OneMoSalah

Personally I'd prefer to see one out of Hazard or Mata on the left in a 4-3-3 with Moses on the right and Ba in the middle as we wouldn't be so narrow with both Juan and Eden coming infield the whole time. Sounds odd but I think if we did go back to 4-3-3 it would be more like a 4-3-2-1 with both Juan and Eden in the team.

Hopefully we go back to 4-3-3 and see him rotated with Mikel. Loved this lad under AVB, was calm everytime he had the ball. Honestly think he could grow and become our very own Sergio Busquets, just a bit balder. He has great positional sense, distribution, reads the game well etc, all the ingredients for a top DM. Just need to go back to 4-3-3 which suits him and Rami imo.

We didn't go into bad form because of the psychological effect of loosing against United in that manner. The squad was tired, we have a very small squad, players like Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Ramires, Torres, Cole, Ivanovic, Luiz etc were playing 180 minutes a week. The lesser teams we managed to beat because we had that bit of quality despite players being tired. United were strong and energetic all over the pitch due to rotation and quality in their 25 man squad where as some of our players were absolutely fucked due to midweek games etc and well as good and entertaining as our offensive football was, we suffered defensively against United who play through their wings a lot. Cole and Ivanovic were usually up against Valencia and Rafael or Nani and Evra due to the lack of defensive work from whoever was given the two wide positions off the ball. We did play well to get it back to 2-2 but United helped us in that manner as they let us have the share of the ball, with 9 men it was impossible as certain players were that tired from doing double or triple the amount of running they had to do usually due to the sending offs. Di Matteo going back to basics wouldn't have done anything. It showed vs Juve, we basically played 5 at the back and still conceded 3. His 'luck' possibly ran out. We played poorly under him just before Rafa came in, we'd only won 2 games in 6 or 8 I think it was. Going back to basics after that still would have been pointless. It won us the CL because we had limited players that weren't good enough to control games against Bayern, Barca, Benfica and Napoli in Europe but we could let them commit players forward, stay compact and use the pace of Ramires, Kalou, Torres, Bosingwa, Mata, Sturridge and whoever else to get up the pitch. We still don't have the right player to go next to Mikel or Romeu to control bigger European games in my opinion (but at least we have more creative players than Ramires Kalou and Sturridge to play in the three so we are kind of half way there). Di Matteo gave himself and Rafa and potentially the next coach a problem by not signing a central midfielder who could do such a thing. This stuck out like a sore thumb in pre-season too. I'm not saying Rafa is the right coach, hell no but in terms of rotation and use of the squad we've got, hes been very sensible with using the squad players (Marko, Yossi, Ryan, Victor, Romeu) to rest players to try prevent fatigue and injuries despite results. Robbie had implemented a good idea in terms of playing style offensively but defensively we were a mess, he failed to overcome the problem that ultimately cost him his job in a way; to get the offensive players to defend when we didn't have the ball. Rafa didn't solve that completely but against City (the borefest game) we were better as a unit. I remember Mikels interview after the Juve game in Turin before Rafa was appointed, he said without the ball it was a nightmare and he hit the nail on the head. Which even against the MLS team, PSG and Brighton in pre-season you could have said without the ball we caused ourselves problems all day. The signs were there. The thing about RDM not getting enough time is a myth. He was on borrowed time from the day he signed that 2 year deal. He would have been sacked the following season had he won the PL unbeaten because Roman wanted Pep to rebuild Chelsea. I'm not trying to say Robbie was a bad coach or that but he wasn't the right man to rebuild Chelsea especially as he had never rebuilt a squad in his whole career. He brought the feel good factor back after AVB's sacking (even though I believed AVB deserved time as he actually had a plan to rebuild the squad and change the philosophy), that's for sure and he did very well to win us two big trophies with that squad. Robbie's a better manager because of his experience here and it will benefit him greatly if he gets another top coaching position.

4-1 to us Ba hattrick, there I said it, optimistic but still.

Never mind 12 more he'll be lucky if he gets another 5. Hes wasted his career by wanting to go to that world cup. Absolutely fucked his legs. Hes scored 7 goals in the PL, which is horrendous, Jan Vertoghen is a center back and has scored like 5. Hes scored 11 goals in the FA cup, Champions League, Europa League and Carling Cup which again is still terrible. Its not as if hes scored 18 PL goals. If he scores 30 goals by the end of the season (which he wont) I'll eat my foot

Pre order the home kit without seeing it and get it on the 15th of May. No way, fuck no. If its anything as ugly as whats been posted on here I will not be getting it. Simple as that.

