Belgiannutt

I don't think our players are dragging their feet or playing poorly on purpose. Yesterday i saw a lot of good will from our players. They were definitely "trying" out there. Problem is that it's all so disjointed. In attack we played some good combinations at times but there's just no follow up. After the good combinations everyone just stands still and the player who's on the ball is thinking "fuck what do i do with it now ?" Usually the player with the ball will then just keep running with the ball untill he comes across a defender and then he just passes it backwards or sideways. Opposition regroups and we're back to square one. I'm not seeing any actual purpose to our attacks. It feels like our plan of attack is to just play the ball around, roam around a lot and hope defenders cock up so spaces open up that we can exploit. Our midfield: I thought Fabregas played some great passes but he's so so poor defensively. Anyone with a little ability and pace can just run straight past him. So frustrating and it's not like he wins a lot of second balls either. Too slow and too weak to play in a 2 man midfield for me. Matic needs help. He just can't hold the midfield on his own. Our defence: Looked disjointed and confused about what they were supposed to do. Bournemouth were able to run at our back four far too easily but you could just sense the panic when a Bournemouth player ran at them with the ball. Where's the composure ? Where's the confidence ? From a tactical point of view this team is just all over the place.

Missed the first half. Can anyone please give me a quick summary of what happened ? how are we playing ? Any big chances ? any standout players ? Any poor performers for us ? Edit : nvm just seen the highlights. Looks like i didn't miss much.

Tonight's international friendly Belgium - Spain has been cancelled due to the terror threat. Belgian government decided late last night to raise the "terror threat level" from 2 to 3. They advised the belgian football association to cancel the event as they felt it was too big of a risk.

It really all depends on what you prefer. They're two very different competitions. Personally i prefer the CL. Margin for error is smaller. When you head into the knockout rounds 1 poor performance can seal your fate. Only have 2 games so you gotta make them both count. Also i simply find it more prestigious due to the opponents being better. Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid. We don't even have one team of that type of quality in the PL let alone 3.

Loaning RLC out ? Anyone working for our youth program will be like :

Don't be stupid. Mourinho doesn't rate anyone's opinion but his own. Or as Mourinho so eloquently put it: 'When you reach my level it's difficult to learn from others'

Euhm i did say the system sucks. The first line in my post. "Problem is that there's no attacking system in place. Everything we do in attack is improvised. Our players simply have no clue what the player with the ball is gonna do." I didn't complain about Pedro, Fabregas, Willian, Oscar. Again i clearly stated in my post which players (Costa, Ramires) i was targeting with the "not on the same wavelenght" "not being on the same wave lenghts. (lack of quality imo (Costa, Ramires))"

Problem is that there's no attacking system in place. Everything we do in attack is improvised. Our players simply have no clue what the player with the ball is gonna do. And like Muzchap said teammates not being on the same wave lenghts. (lack of quality imo (Costa, Ramires)) Lost count of the amount of 1-2 's he tried today. Constantly ignored though. Sure buddy. Keep telling yourself that.

You've got to be kidding right ?

I just typed in Eden Hazard you bunch of perverts. And that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

Looks fit.

Depends on the situation. In a medical situation the doctor is the highest authority and the football manager is in fact just a football manager in such a situation. Hazard was face down on the ground and the referee called the medical staff on to the pitch, twice even. There was no way of knowing what the extent of Hazard's injuries were. I understand Mourinho's point about being a man down and not wanting to be down another man but the way he responded was just ridiculous. I can understand that in the heat of the moment he'd yell at them. I can place that as emotions getting the better of him but to then afterwards insult them by calling them naive and then replacing them on the bench for the next games is just childish. This entire situation has been handled in such a piss poor manner. Why couldn't he just keep this in house. Just talk to them person to person and explain to them what he expects from them in such a situation. Treat people with some god damn respect.

Yeah you're so much better then them aren't you...

Mourinho only has himself to blame for that. He constantly went looking for conflicts even with his own staff and players. It's actually quite an achievement from Mourinho to turn this group of players against him. I mean there's not a single player in this group that has a bad personality. All of them have amiable, easygoing personalities, yet somehow he's managed to turn them against him and apparently even had one of them go as far as say he'd rather lose then win for Mourinho. Seriously how did Mourinho manage that ?

It really is mind-boggling how a manager who's so meticulous when it comes to defending can have such a lacklustre/ laid back "just go out their and express yourselves" attitude towards the attacking part of the game. Our entire attacking game rests on three things : Opposition f*cking up, set pieces and individual brilliance. I mean that's it. Over 2 years with this group and that's all he can come up with. About the Liverpool game, just textbook Mourinho wasn't it. Score a goal, sit deep and let the opposition get back into the game. You'd think after we'd score such an early goal we'd grab Liverpool by the throat. Keep disrupting their passing game. Not let them get into their game. Go for a second goal but no no let's just sit back. Let them get their passing game going. Let them settle into the game. Just defend for the remaining 85 minutes. What could possibly go wrong...

