TorontoChelsea

Interesting...who would sit? Right now, they have Alonso and Khedira as their deep lying midfielders and both deserve to be starting.

That's exactly it. Teams don't win or lose the league because of the order they get to face teams, you win or lose the league on the field.

For me, looking at the schedule, what comes across is not so much the tough end of season, it's the absolutely glorious December. We have a few really tough parts of the schedule (Oct/Nov has the toughest little bit IMO where, in a 6 week period we face City, ManU, Spurs, Liverpool, and Swansea away).However, December1-January 1 is West Ham, Sunderland, Southampton, Villa, Norwich, Everton, and QPR. End of the day, it doesn't really matter. You have to get points no matter when you play teams.

I think I missed maybe 4 or 5 games (all Carling/FA cup matches) which is fewer than usual but my schedule allowed me free time at the right time this year. I also missed the last game against Blackburn because let's face it, what football fan would rather watch a completely meaningless game over watching matches that decide who wins the Premiership. I am a Chelsea supporter, but I love football.

Don't care in the least. We have to play everyone anyway and every team will have new players and/or systems to get used. .

He has been great for us. To be honest though, I think that there is very little separating the top keepers. I think there are basically keepers who are good enough to play at the top level and keepers that aren't but trying to rank them individually is impossible. Ask 10 people who the best 3 keepesr were in the Premier League last season, and you might not get a single repeating list. You'd also probably get about 10 different names on it. Contrast that to say, striker, where I think everybody would have had RVP, Aguero, and Rooney, as their #-1-3 strikers in some order. All top keepers make fantastic saves and all make mistakes. This is why keepers are probably the cheapest position to buy. Neuer who is a great keeper was the second most expensive keeper ever and cost 22M euros. Cech who is one of the better keepers in the world, cost £7M pounds. Cech has solidified our defence for many years and come up big in some big games. He is a very good goalie.

It's as if you want every sub to be a star and it's simply not going to happen. Malouda had a poor year but he's a regular for one of the best international sides in the world. He won player of the year in the French league in 2007.He led Chelsea in goals a season ago.And he was one of our worst platers. Kalou is very useful as a sub as he can score, play some defence, and has a great work rate. Meireles can play a number of positions and do a little of everything.2 years ago, he was starting for Portugal ahead of Moutinho. These players are all internationals and are all useful. They are all underrated because everyone watches a couple of games of another player or even worse a youtube compilation and falls in love with some player or other and thinks they are great and that if they came to Chelsea, they'd play like Messi or something . It doesn't work like that. Players are all flawed and they all have poor games. Mata was our player of the season this year and was pretty bad the last couple of months. He was basically useless against Barca. Peoples' expectations of constant dominance are just never going to be met by anyone. Also, the seasons you mentioned were very different. This season was the only time we had given up on the league. Normally, players would be rotated in and out of the lineup but RDM chose to go all-or-nothing which led to weak lineups in league games. Yes, we did completely give up on the league after the Spurs game.We played 8 more matches. Mata started 3 of them. Cole started 2 of them. Lampard started 3 of them. Drogba started 1 of them. Yes, we need more talent to move forward and Chelsea are going in that direction, but people have to be realistic. You have to spend money wisely upgrading where it will make a big difference, not spending 25M pounds to get a better player who will start 15 games.

So you're saying that our squad players should be good enough to beat the Arsenal and Newcastle's starting XI?? That's never going to happen. The situation that happened last year is very rare. We were going all out for two cups and had basically given up on the league. Normally, squad players are worked into the starting XI. Most teams don't have XI players they start every single week, they'll have about 15 players that they start regularly. You look at Man City, the team with the most depth in the Premier League last season, and they started 9 players for more than 30 games and and 6 for more than 20. ManU started 8 for 30 games and 5 more started more than 20 games. You are not going to have world-class backups because A) they will be miserable being squad players nobody can afford that. Instead, you need a group of 15-20 players who can play regularly and cover all the positions. Chelsea, right now have Cech, Cole, Bertrand, Terry, Luiz, Cahill, Ivanovic, Mikel, Romeu, Lampard, Ramires, Meireles, Hazard, Mata, Malouda, Benayoun, Marin, Sturridge, Torres which is more than enough in terms of actual players who are of a decent quality. We don't have any proper cover for RB which is obviously a need.