If its a season loan for KDB plus 12 million then ok decent deal. Still De Bruyne is better than Schurrle so Leverkusen are ripping us off by wanting him on loan or permanently and 12-15m but hey our board are idiots.

Meh still shit.

Na Zanetti just edges Paulo for me tbh. Hes been Inter's Mr Reliable for about 100 years.

No away goal please

Going to be honest. There is a major difference in reserve and Championship football compared to PL and Champions League football, so no hes not ready just based on that.

Fuck why oh why oh why Chelsea board, just why..... give the lads a rest

James Rodriguez and Jackson Martinez, Colombian connection!

Article floating about twitter and Facebook that Thibaut 'is slightly unhappy' at the uncertainty around his future and we have apparently asked for more time to get back to him . Fuck sake if you cunts (the board) fuck this guy up and he wants to leave I will go ape shit........ if we lose him to ANYONE, not just Barca or Madrid ANYONE then we are fucking stupid.

Has been compared to Rio Ferdinand........ avoid..............

That is a marvelous goal, nearly Bergkamp-esque! Fischer has got great technical ability. He made that look so easy..

If Benat is anything like Wilshere tactically as you've said then he can't be a player for the pivot imo. That's where Wilshere lets himself down for me, when I've seen him break forward for Arsenal and they lose the ball he doesn't get back and one or two passes from the opposition and its automatically 2 v 1 in midfield, the Arsenal midfielder usually being Arteta or Ramsey who aren't really defensive midfield players. That is how they get dominated in certain games, they don't have a proper defensive midfielder to pair with Arteta or Ramsey. Anyway that's another issue and another team haha but I might have a look out for this Illarramendi if I get the chance to watch a Sociedad game. I imagine he doesn't have any senior Spanish NT caps but has he been used at u23 or u21 level?

No idea who he is but I'm sure I've seen someone mention him on twitter before, plays for Real Sociedad? Moutinho would be the perfect player we could get for the pivot this summer as hes likely to leave Porto.

For the next 2 week, I can see teams targeting our left side as they will see him as the weakest link in our team. Which is fair but also unfair as you could say he might not get a lot of help from Eden and the pivot could essentially our weakness too. Hazards tendency to not back track every time (hes certainly improved in that manner since Rafa came in which I'd expect but he doesn't always do it) could be a problem for Ryan but I'd rather it was Hazard further up field using his pace to counter against teams than say Mata or Oscar.

Possibly. I've not seen him play but from what I've heard hes very much similar to Alonso, correct?

Great goal. Needs to start more often. Think his link up and hold up play is underrated by a lot of people on here and on twitter.

Seen someone mention Viktor Fischer above. In my opinion Viktor Fischer would be an interesting buy. He has flourished for Ajax in their traditional possession based 4-3-3 as a left winger/inverted forward under de Boer where he comes infield and floats in between the lines. Technically excellent as you'd expect being schooled in Holland with Ajax and in Denmark before where the quality of youth players have improve the last couple of years. Think he has 8 goals for Ajax in the league this year in 18 appearances which for an 18 year old in their debut season is really impressive. Hes one we should keep an eye on and I'm sure the scouting department already know who he is after giving him a trial when he was 16. Already got the inevitable comparison with Michael Laudrup. Still we all know what we need this summer. A Xavi Alonso-esque player who can dictate the tempo and play along with getting stuck in when needed and a striker of some sort depending on what we do with Lukaku (loan him or keep him). We could gamble and go with Torres, Ba, Lukaku and promote Islam Feruz to give him a taste of first team action but ultimately we need a manager lmao. Also a quality CB would be nice.

Gave Rio another beating today, played like he did vs United when Newcastle won 3-0. Next on Demba's list: Bramble and Kompany.

Rafa will announce Ba will start in press conference and troll us all by playing Torres

So rather than reply to try and argue why you said that/'why Tiote is better than Mikel', you attack me haha. Why you so mad? Anyway to answer your question, I've probably got over 1000 rep because 1) I'm fucking awesome 2) I don't run around saying Mikel is shitter than Tiote and 3) I share the view of a lot of users on here on certain topics. Yeah? Good enough answer for you?