laura90

And that's what our team should be able to do, regardless of the results, before we can call trophyless season success. Nothing we show on the pitch , when we are prevented from playing counter attacking game we excel, suggest to me that we made foundations for next season. It feels like that despite good results this season, when it comes to our attack or possession play in general, we are back to square one. Lot of work to be done.

It's not about failure or success. It's about improvement. It's quite simple: If you improve, season is success if don't it's not success. There are two aspects which football team can improve: performances on the pitch ( attacking play, defensive play, balance between attack and defense) and results. Regarding performances on the pitch, we only improved our defensive play. Attacking play and balance between attack and defense have worsened in a way. Of course, we lack striker, but that doesn't change the fact that our strikers scored more goals this season than the than last , or maybe even season before. When it comes to results we improved. But would we be so close in title race if we faced Manchester from the last season? If we got tougher group in group stages of Champions League? Results can be decisive. They come down to luck and performances on the pitch. And quite frankly, without solid play and solid performances on the pitch( when we win or lose), they mean little in team development. Lacking of 20 goals per season striker, whether our style of play could have one ( in possession type games, not counter attacking ones) is still good excuse.

In a game when set pieces are your best chance to score, it's so sad not to have quality set piece taker. Not talking about anyone in particular, just saying...

No, their attack was silly. Only hoofing and endless long balls towards somebody, not even Costa. There were concerned not to concede and we rarely had space to do anything, not that we even tried.

In Madrid their only concern was not to concede. They knew that away goal could mean the end for them. What I expect from them tonight is to defend deep and wait for penalty showdown. If they score in meantime that will be the bonus for them. I do not expect them to attack us at all, unless we score first.

Yes you need. You need to say that the most of those 12 games he spent on the right wing with instructions to cross, cross and cross some more. He barely played in his natural position and barely will with Rooney there which is the reason I never wanted him to go there and I want him out of there. For those who are coming up with his winning record - guess what it has A LOT to do with the man in charge. In Man Utd as well as Chelsea. And it has lot to do with playing in two consecutive Europe finals with small, unbalanced squad without real goalscorer. And for those who are questioning whether we would really be better with Mata instead of Oscar. I cannot guarantee it obviously, but I certainly can guarantee that we would be better off if Oscar spend his time scoring or creating chances instead of running and running more. No wonder he is tired.

Being playmaker to me takes a great deal of concentration and reading of the game, reading of movements around you off the ball,reading of your opponents shape,and loop holes, making defence splitting passes, vision and consistency. I don't see those qualities in Oscar game, not as often as I expect from main playmaker anyway. His main strenght, even in the first part of the season was his defensive contribution, running, hussling, tackles, interceptions. He was solid offensively( not many assists for my liking, at least to Hazard or Eto) and defensively some months back, but isn't the same now. Whether it's fatique or just lack of cosistency or even ability remains to be seen next season. To me, Oscar's game is his work ethic. He was never as creative as Mata and was never as defensive as Essien. His strengths has always been his ability to hassle opposition upfront and then benefit from balls won. The problem is, when we play teams that park the bus, there is not much hussling/defending to do. And teams park the bus against us more often than in the first part of the season.

Why people compare players when they play for their national team and when they play for Chelsea. Who are their usual international opponents? Japan, Albania, Bulgaria, South Africa, Egypt and alike teams. Once in a blue moon they face decent opponent like Germany, Spain, France, Italy. Even then games are usually friendlies and it's big question whether players are up for them since they tend to avoid injuries. Do those teams play the same football and defend like Premier League teams ? No they don't. So what's the point of the comparison?

Does he run after fullbacks for entire 90 minutes? If not he is far from ideal playmaker for us.

Can you please explain to me how our strikers were good enough against big teams and suddenly garbage against 'smaller' teams? How come Eto, (Torres) and Ba managed to score against Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, PSG, but failed to score against West Hams and Villas of Premier League? Could it be because in big games we could fully implement our counter attacking style (which is the only style we excel playing), so it was easier for us to create chances and for Eto to score from the same? On the other hand against smaller teams who defended first and foremost against us, we couldn't fully implement our counter attacking play and we were somehow average in our attack in posession with bunch of hopeful shots and few clear cut chances which made it harder for our strikers? I'm not saying that our strikers are great, far from it, I'm just saying that with better attacking plan and play they could chip that 5 or 6 goals extra we needed to become champions.

