Jase

This thread has been too quiet... Anyway, Mourinho's presser at 12.30pm UK time.

World class? He's overhyped/overrated. The number of cock-ups he make in matches is hilarious. He's not much of a difference to Luiz when he had those brainfart moments.

For @Liquidator's sake, hope we won't let Salah leave...

Could be another case of the player using the situation to suit their own agenda (whatever they may be). Nothing concrete so far.

Won't we all love to know that and why certain players keep on playing despite the mistakes?

No worries. Have changed it. Your login name remains the same.

Was also referring to Salah in that entire point. But considering that he's got even less game time than Schurrle or some other squad players, perhaps the issue with Salah is more than just 'not being given the chance'.

Mohamed Salah to join Roma as Chelsea make room for Juan Cuadrado It's from the Guardian by the way..

Done. Your login name remains the same.

Of course I have seen him play this season. The point is, people are saying he's useless and doesn't add anything to the team and that's kinda BS when he showed his qualities last season, unless of course, these people didn't watch him play then. Said this before, the issue with Schurrle isn't his qualities but his form and consistency (not helped his mystery illness and the lack of opportunities given, especially when others have kept on getting that despite making mistakes/not playing well in almost every game).

Luis hardly plays a lot but even when we lineup with him at LB and Ivanovic/Azpi at RB, one of them will always stay near the halfway line (attacking half or not) to make sure we don't get exposed down that side when the other FB goes forward. To say Azpi is conservative in attacking is slightly off considering he's playing at LB. His offensive attacking instincts are bound to be restricted and it would be the same thing if we have him at RB and Ivanovic at LB.

They can easily change that at the last minute. Doesn't mean anything really. I swear to god - people really do have selective memory when it comes to things like this. It's like people have forgotten Schurrle showed us what he can do in this team last season. Maybe I'm exaggerating but it seems like Chelsea fans (not everyone but some/most) do have a tendency to turn on a player pretty quickly the minute something goes wrong. Never mind Willian and/or Schurrle, I'm finding a bit nonsense that Mourinho seems to have one set of rules for group of players, and another for the other group. Whoever is in the former group gets plenty of game time, can make mistakes like in every game and won't get dropped. The players in the other group will get game time here and there and the moment they start doing something wrong, we won't see them again until like 4-5 matches later.

Do think Mourinho can see that issue but sometimes, he's just too pragmatic/stubborn.

Considering how high we once played under AVB, this is not high really. Still a medium block at most. Our FBs do push on but it's only Ivanovic who's really doing that. Mourinho would never allow two FBs to bomb forward and leave our 2 CBs stranded with just one DM in front of them.

http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2015/01/two-matches-moved-for-live-tv-coverage.html?WT.mc_id=social_20150121_39133217&adbid=557900462096011265&adbpl=tw&adbpr=22910295 Games against Southampton and Hull in March have been moved for live TV coverage..

Our defensive line is hardly high. Still operating with a medium and deep line. Even with a deep line, Luiz would probably still do a lot better than Cahill.

Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson and Chelsea’s Diego Costa in tunnel bust-up

Close to joining Reading (Steve Clarke is their manager now) on loan apparently. That Bordeaux move didn't materialize.

Haven't we been here before? We get excited of the attacking trio and then moan about one of the them 6 months later?

Chelsea bring forward £26.8m deal for Juan Cuadrado from Fiorentina

Can't help but to wish we still have Luiz sometimes when watching Cahill. Luiz's brainfart moments aside, his proactive defending can be extremely helpful and we have seen that in the past. Having 3 reactive defenders in the back 4 (and slow ones at that) is asking for trouble really.

The circumstances are indeed different but I don't think that can be used as an excuse or reason for the indifferent performances in the cup and league, regardless of the approach. I generally do not have any problem with Mourinho attempting to play on the break away at the big teams but yesterday, it wasn't the first time we have performed that badly, especially going forward, in such games. Same thing happened at Manchester City earlier this season. Another bizarre thing was Mourinho didn't look to change things around in the second half when we were getting outplayed by Liverpool. He used to make changes early when things don't go according to plan but in recent times, he has been too reluctant/stubborn to do that.

After that 0-0 draw at Sunderland, we actually thrashed Spurs 3-0 before that loss at Newcastle. That Southampton-Tottenham sequence was the only time this season we drew a game and lost the one immediately after that.

Mourinho took a risk then and look what happened after that. Ramires has hardly played since then. The result went for us that day but playing him aggravated his injury situation.

That isn't always necessarily the case. Mourinho has his preferences and if he doesn't fancy you too much, then you are unlikely going to get a lot of game time. It may look like a cheap upgrade but comparison aside, is Cuadrado really an upgrade to our side? Can he help us to solve our issues on the RW? If not, then spending 27million on him is a waste of money. To say Schurrle doesn't work well the players is a tad off. With the main inclusion of Fabregas and Costa aside, we pretty much have the same squad as last season and Schurrle worked well with them then and even in the earlier parts of this season. It was only when he got the mystery illness (god knows what happened there) and recovered that things just went completely wrong for him.