Joe Cool

Great job acting like everyone who criticises Mikel just responds in this manner. Obviously there are the idiot trolls who just come in here and say "Mikel is shit", but I've also seen plenty of reasonable arguments criticising his dire commitment and catastrophic defending (the one with all the gifs from Man City, for example), so to tar all of his critics under the same brush just because they don't agree with you is just plain wrong.

It's funny, he is the one trying to get his unworthy hands on the trophy after the fact that he pretty much dismissed the Europa League with both his degrading comments about the competition and his awful performances against one of these lowly "Thursday night" sides.At least Bosingwa played brilliantly against Barca and Bayern before acting the twat in the trophy presentation.

As much as I don't like Jorge Jesus, you've got to feel for him, the players, and the fans. That's two competitions lost in stoppage time within the same week and you could see how devastated they all were when the final whistle was blown.

I never said Benfica didn't play well (because they certainly did). The only thing I said was that Benfica were remarkably dirty and the refereeing was shite, and if this is the type of thing that hurts your feelings, then boo fucking hoo.

Did anyone else notice the referee letting Benfica getting away with murder all match long? They played like dirty cunts and committed plenty of bookable fouls all across the park but were never punished for it. Rafa's lack of subs was also incredibly strange, but who cares :cfc:

Just a response to people saying that he doesn't fit the style here at Chelsea. Style or no style, his legs are fucked.

The thing with Torres is that in his time here, he's never looked anything close to a quality striker. Hell, even before he left Liverpool, it was quite apparent that injuries had really fucked him. Even in the case of Shevchenko, where things didn't go well for him either, we would see flashes of quality here and there like this gem: But have we ever seen anything like that from Torres in his time here? He still has the pace, but his first touch, movement, and finishing are woeful.

I'm not so much against the idea of him going on loan as I am with it being announced so early. What if we don't manage to get our hands on a top quality striker? It's happened before with the likes of Aguero. Then we'll be left with Ba and Torres for yet another season. It was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction from me, I'll admit, and that nothing is done and dusted; but him and the club should take some time and see how things go before putting him on another season-long loan.

http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2013/5/13/4326814/romelu-lukaku-loan-2013-14-chelsea-european-football-swansea Are you fucking kidding me? What goes through the mind of this club? Have they not seen the exceptional performances that he has put in this season? At any rate, it's a hell of a lot better than Torres. For fucks sake, this makes me beyond mad.

That's true, my mistake. I should have been more clear. The top teams in England have become quite a bit worse compared to the other leagues.

On a more serious note, it'll be scary to see what a proper manager (Pellegrini) will do with a squad like City's. Even with Mancini's evident lack of managerial ability, they still managed to win the league last season, albeit through goal difference (which is still an utter joke if you ask me). Chances are, they'll be really scary next season, especially if they strengthen the squad (AKA get rid of tripe like Barry), but we'll just have to see.

Well for whatever reason, the Premier League has fallen quite a bit in terms of quality compared to La Liga and the Bundesliga in recent years.

Arteta and Carrick too. But truth be told, the CMs and DMs in the Premier League are miles behind the midfielders in the other top leagues, like Pirlo, Schweinsteiger, Garcia, Busquets, Xavi, Alonso, etc

As long as he'd be willing to take a wage decrease I'd be more than happy to let him stay. What shouldn't be acceptable, however, is that he stays for another year on 150 thousand quid (or whatever the number is) a week. Just because he's been a legend at this club does not entitle him to an extraordinarily high wage. Don't get me wrong, he's an invaluable squad player and his contribution is excellent (on and off the pitch), but his performances certainly do not justify keeping him on £150,000 per week.

For Man City to have won the league last season off of goal difference last season speaks volumes, not to mention their performance this season and the abysmal performances in Europe. Mancini is always blaming the fact that there was not enough investment during the summer, but that is a complete and utter load of bollocks. When you have Tevez, Aguero, and Dzeko as your forwards, there should be absolutely no complaint about the squqd not being good enough. Not to mention the strength of the rest of the team. Nearly a billion quid invested and he's still churning out mediocre results, Mancini can say it's because of the players underperforming (which he does a lot), but at the end of the day, it's his job to motivate the team, which he clearly has not done. Goodbye Bobby.

I'm not saying he had a poor game by any means, once it became 10 vs 10 he started going forward more, but I was just kind of puzzled by the fact that he didn't do it more when it was 11 vs 11.Generally, he hasn't been nearly as attack minded under Rafa as he had been.

Obviously that's not the only reason, there's a whole host of others (poor game from Mata, probably fatigue), Lampard and Ramires in the pivot (we all know how that always turns out), Moses being useful as tits on a boar, etc. But my main point was that we haven't been seeing Cole go forward nearly as much as he used to, which is odd, considering the fact that he is (or was) one of the best in the business at doing that as a fullback.

I don't know. He started out really well in the first half, getting forward a couple times and providing overlapping runs for Hazard, but after the first 15 minutes or so he stopped getting forward for whatever reason, which was a big cause of us looking toothless up front in the first half (absolutely no width). Maybe it is Rafa's cautious tactics (which, as of late, seems to have stifled his ability going forward), or maybe he just doesn't have the legs for it (he's 32!!). I'm not quite sure.

I really don't know why people are lambasting his performances lately (or comparing him to the likes of Schweinsteiger, which is a ridiculous comparison) or criticizing Rafa for playing him in midfield. Luiz is obviously not the optimal choice for central midfield. However, considering the vast amount of matches combined with our lack of central midfielders (very good decision by the club to sell Meireles and loan Essien ), it's not like we have much of a choice to do otherwise. Lampard: Yes, he scores a lot of goals, but also tends to disappear against big opposition and is ineffective in the pivot. Ramires: Incredible energy and speed, but absolutely no football IQ and sub-par technical ability. Mikel: I don't really think I need to get started on him. So there are our options. Also add in the fact that Mikel has been injured and that the Lampard/Ramires pivot usually ends in complete and utter disaster (first half Villa today, countless other matches). Therefore there's really no other option than to play Luiz in midfield. And really, considering that it's not even his natural position to begin with, he's done pretty damn well.

Has anyone else noticed that Cahill's biceps look disproportionately small compared to the rest of his body? Has fuck all to do with football, but it's just something that bothers me every time I see him On another note, there's definitely no excuse for his performances these past few days. Horrible, lacklustre, and unsure defending, he's starting to remind me of Ben-Haim lately. Hopefully he steps it up, because he has been a definite liability ever since coming back from injury.

He had a massive performance today before the injury despite the possible sending off. It's a shame that he keeps getting injured, because it seems to take something out of him every time but oh well, that's the nature of the sport

In all fairness that was a shite performance, Moses, Cahill, and Ramires get special mentions, but credit to the lads for really stepping it up once Benteke was off (something that happened about a half hour too late). I think, at this point of the season, that our fatigue is really becoming prevalent, so for them to come from behind and take all three points is really an incredible thing. I thought Terry was excellent today, man of the match for me. And how can I not mention Frank? Not the best performance, but who gives a shit, he scored two goals!!! So glad he finally broke the record, what a legend. So overall, poor performance, but excellent spirit to come back and win it and now we're guaranteed Champions League football.

Au revoir Roberto.