robsblubot

Mikel is tackling and fighting for the ball on the left, does not win it, then swansea switches to the right, and Mikel is jogging to the center of the pitch... I don't get it. He should've been sprinting to the center to stop play there. And he's doing OK, just think he lacks that extra bit of speed and movement.

awful finish... striker has to at least hit the football proper!

wow! what a performance so far! pressure on the ball... creating chances... really good football!

Yup specially a flamboyant cb at that. Funny how some now conveniently ignore the fact he hasn't really lost any value; if we wanted to sell him, we could, and at a profit. The fact selling Matic was a mistake really has nothing to do with luiz.

so, how many players does it take, you know defending, to help us keep a clean sheet? Because my answer right now is 11. My philosophy is simple: each system should demand as little as possible from the others. A team that has 11 players committed to defending to keep a clean sheet have bad defense. Same for the attack: an attack that needs a lot of help from mid and fbacks is no attack at all. my gut feeling is that Jose is, with his system and drive, is just delaying the inevitable... I'm sorry to say. BTW, DL in the middle should be used more often as he really created problems for arsenal tonight. BTW2, Belgium 11%+ ales are evil...

He certainly played to get the draw... I don't know how much the conditions helped us, because Arsenal passing was just a bit slower than usual. The few times they've upped the tempo they created chances. So, I'm not going to take too much from this as we did not see much football from either side. Terry was MotM for sure. Cech did have that one crucial save: saw that he made the block from Gibbs cross. Mikel was lucky to be on pitch because that could've been easily a red card. Decent result with a very typical Mourinho-esque counter-attacking strategy. Hazard had to go; he was the only player close to creating anything for Chelsea and on top of that he was defending well. So, imagine the horror if he assisted someone or scored a goal himself.

Yeah because we don't watch him play every match for Brazil, sometimes as Captain... and we don't see him setting up Neymar, Hulk, and others with perfect long passes about 3-4 times every match. If you don't disagree with certain opinions, that's fine, but don't try to disqualify them, because frankly you can't. We all have our personal opinions, and they have the same value on this forum. I've been watching this game for many years and seen many great defenders play, some of them live. Some of them were also starters for Brazil. David Luiz is the most technical defender I've ever seen play for Brazil. Mauro Galvao (Brazil 90') comes close, but DL is just more technical. Not even mentioning some of his amazing plays when in midfield. We can discuss other deficiencies he may have, and he does, but please let's not discuss his technical ability.

Shirley is the best striker of the bunch for me. He's a better finisher than Torres and an overall better player than Ba. Eto'o is the only one who could challenge that, but too many unknowns.

That's very subjective. It really depends on the system and other players around. He looks more assertive and has been better than Silva for Brazil for example. Reckon that he will have a real easy time adapting to Barcelona because technique, esp passing is the #1 skill in their system. Luiz is without a doubt the best cb when it comes to passing, which explains why barca want him. He will be massive for them unfortunately. His ability to play in the midfield will also help their system. They could regain their top form with luiz spec once messi is back to form.

perhaps I am inaccurate when assessing RM and specially Mourinho at RM, but once again, that's not my point. I don't care who the manager is, but if you give him scrappy squad he will play scrappy football. RM are so big that you just can't attribute all success they have or had to a single manager. Of course winning the CL is no easy feat, but Bayern has been making it to the finals very consistently; to me that's more of a sign of a system than a sporadic win like we did. How many CL did Barcelona win, or reached the finals in the last 10 years? no single player can give you that - only a successful system can. The same system that has been successful for Spain at international level, and the same system that has been failing them, at club and international level too. Perhaps the players, like you said, are indeed getting old.

Whoa! That's what we do here... we disagree... otherwise this forum would be a lot less fun. That was the least important point I made in my post, at least the one least cared about. I made a mistake though; Jose was hired to win the champions league and he failed at that. Real Madrid spend way too much money to be content with La Liga wins, even by beating Barcelona. BTW, I am not talking about clubs, but systems. Barcelona's system is superior even with less expensive players on their roster. It's a big tangent and I feel I am not qualified (less than BPL teams I mean) to talk about Real as I don't care that much about them - even though I prefer them to Barca.

Regardless of personal preferences... there have been, and there are, many successful systems in football. Jose's system hasn't been that successful for a very long time. Yes, he did well at Inter, but no such luck at Real, especially against Barcelona. He was hired to beat Barcelona and he was unable to. My personal view is that both Barcelona, aside from the defensive problem they currently have (no CB whatsoever), and Bayern employ the best systems, with a slight edge for Bayern because they are a bit more aggressive and direct. These teams have very technical players in every position - no simple no nonsense player there. They all know what to do with the football once they retake it and to me that's their edge against the other sides. People talking about defending, but defending is the responsibility of the entire team. So is attacking and keeping possession. How to keep possession if some of your players are not good passers? Don't matter where they play, they will eventually get involved and not able to pass. We've been poorer than the standings show. We should've lost against WBA at home. But the most striking thing is that we've only beaten a single side from the top half of the standings: Southampton. We lost to newcastle and everton. Our wins, as I've pointed out then, have been mostly against the worse sides in the Premiere. Fulham and West Ham are shit right now and will prob be in or very close to the relegation zone at the end. I don't share this adoration with managers some here do. Yes, Jose was successful at Chelsea, but that wasn't all due to him. He had an amazing and extremely expensive squad at his disposal. He's certainly a good manager, but he doesn't get to kick the football. Without the right players, and top players, there is only so much a manager can do. I've always thought a team should focus on the players and should have their own long-term planning, independently from any manager...because they do come and go.

