Jase

You could say but not entirely. Lampard is at fault too as he has responsiblities in that starting XI to make sure the team is stable and solid in midfield.

Cole at RB and Azpilicueta at LB??

Problem is they are on high wages and not many clubs out there can afford them. The fact that Benayoun is on 92k p/w wages here says it all.

Yes but Cech didn't exactly cover himself in glory either.

That second goal from Falcao was just piss poor from Cech too. Once Falcao saw Cech so far of his line, you can tell the ball is going to end up in the back of the net once it leaves his foot!

Ramires is only useful out wide when we are playing on the counter and there is space for him to run into. In games where we look to dominate and attack and teams sitting back, he is just useless there. Doesn't have the skills and trickery to beat his man and it gets even worse that he can't put in good quality crosses!

Regarding the ST, heard that we can recall Lukaku back in January, if needed on Twitter. Not sure how true though.

Happy Birthday Sturridge! Hope he gets his CF wish this season!

Good for you then. Best to avoid watching the replay too.

I wouldn't necessarily say the team that RDM picked was wrong. It's just that the team's application from every single player was missing.

Find that to be rather fishy or too convenient. I mean we have been linked with Falcao before and just because he scored a hat-trick against us yesterday, now they say we have a pre-arrangment to buy Falcao? Hope it is true but not buying it all at the moment.

Advice to Luiz: Less tweeting, more training!

And Spurs now have 4 keepers - Friedel, Lloris, Cudicini and Gomes. Seriously, can we have Cudicini back?!

Translation... So, anyone gonna be pissed at him?

My concern now is when we play against the top quality teams. Faced both City and Atletico Madrid and lost to both of them. I know we went down to 10 men against City but still. Need to pick up the pieces ASAP because we have Juventus coming up really soon.

Congrats Choulo! And thanks for the all votes fellas.

What I fail to understand here is that why couldn't we be more conservative in the game especially with the full backs. I know the full backs are extremely important these days to provide options going forward but it's like whenever we are on the ball, both FBs have to go forward and leave us with only 3 players at the back, as you pointed out. We would be better off if one FB goes forward, the other stays back. Two going forward rather aimlessly is just plain suicidal when we get hit on the counter, as we've already seen under AVB. And it doesn't help when you have Ivanovic who possess such a snail pace that any ball gets played behind his back and we are screwed. Happened so many times yesterday and it's unbelievable. Furthermore, I don't even know why he should go forward anyway. His crosses are so appalling that it just drives me mental every single time. Said this before, Atletico Madrid did what we failed to do all night long. They attack as a unit and they defend as a unit. When they went forward, they attacked in numbers. 4-5 players all going forward, offering off the ball movement, creating space for others etc. When they have to defend, they retreat into their shape and keep things tight and compact. When they have to pressurize us on the ball, again they did it as unit, they hunt down in packs. Their defence was hardly troubled all night and Courtois was almost literally a spectator in goal. From our perspective, we did none of that. All the good work from the Newcastle game just went out of the window completely. When we attack, there's only like 3 players or so going forward while a few others just jog into the field of action. Same thing happened when we had to defend. All the defending were left to the players behind while those further forward just jogged back and hardly looked interested in breaking a sweat to help out the defence. And perhaps the worst part of all is, we did not pressure Atletico Madrid whatsoever when they have the ball. We just backed off and allowed them time and space to turn and run at our defence. Think this situation was perfectly summed up towards the end. They had the ball and we didn't even put pressure on them whatsoever. We just allowed them to pass the ball around and run down the clock. Just absolutely pathetic!

Can someone explain to me what was Cech doing so far of his line for Falcao's 2nd goal?!

Well that was disappointing. Didn't get another ST which we need and then go weaken our CM area further by loaning out Essien to Madrid. FML! :banghead:

It was like watching Arsenal v Chelsea from 2-3 years ago, except that we were Arsenal and Atletico Madrid were Chelsea. Was hopelessly torn apart on the counter by them.

If we don't improve our performance big time when this get started, we're gonna find ourselves in big trouble with Juve and Shakhtar and heck even Nordsjaelland!

I just cannot understand how his crossing can be so consistently poor. It just drives me up the wall everytime I see a poor cross from him or anyone else in the team for that matter! :banghead:

Not that excuse again. :banghead:

Next time, there should be a 'No One' option in the MOTM poll.