TorontoChelsea

You can't win with kids anymore. That quote was from 1995 and in that time, you could win with youth. Most teams brought up their own players. Transfers were tiny and cheap. The league was still largely British. You can't compete with top class players by bringing through kids as regular starters anymore. Other clubs are buying top players every year. There is a massive gap between potential and actual performance. @JDY I have no idea how you can read what happened last season like that. It was up to AVB to take control of the team and he couldn't handle basic communication. Not just with Lampard or Cole but with Alex and Anelka and others. He couldn't get his message across and he didn't seem to even try. He was at fault for that. Lampard was benched under RDM earlier this year and we heard nothing. Why? RDM communicated with Lampard and unlike under AVB, we actually played well. AVB played a style that didn't suite the club and we played some awful football. Saying that the situation was ruined because of senior players is simply ridiculous.

Ugh...there's no point really, but what the hell. Nobody, and I mean, nobody with any knowledge of football thinks David Luiz at this point in time is a world class defensive midfielder. Luiz has played about 5 games at the position Even if they were five fantastic games, that's not enough games to be considered a top class player. Javi Martinez has nothing to do with this discussion. He's a very good defensive midfielder for years in La Liga so he is not unproven at all. HMartinez' price tag and Luiz's quality as a defensive midfielder are not even remotely related in any way. It's like your comparing a a rhinoceros to a bag of twizzlers and saying "see!!!" No, I don't see.

And reputation. It wasn't a dive, it was an embellishment. Drogba definitely was fouled, but he went down like he was shot. (The key is often that the knees are up when players dive/embellish to make it look more dramatic. When you get hit or tripped and are falling, you just put your hands down to protect yourself or try to cushion your fall in some other way. Anything else is just completely unnatural.) I'd actually like to see more double yellows. That is a foul where the player being fouled also exaggerates. Referees seem to think it has to be one or the other but often it's both.

It's not a red. If a Chelsea player got a red like that, we'd rightly be livid, especially in a match of this magnitude. Nani went to try to knock the ball down with his foot and didn't see the player. Yes, a red was justifiable by the laws of the game, but refs never abide purely by the laws of the game. It reminds me of the Canada/US women's football match in the Olympics where the US was awarded a free kick inside the penalty box because the Canadian keeper held on to the ball for more than 6 seconds. US scored and won the game because of that. Technically, it is justifiable to make calls like that, but it's also terrible refereeing. ManU was up 1-0, a close, exciting game, you don't give a red unless it is impossible not to. The same way you don't give a penalty unless you're sure because it will change the game entirely. Had Nani got a yellow, nobody would have thought twice about it. Every game, there are some calls that can go either way. The referee should not impose himself on the game unless necessary.

Tough vote this month. I generally really like the posts of Peace and the only place to be but voted for Skipper.

I should have clarified...not in a game against the other one.

When's the last time Barca or Madrid got screwed out of Europe by a ref? Seems to happen all the time to English teams.

I'd smile, but I actually think it's against English teams in general which screws us as well. English teams always seem to get screwed by refs in Europe.

That's some quality diving right there.

The worst thing is that it ruined the game. It was a fantastic, tense game and the ref with one stupid call, just fucked it.

Wow, what a goal.

I don't think it's fixed, I think he's just card-happy which is the opposite of what a ref should be. Referees should not be determining outcomes of games.

No, not really. (Come on, you should know me well enough to know I know where Brazil is!!!!)

Brazil is in SOUTH America? Hot damn! This is pretty cool. Anyway, I think we should combine all the people on the map and find out where the fairest place in the world to meet for our future annual Talkchelsea conference would be (future subject: Fernando Torres: Why won't he just die already??)

Not really. I don't think anybody would consider Luiz anywhere near one of the best footballing DMs. He's played a handful of games at DM and has had mixed results. It's possible he'd excel there with more time, but to claim that he's a top DM right now is just silly. @the skipper. Unfortunately, Moses really hasn't been very good defensively either. He does offer us width, directness, and physicality though.

