TorontoChelsea

I think we'll see a few changes for this one. Most players have played 2 games already this week and we play again on Tuesday, so a rest would be beneficial. Good opportunity to get some new faces in the lineup. If Sturridge is fit, I am pretty sure he'll start. Lampard should be rested. Cahill will almost certainly play . Might be a good match to rest Hazard as well (he's not going to play every single match). I can see a whole lot of rotation coming as the games are going to come fast and furious for a while. I'd expect that every one of our usual starting XI will sit out one of the next two matches (except Mata who has been rested recently). Will be interesting to see how RDM manages it.

This is exactly the problem with the expectations of Lampard. Somehow, he is supposed to function as a defensive midfielder covering for Mikel and the back four and also be helping to lead our attack and scoring and assisting on goals while also not making a lot of runs while also not being too static. Those are all criticisms I've seen of Lampard in the past few days. It's just madness. There isn't a player in the history of the game who could do that. They'd have to run like 50 miles a game at Olympic sprinter-like speeds without tiring. Lampard is not going to get a lot of assists or goals from play. The deep-lying midfielder just doesn't. Xabi Alonso gets about 5-6 assists most seasons and a couple of goals. Same with Modric. Same with Pirlo (except last season where he had 13 assists). The job of the deep-lying playmaker is to open up play with their vision and accurate passing. They are rarely the guy who makes the pass before the goal, though they are often the player who makes the pass right before that. They have to be able to make long passes and short passes in tight areas. They have to have defensive discipline while being able to make smart runs. They have to be the outlet for the defenders to start the transition to attack. Lampard's game today was excellent and if he plays like that all season, he will be a very good deep lying midfielder for us. People have to accept what the deep-lyiing midfield position is or they inevitably be disappointed by everyone who plays there. According to whoscored.com, Lampard had a 92% passing rate including 9 for 9 on long balls. He had the second most passes on the team (66 to 64 to Cole who had...ho hum, another great game).59 for 64 in passing especially for a non defender is simply incredible.

His runs worked well. He made fewer of them than usual and when he did make them, there was a reason, they opened up the attack and had Ramires spotted him, he would have had a goal on one of them. It may take him a little time to get back to 100%, but I thought he was clearly one Chelsea's best players today (Oscar, Hazard, Cole being the others and Mata for his brief spell as well.) It just bothers me how Lampard has become such a scapegoat that people can't even admit when he plays well. (It takes about 5 good games from Mikel for many people to admit he isn't awful although after his poor pass today, it will probably take another 10 good games.)

So, last game Lampard's form was worrying because he joins the attack too often and this game it was because of his lack of movement? Of course, the statistics say otherwise. Lampard ran 10846 metres in the game, that's more than any other Chelsea player. His movement today was excellent. He initiated a number of good attacks, he passed well, he linked up well with Oscar, Hazard, and later Mata,he timed his runs well, he defended well. He did exactly what he was supposed to do. He had a very bad game against QPR but he played very well today (especially considering that Chelsea were outnumbered in the central midfield).

This is exactly it. We were almost always out-numbered in the midfield 5-4 which inevitably meant that someone was unmarked . http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/ucl/2013/2009489_tl.pdf Our double pivot actually did quite well to limit Juve's chances despite being outnumbered Our advantage should have been to go wide and we tried it but our team is not really set up for that as Torres isn't a real target man and seems hesitant to get into the spaces he would need to get into to score and Ramires is not good at crossing to say the least. (His 33% passing rate today is just awful).

Probably the best defender in the world right now and so...old school in that intimidating defender sort of way.

Another thing we need to sort, is that someone needs to sit Luiz down and tell him that he's a defender. Today, Cole, Terry, and Ivanovic attempted a total of 12 long passes. Luiz attempted 17, most on the team. I'm sick of seeing Luiz bomb long passes towards Ramires or Torres and sick of seeing him run up the right side. It didn't cost us today, but it's extremely dangerous. We had some beautiful build-up play today and need to work on that. Luiz is great when he stays back and plays a simple game and terrible when he doesn't. RDM's biggest task might be figuring out how to use Mata. Hazard, and Oscar. All three really want to play the same position and play playmaker which is of course, not possible. Not sure why people are getting on Lampard (well, I know why they are but it's absurd). He played quite well today moving the ball quickly and opening up play. In fact, the double pivot worked well today except for Mikel making 3 or 4 terrible passes one of which cost us a goal.

