Strike

nah. Cole is a better defender, Cole is quicker and Lennon is not great. Ivanovic has been all over the place while defending and Bale is a much better winger

didn't watch that. hopes raised now though

even fereira owned bale last season but still he has got raw pace over ivanovic and given that ivan will have little protection this time around (unless ramires plays on the right) bale will be running at him all game and ivanovic in the form he has been in so far this season will be ripped to shreds

Do Chelsea fans in the Asian sub-continent a favor by signing this twition to force broadcaster to air Chelsea vs Shakhtar Donetsk http://twitition.com/i3685 united fans did something similar earlier in the season and got to watch their game against f***in Galatasaray.

it works both ways though. avb will be worried about hazard and will be tellin bale the same thing but yeah, bale is better defensively and if he gets chances to run at ivanovic he will rip him apart

ashley cole is more than capable of handling lennon, its about ivanovic i worry. bale has a tendency to go AWOL if tightly marked but still his raw pace will blow Ivanovic away

good. players like dembele nip our attacks. we beat an arsenal side which didnt have diaby and now spurs without dembele. nice

that's because AVB's other defensive options were Luiz and Alex

yeah. maybe they thought lukaku and piazon are waiting in the wings and thus no need to sign a striker. the other option was to sell torres for 20-odd million and sign a replacement. maybe they thought it was too soon for that. one more season for torres makes sense

tbf the club shouldn't have been sympathetic with him in the summer and go into the season with only torres and sturridge as the strikers. if we were gonna be ruthless with players like drogba, essien, meireles, malouda...why not torres as well? maybe the 50mil price tag played in their minds

yeah but he has missed a fair few chances this season. sitters. also his goals except for the newcastle one were fairly routine finishes that u shud expect out of him. remarkably better so far but the next few games will show us whether he is main striker material

Chelsea Football Club was engulfed in a flurry of excitement 2 years ago when the club pulled off a British record 50m transfer of Spanish striker Fernando Torres on transfer deadline day. A Torres-Drogba combination up front was something you’d expect to see on FIFA but Roman Abramovich with his abundant wealth made it happen for Chelsea. However, the optimism surrounding Torres’ arrival soon faded as he failed to find the back of the net for 903 mins (14 games) in a Chelsea shirt and 2 years on now, his Chelsea career has been nothing short of a train wreck. Now with Roberto di Matteo in charge and a shift in the style of play, Torres has run into some kind of form but the question still remains, Is he the man to lead Chelsea’s attack? Torres started the season on the back of a horrid 2011-12 season. The shocker of a miss at Old Trafford, the red card after scoring a goal against Swansea and the fact that he was forced to watch our revival under di Matteo from the bench, sums up his season. Sure, he won the FA Cup and the Champions League but he did not start either of the finals. The sight of Salomon Kalou starting ahead of him in Munich clearly got to his head and he had this to say regarding the matter:- But then in the summer, Didier Drogba left the club and Torres was confirmed as the number one striker. In addition to that, the club replaced Kalouda with skillful technical players like Hazard and Oscar who are better suited to Torres’ style of play and now 7 games into the season, things are looking better for the Spaniard with 6 goals already to his name this season (4 in the league) and Chelsea are sitting pretty at the top of the table, 4 points clear of the nearest rival. But despite the better goal return, Torres’ has looked a shadow of the player he once was. There was a time when he took Vidic for a spin at Old Trafford but now he seems to be unable to get past Anton Ferdinand. Take note of the fact that 2 of the goals he has scored are from set-pieces and not due to his prowess in front of goal. He is no longer “terrorizing” the opposition defence and he has been anonymous in a fair few games this season restricting his involvement to linking up with the midfielders and running the channels. The Torres’ of the old would look for the through balls behind the opposition defence and bury his chances but as we saw against Arsenal and against Norwich, he seems reluctant to pull the trigger these days. He was away from Koscielny and bearing down on goal and instead of burying it in the corner he tried to get past the advancing keeper allowing Koscielny to nick possession from him. On the other hand, things have definitely improved. His goal against Newcastle was excellent and showed that his finishing is still good. Now that there is not much competition for the striker’s slot, he has started all of Chelsea’s games this season (the only player to do so) and the continuous run of games has boosted his confidence (see Rabona against Newcastle) Plus, he is now receiving better service from the 3 maestros – Oscar Mata and Hazard. But is he the man to lead our attack? He is 28 now and has got maybe 2-3 seasons in his tank and with Daniel Sturridge and Romelu Lukaku already waiting in the wings at Chelsea. Sturridge, as we all know is a terrific talent and has been waiting for a run of games in the centre-forward role and Lukaku has been in brilliant form on his loan spell at West Brom. I am on the fence regarding the whole Torres matter. Fernando has been good(ish) so far but needs to get much better as the season progresses. Our defenders and midfielders chip in with a fair few goals but it was Didier Drogba who used to fire for us in the big games. He has scored 9 times in Final matches and has scored 8 goals in 8 games at Wembley. Moreover, he has 13 goals against Arsenal and 4 goals in 4 FA Cup finals. Now, with Drogba gone, Torres needs to step up for us in the big games and add that little spark up front. It doesn’t matter how many goals he scores against the likes of Reading and Norwich if he keeps bottling in the big games.This is a key season in that aspect for Torres as the coming months will decide whether he will be remembered for his time in a Blue shirt. Click here to view the article

But remember how distorted our attack was against QPR. Moses was huggin the touchline on the right side and the rest were clustered in the middle. In the end even Moses went narrow and the dribble and cross he played (Hazard miss) was almost from inside the box. We haven't managed to integrate width into our side because of Hazard and Mata. those two continuously cut in and our width comes only from our full-backs. But yeah, we are not fashioning nearly enough chances. The narrow system maybe at fault there as our midfield was almost standing in a straight line the other day against Norwich but it hasn't really improved by putting Moses and that's why I hope Rdm persists with Oscar Mata Hazard. their understanding is growing and given that ivanovic and cole are providing good width for the team, i want Romeu in for Ramires if he is ruled out

if Ramires is ruled out i would prefer Oriol Romeu coming in for a straight swap as it wouldn't change the complexion of the side much. Bringing Oscar to the middle is not a bad option given how hardworking he is on the pitch but then we have to go for either Moses, Sturridge or Marin in the attacking midfield slot and none of them have had enough game time and 2 of them are only returning from injury. plus they are all essentially wide players, bringing any one of them in will see Sturridge/Moses/Marin hugging the touchline while Eden and Mata try to cut inside often. the current narrow system is working well for us with the triangular passing in and around the box. Oscar Mata Hazard in the attacking midfield role would be better in that sense

then cfc went up the other end and Ramires dinked it over Cudicini for 3-1

flies right in the face of our current narrow system

congrats mate! best wishes to you and your family

we are not creating chances fluently. kinda narrow when we play. the pivot and the 3 attackin mids stand almost in a straight line

Lampard should be used like Scholes is used at United. still has experience and as he showed against Norwich, still buries chances from the edge of the box

not bad at all. looking forward to free time now. gonna play my FPL wildcard i guess. happy days

finally done with exams. 18 days of bliss now. too bad there's no Prem League this weekend

Who should be first choice - Friedel or Lloris? Sigurdsson or Dempsey and Defoe or Adebayor?

idiotic. wonder how he writes for the BBC

i remember 3-2 in 2006. Class Goals