TorontoChelsea

Our 7th defender last year in terms of playing time was Ryan Bertrand. Our 8th was Kalas. They combined for 6 starts in all competitions. We don't need 8 defenders. We need to replace Cole and Luiz. If Zouma is likely to be in the side (which I think he is), we really only need a LB.

You're way off. Keepers just don't cost that much. Lloris was a young and proven keeper and cost 10M Euros in 2012. If he were a striker of similar age//ability/experience, he would have cost at least triple that. Mignolet is a solid keeper cost 9M pounds last year. Keepers are just not expensive. (And Luiz is not worth 50M PSG just has their own economy where they spent about 75% more than anyone else would, Look at their transfer history. They are reckless idiots. Even worse than we were at the beginning of the Roman Era.

In a way, I'm glad Courtois had a poor game. (And he did) I don't care about Atletico and peoples expectations were absurd. Every time Cech let in any goal this season there were those who said "Courtois would have had that". He's a great young goalie and very likely the future at the position for the club for a long time, but he's not Superman and he probably isn't even an upgrade on Cech right now. Unreasonable expectations lead to unreasonable reactions to performances.

Where is Bosingwa to jump in front of this photo?

Better team won. Di Maria and Modric were exceptional.

Yes.

Yeah. He was a good player for us with an occasional great performance. He also managed to get benched by just about every manager we had at some point for brainless mistakes. He'll do well at PSG because PSG doesn't require their defenders to defend much. They are dominant in their league and just go for attack. The Premier League requires a more consistent, responsible defender who takes fewer risks and turns the ball over less. I would have been happy with 30M for him.

Not similar at all. To summarize-Mata is a better player who did more for Chelsea whose loss hurt us more and who we got less money for. (And a lot less money when you consider the difference in position).

Would be a fantastic deal for us. Luiz is a very good defender at times, but he simply doesn't fit into Mourinho's system and his offensive game has always been overrated (especially by himself). Occasional great passes and rare excellent free kicks never made up for the many loose passes and ill-advised shots IMO. I don't think I've ever seen a player so smart and so stupid at the same time. (Reading plays beautifully, stepping up to intercept passes and then making idiotic challenges and taking stupid shots) PSG are crazy to pay this reported amount for him but I'm not complaining.

Maybe a factor but I am sure he also doesn't want to start once every 3 months when he could be playing every week.

The right move for both parties. Cole is still good enough to play very good LB for someone but just not at Chelsea level anymore. I'd be surprised if Aziplicueta is the starter there next year though. He had a very good year as an extremely defensive player in an extremely defensive system but if we want to improve, Chelsea need to get a LB who can offer more in the attack as well. I'd be shocked if we don't buy a left back.

Liverpool chasing the goal difference looks hilarious now. City is THIRTEEN goals better on GD.. Was this absurdly slim chance worth risking a real chance at the title Brendan?

City only need 4 points from 2 easy games to win the title. This was a horribly managed game by Liverpool. They were never going to catch up on goal difference. The only way it would matter is if Liverpool and City both won both their games. City was +9. They would need to win a minimum of +2 overall in the next 2 games meaning Liverpool would have to score a MINIMUM of 11 goals in 2 games without conceding. That wasn't going to happen. Even if they added a 4th against Palace, they'd need to beat Newcastle 7-0 and even then it almost certainly wouldn't have been enough. The 3 points mattered so much more and once Palace pulled back that first goal, Liverpool should have shut things down instead of going for it still, What a game!

Hahahahaha!!!

I don't think we've overachieved at all. We got to the point where we faced a team better than us and then lost. We played Schalke, Basel, Bucharest, and Galatasaray and then PSG . The only team we faced who we weren't heavy favourites against was PSG and that was probably a 50/50 thing and we won last second on away goals . Had we faced the same quality group stage as we did last year, based on the way we played, we might not have have got out of the group and we certainly wouldn't have won it and then we would have been forced to play a quality team right away. We had one of the easiest groups (3 easy ones) and then one of easiest matchups in the round of 16 and even in the quarter-finals PSG was one of the best matchups we could have hoped for. We went about as far in the tournament as we should have gone based on the teams we played. I doubt we get as easy a route for years. Still, there's no blame to be had here. Atletico are a better team and they beat us. It isn't always someone's fault.

