robsblubot

careful criticizing a 22-year old in his second? season in England. That's how you lose good prospects...

That's the irony of defending... better defenders want to play and their coaches want them to play because they know how. On the other hand, when they do play they will naturally expose the defense and it's up to their teammates and coach to address that - either you live with that or you don't. I still think Kompany is world class though as he can be dominant in a low or high block.

still think he's very different from Oscar as characteristics go. I like Barkley very much, but they've played nobody today. QPR stars Robert Green and Richard Dunne.... How do they play in the PL is beyond me...

fair enough. My disappointment was with Thiago Silva - who (i hear) actually f* up yesterday in their league loss. Back to CL though, I just wish Blanc, or whoever may replace him, doesn't stick Luiz in midfield against us. it could become challenging if they pulled a Mourinho against us. Rather have them playing attractive football with only Motta defending in the middle.

how do you know it was all fake? Maybe he is that volatile and from the reports he is like that (Iva was mentioning it one of these days). It would certainly match his game. The loss was on the difference in quality, but the trashing was solely on Scolari and I am a Gremio supporter. There is no excuse for the starting line up we started with. Some commentators were very pessimistic before the kickoff, because of it. We had a 2-men midfield that got crushed by a 5-men midfield with superior players - honestly, it's that simple. I could name at least 5 players who also had horrid performances alongside David Luiz that day.

Not a horrible draw to be honest. They are a good team, but we are a lot better. Arsenal got the best draw, obviously, but City will have to pull off something very special to go through. Barca are prob happy with their draw esp considering City's injuries. Unlike Barbara, I honestly wasn't surprised by David Luiz performances in the World Cup (the very good, the bad, and the very ugly). as I always thought he was very quirky and needed a system to fit in. However, I was surprised by Silva's mentality which wasn't what I expected from a skipper. PSG chances, as things stand right now, are small, but they could improve if Blanc got sacked. He's a very naive coach who would go into SB playing as if he were playing Nantes at home. He would never move Luiz into midfield, which for them would be a quite obvious (esp playing away) move considering Luiz is (at lot) better than Motta right now and also that they have Marquinhos as an option in defense. Their GK is also not at the level of Courtois or Cech. My only concern is that we are very dependent on the form of 4 players atm: Hazard, Matic, Costa, and Fabregas. If any one picks up an injury, his replacement would not be anywhere near the starter in terms of quality. Esp considering the upcoming concentration of games.

You are being nice to Cahill. Terry is a world class defender who should always be the very first pick for England. Cahill is a good dependable player and that pretty much all he's ever going to be. Nothing wrong with that btw.

old didier is getting more minutes. Never though of remy as a player for chelsea but surprised by this.

Mikel was getting booed for sure. As much as think mikel doesn't belong in a top club, he is picked by the club and manager - not his fault. Sometimes supporters do get fed up with a player and pick on him. That will make life harder for mikel and Jose.

That's how bad Foy is. The most blatant dive wasn't warded a yellow. Costa one wasn't even a dive - he was protecting himself. People are right to be worried as hull are a very poor side. We haven't been playing very well lately.

Thank you, hazard!

That's exactly what I meant... that putting the blame of a trashing on a single player (1/11) is very silly - a defender nonetheless. Games are won and lost in midfield and Brazil, for a number of reasons, didn't have one that day. Obviously luiz had a shitty performance just like most of the other players - besides the point though.

Fair enough - that's your opinion. Just fyi, David luiz is also an integral part of the new Brazilian side coached by dunga. Honestly blaming one player in a trashing is kinda silly - not tennis (singles).

No I don't think Cahill switched off. He was beaten by a player as physically strong as he is; Cahill offers very little else other than strength and awareness. The "suicidal" part is your opinion as we all know, which is not shared by others including Brazil and PSG coaches. We've been down this rat hole before. We may even agree on the CDM part. But Blanc wanted to play attractive football in Barcelona...

we always go back to this discussion and we agree to disagree. There is solidity, which means consistency, making few mistakes. There is also limitation, technical, mental and physical, which are specially important for top clubs as the defenders will face top attackers. Though mental crosses the boundary and could be the cause for the former. The point being that Cahill does NOT have to make the same mistakes David Luiz makes to be deemed insufficient. He might be uncomfortable on the ball, or not quick enough to play a high line for example. Then we go into characteristics, personal preferences, and we've been tehre many times before. For example, even today I see John Terry as twice the player as Cahill is. He can still go forward and make plays a lot better than Cahill. David Luiz not being good enough, or solid enough, does NOT make Cahill good enough either. BTW, Didier might have forgotten Cahill marking the fantastic Balotelli at the world cup.

