Jase

That match will be played 3 days after we face United at Old Trafford.It means now our remaining games will look like this: 17th Apr - Fulham(A) 21st Apr - Liverpool(A) 25th Apr - Basel(A) 28th Apr - Swansea(H) 2nd May - Basel(H) 5th May - Man Utd(A) 8th May - Spurs(H) 11th May - Villa(A) 15th May - Europa League Final (if we get there) 19th May - Everton(H)

Slightly off topic but... That match will be played 3 days after we face United at Old Trafford.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11668/8643291/

Don't be surprised if Benitez goes into a 'love-in' mode with Liverpool later this week since we'll be playing them on Sunday. And I remember after Houllier lost to them at Anfield in the 10/11 season, he said if there's one team he doesn't mind losing to, it's Liverpool.

Juan creepy Mata...

It's Benitez's 53rd birthday tomorrow or today, depending where you are right now...

HA! Not happy at Bayern now and cue the rubbish rumours once more.

When lollipop meets Mata...

:lol: :lol:

*speechless*......

And BBC MOTD was only praising Howard Webb yesterday.

As if we don't have enough of CAMs already.....

Win this game and we'll have a 4-point lead over Spurs having played the same number of games for both of us. And that would be crucial cushion to have heading into the Liverpool game on Sunday(with Spurs facing City) as well as the one against Spurs, whenever that game would be.

Disagree. Less emphasis or not, crossing is a basic ability that every player should at least be decent at and in the case of full backs(and wingers), they should even be better at it. The problem right now is that we can't even put in a good cross half the time as it is always underhit or overhit and misses the target completely. There is just no consistency in our crossing and it's just incredibly frustrating. How many times have Azpi get into a great attacking position on the right but then produce a horrible cross? Said this many times before, the amount of quality and consistent crosses we delivered in the 09/10 season and now is just plain embarrassing because of the massive stark contrast in them.

Oh dear. I know we are criticizing Mata's performance against the big teams here but is there any need to actually say his corner wasn't meant for Drogba and it was for Lampard instead? Yes, Drogba had to move to get onto the header but it seems that you also forget to mention Lampard had to move towards the ball too. When Mata took that corner, it was meant to be put into a space where one of our players, in this case Drogba, can attack the ball and it was in front of him. If you are just gonna whip a corner into where a player is standing, then you are unlikely to win the header because there will be somebody marking you. And just a note on his performances against Barcelona. Think some of us here discussed last time that Mata should have never played in those 2 matches because the game plan we deployed was never suitable to his style of play. If we are just gonna defend and defend and defend and play on the counter, then we shouldn't bother playing Mata at all since his abilities won't be exploited to the fullest. Speaking of exploiting his abilities to the fullest, while I do acknowledge that he hasn't exactly played well in games against Man City, Juventus, Atletico etc, some people are conveniently forgetting the other good games he had against United, Spurs and Arsenal. Really, if we are gonna criticize his performances against City, Juve, Atletico etc, then think we should really be looking deeper into the issue. In those games, we were practically a shambles especially against Atletico and nobody exactly turned up for those games. Additionally, by constantly sitting so deep just to defend against those said teams, it's never gonna help Mata. Even when he gets on the ball and in turn over situations, he can't really play forward because the other players are so deep and by the time they get up the pitch, the opposition would already have parked their bus and it meant less of a chance for Mata to play any incisive passes etc. The point here is that Mata's performances in those games(and others) suffered as a result because the team as a whole just did not turn up. Mata is a great player but he can't do it all by himself if we are just gonna setup so negative and/or the others don't even bother to turn up for the matches. On the other hand, when we do turn up and decide to play positively, then Mata(and others) have shone just like in the matches against United(despite the defensive mess!), Arsenal and Spurs.

Can't disagree with Azpi here. It's been a problem everytime we reached the penultimate games in the cup competitions this season and we have bottled it every single time. Feels as if we're like Arsenal right now... http://www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/london-chelsea-fc/2013/04/15/chelsea-defender-admits-worry-over-big-game-bottling-82029-33176502/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Well, that one really needs to be pointed at the Benitez at his staff. It's absolutely bewildering that we don't seem to practice crosses in training and continue to produce woeful crosses in games!

Eh? Both crossed the ball yesterday several times but the delivery was absolutely tragic!

But not as many games we have played this season. And can't discount all the traveling to all parts of the world we did too.

Mata in his weekly blogpost. http://blogs.grada360.com/juanmata/en/2013/04/15/amargo-regreso-a-wembley/

Obviously I am aware of that but like I said, if Lampard isn't scoring goals, he doesn't provide anything else to the team AND he leaves the pivot exposed more than not. Even the most ardent fans would admit that about Lampard.

If that is the case, then shouldn't we be saying the same thing about Cahill then? Just because he made one world class block, as good as it is, doesn't mean we can excuse him for the yet more mistakes he made in the game.

Not really. Said it before, when he's not talking nonsense because of Man United, he's pretty good to listen to.

If you wanna talk about his substitutions and all that, then yeah I agree that once again, he was slow to react especially when we went 2-0 down so early on in the 2nd half. And also the fact that he did not bring Lampard and/or Moses later on when we were desperately trying to get the equalizer! Lampard was dropped simply because he doesn't provide anything else apart from scoring the goals these days though though he should have been brought on when we pushing for an equalizer late on yesterday. As for Terry, well, he hasn't really been performing well since returning from injury. Has looked slow and ponderous at times and even costing us a 1-2 goals in the process that led to us not getting a win or even a draw.

Yeah and we also used to bully and be physical on Arsenal in the past and it yielded successful results. Now the same thing is happening with us and Man City. We are the new Arsenal and City are us, as you said. Men vs Boys.