Bad loss although didn't play as badly as it may have seemed. The first and the third goal were both very lucky bounces that led to them. Still, we deserved to lose and in retrospect, despite making the semi-final of the CL, we only beat one good team the entire tournament (and that was on away goals) so we were very lucky to have come this far. We are a team in progress but the most disappointing thing for me is that we don't seem to be improving as the year goes on. The lack of a striker who can score regularly is a big issue for us but so is finding a good balance between defensive solidity and attack.

I hate this not celebrating crap. You got a massive goal in the semi-finals on the CL. Smile!

Seriously, probably the most satisfying win of the year so far. Liverpool supporters are entitled and they thought the trophy was already theirs. Great team performance!

Exactly. They have Van Persie, Rooney, Mata, Kagawa, Hernandez, and Welbeck to play 2 positions already. They need central midfielders, defenders and naturally wide players.

Early in every season, people are all gung-ho about every game. You can't rest anybody! You can't treat any game lightly! We have to win! etc..And now when we are in CL semi-finals and still vying for the league we have to rest people? We need to put our best XI out in the League Cup but a key showdown in Anfield? We need to sit our starters because their tired.This is exactly why rotation matters. Ivanovic has started 51 games this season. Azpilicueta has started basically every game since he took over the job from Cole. Cole has started once since January. Are you telling me he couldn't have started 4 or 5 games with Ivanovic and Azpilicueta getting rests and to make Cole more ready if/when we need him? We had a 3 game stretch in about 10 days against Stoke in the FA Cup, West Ham in the league and City in the league? We had 5 players play all 3 games. We couldn't rotate some people in against Stoke in the FA Cup? West Ham at home? Or how about the Christmas period? 5 games from the 23rd of December to January 5th. We couldn't have given Hazard a break in that period? He started 4 games and came on in the 54th in the other. Rotation throughout the season is needed so you avoid exhausting players and having to rest players in key matchups in April.

Will be happy with a win or a draw. Will be OK with a one goal deficit. Anything more will be very difficult to overcome.

I don't think managers matter much unless they are completely incompetent and we've done as well/poorly under Mourinho as we likely would have done under any other competent manager but it's been a fairly disappointing season. We're really no better than last year despite spending a lot of money and re-shaping the team the way Jose wanted. The Mourinho hire never really made sense to me based on the players Chelsea had and what reportedly Roman wanted. RDM was fired for not being able to bring a consistent attacking system to Chelsea. Why hire a defensive coach in Mourinho then? Our back four has gotten much stronger but it's come at a massive cost upfront where we completely lack creativity and imagination. Our attacking players have all, with the exception of Hazard, gone backwards. Even Ramires who I and many people thought would flourish under Mourinho has been worse. We have had a great run in the CL but most of that is due to playing really no decent teams until the quarter finals. We played poorly in the group stages and had we had a group like we did last year, we very likely would have finished second and forced to play someone like Bayern or Barcelona instead of Gallatasaray or been disqualified outright. We will win under Mourinho eventually because we spend too much money not to eventually win with any manager (Except maybe David Moyes).

But overall we've been helped more by referee decisions that hurt by them. We've had a whole bunch of bad calls, much worse than the penalty one go our way. We didn't lose to Sunderland because of poor refereeing, we lost because we were poor. We've been poor for much of the season. This was the last place team at home. Nobody's fault but our own that we didn't win.

Bad game where almost everyone played poorly. Referee gave us a very beneficial decision which saved us. If that's what we did against 10 men, how would we have been for 90 minutes against 11? Normally would give the goalscorer MOTM but it was not even a good shot that Ba scored on and he didn't really play well otherwise so I'm giving my vote to Cech.

Exactly. The difference between a yellow and a just a free kick is often nothing. Yellows are often used to calm down a game. Getting both of those called yellows is really rare for so early in the game. I'll take it of course but if that were to happen to a Chelsea player we'd all be outraged.