Superblue

I've just watched the match back again and I don't think it quite sank in the first time just how big an achievement it was. People will compare this to the rearguard Inter showed two years ago, but this was so much more heroic. We had our first choice centre half pairing decimated within the first 35 minutes, and actually had to go and score against them with 10 men, as opposed to just hanging on. Not just that, but we scored twice. Barcelona didn't even win, despite being 2-0 on their home patch against 10 men. Dani Alves said we deserved to lose in 2009 because despite playing at home with 10 men we played with fear. I wonder if he'll say the same for his Barcelona side tonight? For us, we were without doubt fearless - taming the lion in its own den. And for all the talk of ugly football, Barca not deserving to lose, BLAH BLAH BLAH - attacking football is not the only art to football; defending is too. That is why Barca aren't in the final, their defending is non existant! Ours was nothing short of a masterclass tonight! One final note also on the suspensions. I would happily accept them if we saw consistency - Yes Terry was rightly sent off, but where was the punishment to Messi and Fabregas to reacting against Lampard? And dissent from Ivanovic and Ramires - why weren't Barca players disciplined every time they crowded and hounded the referee? Not to mention Fabregas diving for the penalty. It's a disgrace what they get away with without being ridiculed. UEFA won't be happy

On a serious note for someone who only ever played for one football club his entire career, and someone I couldn't stand during his playing career, Gary Neville is far and away the best pundit Sky Sports have got. He's unbiased, says it as it is! And fair play to his reaction to both Ramires and Torres' goals, especially Torres, it was the reaction of a fan of English football.

Ironically he seems to do less damage to us at centre back when positioning is his worst attribute! In fairness though he put a shift in tonight, and although I would still expect him to be one who leaves in the summer, he's earned his chance to start in the final and hopefully, as it is likely to be for a number of players, a fitting way to bring the curtain down on his Chelsea career if we can go on and win it.

If we were to win the final do the suspended players win a medal? I assume medals are made for the 25 man squad, not just the matchday 18. I hope so, because if we manage to pull it off then Ramires, Ivanovic and Meireles deserve winners medals for their performances tonight!

And Barca for all the ball, possession, intricate passing only scored two goals. The more people that moan and bitch, the greater the feeling of achievement!

Bayern - Alaba, Badstubber, Boateng, Lahm, Guztavo, Kroos, Mueller Real Madrid - Ramos, Coentrao, Alonso, Higuain Would love Bayern with 2 or 3 of their backline out, that would be about as fair as possible given the players we have out!

Is there any point to this question now. Surely Robbie at the very least DESERVES A CHANCE next season. If he wins us the Champions League then he must be nailed on. I think there would be a Mourinho style riot if they let him go after that!

I think I'd rather take on Bayern. Drogba and Torres could get at their defence, and despite the home factor there won't be a Bayern influenced crowd and we've just taken out Barca on their own patch! Whoever we play, would be nice for them to have a couple of players suspended though given what's happened to us.

Much appreciated. Hopefully if it's Madrid in the final we can do you lot a favour by winning the final

Still unforgiveable. He has plenty of experience to ignore provocation! Were Ramires and Ivanovic both booked for dissent? The ref should handle moments like that better considering the occasion and atmosphere but the lads must have realised they were a booking away from suspension so dissent is fucking stupid! Meireles aswell took one for the team with his booking, fair play to him.

Even more of an issue with Ivanovic suspended - so fucking stupid! Cahill and David Luiz need wrapping in cotton wool. But providing both are going to be fit (and I don't see any reason why they can't - Luiz apparently nearly made tonight's game and Cahill played on for another few minutes), we still have a very good centre back pairing. Maybe they can come of age in the final, with a partnership next season Terry may struggle to dislodge. It'll be Ramires we miss the most in the final! This may be the beginning of the end for Terry. If he gets found guilty in the summer for racial abuse will the club stand by him again. I'm not so sure.

Christ I feel like I had five heart attacks in that game, and the adrenaline is still pumping! I think the only goal I've celebrated to a similar extent to Torres' was Lampard's against Bolton in 2005 and how eerily similar were both goals! I just pray now we can go and win it, because I would hate these two legs and the Napoli performance to be forgotten by not winning the competition. I felt the chance was there when we overcome Napoli and Messi's penalty miss just seemed fate.

