Jase

No but he often deploys reactive tactics and more often than not, do not take the game to the opposition especially against the lesser sides at home! His only one great season was when Liverpool finished 2nd in the 08/09 season. The rest has pretty much muddled with inconsistency. Additionally, let's not forget his dreadful transfers at Liverpool, turned Inter into mediocre club in the space of 4-5 months after winning the Champions League and has a poor man management skills!

IF we do get Rafa in, be prepare to deal with his defensive tactics. Arguably even worse than RDM's.

If we are to judge him on his effectiveness playing as a 'False 9', we need to have him being tried there several more times before effectively passing judgment on him. Yesterday was only the first time we played him there and it was never gonna be an instant success immediately. Additionally, it was always gonna be tough against Juventus 3 CBs and 3 physical ones at that! Even if Hazard drops deep and float around elsewhere, 1 CB could still man mark and follow him around with Juventus then still having 2 spare men to cover the space vacated by that CB and prevent any of our runners to get clean through on goal.

This sums it up nicely... http://www.as.com/english/articulo/chelsea-fans-do-not-want/20121121dasdenspo_5/Ten

This. Both AVB and RDM have been sacked after losing a league game at West Brom...

If yesterday was depressing, today is just taking the piss. Absolutely disgusted at the club for sacking RDM after what he's achieved! It's obvious that RDM wasn't Roman's first choice and the club was just waiting for the precise moment & perfect excuse to sack him. And yesterday's defeat gave the club the perfect opportunity to do so. Utterly embarrassing and disgraceful decision! For all that we have achieved under Roman, we do make ourselves look like a circus run by a bunch of morons! Are we really gonna just sack a manager every time something goes wrong? Is this the path that we are gonna continue every season?! And great time to sack RDM too. Just 4 days before the visit of the English Champions to the Bridge on Sunday.

It's already a joke when you just look at the strikers they have and 4 quality ones at that and compare with the ones we have...

Thread merged. It was similar to this one and just by going through some of the posts here, you can roughly tell what are the feelings and thoughts towards RDM now.

Chelsea vs Manchester City PRE-MATCH DISCUSSION AND LIVE CHAT Barclays Premier League Sunday, 25th November 2012 Stamford Bridge 16:00 Kick Off (UK time)

Chelsea vs Manchester City POST-MATCH DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Barclays Premier League Sunday, 25th November 2012 Stamford Bridge 16:00 Kick Off (UK time)

You're just repeating what I said except you are phrasing it the other way round... The key game was definitely the first game against Juventus. Had we seen the game out against Juventus at home, the situation would have been so different!

Are we really gonna have this kind of agenda whenever something goes wrong under a manager? It's like the deja vu in every single season.

If we do go out of the Champions League, then I think we deserved it. We have not played convincingly at all in any of the 5 games till now and defensively, we just look woeful and all over the place.

JuventusFC ‏@juventusfc #Juventus starting 11: Buffon, Barzagli, Bonucci, Chiellini, Lichtsteiner, Vidal, Pirlo, Marchisio, Asamoah, Quagliarella, Vucinic #Juventus substitutes: Storari, Caceres, Pogba, Pepe. Giaccherini, Giovinco, Matri

Maybe but the movement, passes and support from the other players have to be spot on!

http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz2CljS3qtM According to the link above, Azpilicueta be playing at RW tonight in front of Ivanovic with RDM set to stick with Cahill and Luiz at CB.

Not sure how true is that but if it is...

Ooops. Thanks for pointing that out. Have edited the post.

Nope and neither have England when those 2 paired up at CB previously.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20385539 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/1750?cc=4716 Two good articles to read ahead of this game.

Here are the stats of our CB pairing since February 2011(signing of Luiz), if anyone is interested. The stats only counts the 2 CBs that started together. Doesn't include changes made during the games. 2010/11 Season Luiz and Terry: P10 - W7 D2 L1 CS3 Ivanovic and Terry: P4 - W1 D2 L1 CS2 Ivanovic and Luiz: P1 - W1 CS1 Alex and Terry: P3 - D1 L2 CS0 2011/12 Season Luiz and Terry: P20 - W13 D3 L4 CS8 Ivanovic and Terry: P13 - W7 D2 L4 CS0 Cahill and Terry: P6 - W2 D4 CS4 Luiz and Cahill: P9 - W3 D3 L3 CS2 Luiz and Ivanovic: P5 - W2 D2 L1 CS2 Cahill and Ivanovic: P1 - W1 CS0 Luiz and Alex: P3 - W1 D1 L1 CS1 Alex and Terry: P3 - W2 D1 CS2 Bosingwa and Terry: P1 - W1 CS0 2012/13 Season(thus far - 17th November) Luiz and Terry: P6 - W3 D2 L1 CS2 Luiz and Cahill: P9 - W6 L3 CS3 Ivanovic and Terry: P1 - D1 CS0 Ivanovic and Cahill: P1 - D1 CS0 Cahill and Terry: P2 - W2 CS1 Overall Luiz and Terry: P36 - W23 D7 L6 CS13 Ivanovic and Terry: P18 - W8 D5 L5 CS2 Ivanovic and Luiz: P6 - W3 D2 L1 CS3 Cahill and Terry: P8 - W4 D4 CS6 Luiz and Cahill: P18 - W9 D3 L6 CS5 Cahill and Ivanovic: P2 - W1 D1 CS0 Alex and Terry: P6 - W2 D2 L2 CS2 Luiz and Alex: P3 - W1 D1 L1 CS1 Bosingwa and Terry: P1 - W1 CS0

Think Oscar has to start this one. His defensive work off the ball has proved to be valuable to us and if the first clash against Juventus was anything to go by, Oscar will likely mark Pirlo once again. I believe he is able to sustain his defensive or marking task on the opposition better and longer than either Mata or Hazard.

Don't feed the troll...