This is not about who made a mistake here or there, at least not to me. It's about how one handles the difficulties created by the opponents. Cahill's defending for the second goal showcases why I dislike him: it was passive. He tried to block a couple of times, and all the attacker had to do was to pretend to take a shot which causes Cahill to pause - never making a move towards the attacker. Aside from this type of passive defending that I dislike (favoring blocks) I think he's an overall pretty poor passer. Again, if our defensive system was working at all, Cahill, Luiz, and Terry, wouldn't be facing the attackers one-on-one all the time, but I am just answering your question. However, with our midfield ATM a 25yo Franco Baresi (or Maldini) wouldn't stop us from conceding.

I've already said what I think of Gary as a player. However! When the attack can't score goals and the back can't defend, look in the middle... Decent/good players can produce good performances when the system helps them. The system is not helping anyone atm. It could be very well be that the short term solution would be to move Luiz into the midfield, and/or sweeper (same thing depending on movement). But that's for Jose to figure out. Start Shirley, Torres, Eto'o, OK maybe not Ba, for City, or Bayern and see how much easier it will be for them to score. We can't go on blaming the players for every mishap they have. They need above all confidence to play and you can see they are lacking it. They are not making the runs they ought to. They are not helping each other the way good teams do. Not long ago the same players have performed a lot better.

Yeah all those crazies who prefer the 30m-rated and sougth-after player over the 7m no one wants. People of course can have their own personal preferences, but consider that you may actually be the crazy ones.

I'm not saying it, the transfer market is. All you have to do is listen to what it has to say. Our personal preferences should go only so far...

Why are we discussing David btw? After a month away he comes back, has a decent performance, we *only* concede once and he is not the one marking the scorer... After been conceding 3 goals a game, are we complaining about what exactly? THis talk about potential is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... do you really think Barca and Bayer would buy Luiz for his potential?! They want him for his current ability! What he does on the pitch right now is what they want. They play total football, with technical players in every position, and not with stoic CB inside their own goal. puzzling thread...

Yeah he wasn't great, but I liked his work rate (participation), as well his movement. His finishing product was lacking, but he was one of the danger players for us. I'm not that crazy about William either - great shot, but his finishing product wasn't there either.

They were able to quickly transition from defense to attack, and Puncheon created lots of problems. However, every team seems to be able to to, even Fulham did. The trend is troubling.

true, but typical of players coming from injury. Actually believe he's going to start against Arsenal just because his defensive work actually.

Agree that he wasn't special, but hardly thought he would be after a month away. However, that's his job: he chases up the field - and gets occasionally nut-megged, but then Terry is supposed be in the second line and cover him like he did. This is far better defending than having both players on the same line for example, in which case if you beat one, you've beaten them both. Perhaps this style of defending is indeed unusual in England, but I've honestly seen this setup many times before...

yup, but it's not just with Luiz... it's a misunderstanding about defending. Ppl simplify the game and think defenders are responsible for things they really have no control over. A team like CP produced way too many difficult situations for our defense to deal with - really troubling.

double

Yet another mediocre performance by the team, but a good result nonetheless. Among the positives I'd name an improved performance by Essien; he's a far more technically refined played than Mikel. Essien is still far slower than he used to be and we do need a quicker player who can cover Ramires B2B runs, esp when the opposition manages to quickly make the transition from defense to attack. I thought David Luiz had a decent performance for a guy who hasn't played for a month; second game within a week. Did the chasing well which helped Terry cover behind him. Set-pieces are a problem atm and that's hardly the CBs really. Crosses are also coming in way to often and with quality, which can be really difficult to deal with. the CBs are running towards Cech and then the crosses come either in front, or behind them. Yes, we *only* conceded a goal this time but the opposition isn't strong enough to consider this an improvement. I honestly think Jose is right about Mata; he just doesn't do enough defensive work; as soon as Oscar came on, we were immediately a bit more solid there. Hate the commentator - can't remember his name - he was really frustrated that Jerome coldn't beat Luiz. He seemed to be rooting for CP real bad too. Torres did good in attack but was close to useless defending set-pieces. Azpi needs to do better at set-pieces too. We must improve a lot if we want to become contenders, because right now I'm afraid we aren't.

He's too slow to be an effective guardian of the back four. It takes too long for him to move to where he's needed. That's why IMO he plays better for Nigeria where he doesn't need to do that. however, I disagree and think he simply does not have the ability to do more. Mikel can't do what he hasn't done ... ever. I watch him for Nigeria, and aside from being the center of the team, I think he's also not good enough (for a team like Chelsea) even if he did what he does for them. Again, he's not a bad player, just not good enough to start for Chelsea. That's how I feel when I watch him play - nothing special. Players better than him as a DM/CM? There are too many to name... All our PL opponents have better options there - some a lot better.