Sturridge's negatives have become more problematic and frustrating as his form has deserted him. If he try's to hold the club to ransom over a new contract in the summer and Man City come in to take him back for around the £20m mark, I agree, we have to seriously consider it. Especially considering if you sold him for £20m and could buy Hoilett AND Moses for half of that figure, both of which have similar potential to Sturridge.

I think one of the biggest reasons for Chelsea fans rating our youngsters highly is in the last five years the club have reached one semi and three finals in the youth cup. Now granted it shouldn't be used as a definite yardstick for players coming through, but in those cup runs the club have had two or three 'special' players per team who stand out at that level. Firstly it was Kakuta and Stoch, then it was Bruma, McEachran and Tore, and this year we have Ake, Chalobah, Piazon and Feruz. You don't expect all the players to come through but for an academy consistently performing that well you expect one or two filtering through. The academy is doing a very good job, and at clubs like Arsenal and United the likes of a Kakuta or McEachran would have been integrated into the first team picture by now. The problem is after that, and I agree, the lack of direction in terms of management deciding when and who they go out on loan to and/or when they come up to the first team is abysmal. The lack of planning due to the regularity of managerial changes also adds to the problem. The loans of Courtois, Kakuta, Bruma and Kalas have worked well this season and I hope this is a sign of things to come from Chelsea but it also remains to be seen whether they can successfully perform the next step, being integrating them into our first team squad. I firmly believe once one or two 'make it' then the process will have been achieved and more will continue to follow.

Good post. I agree that it is basically a 'gamble' to integrate youth nowadays, and even more so given the pressure to be competing at the top of the league. However if you consider utilising a squad of roughly 25 players during a season, I don't think it is an almighty gamble to allow younger players promoted from the academy to take up 3-4 of these places. In a 50-55 game season they will get chances, train and travel with the first team, without huge pressure on them to come in and make instant impacts. Then once as part of the squad, over the next 2-3 years they should look to play more games each season, gaining more experience and taking on greater responsibilities. The problem is that when the club tried this 2 years ago they panicked due to poor form and went back to the tried and trusted. It has effectively left the likes of Kakuta and McEachran in limbo for 18 months, when they could now each have 30 odd first team games under their belt. I'm not expecting these players to become first team regulars next season but getting some game time is critical to their development. For example it's only in the last few weeks that Bertrand has had a few games and played back to back league games. He's not at Ashley Cole's level but the club have not been good enough picking the right games to rest Cole and play Bertrand, which has left Cole now 31 and at times looking tired and Bertrand 22 with no top level experience. I also appreciate the comment regarding the experienced players, but a number of players in their mid twenties must also now start taking up the mantle of 'experienced' players aswell. This doesn't mean everybody over 30 should be binned but the likes of Torres, Cahill, David Luiz, Mata and Mikel have plenty of experience to be taking on greater reponsibility within the squad and are all still at good ages to 'kick on'.

The rumours doing the mill in today's papers suggest a squad overhaul maybe even more drastic than any of us may have anticipated, with the entire 'old guard' and fringe players moving on for younger signings and promotions through the academy. Now we all know that newspaper rumours must always be taken with a pinch of salt, but I do believe over the next two summers the older players will be moved on in full, and the squad will be rebuilt with younger signings and youth team players. So my question is which of our younger players are ready to play a more prominent role next season? IMO the players currently in the youth team for the cup final are likely to be the second wave of talent to come through in another 2-3 seasons but they are not ready yet. The likes of Piazon and Chalobah may get a debut in the league cup next season but they are not yet ready as a member of the first team squad. The younger players on our books who I believe are capable of playing a more prominent role next season are: Courtois, Kalas, Bruma, Bertrand, McEachran, de Bruyne, Kakuta and Lukaku. This doesn't mean that I want all of them to be involved next season because I feel a couple of them will benefit from loan moves due to the quality in front of them for the position in the squad they're trying to seize (In particular I'm thinking Courtois, Bruma and Kalas) However if the rest were to be elevated into the first team picture somewhat, and added to 4-5 real good quality signings then the club's rebuilding plans should be well on the way.