For me, Meireles is a very useful squad player. He can cover a lot of ground, can be dangerous going forward, can play all over the midfield, and can mark his man. He lacks the quality to be starting regularly IMO, but Chelsea don't need him to any more and he is a useful guy to have around.

He had a poor run of games under AVB and his ball movement is a little too slow if Chelsea wants to play a quick moving 4-3-3, but Mikel has definitely been under-appreciated by many Chelsea fans. His positioning is excellent and he makes short, sure passes.

So, you missed it when Chelsea fans boo other players? Nobody has ever booed Sturridge or Drogba or Mikel or Malouda or Kalou or even Drogba? All of whom contributed more to Chelsea that Torres has. This is not about supporting players or not supporting players. We all support any player who plays for Chelsea. This is about the absurd amount of love that a player who has been awful for us gets. Nobody here has Kezman or Bogarde or Chris Sutton as their avatar. Nobody bangs on and on about how Claudio Pizzaro was secretly amazing despite his stats and just needed to be surrounded by world-class talent to show his true class. The level of support for Torres is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen in football. He consistently gets more love for Chelsea fans than any other player and it just makes no sense. (My best guess is that Torres is "an icon"-he's on posters and video games and what not, so he will always get support no matter his form, especially from younger fans. I assume it's the same for someone like Beckham. I really have no other explanation.) And talking about Chelsea pride? He is the worst transfer in Chelsea history, he's the highest paid player on the club, been historically awful, and he's complained on more than one occasion. If people were writing "I think Torres will turn it around this season" it's a valid position to take, but the "Torres has been good for us" or even "Torres played well at all" is just nonsense. And the idea that if you don't love Torres, you don't love Chelsea, is backwards. I want what's best for Chelsea and I don't think Torres is what's best. You want what's best for Torres even if it's not what's best for Chelsea.

Nope. I support Chelsea. Not Torres. And I certainly am not some kid who makes a profile just to slag someone off. (As if there's a 51 YO who says things like "what a hater!")

See no problem with this thread. It was obviously tongue in cheek. Where's the "Hazard sucks. What a waste of money. He hasn't scored in the first 27 minutes" thread?

That's pretty rosy-eyed look at things. These numbers are based entirely on 3 games where Torres scored 7 goals against crappy sides. Also, I don't care what he does for Spain because it has no bearing on Chelsea. Also, you're using the Leicester City match to show Torres is in form? That game was 3 months ago. There is no consistency at all because the goals are bunched in these few games. If you look at a less arbitrary figure, the numbers look much worse. -Torres last 10 Premier League starts-He scored in 2 games. (QPR, Villa) -Torres last 15 Premier league games where he played at least 25 minutes-he scored in those 2 games. -Torres last 15 Premier League starts-he scored in those 2 games -Torres last 15 starts for Chelsea in all competitions- he scored in 3 games -Torres last 15 matches for Chelsea overall-he scored in 3 games It's all about using his 5 goals against Leicester and QPR to try to make it seem like Torres was on form when he pretty obviously wasn't.

Not really. We beat poor teams under AVB as well. We didn't play in well in the league under RDM at all. I'd say we played 2 good league games under Robbie, against Villa and QPR, but that's hardly something to brag about. We had a whole bunch of very good games in the Premier League under AVB. I'm not saying that AVB should have been kept on or that Robbie is a terrible coach, but I think some people are seeing the league through the lenses of the Champions League final. I'm happy that Robbie has been given a chance, but I do have a few concerns about the way he coached last season. Of course, it was a crazy season (still, like some kind of weird dream) so things might be very different this year.

Torres played in 18 matches under RDM and had 3 fabulous games against poor teams (QPR, Leicester, Villa). In the other 15 games, he had 1 goal and 1 assist. The 18 games includes 11 starts and another 5 matches where he played at least 25 minutes (including 3 matches where he played over 35 minutes as a sub.) This is not a trivial amount of playing time. It's almost half a season under RDM where Torres was very poor. As for Torres never "getting that run", he started 34 matches and subbed in another 25 last season which is way more playing time than the vast majority of Premier league strikers.

