TorontoChelsea

To be honest, I don't care. Other clubs will always sign some good players, Chelsea can't sign everybody. Let them. We'll still beat them.

Mikel is a good CDM. He's not Makalele or Viera but he does his job. He plays short, accurate passes, he covers holes vacated by defenders, he tackles well, he positions himself well, basically, he does his job. The problem is that people love flashy (or new) and good defensive midfielders are not flashy (in fact, most good players aren't flashy at any position). If you haven't, people should read this. http://www.eplindex.com/16829/chelsea-forget-john-obi-mikel.html

Good. Makes zero sense now. Chelsea have Hazard, Mata, Ramires, Oscar, Moses, Marin, and Sturridge who can all play in the attacking 3. We're fine there.

This this probably it too with the only possibility I can see being someone like Cavani. (a pure CF)

Yes, I meant a general "you" to the haters.

Papers do get things wrong, but it's different. They got it wrong once. Twitter gets in wrong multiple times a day. It's not just the twitter message that sabotages threads, it's what follows. Post 1- Unverified hulk rumour Post 2- "Is this real?" Post 3-"Fake, stop posting this guy" Post 4- YESSS!!! (With a picture of The Incredible Hulk wearing a Chelsea uniform) Post 5- "Here's my new starting XI Post 6- Stop posting tweets from this idiot Post 7- Youtube compilation of Hulk's skills, Post 8- He's overrated, we should get XYZ Post 9- I think this is real Post 10- It's fake!!! etc... Every goddamn time!!! This thread is 266 pages long for that reason.

Depth is important, but I think this is mostly about width. The biggest issue I've seen in the first two games is the bunching of the team in the middle of the park. Mata, Hazard, Oscar, and Ramires are all central attacking midfielders (or, in the case of Mata and Hazard who can play elsewhere, seem to prefer to play centrally). Ivanovic is great going forward, but even he is more comfortable going towards the middle of the field rather than running up and down the wings. Lampard and Mikel when they come up, also come up the middle as do our central defenders when they join the play. Sturridge can play wide, but he's not a midfielder so shouldn't be. Moses and Marin would give us two legitimate options on the right and can actually play out wide. I still suspect Ramires will play the most on the right because RDM likes his defensive presence there (I understand why) and if he didn't play there, he would hardly ever play which is ridiculous, but this would give the squad more flexibility.

It's ridiculous. We played a whole whack of games under RDM last season and Lampard was amazing (and please, spare me the "parking the bus" crap, we only did that in 3 games, Lampard was playing in central midfield ). He played very well in the central midfield role. If you looked at the problems Chelsea had last season under RDM, central midfield was among the least of them. Suddenly, it's the biggest problem. Why? Are Chelsea having trouble scoring? Nope....Has the central midfield been responsible for costly defensive mistakes? Nope. I get it, the central midfield doesn't allow Chelsea to keep possession, right?...Wait, they had 72% possession yesterday. So, why the sudden need to get rid of Mikel and Lampard? It's simply the fetishization of the new. People want new players, young players, players who do skill moves on youtube videos (as if step-overs help you win championships) It's like people are shopaholics for new players. There is no need to change a part of the team that has not been a problem under RDM. Lampard does not need to be fast. He does not need to stay static in the midfield. Mikel does not need to boss the game. They're fine. You are basically creating conditions for these players where everything will be their fault. Go buy some players on football manager. It will make you feel better.

I think it's common sense. If Chelsea or a real players' official twitter says something, then nobody will be bothered, but in general, twitter is basically useless. Maybe they'll break something 3 minutes before a legit source, but they are wrong so often, that you don't know until after the fact.

It's the price of success. If you're a big team and you win, you will get plastic fans. Especially, if you're a team that can afford to spend money. There aren't people around the world thinking, "hey, I want to support Stevenage". Glory-hunting fans is a small price to pay for winning.

Exactly...I mean, when was Cech's last clean sheet? Not since 1 game ago!!! When was the last time Cech helped us win a trophy? The Champion's League final was months ago! He's awful and needs to go. Chelsea should be winning every match 9-0 and if they don't, we need to keep getting rid of everyone and replacing them with 19 year olds I like playing with on FIFA12. This "they had a bad game, so let's get rid of them" stuff is obnoxious.

You forgot land-owning!!

Exactly...there isn't a Chelsea fan in the world who isn't wowed by Hazard's first two games, but they are just that. Two games and against poor sides. I worry that if people think that this is the new normal, they will feel let down when he isn't spectacular. I do expect him to have some bumps in the road because every player does. I do have every confidence that Hazard will be a fantastic player for us though.

Reading certainly did not "park the bus". They looked to attack and actually were pretty impressive for a newly promoted side.

Not the biggest Torres fan, but don't think Torres should be benched either, (unless we got Cavani) but would like to see Sturridge start the next game as part of a rotation. Torres will start against Athletico next week meaning that since the Community Shield, he'd have started 4 of the 5 matches. I think we need to see what Sturridge can do as a striker at some point.

We benched Drogba a few times. When we bought Shevchenko, when we bought Anelka, and then when we bought Torres. Each time, Drogba fought his way back into the starting XI.

I'm sick of this. Sturridge had one selfish moment and about 6 or 7 really nice passes. He played very well today, made some brilliant moves, passed well, linked up well with other players, and defended and all anyone cares about is one play where he should have passed.

2 games, 6 points...next!

Horrible call by the linesman but we'll take it! What a ball by Cole.

Nice goal, horrible keeping...also nice to see Sturridge passing well since coming on.

Luiz is hurt and neither goal was the fault of our central defenders. One was just a brilliant header from 17 yards off the side of the head, Cahill's positioning was fine, and the second was completely Cech's fault.

Big test for us, looking forward to seeing how we respond. Great tackle by Mikel there!

Yuck

Fantastic header, not much we could have done about that.

Welcome!