TorontoChelsea

This has turned into an excellent match. Very enjoyable to watch.

I believe last season Mata was the second best player in the league at creating scoring opportunities after Silva. At the least, he's certainly one of the top few playmakers in the Premier League right now

Damn

There it is.

I believe the word you're looking for is "delusional".

This is turning out to be a very fun game.

Don't like weeks like this, when you have really no top matches on the Saturday. Two best games are tomorrow

They are definitely moving in the right direction especially thanks to the sponsorship deals you mention, but we're not there yet.

Absolutely luck. If you saw say, a shipping company that had posted mostly massive losses every single year for a decade and one year posted slim profits simply because the price of gas fell to an all-time low, would you invest in that company? Nobody would. The price of gas fluxuates, but if you need it to be at an all-time time low to post a profit, you are relying on luck rather than good business practices. Winning the CL is about talent, but it's also completely unpredictable. We have been an elite team over the past decade, one of the top-5 teams in the world, but we've only won the CL once. In the past decade only 1 team (Barcelona) has won it more than once. Take Real Madrid, also a top-5 team in the world in the past decade, and they haven't even made the finals in that period. Winning the CL every year is not a sustainable business model. Chelsea had supporters in Brazil and Canada the year before and lost tens of millions of pounds.

This was a profit based more on luck than on good management. The only reason we made money, is winning the CL which made us 47M pounds. Had we not gotten to the finals, we'd have recorded a significant loss. The trick is building long-term sustainability based on smart planning and spending. I think we're heading in that direction, but this profit was based on a highly unlikely success beyond the board's control rather than good planning.

They see so much more that we do...they see their own long term plans, they see their budget, they see scouting videos of other players, not just youtube compilations they see and study game tape and are able to analyze player performance much better than we can, they see dossiers of information on our own players and our opposition. The internet is a fantastic source for information but it's also a fantastic source for bullshit and everyone thinks they are an expert.I reserve the right to criticize management moves and player deployment I don't like, we all do, but thinking that we generally know more than the board or RDM is ridiculous.

Even if we lost at Juventus, we still have a decent chance to go through although I hate leaving our fate up to others. (assuming we beat Nordsjaelland at home and if we can't, we don't deserve to go through). If Juventus wins both games, they'll be at 12 points and we'll qualify. If Shakhtar wins both games, they'll be at 13 points and we'll still qualify. If either team drop points next game, we'll qualify. If Juventus and Shakhtar win next match day and then draw on the final day, we'd be out. It will be interesting to see how RDM plays it because we gave Juventus too much room in the centre of midfield at the Bridge and were guilty of doing the same today. If we can't mark the trailing man in the box, we'll get beaten. Something we need to work on in training.

Carvalho too although we sold him a year before he started to break down. I think we should be open to selling anybody if we got great value, but the point is that we don't have to. If Oscar or anyone is doing well at Chelsea and is happy, we'll keep them. I don't understand the worry about losing players we just bought a few months ago. I wish people would stop worrying about who we might buy and who might sell and would just enjoy watching the team we have, which apart from a couple of periods here and there, has been fantastic to watch for about 15 years or so.

If Oscar gets moved into the pivot, then Walcott could be perfect. He could rotate in with the attacking midfielders and act as a third striker. If Oscar is going to stay up front, there's no real room for him. I can't see signing Walcott to be as purely a striker.

Well, if you have to be the victim, I probably wouldn't chose Oscar...maybe more along these lines-http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/12849-sexiest-women-thread-v2/page__fromsearch__1

Ramires drove me crazy today. He keeps trying to steal the ball off the attacker. His being aggressive is sometimes great, but he also lets players get by him today. Our central midfield should have done better on both the goals against us. Yes, Bertrand was exposed, but we let their attackers go unmarked in the area. Liking Oscar might make you a pedophile. He really looks like a kid.

Exactly. This is what's incredibly annoying about too many (especially newer) Chelsea fans. It's not possible for a player to have even one bad game without the "we need to go buy this player" coming as a response. Players have bad games. Bertrand might not be the answer, but that will not be determined on the merit of one poor performance.

I feel the same way about Bertrand I did before the game. The people who thought that he could easily take over from Cole were always being ridiculous. He's played what, 5 or 6 games at a high level at LB in his life? He needs time. It's possible he'll turn out to be an excellent LB and it's possible he will never be good enough to start regularly for us.

Great game and great win. We were excellent in attack and poor defensively. Bertrand had an off game obviously. I want Luiz benched. Not because I think he's useless, but because I think someone needs to get through to him and talking doesn't seem to be working. He's getting paid like a world-class defender and he is playing like a kid in a playground right now. He is capable of playing conservatively, but he just isn't right now. I don't know what else would work.

This game is so messy for us right now. If we keep playing like this, we're going to lose.

Damn, our defence looks soft. Ramires has to stop trying to chase the ball and instead play the man especially deep in our own zone.

Great start!

Great to see Mata back in. I understand why JT would be rested against a team that's built on speedy counters. Unfortunately, Cahill and Luiz aren't in the best form right now but hopefully that changes. Definitely need three points.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me! It's a real honour to get this nod on a forum with so many quality posters. Congrats to other nominees-all quality, I'm sure your month will come.

Generally agree with you with a few exceptions. 1) i think we will definitely bring in a striker. If it's someone like Remy, Torres might stay. If it's someone like Falcao or Cavani, Torres will get sold. I think Lukaku might be our backup striker next season if he shows enough this year. If not, Chelsea might have to get a couple of strikers. . 2) I think Josh will go back out on loan, maybe to a Premiership side this time. Chalobah will certainly go out on loan, probably for another few years. 3) Not sure what Chelsea will do with Courtois. Cech is still an elite keeper and deserves to be playing all the time. Do we want to bring back Courtois to play in a few cup games? 4) Not so sure about Cole. If Chelsea won't give him more than a year, I think someone else will.I'd say he's about 50/50 to leave and Lampard is about 75/25 5) You, of all people, forgot to mention Ramires.