CHOULO19

Nah, only Chelsea can do that The way to beat Chelsea is to get their players disinterested in the match. That's how Athletico beat us.

Lampard would never place such a crucial penalty. It would be thumped straight down the middle, the keeper would know were Lamps is going to hit it but is still unable to stop it. An 8-0 victory at home with Didier getting a hat-trick and grabbing the golden boot in the process.

Honestly I can't see a future for Rambo here at the club if we continue to play 4-2-3-1 unfortunately.

We did not get revenge, we deserved to beat them both in 2009 and this year. We won't get revenge until we beat them by 5 or 6 goals!

What about Mikel is mediocre? What requirements of a DM does he not serve? What does he lack to become world-class in your opinion?

I think he's upset because he's put on too much hair gel

Yes Cahil, I thought he was terrible in preseason. Extremely off the pace and his positioning was to blame for a couple of the goals we conceded. His start of the season has been decent, imo, but he is not being helped by Iva thinking he is a winger.

He's had a bad preseason, but let's not forget too quickly how he performed last year when called upon. Hopefully he'll regain his form from the end of last season soon.

No one deserves this more than Ryan. Hopefully, he is the first of many youth academy products to go down this road.

This can't lead to anything good. Just wait till the media picks up on that

LMAO at Iva Congrats Didier

How about the countless times he puts his body on the line for the team? The times he fearlessly sticks his head in front of an attacker's boot to stop a shot? How about the way he always sticks up for his teammates? How about the 110% effort he puts and the passion he shows in every match? But no. All those account for nothing because he aimed a stupid kick in the heat of the moment at Sanchez.

Thank you! If only half the fans understood that we wouldn't even be having these discussions. The problem is our fans want a DM that plays accurate 50 yards pass every time he's on the ball and score 10 goals a season. Keeping the ball is very underrated among fans. Sloth, you're mostly a decent poster but sometimes you make absolutely no sense. How is his post 'bullshit' when it got 9 likes in about 12 hours while your post got only one? Are you saying that everyone talks bullshit except you?

Weird, I remember him as the guy who chased Ovrebo on the pitch pushing him around when he refused to give us a blatant penalty.

In theory of course, but practically, it is extremely improbable.

No team in the world can play 10 consecutive forward passes, unless you want to change the size of the pitch.

Dan Levene has got the answer for you: http://sulia.com/channel/chelsea-fc/f/3cdf8a18-a7f6-4015-bc77-ba122969a4fd/?source=twitter By offloading Essien, Meireles and Benayoun, we saved 8.6m in wages and gained 8m from selling Meireles. How much is our squad weakened though is something that will be revealed in the future.

Or we could just stick with two central midfielders.

I completely agree with Greg. I don't think we will miss him because of his abilities or talents, but we are likely to miss another body in midfield, especially if we get hit by injuries.

We don't have the players for 4-3-3 either. We have only 5 CMs: Mikel, Lamps, Oscar, Oriol and Rami. You can't go for a whole season with only two players as cover for three positions.

I'm sorry, but unless you know him personally, your judgment accounts for absolutely nothing. On the other hand, there are numerous character witnesses by people who actually know him that point in the opposite direction: http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/chelsea/109807/former-chelsea-youth-players-candid-account-reveals-another-less-gimpish-side-to-john-terry.html

Well this match is only 4 days before the one vs Juve, so rotation is not exactly an impossibility.

Until Jan, he is probably our only option, unless you another ex-worldclass CM who is currently a free agent. I don't that anyone is saying that he can be a starter here, but we can't go on for 3 month with only 3 real CMs (Mikel, Lamps and Oriol). Whats wrong with giving him a 3-4 months contract just so we'd have a back up if we a get a couple of injuries in the middle?

Dafaq did I just watch?

I posted this in the Meireles thread: http://thebluemark.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/bring-back-michael-ballack/ And it might be just my sentiments talking, but I find it hard to argue with the reasoning behind that article. We are clearly short on cover in the double pivot, saying otherwise is just kidding ourselves. And since the window has closed, we really don't have much choices. Yes, he way over his prime and probably can't play more than 3-4 matches a month, but he showed last year in the CL that he is still more than capable of producing world class performances, just rewatch our game vs Leverkusen at the bridge and you'll see what I mean. He is also a great personality and influence on the pitch. He knows Chelsea very well, is a very loved character at the club and is still in touch with everybody here (He was at the Super Cup "Supporting my friends" as he said). Of course this is just us fans discussing this, for all we know the board might not have even considered the possibility or resigning Michael.