TorontoChelsea

A couple of awful calls but quite frankly, City were better than we were.

Great half for a neutral. Unfortunately, I'm not a neutral. We were outplayed and they deserve to be ahead. We keep getting overrun in the midfield, largely because our forwards don't track back well/at all.

Ageruo saved us a goal.

We're being so vastly outplayed right now.

2 Things. 1) We paid 13M for Lukaku with clauses that could take it up to 18...so half of what Oscar cost. Lots of young promising, talented players like Oxlade-Chamberlin and Phil Jones go for around what Lukaku went for. In the last 3 seasons, the midfielders who went for more than 20M have been. Hazard, Mata, Nasri, Ya Ya Toure, and Silva. All of those players were successful at a high level before the transfers. If you go a bit cheaper, you get players like Kagawa, Milner, Ramires, and Dembele. 2) Lukaku had no success his first year because he never played. He started 4 games in the entire season and 3 of those were in the League Cup. Oscar has played a full first-team season with Chelsea. Because tho cost of transfers are spread out over the life of a contract, we're actually paying for Oscar (let's say he's making 40K/week) over 7M pounds a year. This is why despite what people want, paying big money for players you need to develop is a bad policy because you have to pay big money while they are developing which means that the financial benefit you get later in the contract is mitigated by your losses earlier in the contract... (Also, as KDB and Courtois and others have shown, you can get very good quality youngsters for cheaper anyway).

The problem is that Rafa has not done well. We have a worse overall winning percentage under Rafa than under RDM with a much easier schedule. We have played very few difficult fixtures under Rafa. I'm talking about maybe 10-15% difficult matches..We're winning most of the easier games, but we did that under RDM as well and our worst losses of the season have almost all come under Rafa. I'd say our most difficult games played so far this season have been Juventus, City, Spurs, and Arsenal away, and ManU and Juventus at home. All but one came under RDM. Of our worst results this season, Brentford draw, QPR loss and draw, West Ham loss, Southampton loss and draw, Reading draw, all but one have come under Rafa. I never really hated him, but he hasn't done a good job. We're beating teams we should be beating and even then at a lower rate than we should be or that we did under RDM.

He hasn't had a good season. He has basically been useless in the league and a few great games in Europe doesn't make up for that. Expectations are directly related to cost. Oscar cost 25M pounds which is what elite midfielders cost. When you buy someone for 5M pounds or whatever, you expect growing pains and struggles, for 25M, you expect immediate excellence or you really shouldn't be paying that much.

They don't work in the US. Basketball is the most uneven sport in the world. Going into the season, only 2 or 3 teams had any chance to win and I'd be very surprised if the Heat don't win it. NFL works because there are so few games but the NFL, the winner isn't the best team, it's just a team that happens to get hot, avoid injuries at the right time, and gets some luck. I follow the NHL and have done so for a long time. Prior to the salary cap, the league was infinitely better. You had bad teams and great teams. Now, you have a lot of OK teams. I find that generally dull. I want to watch teams like Barcelona, ManU, Juventus, Bayern ,Chelsea, etc...not teams like Sunderland and Levante and Parma. Parity means mediocrity. Even so, salary caps don't really work. Since 2000, in North American sports, here is how many different teams have won their championships. NBA (salary cap)-6 NFL (salary cap)-10 MLB (no salary cap)-10

Salary caps are awful. They are socialism for the super rich and they create a league of mediocrity. I agree that money wins (I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise based on results) but I'd rather have 10-15 very good to excellent teams competing at the top of Europe than 200 mediocre teams. There are things that could and should be done to bring the level of spending down so that more teams can compete though.

City won't win the title. ManU are 12 points up with 7 matches to go. ManU need 10 more points to clinch the title. 10 points in 7 games is 3 wins and a draw and that's if City won every single match. If City lost just one of 7, ManU would just need 7 points to clinch the title..

There aren't any of the best teams in Europe in this tournament and that's why I and others don't rate it. It's the quarter-finals and the teams are Champions League group stage quality. It's the Championship of tournaments.

A win is a win, but we were pretty lucky. Ivanovic MOTM for me even without the goal. 6 tackles, 9 clearances, 4 aerial duels won, and 88% passing with 9 for 12 on long balls. Luiz also had a very good game.

Another pinball goal!!!

Haha...great move by Torres, hoorrible touch by Oscar, secon own goal!

Limp first half.

We've played well against ManU, but you have to remember that it's been ManU-B we've been playing well against with us using our top squads. We beat them 1-0 at Stamford Bridge where we had our starting XI and they had no Rooney, no Kagawa, no Van Persie, and no Vidic. We beat them 5-4 when they had Buttner and Wooten as their CB pairing. It will be a tougher test.

I became a fan at the same time and it was this team that I also fell in love with. This was especially because most of the Premier League at that time was very British (and lots of top Norwegians at that time for some reason) and most teams played a quite boring long-ball style.

I like Schurrle, but he's played almost exclusively as a left-sided forward this season. (He can also slot in behind the striker). He's not a true winger who will deliver 2, 3 crosses into the box a game. He's more like Hazard. I just don't particularly see the need to add another player to cover the same ground we have Mata, Hazard, Oscar, (and De Bruyne) for. How many attacking midfielders do we need? If we were to get another attacking midfielder, I'd much rather it be someone who was a natural winger who would offer something different and allow the manager to play different style. I'd much rather get a manager in and then let him make a couple of signings that fit with his philosophy.

Not only that, but Torres has more goals against Championship sides than he does against top-15 Premier League teams. His goals this season have been scored against: Rubin, Bucharest, Boro, Brentford, Villa, Leeds, Monterrey, Sunderland, Nordjsaelland, Shakhtar, Norwich, Arsenal, Wolves, Newcastle, and Reading. It's not just quantity.

Not only that but Torres has to play in the return leg in Moscow because Ba is cup-tied. It will be Ba. It doesn't matter too much. We should win this game no matter the starting XI. My only worry is that if we win, Di Canio might try to deflect criticism of his management style by invading Poland.

Beautiful striker by Moses. Their keeper made a mess of that beforehand though.

Torres! Great pass by Luiz.

He's OK as a squad player for this year. I think people really dislike veteran players anyway, but veterans who are average are hated. (same was with Kalou, Bosingwa, Malouda, etc...) Part of it is that people don't appreciate the massive gap between even average players in the Premier League and youth players and people want everyone on the team to be superstars or possible superstars.

He was hurt with West Ham. The only non-Chelsea West Ham game I watched (against City) he was their best player. He was good enough to play fairly regularly for Arsenal last season and he's barely playing with Chelsea right now. (This is his 3rd ,4th start with us?) He's better than Marin and this is exactly the type of game he should be playing in to give our starters needed rest for the more important Premier League. (Didn't want to see Mata start either really. I'd have gone, Marin, Oscar, Benayoun or something.)

It has nothing to do with an attack on freedom of thought. If he had kept his ignorant opinions to himself, no one would know or care what he believed. It is an attack on his actions and words, his fascist salutes, his ludicrous whitewashing of Mussolini, and so on. If you are a public figure, you are going to be held accountable for what you say and do. You can think what you want, you can't act like a jackass and then be upset when it comes back to bite you. (And denying someone work based on political beliefs is completely different than religious beliefs. "I won't hire a Muslim" does not equal "I won't hire a Neo-Nazi". One is rightly illegal and immoral and the other is not.