TorontoChelsea

There's some sort of sick irony to this. Benitez helped ruin Torres by overplaying him even when he was hurt (Liverpool never bought a decent second striker which is their fault and Torres rushed back from surgery for the World Cup which was his fault) and now he's counting on the player he helped ruin rescue his own career. It's almost like a Greek tragedy. Starring: Fernando Torres as the former hero, blind to his own flaws and still thinks he is the warrior of days long since passed. Rafa Benitez as the mad king Chelsea Football Club as the beautiful maiden raped by the hero and murdered by the king Roman Abromavich as Zeus who plays with the mortals as is his will

To be fair, what's he or anyone else going to say? "Torres is shit"? This is what you'll hear from every Chelsea source...empty platitudes about how things have been rough for the poor bastard and he's not doing badly and he's turning things around, etc...I'm just so sick of Torres and the circus that surrounds him.

Maybe, maybe not but you can't buy young, talented players and then just buy other ones to play ahead of them. We simply don't need another #10 player. We're set. We have real needs on the team and we need to address those.

I like Eriksen but he's best as an attacking central midfielder. There are a lot of very good, young attacking central midfielders but we have Mata, Oscar, Hazard, and KDB who are all capable of playing there (and it's probably the best position for all 4 of them). It's a position of absolutely zero need for us.

For NFL fans, that was a fairly effective field goal technique. High and straight but wide right.

Bale is just ridiculous.

Chelsea didn't pay 21M for Luiz, they paid 21M and Matic who was probably worth around 3-5M. (he's a regular at Benfica and was just given a new contract). Luiz is probably our best central defender (especially with Terry's fitness still in question) but he's not elite and 25M or so for a defender is an enormous fee.

45 minute delay? You should have come on here. We could have just warned you not to watch.

Hard to vote MOTM. Voted for Oscar even though he only had one very good moment but still that was better than anyone else. (If he didn't score, I'd probably vote for Lampard who did a few good things along with a few bad but at least he was noticeable.) When we get back to the league fixtures can we tell Oscar that we're still playing in Europe? Also, the team should fine any player other than Lampard, Mata, Hazard, or Oscar who tries a shot from more than 25 yards (except Luiz on free kicks). I'm even getting tired of Lampard's long shots but at least they're often on net and he is actually capable of scoring from there. I can't stand seeing Ramires, Luiz, Ivanovic, etc.. take these ridiculous 45 yard shots that go sailing out of the stadium. If you're in a good scoring position, please shoot. We try to be too cute sometimes and pass up good shooting opportunities for a perfect play, and a shot on target from a dangerous area is always a good thing, but not from an area of the pitch where you'll never ever score..(and Torres should just be fined for being who he is. I actually miss the blond hair because it was a little easier to quickly identify him and then not get your hopes up at all.)

Meh...90 dull minutes and 3 seconds of excitement in a competition I don't care much about.

Oscar, an unstoppable force in Europe.

I'm devastated that I won't be able to watch the second leg of this.

I think Ramires is still asleep. Our attackers also have no shape as usual. One thing I like about Marin is that he actually plays like a winger some of the time and makes himself available in the places he should be instead of just standing around waiting for a pass in a central area. When Ramires or Lampard (or Mikel or Luiz or Romeu) get the ball in attack (in basically every game) they are outnumbered and forced to make inch-perfect passes into a central area or to play it back to the defender. Our attacking movement is something we definitely should be sorting out but don't seem to be.

Well, the good news is that we don't have to worry about resting players if they play like this. So far, it's been more like a leisurely stroll around the pitch than an actual football match.

I hope we smash them like 4-0 so that all our regulars can get rested next game.

@the only place to be The next round would be the 7th and the 14th of March which would be right smack dab in the middle of a congested league schedule. We play March 2, 10, and 16 (and a likely FA Cup fixture around then as well.) No question in my mind, the league comes first and playing the strongest starting XI in this competition at that stage will likely hurt us in the league.

I'm fine with this for this game. We don't have a league game until the 24th BUT in the Brentford replay and in the home leg against Sparta, many of these players need to be rested.

Exactly...The Europa League is like a better version of the Intertoto Cup. If you are not playing to be the best team in Europe, then what are you playing for? To be the best team apart from the actual best teams? I like European Football and I'd rather do well than not but not at the expense of the league. I'd like to see a lot of Marin, Bertrand, Benayoun, and Ake in the Europa League. (Our loan policy has worked out very well this year, but we've been left bone-dry in terms of young players who would normally be great fits for this thing). Like you, I'm positive Rafa will try to win this and I don't even blame him. He knows he has no shot of keeping the job and wants to pad his resume. Winning the Europa League is more important for his resume than anything.

They're not doing badly. They're a mid-table team which is what they were last year as well, They've been awful defensively conceding 38 in 21 games. BTW: you know how many goals Bayern have conceded this year? 7 in 21 games and only 1 goal away from home. Their goal differential is +48. That's crazy.

Wow, you're annoying and you've changed the actual argument. In your condescending fashion, let me explain some things to you: 1) Not all shots are equal. Real had a lot of long range efforts. ManU didn't. 2) The team with more shots, more possession, more chances doesn't always deserve to win.Are the only games that deserve to be draws ones where the possession is 50-50 and the shots are even? Real were better than ManU but not by a lot. 3) Goaltenders are part of the team so a keeper that makes a great save or three isn't lucky, it's him doing his job. If a defender blocks a shot, that's part of the game. 4) Actual shots on goal were 8 to 6. 5) You originally claimed that ManU parked the bus which is what we were disagreeing about. They didn't. When we did it against Barcelona and Bayern, we put 10 men behind the ball. We even started the game against Bayern with a defender on the wing. ManU started with 3 strikers in their formation. They managed a number of excellent scoring opportunities Not every team that plays at all defensively parks the bus. 6) Telling people who disagree with you that they didn't watch the game just makes you look like an arrogant idiot.

I watched the game. Real were better in the first half and then had a lot of useless possession and De Gea made one fantastic save, but most of their chances were long shots. ManU certainly did not "park the bus".

No they didn't. First off, I hate "park the bus" as a phrase. Second of all, ManU had about 4 or 5 very good chances to score. That's not parking the bus in any world. They played defensive counter-attacking football.

ManU overall played OK. They actually maybe had better chances to score than Real and even hit the bar and had a goal-line clearance. 1-1 is a fair result.

No they didn't.

Great first half, decent second half. 1-1 is not unfair. Much better for ManU than for Madrid. Dortmund in good shape against Shakhtar as well. Shakhtar will likely have to win in Dortmund.