TorontoChelsea

I don't entirely agree with you. I still think Courtois has incredible potential and is already a very good keeper but you do make a very valid point. Athletico plays probably the tightest defence in Europe. Last year, for example, Courtois faced a meager 9.2 shots a game and shockingly, didn't have to face a single penalty. This year, it's 8.1 shots a game and again no penalties. And of course, most of those shots are not on target. Courtois made 2.32 saves a game last season. Cech made 3.39. That means that Cech was making 50% more saves a game than Courtois which is a massive difference. Courtoi's great numbers are largely due to a defence that simply doesn't allow shots or good chances. It's a difficult situation because 1) Any keeper would have success in that system 2) a great keeper would have a very hard time proving he's great in that system. This is why I thought a loan to mid-table English club would have been good because 1) He'd get to face a lot more chances , like probably double the saves a game and of better quality. 2) He'd get used to the English game which is different even for keepers especially dealing with balls in the air which happens much more in England. (It took De Gea a year+ to adjust.) but I do understand why he wouldn't want to leave a very good club where he could win trophies and is comfortable for a mid-table English side. I do think Courtois is very probably good enough to start for Chelsea right now but I also am positive that many people overrate where he is right now because of Athletico's stingy defense.

It was a bad mistake but who cares? The best goalies make terrible mistakes from time to time. (As all players, no matter how great do.) People tend to put WAAAAYYYY too much emphasis on individual plays when judging a player and that goes both ways. I've seen players play awful games and then make one great offensive run and have lots of people think they've had a good game. At the same time, you can have a player who is brilliant defensively for 5 games and then makes one glaring error and people say "he sucks defensively". There's nothing wrong with Courtois. He's a top keeper.

Our best game of the year followed by one of the worst matches I've ever seen us play. Pretty much everyone was awful (Except Cech who made a few great saves and our central defenders were OK and Hazard provided a spark when he came on. and that includes Mourinho who got the tactics and starting XI all wrong. Despite conceding, we actually played a lot better in the second half (which was easy to do). Basel thoroughly deserved the win.

It's beyond that. I'm basically done with live match threads after this game because of Phil Driver and ChelseaMessiah. Seriously, the have made about 15 posts and every single on of them are about how much Mikel/Lampard/Cahill suck. That's about 15 posts with not one insight, not one interesting comment, just the same crap over and over again. It's every fucking game It's relentless and pointless. If people want to know why decent posters leave, it's because of posters like these who spam the board. The worst part of it is that you know that they are actively rooting against Chelsea players just so their biases can be vindicated.

Nobody said he's the messiah. He has bad games like today. just that people like that poster you quote are delirious in their hatred for Lampard that they don't see his quality. Even today, yes, Lampard has been awful but blaming him for the team's first half performance is insane. Pretty much the entire team has been bad. (And I am 100% positive that posters like him are giddy with delight when certain players fail because validating their beliefs is more important than our team actually succeeding).

Awful first half and I have to put a lot of this down to team selection (which I am generally reluctant to do). The formation is a mess. This seems to be a real 4-3-3 for the first time but...Oscar is not a winger and has been useless there. Lampard is 35 and just ran a ton 3 days ago and has been a waste of space. I also know I am in the minority, but I simply don't like Azpilicueta as a LB. He got beaten repeatedly against West Ham and he is being pulled apart even worse tonight. To be fair, whoever is on the left (Willian? Oscar?) is giving him no support either. Because he is right-footed, it's also very hard for him to attack on that flank and Ivanovic isn't attacking much which means we have no width at all in attack. If we want to play a 4-3-3, we have you know, actual wingers. We also have real squad depth. Why not use it? Mata or Schurrle in for Lampard should solve a number of problems.

It is not all that important a match in the scheme of things. We've basically clinched getting to the next round and even if we lose to Basel, a win at home against the weak Steau Bucharest who we beat 3-0 in Romania would see us in first place. Yes, we should win and need to field a good team, but it is one of our least important games we're likely to play all year.

Almost nobody exaggerates his play positively. His play has been much better than his general perception on here. (He has everything going against him in terms of how people generally overrate and underrate players. He's older, he's been at Chelsea for a while, and he isn't particularly flashy or fast). If you look at his ratings. Sqwuaka has him MOTM 3 times and the worst player 0 times. Compare that to his perception on here and he is being severely underrated. (Just some examples-Lampard leads all Chelsea midfielders (attacking and central) with 3 defensive actions per game, leads in length of average pass, performance score, is second to Hazard in chances created, second to Hazard in shot accuracy, 3rd to Hazard and Oscar in goals, first in assists, first in successful crosses, has blocked more shots than any other midfielder, is second to Ramires in interceptions, has turned the ball over less than any midfielder other than Mikel, and has 2.2 tackles to 0.8 fouls a game which makes him 3rd in the midfield in tackles and 1st in tackle to foul ratio.) He hasn't been fantastic, but he's been pretty good overall but it doesn't matter. People still call him atrocious. People exaggerate his mistakes and ignore his positives (and it is only when he scores that people are forced to acknowledge he does something positive). In fact, in the middle of his excellent game yesterday, someone out of nowhere wrote something like "Lampard is useless defensively" and this is pretty typical of the way people look for the bad in his game and ignore the good. As for not being suited for a deeper role, no it's not ideal, but he also has some very good games from that position and the real issue is that we have nobody more suited for the role as none of our other central midfielders can move the ball like Lampard can.

