CHOULO19

The thing with Josh is that he can't get regular minutes here at Chelsea unless he shows his best else where, but for him to show his best, he needs to be playing along side players of the caliber we have here at Chelsea!

That bad? It's always been regarded as a 'reliable' source by everyone for some reason.

Bild have been reporting a lot of BS lately.

Or it could mean that none of the loanees are coming with the team to the US. Take your pick.

According to WAGNH, both of their contracts end this June. I expect Hillario to be retiring but I'm not sure where Ross is headed to. I think we will replace him since we had confirmed interest in Begovic in Jan.

Oh God, not you too!

Actually some people on Twitter were saying that he said this to Bild but there have been absolutely no actual links, that I've seen at least, so I'm guessing it's just someone bored who came up with that.

I was one of the few saying from the beginning that this is a huge competition and criticizing the people saying we should only play reserves in the EL, but I think a parade would be over the top. I spent half the match against Benfica on my knees in front of the TV from nervousness and celebrated the win like crazy, but I can't say that winning the EL was a dream of mine nor was it an objective of the team at the start of the season. There's a fine line between being spoiled, which is what I think of the people who were saying we should intentionally lose in this competition, and having big ambitions for the club.

Do we really need to have the fight of some Turkish teams here on TC? Let's just drop the topic, please.

No, don't play the reserves! If I have to wake up at 3:30am to watch Marin and Benayoun I might cry..

Soooo, anyone got a link to a melt down on a Tottenham forum?

Bad first half but really grew into the game in the second which is great to see. Hope to see him take some part in the post and preseason games.

I've only watched Fernandinho in the CL, so I will comment on Vidal only since I've watched every Juve game this season. Vidal has many many qualities, but his defensive ability is not one of them. He is too aggressive and even though he sometimes does get the ball, other times he does not and that often puts Juve in trouble. Again people just judge Vidal based on a couple of great games he had in the CL while forgetting a couple of horror games he had as well like against Bayern. And just to put an end to the myth, Mikel has a higher interception per game ratio than Vidal; check whoscored.com. Mikel has the ability to go to ground, but just like Alonso said, it's only something you resort to when you make a mistake. I disagree that Mikel is not dynamic, just watch his matches with Nigeria where he is given a more free role and you can see him all over the pitch in a more of a box to box style. But at Chelsea his role requires discipline. He is the midfielder that is supposed to shield the back 4 and he shows great discipline to stay in position and not leave gaps behind him. Naturally, when your opposition are in control and are committing men into the box, your DM should get into the box because 2 CBs to defend the area wouldn't be enough. Finally, regarding the comparisons you made, I couldn't disagree more. I mean Arteta who can't pass for his life, Yacob who spends more time out of position that actually in it, and Sandro the head-less chicken?! Also, none of those players have Mikel's distribution and ball retention abilities. We've been talking about the defensive part of the holding midfielders role because that is what you criticized in you original post, but for me Mikel's biggest assets are on the ball. He always provides an outlet for the back four because they know that they can give Mikel the ball in almost any situation and he has the ball retention skills to keep it under immense pressure and then play a safe pass. He also has incredible pass completion percentage meaning that when Mikel plays, our distribution of the ball is more accurate and we lose the ball less often. That's why you see when Mikel does not start, our CBs tend to lump the ball forward much more often.

I'm only saying because you obviously gave some people the impression that the game is at 1:30 pm and not am like Hutcho here:

Still, he has an agent and his agent knows that he's playing for the best club he could be playing for now and making the most he possibly could with his ability. He'd also know that we can't afford to give Torres the 'Malouda' treatment, both financially and in terms of PR. And frankly, I don't think the board wants to move him on that badly, he's still has HUGE marketability value and makes the club a lot of money.

No, it's a very late kick off. Early kick off is 12:00 or 1:00 pm.

Well we can debate it all we want, but he's not leaving. He's still got a deal for 3 years worth about 30m, there's no way he's taking a pay cut to move. And of course, no one will be willing to pay his current wages. Might as well start getting used to the idea of him staying..

Wait, if this kicks off at 7:30pm St. Louis time, doesn't that mean it kicks off at 1:30am UK time? It's not 'early' kick off, it's 'middle of the night' kick off!

I said I'm not getting into a debate in this thread, but I'm going to answer only you because I know you can debate open-mindedly. Mikel is NOT a ball winning midfielder, he is a holding midfielder. First of all, ball winning midfielders are a species that is nearing extinction. They just don't belong in today's game. Why? Well, take Luiz in midfield for instance, he tries to be a ball winning midfielder, always attempting to intercept, tackle and nick the ball off the opposition. Result? More often than not, he fails to win the ball and the player gets past him and can run at our back four with no one shielding them. If the opposition are a good organized team, we're likely to concede in that situation. You can still see ball winning midfielders in the championship and lower levels, but in the PL, the game is just much more dynamic and fast paced than what it used to be in the days of Roy Keane. Defenders don't tackle as much as they used to and CMs almost never go to ground anymore, in fact, tackles in midfield are so out of fashion that if you see a player go to ground and not get it 100% right, you directly think he could be off or at least get a yellow card. Instead, ball winning midfielders have been largely replaced by holding midfielders like Mikel. The first thing they teach kids in academies about defending nowadays is "Stay on your feet" "Do NOT commit to the challenge" because when a player commits to a tackle, he's giving the attacker a chance to get past him. There is a quote by Xabi Alonso that I like to use where he says tackling is not something that, as a holding midfielder, you look or try to do, but rather something you have to resort to sometimes if your man gets away from you or to correct a certain mistake. But in normal circumstances, a central midfielder should never go to ground. Instead, what holding midfielders do, is that they stay on their feet and just block the channels and passing angles and either force the man on the ball to a less dangerous area or force him to make a mistake or at least take the difficult option. As for the comparisons, half of the ones you mentioned are only there because they are "trending" now (Btw, Fernandinho and Vidal are more b2b; Vidal is basically a more dynamic Ramires with better technique). They had a a few good games this season and got a good reputation that they'd probably lose next season if they don't perform as they did this season. And of course, there are players that are better than Mikel. But that applies to every single position in our team bar GK and probably LB. Why doesn't anyone else say that we are "settling" for Luiz or Iva or Azpi or Rami or Oscar..etc? Because Mikel is just the 'easy' target because what he does, i.e. his role in the team, is not glamorous, it is not evident in particular incidents but rather the overall play. When you're arguing for Iva you can say: "Did you see that tackle he made in that game?" or for Rami: "Did you see that run?" but you can't say: "Did you see Mikel's 95% passing accuracy or the tactical discipline he showed to not leave gaps between himself and the back four during the whole 90 mins?" because you simply can't 'see' that in individual incidents. Now I'm not saying that Mikel does not have his flaws, because he certainly does. For me his biggest flaw is that he is slow to react at times, and like said there are better defensive midfielders than him out there. But he also isn't an average or below average player; in fact in the league right now, bar Carrick, you can't find a holding midfielder who is better than Mikel. he is a good player who is very good at what he does. He's not world-class, but he is certainly not our biggest problem at the moment. But unfortunately, with the type of non-glamorous role he has (and with Kalou gone), he's often going to be the scapegoat for the million other problem that team is having.

Thank you Paulo

Voted for Paulo for MOTM for purely sentimental reasons. Thank you Paulo, you've been a great servant of the club and an amazing human being. Good luck whatever you decide to do next in your life.

3 points, 3rd place, and 3 goals for Lukaku to rain on Fergie's parade

Can torres PLEASE stop diving? It's embarrasing

Wow, my stream is so bad, I didn't even notice that!