Blue Armour

That's one of his neutral expressions...

I think if AVB needs to rotate his CB's he should do it in pairs...One pair of CB's for the weekend, the other for midweek...He should follow this at least until one of the four gets injured

Interesting stats...particularly the one regarding regarding "both" our full-backs... This one leads to another question; "Do we really need two bombing wing backs, namely Cole and Bosingwa to play on the same team in every match?"

Exactly..I think a lot of people on this forum are panicking just because Man Utd and Arsenal have begun to integrate Welbeck, Cleverly and Wilshere with their first teams.. Integrating youth has never been an issue this season with Sturridge and Romeu getting their chances. The disadvantage that Josh has is his age. Of course one might ask how Lukaku often gets the nod over Josh despite being the same age, but that has more to do with AVB's tactics for the game... The bottom line is you would expect more chances for the likes of McEachran and Bertrand. The former has been merely unlucky as the manager himself was expecting more playing time for him this season. As for the second its because Ashley Cole is a key component of Chelsea's attack, and is always picked for the must-win games (which basically includes all the epl and champions league games played so far)

You're telling me a man who's made more epic goal-line clearances than most just gave up going after a ball he could just knock to one side out of play? Not buying it...

Sturridge as CF...if I were the manager I would definitely give it a shot...

You can't deny that right now he's the best of the lot...

I would still try Alex, if only for giving us a clean sheet...It will also be testament to a fair rotation policy and prevent Ivanovic from tiring out...

There is one, and he's being played out of position....

Cole...wish the others had shown at least half the willpower and stamina he did...

Too casual for me...whether that was due to tired legs or lack of interest... We still top the group, but I guess McEachran's chances of playing this tournament have gone down the drain.....

Nice set-up by Torres...

On the contrary Rio hasn't said anything so far...both the quotes mentioned earlier in the thread have come from Anton in fact,not Rio... Maybe Rio knows his brother's barging up the wrong track..

Battered is too strong a word..We have just about leaked a goal every game before the Arsenal one. The fact is because of the style of play we employ, the defense and mid-field have to be constantly on their toes because of the threat of a counter-attack...Its something our back four haven't become used to/or are a bit too slow to react every single time... Arsenal were practically salivating by the end of the first half because they knew our back four were clearly not enjoying the counter attacks from the Arse's mid who could maneuver around Mikel and Ramires.. In the United match, the Manc team was on the back foot until they scored from two offside goals...Their midfield was swamped by ours before that... The real problem that I did notice in both the above mentioned matches, is that we never made the most of the early opportunities which can go a long way towards setting the tone of the match...

We've had an "arse kicking" from only one team so far, and the fact is quite a few people saw that coming with the kind of open play we've been utilizing this season...No number of extra wingers (although we really do need one more) or creative mids would have prevented them from putting 5 past us that day....

Don't know if anyone mentioned this, but I think Sturridge was suffering from another "Carlo" syndrome in the Arsenal game... Only difference was this time the Italian manager he was trying to impress was Fabio Capello, to get a call-up to the England squad this month... I think his performance was affected by it...

Hmm...seems Ferdy has a history regarding this: http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11661/7281299/Ferdinand-finds-race-row-crazy From the article: "Back in 2006, Ferdinand claimed he was racially abused by Hunt, who was banned for two matches after being found guilty of gross unsporting conduct. But Hunt denied the racism claims and following an appeal, his suspension was overturned by Uefa" Looks like something like that could happen here...

I can see where you're getting at and agree that he could make the transition to first choice, but Luiz has barely played in the Premier League this season for us, and its in that competition that we're struggling to keep a clean sheet...

Its not the tactic by iself that's the problem...Its the ability of the team to retain possession in the middle of the park and protect the back four...Arsenal were allowed to play too many passes in the final third, and despite all our effort and emphasis on attacking football both teams also had roughly the same amount of possession by the end of the math..

I agree about our frailties in defense, but even the armchair analysts sitting at home will tell you the problem is mostly because of the high defensive line.. This idiot goes on and on about...:"Cech is not the goalkeeper he was....Terry is no longer the same human being...neither is Ashley Cole.." And then: "There are major problems at Chelsea..." Really? then why are we still third just behind the two Manc clubs? If it weren't for the slip-up at QPR we could even have been second...

Maybe he takes inspiration from Pastore...

Don't agree. One of his strong points is his vision. Remember the goal the France youth team scored to win the world cup last season? I personally feel he's lost something after his injury, and the unforgiving EPL is making his recovery more difficult than ever...

You could say that about Mourinho as well...its all in the past, anyways..no point in getting starry-eyed over it..

Tbf, I don't see why we can't get bring back some of that style...we after all still have the personnel for that... I hope this defeat serves as a wake-up call for AVB...For a team which possessed such a good record in defense, I don't think its hard to bring back more defensive organization

Also a point I had made elsewhere...Another thing was the fact that our pressing game was poor in the middle of the park..You'd think with Mikel AND Ramires we would regain possession quickly but they were able to launch attacks with almost no hindrance... I hope to see more organization next time..I think the team just went wild with frenzy and effectiveness of our attack and just forgot about their defensive duties and positioning. I could see AVB seething with rage during the closing stages of the game, as Arsenal continued to waltz into our half