manpe

Benitez is fixing our defence at the moment, attack is suffering as a consequence (it suffered already before Rafa came in tbf), but at least we're making some progress now. He figured out quickly that Cahill and Luiz can't work together, this decision has massively improved our defence imo. All we need to do now is scrape a win or two, build up some confidence and fitness (as per Rafa's words it could be better and it shows) and hopefully we'll be entering the new year with improved defensive and offensive play to keep us where we are at the moment, fingers crossed. This season is far from fucked. We're in a good position in the league, we just have to grind on to keep us there. The only thing that is potentially fucked is our Champions League bid, but it's not definite yet. No need for this thread at all.

I would say between 5-10 million euros.

There were 2 moments which especially pissed me off about him. 1) During a corner the ball went past him rolling out of sideline. Luiz made a great effort to get to it despite being further than Torres, who even blocked his path. Had Torres reacted, he might have been able to keep the ball in. Nevertheless, it summed up the attitudes of Torres and Luiz, the complete opposites. I wish we had a striker with Luiz's mentality - fight for every ball, no compromises. 2) When he started an attack from deep, he gave the ball to Marin on the right and ran up the pitch at full speed. He expected Marin to play a through ball to him and I agree, this is what he should have done, but he severely lacks match practice. The moment Marin missed the chance to make a quick pass to him, Torres made a demonstrative gesture expressing his disappointment. There were a few positives though, like having two shots on goal and one attempt from distance (which was blocked before it could reach the box, but still better than falling over your own shadow).

http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/2993754/title/benitez-fine-adjustments I liked what he said there, especially this: 'The main thing now is to find a balance. Defensively we will continue working and we will improve because normally defence is easier than attack. In attack we have players with talent; we have players with quality, so we have to find this balance. Defending well and giving the ball to the attacking players to create is our main issue now. 'We need to give the freedom to perform and play well but at the same time they have to be organised as a team. 'We were talking for a few days and the owner knows it will take some time to fix everything, but he knows that we can do it.'

He has a blog? Address please.

Not needed

All I can say about the pivot is that at the moment we don't have suitable players there to play possession football. In fact ever since we switched over to 4-2-3-1 we haven't had suitable players to play there. Letting Meireles go was a big mistake. He was not perfect but at the moment he could have been of great use. He worked well with Mikel in the games they played together, not what we can say about Lampard. Ramires is a temporary fix until we find someone suitable for that position.

Are you sure? You joined on 29th May, 1 day after Hazard announced on his Twitter he's joining us. Officially he signed on 4th June, that's hardly "long before".

What were they chanting against him?

At 16 minute mark... It was for Robbie, 16 was his shirt number.

Clean sheet, that means the MOTM award falls to one of the defenders. Ivanovic hit the fortune wheel tonight, so much more solid with him at the back. But everybody was good at the back, including Cech.

Wow, Mata has been complete garbage. He needs to come off asap if he continues like that.

What's the difference between 4-4-1-1 and 4-2-3-1? I understand in 4-4-1-1 wingers play deeper? Who do we have to play deeper? There are no Beckhams anymore. No matter what numbers we use to describe the formation it won't make a difference if we continue using 2 deep midfielders, it will be the same shape. I'm more interested to see what roles players will be given, i.e will our front 3 be more restricted etc. I hope he will make use of our potential width hazard (ZING!) more than we've been doing so up until now.

Not related to football at all. As much as I gathered it was some boring talk about a company and acquiring stuff legally. It seemed like Roman was defending some of the transactions he made.

We will perform well and probably win comfortably because of honeymoon period

That's a good thought actually, never saw it that way. Sturridge was probably going to start against Juve but got injured, second natural choice would have been Torres, but no. RDM chose to take a massive gamble in a crucial game which has never been done here before (the first time ever playing with false 9?). It looked like a gamble by a man who knew he had nothing to lose. The more I think about it the more it looks like a statement.

Fergie said what every Chelsea fan thinks. Sheesh, nice to know he's worried about us. I hope Rafa gives him a beating. Good thought

The best thought out post I've seen regarding the current state of economics and how that transcribes to football :tophat:

@Henrique, your avatar is cool as hell

http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/unbelievable-philippe-mexes-out-of-this-world-overhead-kick-ac-milan-v-anderlecht/

Anyways, my expectations from Benitez this season: * Reorganize our defending strategy to be more solid. * Finish top 4 in the league. * More rotation (he was known for it, we will probably see more of Romeu and Azpi as he used to favour Spanish players). * Make a real push in the European competition (whether it be CL or EL) and CWC. That should be enough to consider him a success.

Of course he hated him, Drogba constantly destroyed him. It's the kind of hatred you have towards your opponent's best player out of fear. Plus he was playing cheap mind games.

What chance will Drogba have with Rafa at the helm? Torres is his pet boy. But he will be good for morale (except for one certain player) and an excellent option to have.

9.0 on IMDb? Will do :tophat:

aah, that explains it, thanks :tophat: