Blue-in-me-Veins

The Football Gods have an agenda this season will stop at nothing until Chelsea and all their fans understand the true meaning of suffering/tragedy. I swear Shakespeare is writing the script for this season. Im really getting heated at Port for failing to win that match.. I can just see us blowing this match, not confident at ALL.

Taking early bets, over/under Costa punches the pitch 4 times for failed flops that are NOT given as fouls?

Just what we needed, if JT had to get carted off, it must be bad.

He'll still start vs Tottenham though right?

Worst possible scenario in that Porto vs Dynamo match.. Drama will always prevail at Chelsea, ALWAYS!

Zooooouuuuummmmaaaaa!!

The Football gods really trying to create the perfect scenario where our misery spreads from competition to competition..

Baba Rahman with a beauty of a cross!

Are you serious Porto! Really!

Agreed, just want Dynamo Kiev to be eliminated from all hope before hand. If not, Europa League here we come!

This is pretty hard to watch..

Come on Porto, you gotta atleast draw the match!

Thank You.. Now a couple more please.

His days have got to be numbered here.

@didierforever, unfortunately for us Benetiz actually plays him more now. Under Carlo he even complained openly to the press at his lack of game-time, there would have been a real opportunity for him to leave this summer if Carlo had stayed and continued to leave him on the bench. I'm a big fan of Isco, and what you described is exactly what we need. Ball retention. He has a tendency to run himself into needless trouble at times, and dwell on the ball far too long, but those are criticisms that can be worked on and I'd gladly deal with as Chelsea fan over what we have at the moment. Only Hazard and Willian, (and Matic aswell) have great ball retention in Midfield. Oscar gets blown off the ball farr too much, Pedro same. Costa the same. We truly just need a new #10. One who has great ball-retention and one that can be trusted in big games.

Fair enough.. However I don't think our situation easily compares to Man United. They had a clear "rebuilding and transition phase", that cannot be disputed. Everyone knew, they were clearing out SAF's old guard and making way for new targets. And they offered great wages and paid crazy transfer sums to return to the status-quo. We've just had a season from hell. No mass exodus lead to our demise neither was it a glut of ageing players. It was just a horrible case of many players out of form, bad luck, bad tactics and whatever else you want to add on. Will there be certain players who don't view us favorably in these next couple transfer windows, sure, no doubt about it. But I'm starting to believe that more often than not, most players will realize it was just a freak season, and that there's no way Roman Abramovic would ever allow this to happen again. I could be naive, but I think a majority of our future targets are smart enough to realize, we have a culture and owner who breeds success and one season doesn't mean now that Chelsea FC is ok with being mediocre and battling with the likes of tottenham/liverpool/west-Ham to "maybe" finish 4th every season.

It was straight from the horses' mouth mate. The latter may be true, but who's to say Reus and PEA won't stay at Dortmund for another 2 years, and by then the circumstances could be very different in Spain. They have no rush to jump ship is what I was getting at. Reus and PEA have incredible loyalty to both Dortmund and each other. That is all. I personally, don't envision either of them leaving any-time soon. And to put it bluntly, I'm not even a big fan of PAW, not that it matters in the grand scheme of things. lol

Aubameyang has stated that his dream is to play in Spain. He promised his now dead grandfather that he would one day fulfill his dream of playing in Spain. He's also said that him and Reus have an agreement that they won't leave each other unless both leave in the same transfer window. If you want to continue believing this rumor, go ahead. But those are just the "FACTS".

You think we'll be able to address critical needs in January? I'm not gonna place much hope in January because teams are very very reluctant to sell in January, and all the better options are Cup-Tied. So imo, i think the Summer window will be most pivitol. Not trying to come across as "plasitc" or "Football Manager XX" but we simply have to splash the cash. The only way to adequately recover from this horror show imo is to spend, and spend big. Stop with the penny pinching, and make up not only for the shit season, but our shit Summer transfer window in 2015. Show to the players still here, and those who we will be targeting that we're looking to emphatically return back to the status quo of competing on both the domestic and International level. We've gotten nothing in return for abiding to FFP; and I seriously just want Chelsea to break the bank in the summer and attain World-Class targets. Too many mediocre options on our bench. Ivan/Ramires/Mikel/Oscar/Falcao. Send the house to get Ruben Neves and John Stones.

We've taken over FC Bayern as the new Hollywood FC. It's been that way for the past 2/3 years now. But tbf,, isn't it kind of empty watching the BPL this season? Like I'll sit there and watch City lose to Liverpool 4-1,and i'll get all jacked up that we can close the gap 3pts and that they lost.. but then it hits me that it doesn't even matter. Title aspirations are down the drain. Can't even watch MOTD with all the constant losing aswell. lol

Well Toni Kroos and Modric aren't really the main issues. They both played in the last two el classicos IIRC, and Real Madrid certainly didn't deserve to lose the previous one in March where both started. They didn't help today admittedly, but the back-line was allllll over the place. Varane gave the ball away so cheaply, Danilo was losing every 1v1 battle with Neymar, and Sergio Ramos was abysmal in the back, for that second goal (asking for the offsides, and last goal (comes up to press Messi, who slots it in to Suarez). Marcelo is the key man, when he plays well, RM play well, and he was barely given the chance to get involved in attacks. IMO, it was their formation when defending and their defensive game plan as well. In the previous El Classico in March, RM played a clear 442 in defense and Bale (as you point out) was forced to track back, not so much in this 433. And the press was so ineffective, Barca kept playing out of it too easily. Almost like i was watching Chelsea in disguise. Have to say though,Bale produced some fantastic passes, Claudio Bravo played out of his skin. They just lacked a gameplan to put it simply. Or maybe they had one that was so awful. Is it hard? Absolutely. But this Barca team is just so adaptable, hard to know what to prepare for. They can play that possesion game on you (while being way more direct to goal than Guardiola's teams) or play on the counter-attack. Then you see them switch it up on you mid-game altering between the two. RIP.

Ruben Neves at all costs in the summer. At. all. costs. Jorge Mendes owes us this one after our charity service to Falcao.

How Rafa kept Danilo on I will never know.. Also,, pretty Sure Rafa spent all week planning for their game against Shakhtar in the UCL.. clearly wasn't gonna let the EL Classico get in the way of priorities now can we?

@DYC., but at the expense of Azpi? In any sane manager's mind, then Azpi should be our undisputed RB. But we all know that isn't, and won't be the case. This is why I can't even entertain the idea of Kenedy at LB. Because he's skirting around the glaring fact that Ivan is past it as a RB. The whole team is being catered around the premise that Ivanovic MUST START every match when fit. And granted he's not our ONLY problem, but it cannot be denied he's been a major liability.

Need to demolish them. I'm talking proper 4/5 open play goals. I know it's hard to demand such a performance, i really do, but our attackers need to feel that confidence. These 1-0 games are not helping. Our inability to finish teams off is so worrisome, and we ALWAYS look vulnerable to concede a goal. Also hope Porto take care of Dynamo Kiev. Need to have guarantee of progressing out of the group stage before entertaining possibly taking top spot.