Jase

IIRC, we wanted to keep Cole. The club offered him a new contract but he wanted higher wages. So, we had no choice but to let him go for free. As for Ballack & Anelka, they have already past their peak and their contracts were already up. Best to let them go than just keep more dead woods at the club.

Surely not. He just signed a contract extension last year February that will keep him till 2016. No way, he's worth just 12 million.

For just 12million?! Laughable!!

Not bad. Not bad...

Not sure about that. Playing him against Spurs and/or Arsenal would be a big test now as it is.

No point talking about debatable referee decisions. It happens every season! What I would say is we would have been in 3rd(or in Top 4 at least) had we not concede so many goals especially the late ones from winning position!!

Hoping that we avoid going into ET.

Bizarre. A really bizarre game.

Yakubu's penalty was one of the worst penalties I've seen, if not the worst, EVER!

The English FA are bloody disgrace to football everywhere. Shaun Derry has to serve for his sending off at the weekend when Ashley Young was clearly offside and dived! To compound matters, Balotelli escaped further action from the FA for his stamp on Song because apparently, one of the officials saw the incident! Pathetic. These rules seriously need to be looked at again!

http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~2730224,00.html No surprises there...

Daily Mail picked up Lampard's 5 best goals from his 150 in the league. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2127696/Frank-Lampards-Premier-League-goals.html

Ever thought maybe the only reason Genk sold KDB to us was if we agreed to loan him back for the remainder of the season??

I'm actually wondering what do our players think about all this slow sideways and backwards passing especially when 85% of the time, we pass between the CBs & CDM. Each player when they get the ball, they take 3-4 touches before passing it to another player. It's like they get the ball, take a nice & beautiful picture with it before giving the opportunity to someone else. What is worse though is when there's an option to make a forward pass to a player in a forward position, they take a safetier option by passing backwards to the CB!

Not all of those points are dropped in the final 10 minutes. We have dropped 17 points from winning position in the league this season. Only Wolves have dropped more(20). EDIT: Just saw the stats. We have conceded 17 goals in the last 10 mins of PL games this season while dropping 17 points when we are winning, as stated above.

Our result process at the moment: Take the lead > Miss chances > Fail to kill off teams > Get sloppy > Concede late goal > Draw/Lose. Rinse and repeat.

IIRC, the referee for that game was Mark Clattenburg and think he said he saw the incident but didn't think it warrant a card or something like that.

And incredibly enough, think he hasn't suffered any injury(ies) from those challenges till now.

3 of the last 5 goals we conceded have come from set-pieces. 1. Collins's header from a throw-in! 2. Javi Garcia free header from a corner!! 3. Same as Garcia. Another free header from a corner!!! RDM lost his job at West Brom because they were losing games by conceding lots of goals from set-pieces...

That. And why on earth wasn't there someone else standing at the far post?!!

With a 5-day rest till this game on Sunday, I'm hoping or rather expecting more energy & urgency against Spurs!!

Said in this the post-match Fulham thread. We may be getting the results under RDM but the performances are still no different to the one under AVB. There is no rhythm, intensity, tempo, urgency whatsoever. We are basically just scraping through matches at the moment. However, some of RDM's decision making have been questionable IMO. 1. He doesn't seem capable of changing things around when say Plan A is not working. So, far he has sticked with 4-2-3-1 in all of his 11 games in charge so far & even when we are struggling in games, he seemed incapable of switching things around and give something else for the opposition to think about. To compound matters, when Drogba & Torres are out on the pitch together, instead of playing a 4-4-2 and put both upfront together, he puts Torres out wide and Drogba through the middle and keep the 4-2-3-1 shape! 2. Sticking Ramires out wide is just really a mystery for me. I know he gives energy and protection on that right flank and in certain big games where the plan is to mainly sit back & hit the opposition on the counter, then that is fine. But otherwise, RDM is literally wasting him out on the RW especially going forward as his main strength - lung bursting runs from MF - is being completely negated!! 3. If people are questioning AVB's decision to leave out players, then what about RDM? Sturridge just seem to have fallen out of favor under RDM and he seem to prefer certain players for the starting XI only. He may be selfish & woefully out of form but he is arguably the only one who is capable of playing at the RW right now and with the right guidance, he can flourish in that role where we desperately need some spark from till the end of the season at least!

Judging by his performances so far, he is certainly capable of replacing Cole and be our next LB. And he can cross the ball too.

Another average game from him. Talks of him being back recently is obviously premature.