TorontoChelsea

The Laudrups worked out very well but I'm pretty skeptical of this sort of story which seems to appear more than you'd think ("you've seen player A, his younger brother is even better!". At Kylian's age, Eden was playing in France. At Thorgan's age, Eden was already on the Ligue 1 team of the year. We'll see what happens in the future, but I wouldn't be betting on any other Hazards ever playing for Chelsea.

That's just nonsense. When Roman first came in and spent 150M, Ranieri took us from 4th to second, from the first round of the UEFA Cup to the Champions League semi-final. That's nothing, but Mourinho coming in on the backs of a much better spent 139M pounds taking us from second place to first? That's genius? A generous budget doesn't help, it makes you win. We improved every year under Ranieri. We got worse every year under Mourinho. You look at the teams we had and what our competition was in the league in and in Europe, what should we have won? We had 6 or 7 world-class players. We won exactly what you'd expect us to win. No less.

I like Snjeider, but he'd be a terrible signing. He needs to play behind the striker(s) and influence play like that to be at his best. He was Inter's Lampard under Mourinho If he wants to play there at Chelsea, he needs to take a number. He's fallen out of favour with Inter who are actually playing better without him. He's also going to be 29 in 6 months, is becoming increasingly injury prone, and is on massive wages. Just doesn't make sense for us on any level. @sheva. Yeah, but it's 15 goals in 21 games. Torres has 14 goals in 29 games. It's a massive difference.

It worked with Sturridge. He gave us a good season and then we sold him for 12M pounds. It worked with Bertrand, it's working with a bunch of players right now who are all benefiting from getting extra time. Look at the difference between Lukaku this year and last. Maybe he will never be good enough for Chelsea, but it won't be because he went out on loan .It's the only way it will ever work. When was the last player to come straight out of the youth team and have any impact with Chelsea? 15 years ago? They do it differently in Italy, because they don't have nearly the money the top teams in England do. (Juventus was the top spending club in Seria A and they spent less than Southhampton). Knowing the club and the philosophy is insignificant when compared to actually getting game time and learning on the pitch. It is possible to work young players in ala Arsenal, but we don't. We spend a lot of money buying ready-made players. As for Piazon...Look at our potential (non-defensive) midfield next year. Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Ramires, Marin, KDB, McEachran, and Piazon with Chelsea certainly buying at least one more midfielder. And that's not including Lampard who might be back or Luiz who could possible move to midfield. That's 4 spots and Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Ramires for starting in those 4 spots. KDB, if he keeps up his current form is likely to be back at Chelsea and Marin could very well be too. At best, you're talking about Piazon being the 7th choice but more realistically, he'd be 9th. Chelsea have less depth overall this season than at any other time I can think of (post-Abramovich) and Piazon still can rarely even get on the bench. You want him to stay at Chelsea? Fine, but you have to accept that he would basically never play and he certainly would never develop. You don't develop without game-time.

I NEVER said they are reliable. They don't have to be. They are cover. You don't need 7 proven attacking midfielders. And even as cover every single one of them is more reliable than Piazon who was played in a few minutes in one Premier League game. We have no true central midfielders, one striker, and you're worried about who are 7th choice attacking midfielder might be.

I don't actually mind what Rafa has done to the side. I have a feeling that his starting XI would be similar to the one I'd prefer (and I was certainly never liking either starting Hazard , Mata, and Oscar up front together nor the atrocious and childish nickname given to them as a result and thankfully that's been mostly stopped by Rafa.) I just don't think we can give credit to Rafa for winning the exact sort of games RDM was winning. (and part of me thinks that RDM was sacked because there was window of opportunity. Chelsea had a game no one would blame them for losing coming up followed by an exceptionally easy schedule. Chelsea could still have qualified for the CL as well. If they did and if Chelsea rebounded which was almost a certainty given the competition, then Roman wouldn't have been able to fire RDM. He saw his window and he took it.)

