TorontoChelsea

You never know. Ferguson might sub on Buttner and Wooten.

Knock on wood, but when I look at a game like this I get really thankful of how healthy we've managed to stay. Arsenal has no Rosicky, Gervinho, Diaby, Gibbs, Oxlade-Chamberlin, Szczesny, or Fabiansky. Makes me understand why they're playing like such crap (well, to some degree).

Santos is a pylon. Just awful. I understand going in defensively against ManU, but this ManU team is vulnerable defensively. You need to attack them.

Hard to say about Wilshire. He played a full season at a top level at 19 and that's impressive but he didn't jump out and he's had a serious injury. I guess we'll see in a couple of years. Not sure why Arsenal keep playing Ramsey on the right over Walcott. They have no width and Walcott could cause Evra real problems. Also, I still can't believe Santos plays as much as he does. He's truly awful.

I'm not trying to take it away from him. He scored a massive goal and a fantastic one at that but we won because of a team effort, not simply because of that goal.

Do you believe we would have gotten to Munich without Ramires or without Cole or Lampard or Cech or Bosingwa? Of course Drogba was key. He scored goals against Napoli and Barcelona and defended brilliantly but you're last line is exactly the problem I have with this line of thinking. The "him" could be a dozen players.

Yeah "overscore" is even better. This, to me, is overscoring. Not a bad thing at all.

None. No one player wins a cup. It's a team game. Look at the CL. Drogba's goal got us into penalties. But we don't get to penalties without Cech standing on his head, without Cole, Mikel, and everyone putting in a fantastic defensive effort. (and without some luck). We don't even get to Munich without Ramires scoring, without Lampard setting him up beautifully and with a heroic defensive effort by everyone. We don't get past Benfica without Kalou and Meireles scoring. We don't get past Napoli without Ivanovic's goal and without a total team dominance in the home leg. That's the way football works. It's a team game. Drogba scored some immense goals for us, he is definitely one of our best players ever, but he also had some bad periods. He was viewed as a disappointment when he first came. He was missing lots of chances and diving all the time. In the league, he scored 8 or fewer goals three times in 8 years. He got sent off for a stupid red in Moscow that could very well have cost us the Champions' League. Again, Drogba is a Chelsea legend, but if you look at the numbers (yes, stats!) there's simply no way you can justify picking him as #1. And as for the other stuff, you don't think Lampard created goals for his teammates? You don't think Zola created space? You don't think someone like Terry has brought intangible values to the team? And it's not just the statistics. It's how people thought of him. Drogba was Chelsea's best player once in his entire career. Four different Chelsea players in the past 20 years have won it multiple times including two players that were contemporaries of Drogba.. I don't even see what the argument for Drogba is for #1 overall.

I think it says a lot about our team, that I'm excited about watching every game. Even when we're not on a particularly good streak, we are great to watch and have the ability to beat anyone. What more could you ask for?

He was great, but didn't play enough games for us to be considered a top all-time player IMO. (4.5 seasons). Also, here's why, to me, Lampard beats Drogba hands-down. It's difficult to compare people from different eras, but Lampard and Drogba played the same time. Games-Lampard 572, Drogba-341 Goals-Lampard 189, Drogba-157 Assists-Lampard-120, Drogba-71 Chelsea player of year, Lampard-3, Drogba-1 PFA team of the year, Lampard 3-, Drogba-2 Just don't see how Drogba beats Lampard when Lampard was better and better for significantly longer for us.

Yeah, don't think he will be which is sad because I think he could be a fantastic impact sub for a few years. (And because it would piss off idiots like the poster above you who are obsessed with buying new players and have no respect for legends.)

I think in a few years, Drogba might not even be considered top-5. He had two fantastic years at Chelsea and was named Chelsea Player of the Year only once. Some of this is that Roman kept trying to bring in new strikers to displace Drogba so his games went up and down, but in Drogba's 8 years at Chelsea, he had a number of poor seasons. Drogba is undoubtedly a Chelsea legend and one of our greats, but I think his incredible form in the CL last year meant he left on a high that is still influencing people.

Love Drogba obviously, but he's not even in the discussion for best ever. Lampard, Zola, or Osgood are the three legit candidates for the title IMO.

Great. We're going to get a new Star Wars movie every Christmas now. Lucas' career is different than really any other director.He was really a very poor director of actors. He had a big hit with his second film- American Graffiti (which has an amazing 50's soundtrack and is a decent film) and then made Star Wars as his third movie. He hit big with it and never really did anything except Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies and made billions off them.Lucas did create an excellent world with some very good characters, but it really should have stopped a long time ago. Movies are now so expensive to make and studios are so risk-averse, that the blockbuster movies are almost always completely unoriginal. Any movie that is remotely popular (i.e. makes money) will just get re-made over and over again. Any TV show that was ever popular, will get turned into a movie. Any comic book that was ever remotely popular, will get turned into a movie. If that movie fails, they will re-make it a few years later. If it succeeds, they will do a sequel or two or three and then wait a few years and re-launch it. You know what's coming out this summer? Iron Man 3 (first was a lot of fun, second was dull). The Hangover 3 (first was fun, second was a copy of the first and dull). fast and the Furious part 6 (all sucked), Star Trek 2 (first was fun, but no sequel needed), Man of Steel (Superman is just not an interesting character. he's too good and too powerful.), The Wolverine (Series started off well and getting progressively worse),,and on and on and on...It's just embarrassing and frustrating..

