TorontoChelsea

I agree. I think he just offers a different dimension. What the other three lack (physicality and width) he brings. I can see a 4 man rotation for those three spots.

Amazing win. We were obviously a better class, but we played much of the game with most of our starters so should have won. I think we'll need to sit some players on Saturday. Worried about lack of depth on our squad. Still not sure why we sold Meireles. Romeu was terrible. Sturridge was this mix of tremendous and awful. He kept getting himself into great positions, he set up Moses a few times with great passes, but he still made some baffling decisions and seemed nervous at the outset. Still, you can't start someone once a year and judge their abilities on that one performance. Awareness comes with playing time. Moses was our best player in the first half and I thought this was Oscar's best game in a while too.. Our attack in the second half of the match was just fantastic. Luiz is having a really poor patch.

And Ramires kisses the badge,What quality from Hazard!

And then Sturridge makes a fantastic pass to Moses...that's the thing about Danny. He can pass. He just needs more awareness.

Sturridge! He missed a bunch of chances, but he kept getting into good areas and finally, he scored.

Really really didn't want extra time. This means no break for Oscar or Hazard and a game and a third for Mata. We really need more depth.

Wow.This is seriously one of the most exciting games I've seen in a while. Extra time!

Third. Spurs, Manu, Manu. Will be nice to get him back. Terry is a general at the back and we do need that sometimes.

We still could easily win this game. Two bad mistakes led to two goals. We are having problems in our double pivot which were entirely foreseeable. Neither Mikel or Romeu get forward enough or can link up play well enough. I don't think Ramires is even good enough at ball distribution, but at least he gets forward. What is happening is Mata is having to drop too deep to collect the ball which leaves Moses and Sturridge up front alone against 4 defenders (because Piazon has been invisible). I wouldn't make any changes yet, but if things stay the same, I'd bring on Ramires for Romeu at the 60th minute or so. Romeu has been having a shocker of a game. As I said earlier, I love the extra dimension Moses brings to the side. Just gives us so many other options offensively and tightens us up defensively as well.

I love what Moses brings to the side. The natural width which spread the defense and allows the RB to stay deeper, the crosses into the box. It just gives our team a different dimension. Hope he starts to get into some games in the league. (Which would also allow us to rotate and rest Mata, Oscar, and Hazard.)

The good news is that Moses and Sturridge have hooked up twice with beautiful passes to create opportunities.

Sounds like a great atmosphere at the bridge. Constant singing.

You're right. My mistake. I mis-remembered.

I thought Mata was the one who was definitely going to sit since 1) he's our most important player 2) He, unlike Oscar or Hazard played 90 minutes on Sunday. I think this means Mata rests on Saturday because to have him play Saturday and Wednesday would be 4 games in 10 days and we need to beat Shakhtar.

It won't happen because it doesn't exist. Clattenburg last year sent of Evans against City in the match City won 6-1. If Clattenburg wanted ManU to win, he would have just sent off Torres for his tackle and given a penalty for Luiz's hand-ball. Both decisions would have been reasonable and ManU would have won. As for the last time United finished with the most goals scored and the fewest goals conceded? That was 2007-2008 and before last season, it was the last time any team did it. This are Manu's rankings in goals scored/conceded over the past five years. 11/12-2nd/2nd 10/11-1st/3rd 09/10-2nd/1st 08/0902nd/ 1st 07/08-1st/1st Yeah, just awful. They're a very good team with incredible attacking depth and Ferguson is a very good coach. The referee made an awful call. That doesn't mean there is some massive conspiracy. @bluesmaster-tell that to Germany!

A question to those of you from Football-first nations. In the U.S, baseball was the number 1 sport for almost a century. Because of this, English on this continent has adopted many words from baseball. "ballpark estimate", "Struck out", "Ill take a rain check", "I got to third base last night," it was out of left field", "He got a bad charlie horse", " The figure is in the ballpark", "that was bush league", "time to step up to the plate", "I covered my bases", "let's touch base", "she's out of your league", he got thrown a curve", "not ready for the majors", and many many more....What words or idioms have derived from football?

