TorontoChelsea

No, it's exactly the opposite. When you are a parent, you need to educate your children because you have more experience in life and because you know more than they do. All of us here know significantly less than RDM in every aspect of football. Yes, there are concerns we all have and but it's the combination of panicking and extreme arrogance as if we, who have vastly less knowledge of what's happening and infinitely less experience in football, we really know what needs to be done that's so bothersome. And yes, everything is fine if you have the proper perspective. We are trying to build a team long-term and we are heading in the right direction. A year ago, the post-Mourinho core years looked like they would be a disaster. Now, if you look at Chelsea's future it looks bright. The spoiled kid aspect of it is infuriating. If the discussion were just "what I think Chelsea should be trying to do" it'd be different, but it isn't. It's always, "buy this expensive player" or "get this expensive manager" which is actually the opposite of a serious discussion of the issues we have. Look at this thread, there are some valid points, but there's also criticism of RDM because he isn't good enough at developing young players? That's just absolute nonsense and shows the incredible lack of patience and perspective too many Chelsea fans have. Hazard isn't the best player in the Premier League 10 games into his career so RDM isn't good at developing young talent? Don't people realise that having excellent potential does not mean that you will become a fantastic player immediately (or ever)? People think that every promising player we buy is going to turn out to be Messi or something. If you expected more out of Oscar, Bertrand , Hazard, and Moses at this point (like the author of this thread did) then the fault is down to you, not RDM. If people want to have serious discussions about what they think Chelsea should be doing to improve the squad, then I'm all for it.Those are fun and engaging. However, there is very little of this. Instead, it's mostly just people ripping on the players they hate, trying to assign blame for everything that goes wrong, and attempting to construct fantasy lineups.

One thing that has been a surprising disappointment so far this season, and I think points to a lot of our problems, is our lack of through balls. We don't cross the ball into the area much, we don't play long ball, and we are seemingly moving away from counter-attack football. If we want to play skilled, possession football, we need the through-ball to be a major source of goals. We have only 8 successful through balls this season from only 3 players. We've only even attempted 12. Compare that to a couple other passing Premier League teams-Man City have 16 successful through balls on 42 attempts and Arsenal have 19 through balls on 40 attempts. You watch us play and it's obvious to see this issue at play. Our pivot gets the ball and hands the ball off to Mata or Oscar who have to collect the ball way too deep. Then, they run at the defence and try to create something. Torres right now is playing more like a second striker, he drops deep to collect the ball. He should be positioned on the shoulder of the defence and Mata should be getting the ball in more attacking positions instead of having to set up the attack himself. We do have real issues. I do think there is a lack of offensive game-plan right now and too much of a reliance on skill to save us, we lack width which makes it too easy to defend us, but this will take time to figure out. We have some new players and a new system. Change doesn't happen overnight and making a coaching change now would do nothing except delay the change..

Don't really care if Anelka comes back to the PL. It's not like Drogba, Anelka has already played with Bolton, Arsenal, City, and even with Liverpool.

The problem is not their quality, it's that they, or rather Ramires, doesn't bring the needed skills to the double pivot. You need someone there like a Xabi Alonso or a Modric to be able to create chances and to open up the field. When Ramires gets the ball, he runs it up and hands it off to Mata or Oscar who have to drop back deep to collect the ball. If we are looking to play a ball-control, passing game, having a central midfielder who doesn't control the ball or pass well like Ramires is always going to be an issue. Mikel can play and play well in any system. Today, Mikel was very good in the first half and then had a poor stretch in the second half.

Have no idea why people were saying he was our best forward. He was our worst player in the first half.(His gamescore on whoscored.com was the worst on our team at that point-under 6) He gave the ball up easily way too often and his lack of physicality meant Liverpool players just took the ball off him a couple of times. He had a fantastic chance and missed the net by 10 feet. He had an excellent 10 minutes in the second half and then disappeared again. He was the right man to take off. Hazard was our most dangerous attacking player and Mata has been our best player all season. Not sure why Oscar's CL excellence hasn't really translated to the Premier League yet. It will happen, but it will take some adjusting.

Yeah, but these reactionary posts are ridiculous and frustrating. People overreact when we win and overreact when we drop points. How can anyone be complaining about RDM at this point? Less than a season as manager and he's won the CL and an FA Cup. This sort of thought process is the same as the "so and so had a bad game, so we need to go buy the best player in the world." We dropped points so we have to now get Guardiola? We can't keep firing managers every time they don't win a game. We can't keep spending ridiculous amounts of cash trying to buy a player who won't fit into our team just because he's a big name. It really gives us Chelsea fans a bad name when we act like spoiled children who are constantly demanding new, expensive toys every time something we don't like a result. Building a team takes time. There are ups and downs. We were sixth last season. Yes, we have things to work on, but we need to give the team and the players time to work on it. We're third in the league and alive in all other competitions. We're doing, quite frankly, better than anyone should have expected.

WAY too much negativity here after a disappointing match!! I think getting off to such a strong start let some supporters get their expectations way out of whack. Top-4 was always a realistic goal for this season and still is, RDM made the right substitutions, not really much else he could do. Our problems are the same problems we've been having all season-inability to create chances. We are actually, I believe, one of the best teams at putting away our opportunities once we get them, we just aren't creating enough chances. We also are in between styles. We're not really a counter-attacking team and we're not really a possession team. Out of our attacking three midfielders today, only Hazard played well. Our pivot was OK, but that's the best it ever really is. It's hard to play fluidly when your central midfield can't create. Our defence played well generally. Not sure why people are getting on Torres after this game. Is he supposed to get the ball at midfield and go past 4 defenders and score? Yes, he's been generally bad for us in the almost two years he's been with Chelsea, but not every instance of dropped points is down to Torres.

Cech saving us here.

Sturridge coming on.

That's the right move.

Damn....Ramires chasing the ball again instead of playing his man.

Ivanovic is having an excellent game. 5 effective clearances, 4 tackles, 2 offsides won.

Uh oh

Welcome back!

That was predictable and deserved.

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.