It's not all assumptions. It's very widely known what Roman wants in a broad sense. There are enough leaks out of Chelsea that have all said the same thing. (In fact, one person in the know at Chelsea was clarifying it earlier this year in an article I read. He said something like "people say Roman wants to play a certain style of attacking football, but he really just wants someone to develop their own attacking style and to take it to the other clubs" (rough paraphrasing.) As for Oscar, I don't know. I really don't want him to be micromanaging at all. As is the key with all management. You hire the person you think is best for the job and you let them do the job. Roman's "visits" to training are not helpful IMO.

But the winning was inevitable. We weren't doing all that badly under RDM. We were in the same spot in the league despite a harder run of schedule. We had a very bad run of 8 games in all competitions, only winning once and drawing twice, but the competition there was ridiculous. Shakhtar and Juventus away, ManU twice, Liverpool and two away games to Swansea and WBA. It was the hardest part of our schedule all season (including the game we played Spurs before and City the game after). The last three games we played against weak sides under RDM we won 4-1, 4-0, and 6-0. There is no reason to believe that we wouldn't have kept beating the Villas, Sunderlands and Montereys of this world under RDM. And the team defending better thing drives me crazy. We are defending better but that's because Roman was insisting on attacking football from RDM. That's what his demand and RDM's failure to deliver that was ostensibly why he fired him. RDM started out the season with fantastic defensive football (4 clean sheets in our first 5 league games) and then Roman wanted Oscar to start and demanded Chelsea play more attacking. Then Benitez comes in, defends more and takes Oscar out to give us better balance and people give him credit for doing exactly what Roman ordered RDM not to. It's like ordering a chef who you know can bake good apple pie, to make cherry pie and then firing him when he doesn't only to hire someone to make apple pie.

Chelsea need to give younger players more of a chance, but that's younger players who have gone on loan and had some success. Players are not ever going to come into the first team from the youth team and get regular playing time. And as for Bertrand and Azpilicueta, on the wings, they are purely cover in case of injury but I doubt they will play there because we have six or seven players who can play attacking midfield. Marin has barely played and he's only our fifth attacking midfielder. We're also likely to add a midfielder or two in the transfer period either through a transfer or through recalling a player. You're approaching it backwards. Cup games are to get the players who don't get a lot of time some time. You need depth because people get hurt, but some people don't get hurt and the depth at that position gets very little playing time so you have to play them some. You don't keep someone on the team in order to play them in cup games. What does 6 months of loans do? First of all, Piazon is going to go on loan next year anyway, so it could easily be a 1.5 year loan. Second of all, look at what the loan deals have done for McEachran, Lukaku and KDB. Young players need to play regularly. Piazon has played in 3 matches in his time with Chelsea. If he stays, he'll get into what, maybe another 5 and a couple those would likely be late substitutions. If he went to the right place, he could start 15-20 matches. Loaning him out would be for the benefit of the club and the player.

We have plenty of players that can play attacking midfield. We have Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Marin, Ramires , Lampard and even Bertrand and Azpilicueta can both play there (and have) as well. It's one of the few positions we're well covered in.

In our last 5 games with RDM, we had 5 points BUT, the schedule was very difficult. Away at Spurs, home to ManU (where we got screwed), at WBA and Swansea and the easiest game of the bunch which is really not that easy, at home to Liverpool. That's the #1, 6,7,8, and 11 teams in the table and 3 of them away. Compare that to what Rafa's faced? City at home, Fulham and Villa at home. Sunderland and West Ham away. The #2, 12, 13, 15, and 16. teams and 3 of them at home The second most difficult game Rafa has managed has been easier than the easiest RDM had to get through in that period. But as I said in another thread, people love narrative and this narrative of "Rafa turns Chelsea around" was 100% predictable when you saw the schedule we had.