I understand what you're saying but don't agree. You can't build a team around potential and hope to win. WBA was probably Oscar's best Premier League game, but Mata has had probably ten games better than that this season. Yes, we spent 20 or 25M on Oscar, but we also spent 23M on Mata and Mata is actually our best player. De-emphasizing a legitimate player of the year candidate for someone who hasn't scored a single goal from open play and has been much worse is craziness. It we had to choose between them, right now it would be absolutely no contest. That said, I see no reason why they both can't get plenty of games in the middle of the pitch.Oscar doesn't need to start 50 games in the middle to get better and Mata doesn't need to start 50 to be effective. We play 60 games a season. The issue is that the trio of Mata, Oscar, and Hazard is likely to always be imbalanced and problematic. It really never made any sense to spend almost all our money in the last two seasons on players who all play the same position when he had/have so many other holes. We now have insane talent and depth at attacking midfield and very little anywhere else.

Thought Azpilicueta had one of his poorer games for us as well. Not horrible or anything, but also not great. Generally agree though, only Moses was poor.

Those teams were generally very good defensively. We had a great back 4 and players like Essien, Mikel, Ramires (not to mention Kalou who, if nothing else, did his defensive duties). Besides, we were smashing lots of teams then. If we start scoring 5 and 6 goals all the time, then we don't exactly have to worry about defensive shape. The problem with the 4-3-3 for us is that our two best players this year have pretty easily been Hazard and Mata and the 4-3-3 makes them less important. De-emphasizing your best players just doesn't make sense to me.

Mata does drop back. In fact, he often drops back further than Oscar. The issue is that he doesn't defend very well. I understand in certain teams under certain managers, the system is more important than anything and because Mata drifts, he might not fit into that sort of system. However, it's not like that in every system. Man City won the league last year in a large part to David SIlva who played a similar role to the one Mata plays for us.The fundamental question right now is are we better with Mata in the middle or not and I think the answer is very clearly yes. Oscar has enormous potential, but apart from his defensive work, he's worse than Mata in every way right now. De-emphasizing your best player for someone who has potential is ridiculous for a team who actually cares about winning. And many advanced midfielders also act as playmakers. Mata gives us results. In less than two years, he has won us tons of points. If some manager wants to come in and change the system around, fine, but to move Mata now would make no sense. Also, the defensive aspect of Mata and Hazard is going to be problematic anywhere. Is it better to have Mata and Hazard on the wings than Mata in the centre? The centre of the pitch has more defensive cover and you can afford a poorer defensive player there. A winger that doesn't track back is more dangerous IMO.

It was a weird game. 7 players had at least 5 tackles. Compare that to Spurs-Arsenal where nobody had 5.

I think that's a little hard on Kagawa. The Van Persie signing was unexpected by ManU which changed their entire system. They bought Kagawa to be the #10 but because of Van Persie, Rooney was moved back into that position which means that Kagawa has been playing out of position most of the year and he hasn't been the focal point of running the offense. Short-term, he's just another good attacking option for ManU, but long-term, I see him as their #10 guy. He is a fantastic passer (90.4% passing for an attacking player is superb) and he's actually quite a good finisher. He reminds me a lot more of Mata than of Hazard in style and ability. (Which is why it made little sense for Chelsea to get him while it made sense to go after Hazard who is a very different player). Also 5 goals and 4 assists in 14 games in the league and in Europe is quite good.

2:1...hope it's a great second half.

Awful defending by Arsenal. Those goals were just players running in behind the defenders and being played in by simple passes for 1 on 1s.

Someone on the Guardian (username bazza12) posted this which I think is brilliant. "Apart from the comfortable win, the best moment came at half-time, when they had some youngsters running with the ball and shooting it past the mascot. Everyone did this easily, apart from one poor chap, who hit the post, then followed-up with another mis-hit. Cue chants from Matthew Harding stand of "Torres, Torres.." made me laugh, anyway."

Interesting...I've been looking at Mata's games...he's been incredibly streaky this year. (including Premier League and European competitions) First 5 games-0 goals, 0 assists Next 10 games-6 goals, 8 assists (ridiculous streak) Next 4 games-0 goals, 0 assists Next 6 games-5 goals, 3 assists Next 4 games- 0 goals, 1 assist Next 3 games-3 goals, 1 assist Next 5 games, 0 goals, 0 assists Probably just a coincidence, but still, interesting (and hopefully means that he's about to go on another tear).