Jose Bosingwa and Kalou are also a CL winner for us and they got no respect. Luiz was playing well but recently has hit a relly bad patch. And no, great centre backs don't make the mistakes Luiz makes. Every defender will sometimes be late to get to their man, sometimes they won't communicate properly and let someone get by them, sometimes they aren't positioned properly. They don't launch 3 useless passes upfield every game. They don't wander into midfield attacking and cough up the ball. That's what's so frustrating. The mistakes are childish and pointless. Chelsea should be trying to build from the back. Luiz's long attacking passes are terrible and yet, he doesn't stop. Chelsea play a very attacking squad, we don't need our centre back to rush up with the ball. He does all the time and yesterday is just the first time it burned us. His job is to defend and when he concentrates on that, he's very good at it but he doesn't seem to be able to mature as a player. It's not like an issue of confidence which is tricky or an issue of positional awareness which takes time. These are simple mistakes that he just keeps making. I'm not saying we should see him or anything so rash (although if there really was an offer for 30M pounds, I would have snapped it up in a second) just that I think he needs a talking to (which I can't believe he hasn't got before so maybe he just needs to listen) and maybe a seat on the bench for a couple of games once Terry comes back.

No! Chelsea should just institute a new policy starting in January. Any player who misses an easy chance or makes an error that leads to a goal, immediately gets sold.. This will, to use Republican parlance, "incentivize" the workers. Mata missed a gaping net? Sell him! Cech let in a bad goal? He's useless, sell him! The replacements to these players will be bought based on who currently has the coolest youtube compilation of skills.

] At some point, all players need to rest. We're going to play 60+ games this season. Last season, Mata started 48 games and was exhausted by the end of the year. If you're not going to sit players for this match, what matches are you going to sit them in? Also, if Oscar and Hazard start, Moses doesn't get a chance to earn more playing time. It was the right starting lineup from RDM. I think next round he'll go even more to the bench. Beating United was important.

It's true, in the current system having two central midfielders makes some sense. However, I think we need to move long-term to add a winger to the front three. I can see Moses being that guy. Right now, we are too predictable in our attack and it is only through the incredible skill of Mata, Oscar, and Hazard that the system is able to work. Long term, against top teams, we'll need to be better tactically. My preference would be to move Oscar back into the double pivot. I understand why some would be reluctant to do that because it would take away some of Oscar's game, but I also think it takes advantage of him and is great for the team. There is such an unbelievable dearth of regista-type players in football today. Who's the best one in the Premier league? Arteta? Scholes? How many top ones are there in world football? Pirlo, Xavi, Alonso,and then?? It's a very tough spot to fill. To be able to take a guy and say "here is our midfield general for the next decade" would be incredible and provide long-term stability to the team. BTW, your post is what I like about the forum. People who I disagree with, who provide alternate viewpoints intelligently and without hatred seething from every line. Informed debate is just the best.

What I would do as well. Terry is back after this game, so rest for the defenders will be easy to get going forward. Goalies just don't get the same workout so not worried about his energy.

I agree that our defensive problems are more systemic than talent-based. Here are what I think are the issues. 1) Our lack of width. Problem 1) If the opposition has any width, they will always outnumber us on the wings, leaving Cole or Ivanovic in odd-man situations Problem 2). Because we have no width in attack, Cole and Ivanovich have to get up the field to attack. This leaves us incredibly vulnerable to counter-attacks 2) Our attackers don't track back enough. 3) What style do we play defensively? Are we a pressing team? We have some players that press and others that play positional defense. Oscar and Ramires seem to be pressing all the time but they also get beaten more than any of our other players (because they are so aggressive, they also tackle more than any of our players) and some of that is because you need to press as a team to creature pressure on their ball-handlers.Otherwise, you get dribbled past too often (in the last 4 games, we;ve been outdribbled in every one for a total of 43-28). To press effectively, you can't just have one or two players pressing. 4) A defensive general. Even though Terry is not an elite defender anymore, he provides vocal leadership that the back line seems to need. He is always communicating with the other defenders. Without Terry, there have been a number of plays where Chelsea defenders don't communicate properly. 5) Mental mistakes. Made a lot of these recently. As for the double-pivot, I disagree. It's not that I think that Ramires and Mikel aren't playing well at all. It's just that we're not getting what we should be getting out of the double pivot. Ramires is a very good player, he's not the right kind of player for that position. We need someone who will be able to open up play with incisive passes. Who will be able to switch play from side to side. What Oscar did tonight when he came on, setting up attacks with long passes, with through-balls , with vision, while being solid defensively, that is what a pivot should do. Ramires either gets the ball and he makes a short pass to Oscar or Mata who then set up the play or he runs the ball up to an attacking player and hands it off. He's never going to be able to control the temp of the game. He's never going to hit the long ball over the top or the perfect sideline pass. That's just something we need long-term either from Oscar or from a central midfielder we buy..

Yeah, we were really dangerous once we went to this formation. I actually would like this lineip as a regular thing with Mikel instead of Ramires (Ramires then becomes a possible sub at every position), and I think long-term Oscar in the double pivot makes some sense.

Honestly, I'd rather that, then unwarranted sending offs. To be fair, the ref had a lot of pressure in him because of Sunday's game and the fact that he decided to go really conservative was understandable.

No chance. Marin has played 20 minutes so far this season. He'll need a couple of sub appearances at least, before he's ready to start.

For sure and we need him for Shaktar. Moses certainly showed that he can be effective on the right and I think a front-line of Hazard-Oscar-Moses is definitely good enough..

Exactly. You have to give players a run of games in order to see their quality. Sturridge had a couple of really stupid plays and a couple more chances he should have done better on, but he also did a lot of things right. His positioning was very good and he made some very good runs. He generally pressed their defence well and he wasn't afraid to shoot. He also made a few beautiful passes. I was really impressed at how well Danny and Moses worked together. He needs work, but he needs games to improve.