Jase

Since you're confident that we can go on a near perfect unbeaten run in the next 11 matches, here's something interesting...

At the moment, I'm only confident we'll win 4 of those games. Cuadrado was clearly a panic buy really.

There's also Sevilla v Barcelona actually but thankfully, that's on Saturday.

Football madness coming up this Sunday... Everton v Liverpool Arsenal v Man United Bayern Munich v Dortmund Atletico Madrid v Real Madrid PSG v Marseille Ajax v PSV Eindhoven AC Milan v Napoli

That's TalkChelsea for you. 'Praising' is overrated. 'Criticizing' is the way forward.

Do people not get tired of constantly saying "Mourinho should/must/need to drop Ivanovic..." in every pre-match thread? We all know that's not going to happen and the only way he's not going to get picked is if he's suspended or injured!

There is a difference between saying a player isn't good for us or lacks the technical quality and criticizing the player for not putting in the effort on the pitch. Plenty of the players get stick for the former rather than the latter, which was my point when I said the players do not get criticized enough for the slump (if we can call it that) that we're in.

AVB, Ancelotti etc. Those managers had their faults during their time but the blame, back then, was laid equally on both parties. At the moment, it seems like it's more on the manager than the players. Why? I said it before, Mourinho hasn't done himself any favors with several questionable decisions but the players haven't helped him and our cause either. No one is taking any responsibility and they seem to be taking the easy way out by just 'hiding' behind the manager, letting him to take all the criticism while they do nothing to improve their own performances. It's something that we have seen in the past with previous managers and it seems to be happening again. We might not exactly be playing scintillating football right now but it appears you have forgotten how pathetic our football was under AVB, Ancelotti (second season) etc as well. The kind of football we're putting out there at the moment is no different to what we played in those times.

If we want to count clear chances created in the Arsenal game, then it's practically one each - Pedro for us and Ramsey for Arsenal. OR one could say our backline executed the offside trap perfectly, which resulted in Walcott doing nothing in the game. But this doesn't fit the current negative narrative, does it? And if we're going to talk about ifs and buts, then we could have easily scored a few goals had we been more precise in the final third. We made so many attacking runs but overpassed the ball and the chances were gone.

What can Ivanovic do about it? He could start by improving his performances to justify the manager's (blind) faith and stop us from constantly moaning about him. If Ivanovic and the other players have any sense of pride, professionalism etc about them, then they should look at themselves and ask if they are putting in the effort in matches - because from what we saw yesterday in the first half, they certainly did not do that and haven't been doing it. The one thing we always have down the years is fighting spirit, the willingness to fight, put in the miles and work the socks off, especially when things aren't going our way. And right now, we don't even see that in the players.

That is one thing but if the players are not showing the desire, hunger and commitment at the very least - which they haven't shown of late - then some serious questions need to be asked of them as well.

Offers no genuine width? Think you have forgotten that our RW is basically the RB and our RB is the RW. No threat offensively? C'mon now. We've seen him make some very good runs behind the opposition's defence (that 1-on-1 chance against Newcastle for instance), create chances, take shots at goal (a lot more than some of our other AMs) and score goals too (again, more than our other AMs).

Never said they didn't get it. It's just they got it less than Mourinho. At least some of the blame was put on the squad last time. Now, there's hardly any with the exception of 2-3 players.

This. Only the obvious culprits are getting blamed but what about the entire squad in general? No blame on them for under-performing? No question as to why they're doing so badly? The least you would expect from players is desire, commitment, hunger but we don't even see much of those from the players these days. Why? They are playing for Chelsea - one of the biggest clubs in the world - and if they can't even at least motivate themselves for match, then they have got some serious issues.

Compare to previous managers, Mourinho gets a lot more stick than them/players escaping from criticism pretty easily.

This is not to say Mourinho isn't at fault for our problems but... Experiencing a 'bad moment' under managers who aren't Mourinho - Blame players for poor performances/results. Experiencing a 'bad moment' under Mourinho - Blame Mourinho for poor performances/results.

Even if Falcao is only on loan, he's still a shit signing. We're wasting a space in the squad for a washed-up striker who will likely end up not contributing much this season (some times it feels like we only have 2 strikers) and not to mention, we're paying high wages for someone who is only on loan. It's ridiculous. Could have given that space and spent that money on someone better.

I fear what will happen to Ivanovic. Porto play down the wings quite a bit.

Only 2 actually. The one against Swansea was an OG. I think it would be unfair to say he was purely lucky with those goals. Yes, there was a bit of luck involved but let's not dismiss the quality of those free kicks that led to the goals. They were hit perfectly and hit into an area where the GK isn't sure what to do and any connection with the ball would result in a goal. It's practically undefendable like Alex mentioned above. And maybe Willian has been practicing his free kicks in training and it's starting to reap its rewards.

Right, my bad. Missed one of those in my record.

He's only got 2 so far.

On that point, Newcastle haven't actually been that bad against the big sides - they drew 0-0 at Man United and lost only 1-0 to Arsenal with 10 men. But of course, that's not an excuse for our poor performance and just watch them ship 5 goals next week at Man City.

I take your point but don't think it's fair to attribute that problem to Pedro's inclusion. Fix the other issues and we probably wouldn't even be talking about him. Let's not also forget that Pedro is in a new league and playing a whole different football. Not finding excuses but he clearly needs some time to fully adapt.

Our starting XI is already not balanced even before his arrival. It doesn't change much really.

Never mind winning the title, even trying to finish in the top 4 might be a difficult task now. If we still continue to perform poorly, get bad results say by this time next month or in November, then I think Roman might start to get a itchy and tempted to pull the trigger.