I think there is something wrong with both of them. I dislike this type of overreaction to individual games. It takes at least 5-10 games at the club level for it's possible to properly judge a player. It's ridiculous to write off a player because of a poor 20 minutes and it's ridiculous to say a player is great because he scored 2 goals in one game after two extremely poor seasons. We all hope Torres does well so he can carry some confidence back to Chelsea, but what he does with Spain will be essentially meaningless.

No, it isn't. I'm sorry, but I said after his misses last game, that I didn't care what he did for Spain and that you can't judge a player base on a few games. Chelsea didn't get Torres to score goals for Spain against Ireland in the Euro, we got him to perform with Chelsea and after 67 games, he's been awful. He could score 15 goals in the tournament and it wouldn't change that (it would bode well for his confidence though.) This "Torres is back" based on one good game against a poor side has happened about 5 times in the past 2 years and every single time, it turned out not to be true. He won't be back until he is scoring regularly for Chelsea.

Agreed although some players have less flexibility than others (see the inability of England to get Lampard, Scholes, and Gerrard to fit for an example.) I think Jovetic would be a good fit though.

I have doubts about RDM long-term, but he's certainly earned a chance to coach this team. A perfect contract from the team's perspective. If RDM succeeds, they'll renew him for years, if he doesn't work out, they'll go after someone else next off-season without having to pay 13M pounds or something.

Not even sure if I see him is the centre in the 4-3-3. Ramires is a very interesting player because he has a unique set of skills which make him able to play almost anywhere but is not really ideally suited for any specific position. He's not creative enough or a good enough passer to be central midfielder, he doesn't cross the ball well enough to be a winger, and his greatest ability, the speed he uses to make great runs is lost if he plays defensive midifield. The position I think he'd be best in is where he was best last season, as a 3 in the 4-2-3-1. No, he's not going to be the guy who gets the great cross in, but he creates a lot of space and if you have 3 other attacking players there, that is incredibly important . Failing that, Ramires is the ultimate bench player because he can sub in at a number of different positions in different systems and his speed can make such a difference when other players are worn down.

Again, your comparing 38 year olds to a 34 year old. And once a week for Chelsea is about 35-40 games which is exactly what Lampard should be playing.. Lampard played 49 games last season and was effective. Nobody is saying that Lampard should play every single game. You keep arguing something that nobody is saying when originally you said that Lampard should be a squad player which you can't defend because it's a ludicrous assertion based not on performance or likely performance but just Lampard's age. And defensive midfield does do a lot of work, but it actually does less running than some positions. The way Lampard used to play, truly box to box on almost every play is much more tiring.

This is exactly it. It's difficult to go and give statues to every individual player, but a statue of some of the Chelsea greats celebrating or just grouped together, I can see. Drogba is a Chelsea legend, but Lampard, Terry, and Cech, and even Cole are all part of this golden generation of players.

Scholes and Giggs are 4 years older than Lampard. Scholes played 35, 38, and 33 matches in his 34-37 seasons. Giggs played 44, 43, and 47. Even last season both played regularly. That's exactly the sort of thing I envision for Lampard over the next few years but that's not a squad player, that's a regular starter getting rest. Nobody is saying Lampard should play every single game. Nobody is saying that he doesn't need to be rested. It's a straw-man argument. He should be getting rest. But even if he plays 40 games games next season (a 20% reduction in games which is big), he'll still play in 2/3 of all Chelsea's matches.

This is absolutely the ideal situation to work in a younger player. Lampard played 49 matches last season. We don't need someone to replace him yet, but if we can do the Cole/Bertrand thing and find a youngster that can play 15 games this year and work their way into the rotation, it would be fabulous for us. Chelsea were after Perreira last season as cover for Cole. Had that happened, Chelsea would have spent millions of pounds (Porto was asking for 25M pounds) in transfer fees and wages and Bertrand would never have seen a match. It actually worked out much better for us that we didn't get Perreira. (Yes, he's obviously far ahead of where Bertrand is now, but Bertrand is perfectly acceptable as cover for Cole right now, has a bright future when Cole is ready to move on, and doesn't cost anything to buy.). It's a tough balance, because you need international-level depth to compete, but Chelsea should be trying to work in one or two youngsters into the rotation every season.