TorontoChelsea

No. Mikel has specific responsibilities and his job is to take care of those. Some of those responsibilities include covering for defenders but Mikel is not responsible for defenders having bad games. If Cahill doesn't close down a defender and if Luiz falls asleep, that's their problem.

So basically when we play well defensively he gets no credit and when we play poorly defensively, it's his fault?

Mikel has the most interceptions on the team and has the third most tackles. Not that that is a particularly great measure of how solid defensively he is. His positioning is fantastic and yes, he is strong on the ball. Right now, he is a much better player than Romeu whose positioning still needs a lot of work.

It depends what you mean. We were never going to win the league or the CL but we could finish top-4, get into the next round of the CL and maybe win one of the cups. I think the fast start gave people unrealistic expectations. We didn't the proper depth or balance in the squad from day one.

Fulham also concede the second most goals on the road. Going into today's match (and after) Chelsea at home: 14 goals for 7 against Fulham away: 12 goals for 16 against They've lost their last two matches to Sunderland and Stoke. This is not a top side. If they want to attack, great, we should be able to attack them better. This is not Barcelona or Bayern. This is a team that is significantly worse than us. There is no justification for negative tactics against Fulham.

What's the point?? Stopped the defensive rot? Why didn't Roman just ask RDM to do that? You can't ask for attacking football and then complain when you concede goals. We started off the season with 4 clean sheets in 5 matches but Roman wants attacking football...so, we played the players Roman wanted (and most people on here wanted) and we score more and conceded more..Basically, we're just going back to August? What was the point in firing Robbie if that's all we were going to do?

It was understandable if the attacking players on that side are Robben and Lahm and you are playing a vastly superior side and need to play defensively to win. Nobody was happy when Robbie played Bertrand this season as a winger and they shouldn't be happy when Rafa does it.

Voted for Cech because he did everything he had to do and made one excellent save. Nobody else was particularly good and most players were completely ineffectual. I don't even know who my second choice would be.

I agree. In the CL, he's been fantastic, in the PL, he's been mostly invisible. To be fair, he's young and coming from a very different league and it's not really fair to expect him to adjust immediately.

Fair result. Negative football against a poor side at home. Just awful.

The game just opened up, doubling the number of chances in about 30 seconds. Of course, it was the most boring game ever up to now, so any sort of vertical play is most welcome.

Phew...

What an awful half of football.Has Rafa been brought in to make us unwatchable? People are going to blame Torres because that's what they do now, but he was hardly the problem. We were just garbage. Pointless possession in the midfield. Slow movement. Standing around without the ball. Maybe one or two dangerous moments. Negative football against Fulham at home is inexcusable.

We've got a couple of bad calls from the ref so far....a seriously boring game again.

I mostly agree with you. Torres is the scapegoat now so he's being blamed for everything. (That's the way it goes. There is one player who is deemed "a problem" and draws the ire of the fans). Now, Torres has definitely been very very bad with us. Mostly awful, but the system we play is a poor fit for any striker. Our attack is based on running at defenders. We don't get the ball into dangerous areas with any regularity. It's not like we're getting the ball to Torres in great areas and he's screwing up. He's screwing up 30 feet from the net with 2 defenders in front of him. Yes, he doesn't get into the proper areas enough, but it's not like we provide regular crosses in there anyway. We haven't had a high scoring striker since 2009-2010 and that's not all just Torres. Drogba scored 16 goals in his last 60 league games with us. Anelka scored 7 goals in his last 41 games. I don't think anyone can argue that Torres hasn't been poor, but people who think that getting a new striker in will suddenly fix everything are being delusional. Our offensive issues go far beyond Torres and as our system lies right now, no striker would have prolonged success.

Yes, because under RDM we would have lost to Nordsaelland, a team we beat 4-0 on the road, at Stamford Bridge and what Shaktar does is influenced by who are coach is. Give me a break.

