TorontoChelsea

Pretty dull first half. Not many chances. I think that's the way ManU wants it-to keep it close and be able to bring on their vastly better bench options later. They're shape has generally been very good so far and have been hard to break down and then they play quick triangles up the pitch from the sidelines to the middle of the park. Our passing has been really sloppy (Ramires in particular) and Oscar must have given the ball away five times in that half. Nani has been horrible for them and he's a whining little diver to boot. Game could still go any way. We need to find Mata some space. I might even think about switching Oscar and Ramires on the pitch because although Ramires isn't a good crosser, but his speed at least opens up things for the other attackers.

Wow Nani is having an awful game so far. His touch is leaden.

A plan so cunning, you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel?

Surprisingly weak lineup from ManU. No Rooney, Van Persie or Kagawa?

I read Porno but not Skagboys. I enjoyed it. He's not my favourite writer, but I find his books enjoyable and pretty easy to get through despite the accents.

I understand what you're saying and it's a valid point, but I don't fully agree. We have had more success than Arsenal, because we've spent about half a billion pounds more than them. In fact, our success has been down entirely to our willingness to spend more money than anyone else. That's not new. Higher spending teams have always dominated football. When people talk about winning formulas, that's really it. Spend more than anyone, and you will consistently be near the top of your league no matter what. At some point, however, you can't be spending 5 times more than your opponents every year and I think having stability is one way to maximize the results your players can get. New managers means a new system, new players being bought, and time to adjust. I personally don't think managers matter all that much so stability could theoretically be kept in place with a strong team vision and buys that were in keeping with that vision. Our problem has not just been a steady stream of managers, it's been a steady stream of styles and different sorts of players, and impulse buys and we're left with a team that doesn't really fit together.

Was just (mostly) kidding. His books have incredibly strong accents. He, along with many other writers are able to really reflect language in their works which means you can convey accents through writing but you can also hide them.

You haven't read Irvine Welsh, have you?

They were poor but they weren't near appalling. The same is true of any team. If you pressure the midfield, the attacking midfield needs to drop deeper to get the ball.The gap between the central midfielders and the attacking midfielders was too large. Marin, Oscar, and Moses just stood around waiting to receive passes. In the middle of the pitch, Chelsea had Lampard and Mikel and later Ramires. Southampton had 3-4 players in that space all the time. Only Lambert and Rodriguez played in attacking positions and Clyne and Shaw played wide. Schneiderlen, Davis, Cork, and Puncheon (and later Ward-Prowse) all crowded the middle of the park. What Chelsea needed to do is to attack through different positions because Southampton had just clogged up the centre of the pitch and only had their fullbacks wide, but Chelsea was not able to take advantage of this. Their fullbacks played very well and our attackers (and fullbacks) didn't. Other teams have taken this pressing our midfield as their defensive tactic because we simply don't have another way to score. We lack width, good spacing, and discipline so when our midfield is pressed, they pass it backwards or sideways.

It's obvious that Rafa's goals are different than Chelsea's. I used to think there was no point in sacking him, but appointing a manager just to play for the Premier League might make sense. Mata and Hazard need to be rotated like everyone else, but I'm sick of sitting our only two dangerous attacking players in the same game. The entire team was poor. Lampard and Mikel will get a lot of the blame because that's just where people have decided to lay it this year and while they were poor, but our front 4 was even worse than they were. No movement at all, lost possession easily, kept letting defenders catch up to them, and were beaten to almost every ball. Ivanovic and Terry were very at fault for the first goal, but aside from that actually played pretty well. Our fullbacks were also poor. I've though Moses was looking like a future rotation player for Chelsea so far this year, but I'm not even sure he'll rise to that. He's been our worst fairly regular player by a fair margin this season. Maybe he needs to play regularly to improve, that's not unusual, but it's been a very poor first season with Chelsea.

Terry!

Fuck off

Don't get the hysterics but also don't get the point. I don't even care about pre-season but at least you can see some new faces. I don't think I'd go to this even if I lived in St. Louis.

Di Maria, Ozil, Ronaldo, and Benzema/Higuain. That said, doing that in Spain is very different than in England, Real Madrid and Barcelona are so dominant in terms of money and talent that you can play any style and succeed. I think the style he played with at Chelsea, and Inter is the one he prefers. If we want to build around players like Mata, Hazard, Oscar, and De Bruyne, I have a hard time seeing Mourinho as a fit.

Really strange seeing a Kiwi with a Leaf's logo in his sig. Weirds me out every time.

You forgot the fact that Rupert coincidentally joined this board a week after Rafa was hired and has posted nothing but a stream of "Rafa is amazing"and slagging off our supporters crap and nothing else. I don't care when fans of other clubs come to our board. If they are respectful, I enjoy their insight and input but this sort of childish garbage is getting tiresome. You can disagree about many things, but the single-minded spamming of the same stupid thing is annoying. It was the same with Bitee (was that his name?) and his hatred of Oscar.It's ridiculous and I really think it's time to ban this guy for any number of reasons (antagonizing supporters, spamming, not being respectful of the board rules, etc...).

It's true, but Villa started over him. Torres had 0 goals, 0 assists and didn't start either the final or semi-final. He was a bit player for them. My point is simply that Spain have been able to have success without Torres.

He played well in 2008, but that's 5 years ago. His presence didn't matter at all for Spain in the last two tournaments.

They won the Euro and the World Cup with Torres not being a key player.

Only 21 goals behind Charlton .

Yeah. Cole on the bench which I'm happy about (so is Sturridge). Oxlade-Chamberlin starting which I don't get even with Walcott starting. It shouldn't matter because they should beat San Marino easily, but Oxlade-Chamberlin's position on the squad has not been deserved. He's been poor this season.

The problem with building around Hazard, Mata, and Oscar is that they are all attacking forwards who like to play centrally and run the attack. It's difficult to build a team around that. Strikers will always have trouble succeeding in a system with the three of them, defences will be able to defend us by going narrow, we'll likely always have trouble with our attackers not tracking back, and we'll always be vulnerable on the wings. It's not enough to be talented, you need to have a variety of players including some who will do the less glamorous work. I look at Barcelona with Fabergas as an example. He's an incredible player, one of the best midfielders in the world, but I don't think he makes Barcelona better. In fact, I think he imbalances the team. Even on Barcelona though, they will play with a real winger on the right to create space. Chelsea, in the past built around Lampard, Terry, and to some extent Drogba and they were three players who could be fit into any number of systems. If you want to build around Hazard, Mata, and Oscar, you don't have that flexibility. Agree with much of the rest of the piece though. We're definitely going through a (three year long) transition phase.

Happy Birthday Kojo. Hope it's a great year for you.

Oscar's third goal this season against Buffon.

I agree...you sometimes have to do something scary to make a change if you're in a rut. It's a risk, but everything worth doing is a risk. (and I'll be in that wonderful SoCal sun in a couple of days!!!).