francozola

Fixed it He already has, what? 6 goals this season? He's missed at least that many clear-cut chances. He could (and should) already be on about 12-13.

Yep I get the same feeling and his attitude perhaps implies that as well It's quite staggering what a shit player he has become. And yes I know he's not playing much. I don't mean in that sense. What I mean is... simply look at the way he runs with the ball. He's so clumsy! A league 2 striker is more composed on the ball. Compare it to how he was in his Liverpool days. It's amazing how he has transformed. I don't know how it happened.

Duff was great. He was very unfortunate with injuries.

Think it helped that Modric was playing out of position lol. In the 2nd half Modric started coming into the game more and there was this 7-10 minute spell where he was involved in everything they were doing and it was extremely worrisome.

Absolutely. We were so used to him and his style of play that we didn't realize how average a player he really is.

Yeah but thankfully Luiz is going to be back for Fulham. Iva's injury did look like a hamstring though Hope it's not too bad. No idea. People were saying in the match thread that it's a good move because he slows the game down and in theory that's fine and all but every time he had the ball, it looked like he was going to be bullied into giving it away

Ivanovic and Mikel but AVB says they're not that serious. Mikel's injury (sorry to say) was probably a blessing in disguise for the game.

I don't know how anyone can think that we are worst off than at this point last year. Do you guys remember how awful last season was? apart from that two month resurgence in March-April. And lol suddenly people think Carlo was such a mastermind. The same Carlo that didn't have a plan B all season long?! Don't get me wrong, the blame lies with the players but he didn't change anything at all. AVB is showing signs of allowing his ideas to be changed if they benefit the team.

Ever since the Newcastle game - where we finally got to see how the defence plays without the high-line, we've been pretty solid though. To give you an even bigger shock, Bosingwa played at CB for about 60 or so minutes and was terrific

It was very similar to the City game. They started off well and we were on the back foot. They had a lot of possession and dominated us for about 15 minutes where we couldn't get any passing going at all. Then after they scored, we had this great chance where Mata forced a save out of Friedal and Sturridge missed the rebound. After that you could see that the players were starting to believe in themselves more, similar to the City game. The 2nd half was almost completely dominated by us. They had some glorious chances as well but in terms of controlling the match, it was by our midfielders. But we couldn't get Mata and Sturridge involved enough so could carve out that many opportunities from open play. Last 10 mins they attacked us a lot and had about 3 amazing chances to win but we defended resolutely as we had done in the whole game (except for their goal) Based on clear-cut chances a draw is a fair result because either team could have won it (Ramires' horrifying miss and Gallas' and Adebayor's chances at the end for them) but in terms of overall domination we were better

I didn't notice it during the game but the most blame for Spurs' goal lies with Mikel! Go and watch the goal again! He completely fails to close down Bale. He has the advantage, he could have closed Bale down to limit the space but he just stands there and hardly moves! Utterly ridiculous! Bosingwa and Ivanovic were at a disadvantage because they were running with their backs to Bale, but Mikel was the key man in that move. If he had done his job, Bale would not have had the same amount of time to run and put the ball in. The least he could have done was run back towards JT and Cech but he doesn't even do that! What a joke.

Every time he got the ball, I was worried that he was going to lose it a la Liverpool's goal against us in the league. He nearly succeeded a couple of times. Ever since I read him being described as a crab on this forum, that's what I keep picturing on my television screen.

Okay that's a fair point. But I think Drogba has been ok in the last month or so. He does disappear in games but that's not due to lack of effort, he can't run the way he used to anymore that much is obvious. He still creates things out of nothing (that shot against the bar yesterday, the ball for Ramires, etc) and I believe the team players better with him on the pitch than Torres. If Drogba was playing the way he was last season, then I'd defo agree that he shouldn't be starting but he's doing alright right now imo

Would've been amazing if Ramires had gotten on the end of his flick from the corner.

It has become ridiculous but I don't think that it's possible to stop it now that it's gotten to this stage. Salary cap will just make players go elsewhere because most of them would be enticed by the money - even the so called loyal players.

Is it just me, or has the rep quota been reduced? I find myself running out of reps to give awfully quickly

By the way - what did people think about Mikel? Before he got injured, that is. I thought he was pretty poor. Romeu's performance after he came on convinced me that he should have started instead.

I hate when people compare him with Drogba to argue about his performances. Like: "Drogba's hardly setting the world on fire either" What?! So, just because Drogba is playing like shit, it excuses Torres? I am not happy with him. My patience is almost down to 0. I'm just not seeing Torres as a Chelsea FC player anymore, but rather simply as a player on the pitch that somehow ended up with a Chelsea shirt on. His heart is just not in it and if he doesn't play well in Jan then he should go back to Spain to find his passion for football again. If anyone is in any doubts about this, just watch videos from his Liverpool days. It's a different player.

I'd play him over Bosingwa tbh

I do think we need two defenders. Either two CBs or a CB and a RB. JT is probably going to get a 10+ match ban and Alex is leaving. So that leaves only Luiz. Despite Bosingwa's good performance today, he still should not be playing. Bran should be RB so we need Cahill + 1 more defender. If Luiz gets a long term injury then we're fucked.

^ That Marseille goal is one of my favourite goals ever. I remember watching the highlights that day and just being in complete awe of what he did there

You're crazy if you think he would have done more than what Meireles did today.

Think he could have gotten into the game more in the 2nd half when we were clearly the more dominant team. He made a couple of decent runs but he's been better imo

Mata unfortunately wasn't able to get in the game that much but amazing effort by the little man today. Never stopped running

lol what?! Lampard would have been horrible today. The game was end to end and he wouldn't have been able to handle it