Not really but people don't see Frank's positive influences unless he scores which is part of the problem with the way people evaluate him. Let's see: Goals, Lampard 2, Oscar 1 Penalties won Oscar 1, Lampard 0 Passing - Lampard 85%-Oscar 71%, Key Passes-Lampard 4, Oscar-3 Crosses-Lampard 33%, Oscar 0% Long balls-Lampard 3/3, Oscar 1/1 Tackles-Oscar 7, Lampard 3, Fouls-Oscar 3, Lampard 0 Interceptions-Lampard 1, Oscar, 0 Dribbles-Lampard 1, Oscar, 0 Clearances- Lampard 4, Oscar 1 Dispossessed and turnovers- Oscar 4-, Lampard 0 Statistically, Lampard had a much better game and in reality yes, he was excellent. Both whoscored and Sqwaka gave Lampard easily MOTM and he would have had so even without his second goal. You also act as if Oscar created things by himself as if Hazard's beautiful flick didn't sent him alone on net. (Lampard's pass set that up BTW) . Oscar is also a fine pick for MOTM, he was great, but I'm sick of people always downplaying Lampard's play. (For Lampard, great games become good games, good games become mediocre games, and mediocre games become awful games)

I thought he was mediocre actually. He was beaten a number of times very easily by his man in very dangerous areas and it wasn't being beaten by someone with extreme pace in a footrace, it was just being in the wrong position or not tracking his man properly. Had some really nice plays though as well.

Great win and probably the best game we've played all year. Not sure what everyone is going on about though. It was the same 4-2-3-1 system we always play just with Lampard getting to go forward a lot because we dominated possession. Ramires was on the right and Lampard was in the pivot though and was very good there beyond just the goals. He had a few great, quick passes to set-up attacks (Including the pass to Hazard that led to Oscar's goal.) and he defended well. Everyone played pretty well but Oscar's pressing was fantastic and Hazard created a lot. Don't like Ramires on the right and this was generally a sub-par game from him.

It isn't like it. We're playing the normal 4-2-3-1. We dominated attack so Lampard has been making more runs than he's made all season and Ramires is playing more centrally than say Willian might, it's not a different formation.

He's definitely been playing the right side of the 4-2-3-1 and Lampard is playing ahead of Mikel in the centre.. Look at their average positions. Ramires not playing really out wide, but Chelsea always play narrow anyway.

He hasn't been nearly as bad as you and your friends are pretending and atrocious is such a ridiculous exaggeration.. He leads Chelsea in assists, is fifth in tackles, is fifth in key passes per game, , etc...He's had some great games this year as well. Overall, he's been mediocre. There is a general rule in football and on the internet especially. The more under 25 someone is, the more overrated they are, the more over 25 they are, the more underrated they become. (Also, the newer someone is to a club the more people see positives, the longer they've been with Chelsea, the more they see negatives) The confirmation bias is insane with Lampard . He makes a bad pass and five people write "he's useless " yet he can make 5 good passes and a great tackle and nobody will notice. Chelsea needs a player to replace Lampard but he's not the useless passenger you pretend he is.

Except he hasn't been near atrocious . He has had a bad three game stretch but overall has been so-so. He plays because he is our only central midfielder that can pass the ball the way Mourinho wants in his system. He leaves us more defensively vulnerable but without him, our central midfield really has no ability to make vertical passes at all.

This is exactly why stats are useful. Because memory is extremely faulty and people pay attention to specific things and have inherent confirmation bias. You are talking about over 100 hours of football in a year and hundreds of chances created spread out all over the place, you simply cannot remember even a fraction of them. That you don't remember Hazard creating chances is irrelevant, the fact that he is creating 2 chances a game matters and Ramires is doing 1.4 a game matters a lot (never mind that Hazard is the most fouled player in the Premier League which also creates chances.)

The problem we have in central midfield is not lack of depth, it's lack of elite talent. We have a lot of depth there. Essien can barely get into a game. Chalobah has a lot of talent, but he was a good player in the Championship for one season which is a long, long way from being a Premier League caliber player never mind a regular for a top Premier League side. (Look at Zaha, more experience, older, and a better player last season than Chalobah and he hasn't even gotten into a game in the Premier League for United.) Anyway, Chalobah has actually not been very good with Forest this year. He only has 4 appearances. He has been an unused sub in the last two matches. You think a player who has trouble getting into games with a Championship side is going to play an important role at Chelsea? Yes, we need to do better with our youth, but that's ensuring that the young players who have played well in good leagues (Lukaku, De Bruyne, Sturridge, etc...) get a chance. We haven't/didn't give those players a chance and they earned it. Bringing in Championship players into your side just doesn't work. The gap between the Championship and the Premier League is enormous. The loan system works. Players have to work their way up levels and keep proving themselves. When they've moved up to a level close enough to Chelsea's they deserve to get a chance at Chelsea. (This step is where we have been failing players). Chelsea will never be bringing players from the youth team and from the Championship directly into key roles on the team nor should we be.