They had very good reason to stick with him. Even in the last season, when they finished seventh, there were glimpses that he may come out good. They had a system, played nice and flow football but lacked final results. With us it's the opposite: we have the results (in the race till the end, cl semifinal) but our system, build up play and football in general are unconvincing to say at least. This is not post Sunderland knee jerk reaction, this was my general opinion through entire season.

I literally can't wait us to get Diego Costa or whoever striker. Two reasons: 1. more goals - that is always nice 2. this myth 'everything about this team ( build up, system, midfielders, defense) is great and all we lack is a striker' will finally stop.

City should have won it, I wanted them to win it since I never really believed in our chances. (I have always based my opinion on performances rather than final scores.) But CIty had Aguero injured for big part of the season and that was the main factor in their 'fall'. Our football is just not that good. Yet.... In times like this, even Red nose is missed.

Well that was what I was warning about while people were celebrating City's lost points. We wouldn't beat Liverpool under those conditions. FA wants to see Liverpool up there now that mighty from Manchester have fallen. Everything that was happening during last weeks, penalties for LIverpool in every other match, denied penalties for City. English premier league fairy tail is about to come true. Just a little belief and pressure due to 'it is in our hands' meant very little. It was in LIverpool's hands even more. Don't be upset, even if we won today, we wouldn't still have won at Anfield. We even wouldn't have to, Liverpool only needed a draw. And if you think that Rodgers wouldn't park the bus for just that game - I disagree.

The only positive thing after City's result is more belief from players and Mourinho himself. Which is good obviously, but brings more pressure. Which is good because these kind of games Mourinho loves the most. Still, when it comes to our title chances nothing has really changed since last week. If we don't win at Anfield Liverpool will get their 19th title. And I fully expect them to. Somehow I can't see us winning there. Not under those circumstances. I have more faith in us beating Atletico and Bayern/Real, even though mentioned teams would have smashed Liverpool if they met them.

City will drop points, no doubt about that, they are the biggest bottlers in Premier League after Arsenal but on what basis people expect us to win at Anfield? Don't get me wrong, I know we could do it if we give 100% or more, but even in that case I see suspicious penalties for Liverpool or Skrtel playing hand ball in front of their goal. They will push us up and down and get away with it. We need miracle to get a result there. Three goals minimum in order to stand a chance. I can't see it. Torres winner goal in Champions league final is more likely.

I can't literally understand anyone who was rooting for Liverpool to win against City. It's like rooting for Liverpool, the Premier League champions. Because that is what they are after this win. We had more chances hoping for City to drop 9 points from remaining games than to win against Liverpool at Anfield. Not going to happen. What about Man Utd's season from hell? They had it coming I suppose.

That would be an ideal scenario, but those rumors are fake. Not a chance of that happening. Unfortunately. But Chelsea would be so much better with Modric and Griezmann in and Oscar out... To me anyway...

Anybody thinking about Courtois' feelings? How happy he would be to miss such an important match, perhaps the most important in his career, he worked so hard to experience? The fact that he is our player doesn't make it better if we deny him opportunity to be there for the club he played the last three years for. It would be honourable from us to let him play regardless of that clause, considering this may be his last season there? You feel very confident he would sign new contract if we make him miss this game? That clause would be propriate for group stages, but semifinals, I don't think so. It's unfair to Courtois himself.

Hypocrisy at it's best.We lost as soon as Terry wasn't on the team sheet.I bet you were among those who laughed at Pellegrini when he moaned about injuries and blamed them for result.If we missed Terry that much, what can one say about City who missed Nasri, Aguero, Fernardinho, Lescot, Garcia and Milner due to injury or recovering from them if I'm not mistaken?He had to play Demichelis as DM which didn't work out any better than Mikel for us.Many City fans on the stream I watched said game was lost without Fernardinho. Were they right? We just got lucky?And spare me from 'there were all fit when we beat them earlier' - this was different game and we both know who had the major role in our victory. Onto the game, we lost it when Pellegrini figured out our game plan and decided he won't fall into the same trap twice, and had fit players to implement his plan.Little to do with Terry's injury.Lot to do with our inability to react to the changed conditions of the game.