The "Sell him, he's a waste of money" posts are always an absurd overreaction that doesn't understand the nature of the sport. 1) The vast majority of players go through ups and downs. How many people were saying "sell Cech, sell Lampard, sell Cole, sell Drogba, etc.." after their relatively poor starts last year? Having a bad few games doesn't mean your a bad player.. 2) Football is a team game. Take Ivanovic. If Chelsea had more width, he'd be able to stay back more and inevitably be in better defensive positions. So, yes, his poor defensive positioning is somewhat his fault, but it's also down to the system we play. Luiz is frustrating because he fails when he he either seems to zone out and make some basic mistake or when he tries to do too much.He needs to stop those long balls up the field. He needs to stay in better positions. Like in acting or in sex, sometimes doing less is gets better results.

Doesn't look like it will be on TV here which sucks.I mostly want us to win because this competition is a good place to get some of our younger players some game time.

I think if Chelsea do buy a striker in January, we'll go for someone like Remy and even though I don't think he's a world-class striker, I think it's still the best option. Winter is a bad time to buy players in general, and I think the last thing Chelsea need is to spend enormous amounts of money on a big name striker who doesn't fit into a system we play. Especially when we are top of the league as is. I think RDM has to develop our team some more and Chelsea can re-evaluate team needs and which players would best fit our squad after the season.

Lot of good posters but I'll go with Kezza this month because he's a really good poster who has had a tough month and deserves something good.(Also, always like SeB but he doesn't post enough!!, Spike, Zolayes, joker10, are a few of my non-moderator favourites) Just also wanted to mention that I was looking in another Chelsea forum last week and I couldn't believe how top-down it was. There are narratives that are accepted and if anybody ventures to believe anything else, they get swarmed.I saw someone post a valid perspective that disagreed with the mainstream of the board and within 2 minutes, he was attacked by about half a dozen different posters. The effect is a board that is completely devoid of any interesting discussion or any variety of perspective. It's just the same 20 people posting variations on the same narrative. It made me appreciate this site even more. I think it's fair to say that I probably don't share the exact same opinions on players as any other poster, but the discussions with posters I disagree with (if their opinions are reasonable and put forth in a reasonable and respectful manner) are some of the best discussions. There are posters that I almost never agree with but still enjoy reading and enjoy responding to because their perspective is different. This is, far and away, the best Chelsea forum on the net.

Mata was not a big part in the CL win last season. He played quite poorly after the group stage. Also, "playing a part" in Spain winning the Euros is giving Mata too much credit. He came on in the 86th minute of the last game and scored a meaningless goal. I think Cech has a good case for inclusion and Drogba being on the list is nice. Two other points I want to make: 1) I wish people would stop saying things are jokes just because they don't agree with them. This list is different from the list I've had, but it's not a complete joke. Every player on the list is terrific. 2) The FIFA lists are always biased towards Barca and Real Madrid. 10 of the 23 shortlisted players play on those two teams (neither of whom made the final of the Champions League). I'm not sure if it's a bias or just laziness, but it seems like it's always like that.

We were robbed by the ref not by the ManU players. I don't see how playing dirty against them will do anything except get our players fined and suspended.

He's actually one of the best pundits around. Also, I'll forever love his orgasm call of Torres' goal in Barcelona.

It's different with a keeper. Most keepers will make fantastic saves. The natural reaction when seeing a fantastic save is "he's a great keeper" (which of course, any keeper playing at a top level is) but the real question is, is that a save that other top keepers would have made and it's very difficult to know. The difference between keepers is harder to tell than at most positions. (I'd say that in general, defensive positions are harder to evaluate than offensive ones).

I think it's a matter of there being very little difference between top keepers. Cech has been fantastic for us but in all honesty, I think we would have won everything we won under Mourinho with Cudicini in goal because he was also an excellent keeper. There are just more top keepers than there are top teams. You look at someone like Lloris. If he were a striker with his pedigree, he'd have cost about 35-40M pounds. Instead, he went for 10M Euros. (And it's amazing to me that Arsenal haven't been able to find a top keeper since Seaman). I also think you can win with less than elite keepers. I've never thought Valdes was a particularly great goalie yet Barcelona have been the best team in the world over the past five years or so.