It's an interesting point as he may not be a DM after all. Baffles me that people put his performance against Newcastle (not good) and his performance against Sporting (good) in the same basket. They were completely different even in style. He was indeed good, going forward against sporting, producing his usual trademark shielding (of the ball) and possession as well. He still did not defend well IMO because frankly he's too slow to cover; once a player is past him, that's it he will be jogging back behind the line of the ball as he's done many times while were were being attacked. However, attacking wise, he was far more mobile, adventurous in his passing, and worked a lot harder against Sporting than he did against Newcastle. Prob something the manager asked him to do because he certainly did not do that against Newscastle - where his passes were very conservative. Unfortunately for Mikel, and Chelsea, he only seems to perform like he did against Sporting in very easy matches; especially when the opponent plays with a slow tempo.

Ridiculous piece of defending for messi's goal. Completely switches off and marks no one. The second goal is class but Thiago silva backs off a la Gary Cahill... Blanc is naive going for a game like this playing his usual lineup. Stick Luiz in midfield and harass them.

text from bbc made me lol "This is not a drill. I repeat this is not a drill. John Mikel Obi has scored turns home a corner from the closest of ranges. He was maybe six inches out, perhaps less."

"Mikel played just fine." Agreed and still not good enough for Chelsea. "In fact much better than just fine." completely disagree Mikel offers nothing going forward, so he IS the defense. When we concede two goals, esp when away from home, perhaps he did not protect the defense as well as he should've. I'm one who does not see Mikel mistakes, because he doesn't even try anything other than the absolutely basic short and boring passing game we've seen from him over the years. Don't think he's that great defending either because of the lack of pace to cover. Yup that's how much I rate him. Once again, there is a reason we spent 21M on Matic and that he is the starter. There is also a reason Mikel doesn't play often.

Seems like Ramires isn't quite ready yet. At least not nearly 100%.

Couldn't disagree more. This is not American football. It's all interconnected. When we employ defenders (including FBs) who cannot attack, we lose that conduit and have to attack in different ways. Same in the DLP/CM position: Matic can make a seamless and quick transition between defense and attack, while Mikel cannot. Timing is everything in football and Mikel slows the game down too much with his useless and constant short passing. Perhaps the AMs and Costa ALSO struggled because the delivery was just a bit slower than normal. Matic wasn't there to make the transition on his own, and a different player had to do it, which also slows our attack for that player has to drop back to get the ball. Matic can do some of what Fabregas does while Mikel can't.

As Torres misses go, that has to be #1. Benitez messed that up though. He played the prior match with Luiz in midfield and Tite, Corinthians' coach said he was very worried about Luiz's physicality in midfield - Corinthians was a very physical team. Sure enough Benitez decided to make things easier for Tite and Corinthians by moving Luiz back to defense, weakening the midfield.

Call me speaker for the dead. That he does. His passing seems a bit awkward though; Zouma has to adjust his posture to pass the football and that's never a good sign. Too much effort to do something that's supposed to be natural for a footballer - something so basic. It might be just his youth, and frankly nerves, but he does not seem comfortable on the ball at all.

perhaps he's just as good as we thought he was? He probably has not impressed in training. Unless there is something in contract that guarantees him some playing time, which I doubt.

but there lies the problem: the abysmal difference, not only in quality, but also characteristics. Whenever Matic doesn't play we field a completely inadequate and different type of player to sub him. Yes, Rambo not being available made things worse, but I look at City and they have better options there. Yes, Matic is at least as good as Toure, but they have Fernando and Fernandinho who are a lot closer to Toure than Mikel is to Matic. Oh well not much to be done at this point, but I'd like to get another CM/DLP.