I gues I was wrong but I didn't do it on purpose.I was fooled by goal com site. http://www.goal.com/en/people/egypt/53618/mohamed-salahWhen I saw those stats I found it hard to believe so I tried to find Swiss League stats. I didn't make it.Then I left to Champions League site. http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2014/clubs/player=250052469/index.htmlThere he doesn't have assists just 5 goals like goal com showed.So I believed those stats were true. I find that relieving because it didn't made sense to me him not having assists with that pace.However it's still pretty weak league compared to Premier League and pretty weak clubs therefore my point remains the same : nobody should expect much of him this season and he is better goal scorer than passer.

People should be really careful with their expectations. For instance: Salah. Do you really expect Salah, a player who had total of 0 assists in 28 Swiss League and Champions league games this season with his pace and all the space he could have exploited thanks to that, to rock the Premier League with his passes? Hardly, goals are more likely. Or Matic. Many of you hardly saw him play before last december, and yet lot of you concluded he would upgrade our central midfield in both defensive and offensive aspects. Reading through transfer comments he was some kind of mixture between Yaya Toure, Javi Alonso and Javi Martinez. Tbf, City game, where he was part of three man midfield vs one man midfield (Demichelis is not mid) made him look like that but you wont find him in that situation very often. In reality he is very good defensive midfielder who would be even better with excellent ball playing CM alongside him.

This little horse story is boring and annoying as hell. When Jose said that Arsenal are big horse and Chelsea little one - it all become a joke and lost all credibility. No way Jose considers Arsenal bigger favourites than us, he knows they will fall apart soon - like the rest of the public. The problem with our horse is not his size - it's the way he runs and skips obstacles. He does this in very limited and unimaginative way - he spends most of his time running like a mad man, he tracks back a lot and chases ball from his opponents, when he gets it he is finding ways to score , after he scores he sits back and counter attack. That's against even smaller horses than him ( placed from 7-20 place on the table). Against equaly big or even bigger horses our horse has only two goals: to sit back and counter attack. That's the plan that works most of the time - especially when other horses opt to attack more and more and leave our horse lots of free space to run and counter attack. Then our little horse produces amazing performances. The problem however occurs when other horses opt not to attack and to leave it to our horse. Then our horse becomes little confused - he is great when has to chase the ball - but when he has the ball at his feat and can't run, he often don't know what to do with it - he lacks vision, skill, creativity and tehnical ability to manipulate the ball in tight space, when faced with well organized defence. That's what makes competing difficult to our horse , not his size. We are still favourites, as all of you will probably say when we win the next five games.

Football is all about business. You know it very well. It's not about emotions. He went to a highest bidder. It's that simple. Other option was maybe rotting on the bench and hoping that with hard work he will develop abilities he could never have and adapt to a system he couldn't cope with.

Player leaves after he is being sidelined by the manager and made surplus of requirements to the club that offered more money for him that any club every would. And he is labelled as traitor. Do you have a proof that PSG wanted him? How do you know that this club would sell him for less money. He opted to go to United. If Hazard show intention to go to PSG or Real next summer, would club just do as he wish? No question asked. If you become unwanted at your work and the closest competition offers you better terms and treatment and persuades you that you are welcomed and needed there, would you turn it down and wait for you boss to start trust in you someday, if ever? It's no brainer really. It happens every day. Athletes go where they are appreciated, that is reality in every sport. Nobody, including yourself, would choose to be somewhere he doesn't feel to belong, and if you are claiming otherwise, you are hypocrite. He would have never been better in defense than Oscar and he would have never gained pace to play as a winger here, even if he tried, there was no place for him and he realized it. They call us plastic fans. It takes one to go trough couple of this pages to realize why. I don't even have stomach for that.