Would it help if he said he was "one of us" ? :ph34r:

He probably wanted to but again he spent 322 million in 2 years. That's a lot of players and a lot of money and then after that he goes to the board and says i need another +100 million for 2- 3 new players ? I can understand the board saying no to this last summer. Sorry pacquiao but imo he's had enough funding and backing from the board in the past 2 years. We shouldn't be in this mess even without 2-3 new players.

He's had over 2 years to get rid of the dead wood and in those 2 years we've spent over 322 million euros on players.

Jason always posts who's fit and who isn't in the match thread so you don't need to watch Mourinho's presser to know. Reasons behind a player's contract extension ? Not really. Imo most of the time the reasons are very cliché. Yeah you asked about todays presser but i already explained the connection between todays presser and Zolayes his comment. " What Zolayes is basically saying is "talk is cheap" Mourinho can say what he wants in his press conferences unless we actually see it on the pitch it's meaningless. Like for example Mourinho talking about building a dynasty 2 years ago but we look far from a dynasty atm don't we " Maybe it would be best if we just dropped it. Feel like this discussion is just gonna go back and forth.

Game of riddles ? Really ? It's not that hard to see the connection between your question and Zolayes his post. What Zolayes is basically saying is "talk is cheap" Mourinho can say what he wants in his press conferences unless we actually see it on the pitch it's meaningless. Like for example Mourinho talking about building a dynasty 2 years ago but we look far from a dynasty atm don't we ? To answer your question myself. I didn't watch his presser because i don't care how Mourinho does in his press conferences. What i care about is what happens on the pitch. He can win all the arguments in the press conferences. It means very little to me when we're 15th in the league and have won just 1 in 7.

This. Was gonna post the same thing. Can't believe he's trying to claim some sort of moral highground. That's just

Bethos already apologized for that so how about you let it go.

We are currently 15th on the table, what is the most realistic position that you guys think we would/could/should end up/aim for at the end of season ? Champions league football, top 4. 1. What formation or tactics do you think we should adopt going forward? 4-3-3. In order to get the best out of Fabregas without comprimising our defensive midfield. In the current 4-2-3-1 it's always a choice between sticking Fabregas in a 2 man midfield, comprimising our defensive midfield but maximizing his ability to influence our buildup play or sticking him in the nr 10 position which limits his ability to influence our build up play but keeps our defensive midfield solid. 2. What do you think should be our priority going forward? An identity. A clear direction to where we want to go with this club. What type of football do we want to play ? After that's decided go out and only hire managers that play that type of football. 3. What position do you want to see Chelsea be at the end of season? Top 4. 4. January transfer window (who should we buy, how will they fit in the grand scheme of things)? Left back, an allround (hard working, technical) midfielder that can complement a Matic- Fabregas midfield, ball playing centre back. 5. Who should play, who shouldn't? Begovic Azpi Cahill Zouma Baba Matic RLC Fabregas Willian Hazard Costa 6. What kind of tactics do you think will get us out of this slump? Given the situation we're in atm i'd say go defensive. Compact 4-3-3 but i'd try and help our attack by allowing our fullbacks to push up high when we have the ball. While we need to stop conceding we also need to start scoring more goals from open play. Adding attacking fullbacks would freshen up our attack and maybe catch some teams offguard. As a bonus, how did we go from Premier league to staying clear of relegation ? (quiet frankly I knew we weren't good enough to defend title the way we played last season, but this?) Pfff... honestly i don't think anyone expected this. I mean i was one of the people that "moaned" about our negative approach in big games and our negative playing style we adopted last season (second half of the season ofcourse) but i never imagined it would get this bad. Looking back (hindsight is a wonderful thing) i feel the problems started last season when the team suddenly had a massive dip in form. Instead of looking for the root of the problem(s) we just put a bandage on it (the bandage being us playing more pragmatic). We let it fester and now we're in this nightmare which just seems to be getting worse and worse by every passing game.

It's not about being a better manager. Atm i think a lot of people would just settle for an interim manager that doesn't go seeking conflicts every chance he gets. Our season so far has been conflicts and shitstorms one after another. If Mourinho didn't create the conflict himself you'd just see him throwing gasoline onto it.

No offense but i think you need to put things in perspective. Your complaining about Mourinho not getting a £40m player but forgetting that he had 5 transferwindows to buy players in which we bought : Willian 35.5 million Matic 25 milion Schurrle 22 million Salah 16.5 million Zouma 14.6 million Costa 38 million Fabregas 33 million Cuadrado 31 million Filipe Luis 20 million Remy 13.2 million Pedro 27 million Rahmann 26 million Begovic 11 million All combined that's 312.8 million euros in 5 transferwindows on 13 players. We've spent 312.8 million euros on incoming players. People love to deflect from the amount of money we spent on players by saying we also sold alot of players for profit. Which is true but it doesn't change the fact that we've bought alot of fucking players (and they weren't cheap !) and now your using us not spending 40, 50, 60, 70 million in the last transferwindow as an excuse for the abysmal season we're having ?! Come on. He's had his transfers. He's had his time to shape this team. He's not dealing with an ageing squad nor a squad of youngsters there's no reason why we should be in this mess right now. If Mourinho can't make this squad tick without new transfers, which he helped put together in the last 2 years ,then he isn't the right man.