Blue Armour

Must have been in dollars.

Lol...Drogba the "Ivorian" stallion

I'm sorry but I don't think anyone can gather much by looking at a few video clips/images to judge a person's mindset or body language. For example, look at this pic from the previous match: From this pic you would think all is rosy in the Chelsea camp, but that's also nothing more than speculation

Tbf...It was Ashley Cole that allowed Cavani to ghost in, just like he did to Ivanovic. But yeah Luiz should have just booted the ball. Careless...

If we can get back our form within one month, I can really look forward to the return leg.This will be another Valencia game for us.

That's what I expect as well, but can you look at Meireles performances over the past month and say he's giving 100%? Compare this performance with his earlier ones this season. Whenever he gave away the ball away yesterday he hardly made an attempt to get it back, and his tackles were half-hearted attempts. I don't want to even talk about his involvement in build-up play.

Nice one

Must have lot a bit of his sanity along with his hope.

Same formation with Iva at RB, and Mata and Lamps interchanged

Kalou or Torres could have come on as subs to exploit the lack of pace of the their 30+ yr old CBs. Though I doubt the latter would have done anything useful.

I don't think ANYONE is in there..I think Lampard is a bit peeved with AVB and that's about it...

To tell the truth he should be forgiven for being played out of position...the holding role doesn't suit him. He needs to run free like a bird with someone like Mikel/Romeu/Essien behind him

Don't you mean Meiruseless?

[ Thanks, and some of you Naples fans were fun talking to....hope our team will actually give you a guys a challenge in the return leg!

Its not the formation that was the problem..it was the personnel..rather the 2 from that 4-2-3-1

If AVB's solution to Lampard's indifferent form is Meireles, its clearly not working.

If the armband can get him to play any better, by all means we should give it to him.

My point is he just can't..he tries but he's just hopeless when it comes to it...he doesn't even have the physique to knock people off the ball. That and the fact that he can't run or contribute to our attacks have made him one of the most useless players on the pitch right now.

Anyway what's the point...this weekend we're most likely to see 4-3-3 (or 4-2-3-1 ) with Meireles back in the "driving" seat

I've seen him try several times...after each attempt he leaves enough space for a truck to go through

Not going to happen to us this season.

Just for that formation I wish you would

Each time I decide on a lineup I give up because our central midfield is basically useless...I can think of Ramires, just because he has been effective at times this season but I just can't place my bets on anyone else. In any case I wouldn't include Meireles in my starting 11 anytime soon.

The only gripe I have with AVB today is for starting with Meireles. Its clear he was tasked with a holding role that he's not suited to, and he failed at it miserably. Even Ramires is not suited for that. The formation was good, but I wish he had gone with Romeu or Mikel in place of Meireles. Even Essien who's lacking fitness would have been a better choice.

When the commentator asks Mata, he says there was no surprise that we conceded as we are set up too offensively. Maybe this is the point of contention between the supposedly revolting players and AVB? The fact that we're too open? I remember during late Nov-Dec, we reverted to a Mourinho style of game where we shut out the opposition and still managed to score in 2's and 3's on counters. Either way, something has changed or to be more precise something has snapped