If he can be got for £15-18m considering his age and European experience I think it's a decent deal. Anything more though and I agree we should be pursuing other options. Particularly when Hoilett will be available on a free at the end of the season and Moses will be sold in the summer probably for about £8-10m. I'm pretty sure Malouda will move on in the summer and IF Kalou leaves too then IMO our wing options for next season should be Kakuta and KDB as the backup younger options, and two good first choice buys.

Who knows - we might get Willian and Lavezzi?! We're just going to have to wait and see

The rumours won't go away. I have a strong feeling Willian will be here next season. The club will know which players are interested in joining and which aren't. It may well be that we're not pursuing Hazard or Gotze because the club have already been informed by their agents that they're not interested in the moves. I would prefer the likes of Hazard and Hulk as I've said before but I wouldn't be against Willian. We are in desperate need of pace in our side and a couple of players who are capable of beating a man or two to create space. Willian is capable of this.

Makes me smile seeing this 18 months on. At the time people were torn between Cahill and David Luiz - now we have both of them, both proving to be excellent buys and both showing the capabilities to partner each other in defence for the next 5 years plus.

Very good article and I had been thinking myself of making the point on Guardiola. Guardiola's only coaching experiene had come with Barcelona B who play in Spain's second tier. To appoint him after Frank Rijkaard who, despite a poor final season, had laid the foundations of Barcelona domination and won a Champions League to boot, was an incredible risk and show of faith. However, Guardiola's connections with the club and it's fans helped smooth such a move into making it a successful one. If Barcelona are willing to make such decisions on inexperienced coaches then why can't we? We are entering a vital part of the club's history, being building the second post-Abramovich side whilst keeping it successful and competing as it has done for the past 7-8 seasons. I fully agree that somebody who has connections and affiliations with this club could well be the best person to make this transition happen. I, for one, will certainly be happy if Roman offered long term jobs to Robbie and Eddie tomorrow.

Fair play to Puyol for his reaction to it. Two warriors on the pitch who are the soul of their clubs, cracking moment. If it was anyone else they would have been rolling round trying to get Terry in trouble. Did anyone see his block on Sanchez early on aswell - pure gold!

Gary Cahill's performance last night was for me one of the most pleasing aspects. I highly rated him before he moved to Chelsea and was naturally delighted when we bought him in January. However I can openly admit I was worried about him replacing Luiz last night. His ability is unquestionable but he had looked shaky in the Napoli away and Benfica home (when on as a sub) games. This is expected when he has had no real experience playing in Europe at that level. A poor performance last night could have really put him back in terms of confidence and development as a top class centre back. The second half performance really showed his potential IMO and a couple of last man perfectly timed tackles, particularly one on Messi were superb. The chants of 'only one Gary Cahill' were richly deserved and he is proving to be a bargain each passing game.

I liked Howard Webb last night booking Higuain for imaginary card waving after a foul. Hoping to get a strong ref tonight who stamps all of that out. For all the lovely football they play, the media both in England and Spain fail to pick up on the fact that Barcelona are probably the worst team in world football for imaginary card waving, going down easily and crowding the ref on every decision. Barcelona always escape any criticism for this!

I can't help but thinking that Chelsea may have (by accident) stumbled upon something potentially very good in RDM and I just hope no rash decision is made on the manager. He has changed the formation of the team to get the best out of our only real creative player, and has changed the style to a more direct nature to play to the strengths of the players. I would like to play a more slick, exciting style of play but it's not possible with the players we have and the most important thing is to win, something he has realised that AVB failed to. He hasn't been afraid to make big calls and change things based on opponent. For example deploying Ramires wide left against Napoli to double up against Maggio. If the rumours of the team talk are true that is classic! He just has this air of confidence and perhaps arrogance about him, but he also channels his undoubted passion in the right ways for the good of the club and shows he is tactically very clever. When Roman decided to bring in a younger manager to freshen up the squad and ideas therein, I can't help but feel that RDM is that man if Roman still wants to go down that line.