Blue Armour

Before I get started on how horrible we were in attack, I just hope the entire back line gets flogged... How many times should we get 1-0 lead and just throw it away? Its become a recurring theme this season...Can't they hold onto a clean sheet till we score a second? I think a lot of players are taking the matches too casually. 1-0 up at S Bridge and they go into cruise control as if its a routine... Looks like Drogba's recent good run season has halted for the moment...Hope his only replacement Torres can step up...Mata and Cole are getting burned out....

This is exactly why I have been suggesting the use of a 2 man midfield with four attackers (two wide players + two strikers) upfront. Most of the time only the fullbacks and the forwards seem to be involved in the build-up play...

Didn't see the last game but from the goal highlight, I thought Torres did pretty well to set Mata up for the shot.. However I'd feel a lot more comfortable if he had actually scored from the chances he got.. So Didier should be a sure starter for the next game. And of course, Ramires...

Didn't see the match, but I always knew we would somehow screw up our boxing day fixture...Can anyone tell me how well each player performed, please? From what I've heard the Lampard/Meireles midfield hasn't performed to expectations.... This is why I suggested earlier that AVB should just drop both of them because of their inconsistency and play Ramires and Romeu, with four attackers up front, since only those guys and the full-backs seem to be involved in most of the build-up play....

Rooney was also restricted to mostly appearances as a sub around that time...although he did start some of the less important games..Torres has to win his starting role back, but I agree he needs more minutes and appearances than what he's getting now (namely just the last 10-15 minutes of alternate games)

He did pretty well...but if Adebayor were smarter he would have taken advantage of Bosingwa's lack of aerial ability instead of trying to run at Paulo through the wings..

I don't care about the PL title...Now, I would no doubt love to win it this season after all the adversities we've faced, but for now I'm just happy that we're still mathematically in it and our team still has some sort of desire in it, even if the results don't show it. Yesterdays game was proof of that, and it was truly a bloody good game we played. After the opening 30 minutes I thought Spurs were going walk all over us, and I seriously thought our goose was cooked when Ivanovic came off,...but what I saw after that showed me that this team can still achieve something great this season even if it isn't in the form a treble of titles...

I understand what TX is trying to say here... No disrespect to Raul..he's done a pretty decent job after arriving here but that job is what Lampard used to do (and did it even better) when he was in good form..namely the goal scoring runs into the box and spraying passes effortlessly,.. Modric might have well been the missing piece of our midfield puzzle....Its not really the club's or AVB's fault that we didn't get him..Its just unfortunate, considering the dumb spuds regularly bend over for Man Utd when they come along for new players...

Irrespective of Tommy's sentiments I hope we crush some spuds tonight...

The only positives for me from this: 1. The FA's decision will be delayed a bit. 2. This reminded me of how much I wanted to see QPR get relegated again

A little too desperate for not wanting Boswinger to play?

Paulo doesn't have any pace and more importantly, any match time this season.... Bosingwa usually does good against quick players who mostly rely on their pace rather than trickery

Saw this article a while back..don't know what to make of it..I don't really see what our manager has to do with Chelsea TV which has nothing to do with the team...

And because we aren't Arsenal (even if our team is starting to look like one of theirs), there's a good chance he wouldn't want to leave ...

Going for Gary Cahill with Alex on his way out is a very good idea. He did play pretty well alongside JT in some of the recent England matches

Ha. Ha.

Yeah, he did say the player was available for a price..so he's certainly not against the idea

Absolutely right... Its fair for people to not have faith in it, but the amount of conviction the people here have to think that it most certainly won't work is strange...Many people were convinced that we would win games over QPR, Arsenal and Pool and those didn't exactly turn out the same way, did it?

Don't really think the subs were garbage (even though they played like that) since they were obviously brought in to defend the lead, but otherwise share the sentiments of your post....

Long story short: You're saying the club only pays attention to success and not the failures that it has encountered... Thing is, the club is now a business organization and in a business organization its all about the results. The only thing the club is "really" concerned about is 1. Trophies. The club needs at a least a few every year, otherwise some other club like Man City will throw Chelsea out of the spotlight as we don't have a glory-filled past to keep attracting public attention. 2. "Sexy" Football: To acquire the kind of popularity that Barcelona and Arsenal enjoy from the public. 3. "Stars"..Names like Ballack and Torres can always attract attention

Drogba and Anelka played well together in the 4-4-2 diamond because neither striker had to drop deep unlike in the 4-4-2 which Carlo tried to use in his last season with us...in the 4-2-4 they should not have to drop deep as both CM's will remain more or less static, just passing the ball to the wing-backs/wingers to start the attack...But yeah, there are better options than Drogba-Torres out there for strike partnerships...Maybe Sturridge could do a good job with Drogba, but then we'd be short of a good right winger...

You raise a good points about the lack of a holding midfielder to check VDV/Modric's advances and the fact that one of Torres/Drogba will have to drop deep...these are flaws, but in an attacking sense this could send the Spurs back four all over the place....If Sturridge can work well as he can, and if he works in tandem with Ramires and Ivanovic, it could be Bale and Ekoto that are pegged back...Oriol would have more work but in my formation I except both Ramires and him to restrain their attacking runs and help out defensively..Our attack will mostly be involving our front four + LWB/RB and the occasional run into the box by Ramires...so that our CM's won't be out of position when there's a counter

Again, I say that this would be our best option since our midfield can rarely do anything but toss the ball from side to side...Mata and Sturridge haven't been exactly poor in the wide role...Besides, in the formation I mentioned, I was also referring to the full-backs joining in as wide attackers...The Drogba-Torres pairing is something we haven't seen this season, so I would like to see how it works given how we've tried almost everything else (besides playing McEachran in a league game of course)

You can change the strike combo...but you have to admit, under the circumstances, our midfield is pretty poor and its best to have two wingers and two strikers...