communicate

I have criticized Torres plenty of times but saying that he is not good at anything is really harsh. Torres is a poacher whose game is all about working the channel and he thrives on quick and fast through ball ( just watch his Liverpool goal highlight, most of them come from quick floating pass ) against 3 men defense, you can find channel mostly on the wing Having said that, I always think he does not suit the way we play.

He is extremely cautious. Everybody know the way to Beat 3 man defense is for the fullback to overlap, I thought both iva and cole were very cautious today

Fellaini Ian a good player but our urgent need is a deep lying playmaker not an anchorman

Not against stoke, Iva is arguably our best player in the air

I am not trying to criticize terry but if you think that you cannot win in footrace you will have tendency to step up. But i have to agree with you in that instance, I think It was just a bad decision by terry

If you watched the game, it's the same 4-2-3-1 that we have employed all season long with oscar replaing mata

It's a sign of a player who is tired and lack of pace

The worst part of Torres is that we missed aguero/falcao because of him, I am pretty sure AVB would have brought falcao with him, if we didn't already have Torres

not a penalty for me

It's oscar that keep pirlo in check. Great to see oscar play well and finally hopefully we can start seeing hazard - oscar - mata

I have very low expectation in UCL this season, as long as we are qualify to knock out stage and don't lose to some bad team in knock out. I am happy

I thought somebody mentioned about trying iva as striker

Yap it's our standarad 4-2-3-1 with oscar replacing mata (I thought this is the lineup that we are going to use last week against qpr)

This two teams should play more often

No Ramos and ozil for real Madrid Both tteam with defensive setup

If you want to really play 433 you should play ramires instead of Oscar. Oscar is a no 10 so he will have tendency to stay forward and play as no 10 and the formation is back to 4231

Maybe I am wwrong but I thought a Madrid and I think it was reading did not try to press mikel at all

Good post. He is there to give us balance because rdm like to play more defensive. Btw as far as your reply to me regarding mikel, I don't think team try to press mikel

I did not watch the 2nd half so I am not sure but I thought in the 1st half he played ok. I never said that he is a super defender but he is very disciplined in tracking back full back.

I thought he made one good cross to hazard early in the 1st half

Let us compare Chelsea with other team who play with double pivot Manu Scholes and cleverly : one mobile player who go forward and one player who stay back and boss the game Arsenal Diaby and Aretha: one mobile player and one passer who stay back Real Madrid See arsenal and Manu What we have right now is similar to what city and to some extend what Tottenham has. City Yaya and rodwell. Two mobile players, toure bombs forward and rodwell tend to stay back. The season that city can make it works because both of them are mobile players. What we have right now is lampard who was perfect to play yaya role but he is just too old and he is not good enough of a passer or playmaker to play Alonso/Scholes role. Meirelsr I thought played this role really well for us a couple weeks back. He can play well if u ask him to play just as box to box player not as a passer. And we have mikel who is a standard anchorman. Currently we just don't have the perfect combination for double pivot. We can try mikel and ramires there but it all depends on how well ramires can pass the ball

He is there to give cover for iva and to mark opp fullback when the fullback overlap. You cannot expect him to create chances consistently or boss the game for us because that's not his game. As long a he create one chance per game and stop opp fullback, I am happy

Against qpr we really miss Mata because there is nobody that can boss the game for us. The funny thing is we have Brazil no 10 on our bench. I have no problem with ramires on the wing because it giver US balance just not bertrand and ramires

4231 is not meant to be that static. The 2 double pivot has to be flexible. They cannot jjust sit deep, they have to go forward when needed. I have no problem with lampard bombing forward when mikel stay back. One problem with mikel is that his passing is just too slow. For some of you who want us to play 433. It's not going to happen. Let' say we play 433 with Mata on the right wing. Since Mata want to play in the hole he will come inside to the middle and Ramires has to come to the right to cover the right flank. It's back to 4231 again

It's true that only two teams compute for title in La liga but in EPL this season I believe there are only 4 teams that will challenge for title. Two teams with super rich owner (Us+City),Arsenal and MU. So if there is no roman for us and sheik something for city, it's just going to be two horse race in EPL also