Chelsea Legend 11

If Chelsea draw Atletico who here thinks they will let Courtois play?

LOL!!!

LOL... Of all the rumours floating around the club this one is the most retarded. Unless someone comes in with an offer we can't refuse Mata will be in Chelsea blue for years to come. He's building a legendary career here Jose won't sell him two months into his tenure... You have any idea how stupid that sounds? And what's worse is you think Willian is the reason for it? WILLIAN? come on dude...

So when the window shuts and Mata is still a Chelsea player what will you say then? If we were ever gonna move Mata it would be for BIG, BIG money there aren't many teams who could afford to pay it.

Just seems you read the papers too much.

Never a bad idea to sign someone who bleeds blue... I bet he'll come good.

That's kind of silly don't you think? Had he gone to Tottenham you think they were willing to spend £30M on a guy they didn't think could get a Visa? He's gonna be here and so will Mata...

I think its better to go by minutes rather than games.

Can't help but think that 31M would've been better spent on Mangala.... I'd even take a piece of that and sign Kondogbia

£31M

I'm confused. Didn't Jose say he wants a 22-man squad? Keepers Cech, Schwarzer Defenders Cole, Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Bertrand, Kalas, Terry, Cahill, Luiz Midfielders Van Ginkel, Ramires, Essien, Lampard, Mikel Attackers Mata, Hazard, Willian, DeBruyne, Oscar, Schurrle, Moses, Lukaku, Torres, Ba. I count 25 players and still no striker, if I was guessing I'd say Moses and Kalas on loan and Ba and Mikel sold.

Hahaha Ya! He changes his stance like the weather. At any rate I'm excited... I don't think we need Willian but its pretty fun to mug off the Spurs. If either Rooney or Eto'o come in we're set.

Looks like AVB is still Mourinho's chief scout! hahahaha

I really doubt that they are completely different players. Willian's acquisition is independent of Rooney... I'm having a feeling it will be Willian AND is Anzhi teammate Eto'o coming in

I smell bullshit here.

In truth Willian is better in Jose's counter attacking system on the right flank though.

But it didn't fall to a striker because he was well marked. I agree it wasn't a masterclass but you can't say they deserved to win the game, their game plan produced very little for them as well. I would say at best the game was a bit of a stalemate and we were able to nick it because he had just a bit more quality. In the end it was a game I'm glad is over and we came out on top of because truly, as ugly as Villa play, they will give a lot of teams problems with that style.

We didn't play that way against Hull or in the preseason. It was a tactic employed in the early part of the game because they were playing a high line. Had Ba got his timing right and had Lamps been Lamps we would've been fine with it. I don't want to see that tactic employed often though

Yikes. Thats a bit of a mouthful. I thought they were good but not better than us. We dominated the possession and also dealt with their counter extremely well. They had maybe three or four goal scoring opportunities (Benteke's goal, Weimann back post which was half a chance really there was no angle, Weimann inside the box, and Agbonlahor's shot outside the box) Aside from that we dealt with very well. On Ivanovic's high boot Benteke actually elbowed him FIRST before the high boot. Brana didn't elbow him either they were jockeying for position, it was a war but I couldn't see a reason for Brana to see red. And for the record we are a counter attacking team. If teams sit deep(like Villa) and then lump it up the field to their target man the game will be very similar to the one we saw yesterday. We couldn't press them and they had 10 men behind the ball while defending. If the team doesn't come out and play us it'll be tough for us to exploit the small gaps. That's what I saw anyway.

Couldn't agree more with this highlighted section. Whether it were AVB, RDM or FSW we would've come out of a game like this last year with a loss. I don't think Ba was bad he tested their backline but got the timing wrong, his movement was good. I thought the service to him was extremely poor and is part of the reason i thought Lamps had a poor game. It was clear the tactic early was to try to get in behind the high line, we had a hard time with it mainly because Lamps and to some extent Hazard were poor with their long ball deliveries. I have no idea why DeBruyne wasn't playing if that truly was the tactic because his long ball delivery is very accurate.

I'm gonna go with a nervy 2-1 with Hazard and Lukaku scoring I start Mata mainly because we need his genius in the final 3rd more than we need Oscar's ability to win the ball. Utd's midfielders don't scare me, Mata gets another 60mins and Oscar comes in to kill it off.

How soon we forget.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYDxllDjTkc

For the record Van Ginkel attempted 5 passes and was 80% on his deliveries.... he had one he couldn't bring down and turned it over. Lets not start jumping to conclusions on a player who had 9mins of work.

For those harping on Ivanovic note he had 15(YES 15!!!) clearances today and of the 15, 14 were deemed effective. That is remarkable.

Jose nailed it, we couldn't play our game because Villa never gave us the chance to press... Credit to them. I thought for the most part Brana was our best player with Ramires a close 2nd. Brana had to deal with Benteke AND Agbonlahor in the air when Villa overloaded our right side. Brana had little to no cover from Mata who I thought was the worst player for us on the pitch. Ramires saw the ball a lot but never really played a telling ball to our attackers, I thought he was great covering when we got caught out on the counter. All in all his passing and touch has improved A LOT and he's looking like an indispensable player at the moment. Lampard offered nothing, two games in and he already looks knackered. Jose says he has to manage him but in the early going he hasn't really done that. Two 90's where we had a fair bit of defending to do... Van Ginkel and Ramires would've been the pivot for me. Villa deserved a point no question about it, they never looked rattled and asked questions of our back 4 a lot. Benteke's goal was more a result of him being really good than our defense being poor. Would really like to see Lukaku start at Old Trafford on Monday, I think he has the ability to cause problems for their defenders. He looked good when coming in and probably should've scored. Demba Ba wasn't terrible. His movement was good and he almost got in behind them a few times. Its annoying that he was offside so much but the timing will come with more time... Was good to see him test the back 4. Really thought Agbonlahor and Delph had great games. Gabby should be considered for England if you ask me.