Joe Ay

Would be interesting to see us play 4-3-3 with Oscar taking over the Lampard-role in our midfield and Hazard and Mata up top with a striker. Will place less defensive responsibilities on the both of them and free them up to do what they're best at, Hazard with his direct running and Mata with his guile and creativity. Oscar with his work-rate and good midfield link-up play would be great in midfield I think, much better suited than in a pivot and in my opinion, will provide more work rate and quality than Lampard in the role.

Lampard or Mikel ain't the answer for the pivot. Oscar too. I say play De Bruyne in the pivot. He can be our Schweinsteiger

Not too sure Real's team profile is to sit back and counter attack...

Are we improving, stagnating or moving backwards under Jose? Very early days but, the first 20 mins vs Hull notwithstanding, I think we've been fairly average or just piss poor in all our games. Benitez tried to tinker initially before realising that playing Mazacar was our best bet to win games. With mikel and ramires in the pivot, and sometimes lampard playing a deeper role. Looks like we're experimenting all over again with all the options that Jose has. We hardly have any width from our fullbacks, and Brana over Azpi as an attacking right back just doesn't work, hence why Benitez played him at centre back. Given time, hopefully we can start playing as a cohesive team but its just doesn't make any sense that we're not building on the team dynamics and understanding that was developed towards the end of Benitez's reign. Why break something when it wasn't broken? I would've thought we take up to another level rather than start at the basics again.

http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1509919/bayern-munich-chief-matthias-sammer-condemns-bastian-schweinsteiger-detractors?cc=4716 If only...

Sure will do when I have time. Hightlight of yesterday's training session was a group of fans singing Eva's name. Pretty hilarious. Also Terry gave away his boots to fans after training. Probably has something to do with fans singing there's only one England captain

I'll be going for this on Sunday and will watch them train tomorrow. Can't wait

The Guardian is reporting it too... http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jul/17/manchester-united-wayne-rooney-bid

Naw man, not him. If he's good enough to only be a back-up for RvP at Man U, then he's definitely not good enough to be our no.1. I say we keep faith in what we have. Torres / Lukaku to alternate, and Ba for cover. Raul had his chance at Real when he was 17, can't see why we can't do the same for Lukaku.

Is it just me or does he give a Kuyt sorta vibe? Enthusiastic, bags of energy, runs a lot, good tracking back, but limited technically...

This is a pure speculation, but could it be possibly be that Jose is trying to break-up the Spanish contingent in Chelsea after the well-documented problems he had with the Real Spanish players, i.e. Casillas, Ramos et al? Hence all the rumours of Mata being sold and all? Just saying...

If Mourinho does indeed join, I think it's unlikely that we'll be playing attacking possession football...unless he's changed his footballing philosophy. Think it'd be direct counter-attacking / protect lead at all-costs style football.

Am disappointed some of the fans left before the game ended. C'mon fellas, in times of crisis, show support to the lads. Will do them a world of confidence to see that the fans are still with them.

Is it just me, or has Mata been a bit off these past few games? Have noticed that he's been a bit sloppy in possession lately.

Looks like our bad period has arrived again. Sigh. We need our senior players to step up and take responsibility on the pitch. I'm looking at you Torres. No more moping and whining. Either stand up and be counted or sit the hell down on the bench.

Does anyone remember Coloccini's early years as a defender? For both Milan and his first season with Newcastle, he was pretty woeful. Excellent technique and ball skills but pretty much a zero at positioning and was apt to run around like a headless chicken. Now at 30, he's one of the EPL's best defenders. If Luiz can learn how to defend properly and mature into his role, he'll be a world beater.

Just caught the game on Chelsea TV and I must say Torres, goal aside, looked pretty horrendous. His shot when put clear by Marin was simply woeful, straight at the keeper when it looked easier to score. He looks shorn of confidence and composure. If he can't do it against a second string Championship side, how can we count on him against better teams to come? Gosh, incredible. His header was brilliant though.

Next year we'll have both McEachran and De Bruyne back as an option. Plus Oscar and Hazard would've hopefully become mainstays in the team after a year of EPL experience under their belt. A lot of options, but light on experience. Personally, I hope Lampard stays for another season or two to guide and mentor our young team. But I strongly believe that whatever role he plays wouldn't be to the detriment of the team. If he continues to play well and adds value to the team, then by all means, play him. But if he starts based on reputation alone, then I'm sorry, but I'd rather him go. We're not a team of galacticos, if ever, we're a team of anti-galacticos. Mourinho laid down the foundation for that, but inadvertently created his own version of galacticos by saying that the likes of Lampard and Terry were untouchable. Time we move away from that culture and start anew with this fresh and exciting team. No room for egos here. We emulate the likes of Dortmund and Montepelier rather than Bayern and Real.

Have checked their site, they'll be showing a delayed telecast at 12.45 am uk time. Not showing live anywhere. Checked Capitol One website as well. Only Leeds and Man U games being shown live. Strange to think in this day and age we're not able to watch a game live.

Will they be showing this live on Chelsea TV?

If he can't get a starting berth in our midfield of Mikel, Mereiles and Lampard, hard to imagine he'll start before Alonso, Khedira and Modric. Doesn't really make sense at all to me. Unless we wanted to remove his wages from our payroll this year.

Think the main difference is Mereiles seems to me a more disciplined and tactical player. He maintains the midfield shape by not going forward too often and was always there in support of Mikel. True, his passing at times can be woeful, but he was always available for the short option in the middle and should good movement off the ball. One comment, we should let Hazard take all our dead balls for now. His corners were decent and he surely deserves a shot at free kicks outside the box. The less said about Luiz's and Mereiles' efforts the better.

I actually think Lampard is decent passer of the ball. And I think if he could be a decent pivot player, if only he maintained his tactical discipline, i.e. picking out passes in the middle of the park, making himself available for the short option (i.e. the water carrier role that deschamps played so well) and refraining himself from bombing forward too often. If you watched our last game, you'd notice he didn't have too many touches in the middle, and was always too keen to join the attack, leaving mata and hazard to build from deep. I know it's his instincts to go forward and score, but he should leave that to our front players now that we've added creativity up top. What I'd like to see from him is if he could pull a selfless shift in the middle and not hunt for goals too often. He can always score from penalties.

I think a Romeu-Oscar combo in the pivot might be better. Oscar as a dlp, with Romeu as the anchor. With all due respect to ramires, his passing doesnt seem accurate enough. He also doesn't strike me as someone comfortable in possession like Romeu (who's been trained in the la masia way). Hopefully ramires can improve as a pivot player. If I remember correctly, he used to play that position with brazil and looked pretty decent at it.

A month to claim a starting spot seems about right. He hasn't had the benefit of a full per-season with the team. He looked uncertain or indecisive at times in possession. I think he'd be great pivot player. If we start playing a more possession based game, he wouldn't need to worry too much of being a midfield destroyer. His sleight frame reminds me a bit of busquets. Proves that you don't need to be built like a Vieira or toure to be a good pivot player, as long as you have intelligence and good positional sense. For the latter, I'm sure he will develop tactically over the season. On the former, he strikes me one who has that in spades already judging by his displays in the Olympics and how his former coaches speak of him.