I don't really know what Roman wants. He wants an attacking style that is our own with a manager who has to implement this style almost immediately with the players Roman decided to buy and don't really fit together. Very few teams play consistently attacking football in one particular style. The teams that are able to do this (Barca, Dortmund) have long-term managers, and strong youth systems that produce players who have played together for years.. You can't have the consistent attacking style and also be the team that buys all its players and fires its managers at the drop of the hat.

Ramires wouldn't work as the the more defensive-minded player in the pivot. He's too aggressive with his tackles which is fine if he has support, but for that role, you really want someone who is positionally-minded like Mikel because they are often the last man in defence (when the CBs split wider as they often do). Also, one of Ramires great strengths is making runs that open up space for other players and for himself. He wouldn't be able to do that. Ramires if a very good player, but he simply is never going to properly fit in with the team Roman wants to build. He'd be fantastic as a central midfielder in a Mourinho 4-3-3. Counter-attack football where he gets to play centrally, doesn't have to create much, will be responsible defensively, etc...Ideal for him I think.But on a team that's looking towards the Barcelona, ball control model, a midfielder who isn't creative and isn't a very good passer, is a poor fit. This is what Roman (or the board) doesn't really get. It's not just about buying talent, it's about buying talent that fits together. The best pivot duo IMO would either be Mikel and Oscar or Mikel and someone who isn't on the team right now. Lampard is still probably the best fit skill-wise this season if he ever gets healthy again, but we need a long-term solution.

I've watched a lot of sports in my life and this is obvious: most athletes and managers and even commentators have nothing whatsoever interesting or insightful to say. You can predict 99% of what they will say which is usually some variation on "I thought we played well today but we could also work on some things". Like any movie star or singer, people think that these interviews, by virtue of the fame and celebrity of the interviewee, will be interesting. They aren't. Of course, the questions are almost always idiotic as well, either set up for easy answers or asking pointless questions. I never watch press conferences. I never watch post-match interviews. It's about as interesting as watching people try to hawk jewelry on a shopping channel. (the only exception is after a trophy when the point is not to hear what they are saying but to see the, celebrate.)

Some if it was our tactics. We played very defensively and dropped deep, but some of it was just them. They really looked flat and missed some very simple passes, their communication was was off, and their finishing was very poor.

Not really complaining because Azpilicueta did have an excellent game so he's a very deserving candidate, just that people tend to overlook players who have been around. And yes, aside from one bad mistake early, Luiz was very good. I just have no confidence in him being able to avoid mistakes down the road. Agree with you Ramires. Thought he had one of his best games of the year today. Still not right for what we need from the position though.

I thought City looked terrible today. They missed some absurdly easy passes, fell down a couple of times and looked like they didn't want to be there. They also got ridiculously cute outside our box, trying to play perfect balls in from what were already pretty good positions. Their communication was also quite poor, playing in players who were standing still and passing behind each other. Of course, we were like that too. Maybe it was the heavy rain, but it was one of the worst games between top sides I've ever seen. Almost no pace to the game, really choppy play, and both sides played like they'd be happy with a 0-0 draw.

The big difference in this game is that our forwards dropped much deeper. If you want to compare our positioning versus the WBA game, everyone was much deeper. I have no idea why Romeu was brought in, when he came in, he was basically used as another central defender. We were level 0-0, not sure why we wouldn't try to go for a win. We played very negative football, with one scoring chance against a team that has a lot of defensive problems and played pretty poorly. Also upsetting because it's the same thing that happened before. Roman demands attacking football so sacks the manager who can't bring it and then replaces him with a manager who employs a defensive style. RDM could easily have managed a team that played like this, he managed a fantastic defensive squad last year, but Roman wanted a more attacking game.

We went more for defensive solidity and played probably our worst offensive game of the season. We were pathetic and creating chances. Pretty lucky to get away with a draw so I'm happy with that. Azpilicueta will get voted MOTM because he's the newcomer and he was good but he was not nearly as good as Ivanovic IMO. Ivanovic-13 clearances, 8 effective clearances, 1 interception, 1 offside won, 87% passing. Azpi-4 clearances, 2 effective clearances, 3 interceptions, 0 offsides won, 69% passing

What an awful half of football.