He probably could have saved one or two more goals but that's by his own lofty standards. He certainly is still one of the best keepers in the world.

And how well would Mourinho have done with last year's team? We've spend tens of millions since RDM left and really aren't playing a whole lot better. Do you think this Chelsea team would have gotten out of last year's CL group? Also, people don't appreciate how incredibly difficult Chelsea's schedule was under RDM (and how easy it was under Benitez). RDM managed us for 19 competitive game last season, That's just 2 fewer than Jose has had this season. In those, we faced Juventus twice,, ManU, away to Arsenal and Spurs, and Shakhtar twice. That's an insane number of difficult games and very few easy ones. People also don't appreciate how short the awful spell before he was fired was (i.e. how they obviously wanted to fire him and were looking for an excuse to do so). We beat Spurs away handily on October 20th. We played very well against ManU after the first 20 minutes but had an awful red which gave them the game (and an offside goal) and then we beat them in the League Cup. We then had a 5 game period where we went 1-2-2. (And not one of those games was an easy one. Losses away to WBA who was 5th in the league at that time and away to Juventus . Draws at Swansea when we rested most of our starters and at home to Liverpool and a win against Shakhtar.) The way RDM was treated was ridiculous and will always remain so. This year, we were beaten at home by Basel and we have terrible refereeing to thank for not drawing at home to Villa and losing at home to WBA. Are we better than last year? Yes, by a little. But we also added Eto'o, Ba, Willian, Schurrle, and De Bruyne since Robbie left so we damn well should be better. Managerial genius and fault is almost always to do with talent and money available.

Should be Messi but I voted for Ribery. Best player on the best team. Don't get why anyone would vote for Ronaldo. He scored 34 goals for the second place team. Messi scored 46 for the first place team. Not only that but we come back to one of my favourite topics-usage. Ronaldo scored those 34 goals on 234 shots. Chelsea's top three shooters last year Lampard, Mata, and Torres combined for 35 goals on 218 shots so really Ronaldo is not a particularly efficient player. He just takes an insane number of shots. You give any very good player 7 shots a game, they are going to score a bucket-load of goals. (Especially in a league like La Liga which is dire after the top few teams.) Messi, on the other hand, scored 46 goals on 163 shots which is unbelievable. Ronaldo not only scored 12 fewer goals, He also took 71 fewer shots. Or put another way. Messi scored Juan Mata more goals than Ronaldo who took Juan Mata more shots than Messi.

I find this pretty amusing because statistically, Ivanovic had a better season that Azpilicueta last year and this year pretty easily. (Both Sqwuaka and whoscored have him as significantly better both seasons using only statistics so these stats are well, pretty obviously cherry-picked to come to a conclusion) And no it's not just in the air. Compare last year's Azpilicueta to this year's Ivanovic. Percentage of successful tackles- Ivanovic 89%, Azpilicueta-83% Take on success rate- Ivanovic- 57% success, Azpilicueta-28% success Headed duels- Ivanovic- 65%, Azpilicueta-44% Clearances per game- Ivanovic-5.5, Azpilicueta-2.5 Total defensive actions per game-Ivanovic-8, Azpilicueta 5 Ivanovic is clearly a better defensive player. And what's Azpilicueta's big statistical advantage? 0.2 more successful crosses a game? 3% better passing percentage? His passing rate is in the same range and Ivanovic is dangerous on set pieces which Azpilicueta is not. I like Azpilicueta and he deserves to get playing time but Ivanovic like pretty much every player we have over the age of 25, is better than many people on here want to pretend. He's not a good crosser but he has been a good player for us this season as he was last season and the season before and the season before.

It's true. We haven't played well all year. We've been lucky to be where we are in the league, we've had a super easy CL group and we've ground out some results, but we've rarely played well for more than one 10-15 minute stretch in a game.

Cole at LB with Ivanovic and Azpilicueta both getting playing time at RB.

How about when teams try to, well, you know... play football?

Ivanovic is supposed to overlap which he does very well but so is whoever is on the right. There should be constant movement to create space. What's he supposed to do when he gets the ball in a dangerous crossing position on the right? Pass it back to the central midfield? No, I'm not happy with his crossing, but overall, I am pretty happy with his play this year. He's actually having a pretty good season and if he were 22 people would be calling him the best RB in the Premier League. Lampard and Ramires are always involved in the offense. They are often more dangerous offensively than our attacking midfielders. With Mata on the bench, they are probably our two best finishers. Lampard leads the team in assists. etc... Lampard still has very good attacking vision, Ramires' runs into the box open up space for the entire attack, And Lampard is actually pretty decent in finding people in space except our attackers generally have no space and don't make any runs. Asking your central midfielders to regularly deliver perfect passes into traffic is absurd. Nobody is going to ever do that. Attackers have to create their own space for others to find them and they aren't. Ramires and Lampard have been doing more than their fair share lifting the offensive load.