How has he shown he's good enough for Chelsea? Because of some good play in a game that was a joke? Against ManU in the League Cup, he looked lost. He's young and he needs playing time. A loan makes sense. Staying at Chelsea to get into a game every two months is not good for him (or anyone).

Absolutely agree with that. I think it was just because at that point, we were officially killing them and Luiz already had a goal and a lot of attack so he wanted all the other Brazilians to get forward and get their shots in Whatever it was, he was definitely a lot more subdued and conservative. I think before the Lampard/Ramires switch was made Luiz's passing percentage was around 79%. After that, I don't think he tried a single long ball and he ended up with I think 86% passing.

It's one thing I love about Lampard. He likes shooting low and accurate. So many players try to pick our the top corner and the ball goes sailing over the net. So many good things can happen when you get the ball on net. A goal, a corner, a rebound to one of your players. The only thing that can happen when you shoot it 15 rows into the seats is a goal kick. http://performance.fourfourtwo.com/technique/shoot-like-lampard

We dominated them at Stamford Briidge, but they've been a lot tougher at home so far this season. We should win this though. I just hope the weather isn't too awful which would make things more difficult.

He had a great game, but it was still mixed in terms of his midfield future. He has the defensive skills to fit in the defensive part of the double pivot. He is excellent at intercepting passes, he's a strong tackler, he knows how to push people off the ball,and he's good in the air...but, he's still way too aggressive with his passing and his movement for that position. You don't necessarily have to be extremely conservative, but you need to be cautious which is not Luiz's strong point. As for the regista role, I don't see it. His passing and decision making are just not good enough. I'd definitely like to see him get some more time in the pivot because he's earned that but it's going to take a lot more than a couple of games against weak opposition to convince me that he's some sort of elite midfielder. (Remember how good he looked as a defender when he came over? We thought we had bought one of the top few defenders in the world and 10 games later, Ancelotti had benched him.)

First of all Arsenal sold their best player and maybe their second best as well so they actually made money this offseason. I am not trying to discredit Mourinho in particular, but rather the notion of the brilliant manager that makes all the difference in the world. If Mourinho goes to a bad team and wins, I'll change my tune, but it won't happen (he wouldn't go to a bad team and if he did, he wouldn't win). I have never seen any evidence that managers make any difference long-term. The teams that win consistently are the teams that spend money. You can get lucky for one year and almost every year there is a team in each league that overachieves (Newcastle last season, WBA so far this year) but those teams can never sustain their success for more than a couple of years. The correlation between money spent and winning is 92%. In the past 10 years, the top 4 spending clubs have been City, Chelsea, Liverpool, and United. Of the possible 30 top-3 finishes, those teams have finished in the top 30, 23 times. If you count this year instead of 10 years ago, it's be 25 of the 30 places. In the last five years, Barcelona and Real Madrid 170K and 275K pounds respectively on transfers Only one other team has spent more than 11K pounds in that period in La Liga and that's Malaga who spent a relatively paltry 50K. Of the 10 first and second spots in the last 5 years, Barcelona and Real Madrid fill 9 of them (Barcelona was third one year). Bayern Munich has spent more than double any other Bundesliga club over the past five years. They've finished first twice in that period, second twice, third once, and are well on their way to winning again this season.The highest spending club in Italy? Juventus...in first place a year after winning Seria A. This is not theory. This is fact. How do you not see the causation? The formula is spending money=winning. The manager is almost irrelevant. But sports fans love narrative so the myth of the manager will live on.

Great win. Glad we could give some key players some rest and give some positive run and opportunity to players who haven't been playing as much. Feel kind of sorry for Villa. Once it was 4-0, they just gave up. Hopefully, we can take the confidence and momentum from this and ride it for a while.

Make that 8

Maybe the best game ever by a keeper who conceded 7 goals.

Oh well...

Let's get another goal scorer!

7 different goal scorers. Is that a record of some sort?

Wow...what a goal...

There we go...first Premier League assist from Piazon, first Premier League goal from Oscar.