City (away) and season opener as the decent performances we had that season. Most chelsea fans will be happy if the team actually looks well trained/drilled and produces the level of football that it can be capable of producing majority of the time. good football is good football and rubbish football/performances is rubbish football. that has never changed although some people might try to present one as the other. It's just a cop out to immediately assume "good football" always equals tiki taka whenever some fans demand improvement in the team's performance. Now if the question is that we are well coached but the players are not responding to the training methods then the blame still has to fall on the manager for failing to correctly teach/coach his players and motivate them. in addition to that, he's been here for 3 seasons ( currently in his third season) so the excuse that he lacks the players to play the style of football he intends to doesn't follow either.

I'm one of stones biggest fan and rate him highly but using yesterday's game to judge him is not exactly an accurate assessment of his ability. To get a more real and clearer picture, we need to use performances against good sides and more importantly sides that are in form and offer great attacking threat. Even lovren would look amazing against our attack with the form we are in at the moment.

Spot on. to add to that, managers (like players and most people in every works of life) lose their ability, focus, desire etc overtime. Some managers fail to adapt to the ever so changing style and demand of the modern game and are left behind as a result. Hence why the general consensus is that Jose's tactics are outdated, predictable and stale. Look at managers like Capello, Hiddink, Wenger, Van gaal et al. Amazing spells in the 90's and early 2000s but average ever since. I don't know why it's so inconceivable to some, the concept of Jose losing his mojo, just like great managers before him. As much as people like to point to the fact that we won the league last season, His overall performance,in reality, was far from spectacular and we were able to win the league due to our rivals offering little to no challenge for the title at all.

The bottomline is they were more consistent and more prolific than Drogba, the rest is just excuses. ifs and buts. If your definition of big game is only limited to cup finals then yes he's the best big game player indeed although eto'o has scored in every champions league final he's ever played in and rose to the challenge more often than not whenever the occasion called for it in his prime, same with Villa. No one has disputed drogba's technical ability but in comparison to those two striker, he was a level below in that regard. Didier's game was based on power and strength while Eto'o and Villa were the epitome of finesse and technique.

Remy should seek Ivanovic's advice on how to please a man, if you know what I mean

Now that teams recognise how weak we are defensively and how we have been struggling to create chances, any manager in charge of a decent team that can't set up his team to beat us right now must be absolutely inept. It's easy, attack us very aggressively from Ivanovic's side, closedown the space between midfield and attack. And just mark Hazard and Costa (easiest thing in the world to do) out of the game. Don't worry about our midfield since they are absolutely useless at the moment.

It's shocking isn't it. How can you improve as a team when the manager considers every average/poor performance good enough. great longterm managers are never satisfied, they always strive to improve their teams performances, form, tactics, fitness etc. with jose, you get the feeling that he has very low standard and settles a lot. We are paying him millions to analyse matches and the players in order to come up with a solution and to improve the team in all areas and at the moment he's failing miserably.

Don't be ridiculous. Prime Eto'o and villa were superior in every facet of the game except hold up play and aerial ability. They were more clinical, superior technical ability, superior movement, more consistent and more intelligent.

Double post

Wow for months, I thought I was going crazy since everyone around me and on here seems to rate Costa as this amazing striker with impeccable all-round play but me. Didierforever is absolutely spot on here in his analysis and assessment. Costa, technically is no better than other poachers that came before and after him like inzaghi, huntelaar, Mario gomes,chicharito et al. And yes he's nothing more than a poacher whether you like it or not. I still find it amazing how anyone can watch Costa play consistently and consider him to be a great striker/player. He's so limited, its shocking. And this has been my stance on him since since he joined (even when he was in goal scoring form) just in case anyone tries to accuse me of kneejerking.

So he's been injured since we bought him?. why hasn't he featured at all when the team is begging for fresh ideas is the question. Something fishy is definitely going on and I suspect it has a lot to do with jose.

Don't forget how he threw a 19 yo boy under the bus for far less and over a meaningless friendly nonetheless.

Shearer also scored free kicks and has a far superior all round game. Costa has replaced Oscar as the most overrated member of our squad overnight.

Our board got carried away. Who can blame them, we hadn't won the league in a while afterall. It's reminiscent of the contract extension we gave malouda and Anelka after winning the double in 2010.

wait, are you referring to the second best striker in the world and a player whose technical ability and "allround" play is superior to or at the very least on par with the likes of Aguero and benzema?. you can't be talking about the same Costa.

While lack of stability due to chopping and changing of managers is potentially catastrophic, so is persisting with a manager that is dragging the club down and has shown absolutely no ability of turning things around. There's a reason why he's never managed to stay at any club for more than three seasons. He's totally clueless when things are not going his way which is usually in his third season.

Those who are calling for Mourinho to get the boot are not doing so solely based on result alone but a cumulation of several things which have already being discussed many times on here. We are a sinking ship right ow and from past history and latest indication/evidence, jose seem incapable of steadying the ship. His idea of turning things around is to stick with the same starting eleven and players who are totally out of form. His tactics aren't yielding any positive results and performance either. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? i pose that question to you and other Jose apologist. Majority have simply lost confidence in his ability to turn things around due to his stubbornness, delusional tendencies, favoritism, outdated tactics and previous history (3rd season syndrome) which are all legitimate reasons.