Decent result. Didn't play poorly. Mikel had his worst game in a while. Torres needs to stay more centrally and stop drifting out so wide. Second goal by Oscar was as good as it gets.

Wow. First goal was a fluke, second goal was just brilliant.

Makes sense. Can't see any other reason why he wouldn't be on the bench at least. Hopefully, it's minor and he'll be available for Stoke.

No, he doesn't. He's played fewer games in the last 4 months than almost anybody else on the squad. Since the beginning of June, he's played in 10 matches. Torres has played in 15, Hazard has played in 14, Cole has played in 14, Lampard in 13, Ramires in 12, etc...It's nice that Mata has gotten a break, but people need to stop acting as if he's a geriatric patient. He's a 24 YO professional athlete .

Why is Sturridge not even on the bench? What if Torres is useless or gets hurt? We don't really need three defenders on the bench anyhow. Maybe Sturridge is ill.

Has to be a joke....well, it better be a joke but you really never know.

I was confused by that. It was not RDM who said that Hazard would start on the left wing though, rather the writer from Metro. Given that he said that Mata was injured rather than being rested, it's possible he just doesn't know what he's talking about. I'd be fine with that 4-3-3 as well but my worry is that Hazard and Mata both like to drift to the middle which would leave our wings very vulnerable.

Lampard, Osgood, Terry, Zola, Tambling. Of the players I've seen play, take out Osgood and Tambling and replace them with Cole and Drogba.

We have about 60 more games to go. He was playing at the Olympics so he didn't get a chance to train with the club. He should have plenty of opportunity to play this year and if he plays well, it will earn him a lot of time. This isn't a Lukaku scenario.

No it doesn't. In 2003-2004, Arsenal lost to Inter 3-0 at home in their first match in the CL. They didn't lose a single game in the Premier League. Losing to Juventus would mean just that. A loss to Juventus.

It's not the formation I would have chosen, but I also don't know what he knows. We're not at training. We aren't getting the game broken down for us repeatedly by experts. People here will say "We need to play this or that player". Maybe that player has been awful at training. Maybe they don't track back at all. Maybe they aren't clicking with their teammates at all. Maybe they don't understand their role. RDM is sometimes too conservative for my tastes but it's playing it safe rather than being a coward. I think he wants players to earn their playing time and his trust and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's a long season and I am sure as the season goes along, we will see a lot of changes.

Would prefer City to advance in the CL. Being out of Europe makes it easier to play in the league. Would love to see all the English teams advance a round.

I never said that Lampard doesn't have to help out defensively, just that his position is not about covering for Mikel. That's how the system works. Every single player has to help out defensively. . In Lampard's 3 games, we have outscored out opponents 6-2 but we need to drop him. He has not made a single run that has led to the other side scoring. This massive defensive problem that we have hasn't cost us a single goal but it needs to happen immediately. As for the 4-2-3-1, it is possible to play any way you want but nobody does actually play with two defensive midfielders for a reason. It's a horrible system that creates no ball movement.You are also calling Lampard a weak link after 3 poor matches? After a fabulous decade for us, in the middle of 2 straight man of the match performances for England suddenly Lampard is done because he's had a mediocre 3 matches in the league. It's a ridiculous over-reaction. And I'm sick of seeing the RDM has to be "brave" or "have balls" bullshit. He doesn't play the players you want because he doesn't think it's best for the team, not because he's a coward.

How many times has Lampard's leaving Mikel exposed cost us a goal? The answer is none. It's this ridiculous pretending like there is some massive emergency that needs to be rectified immediately when the problem you are complaining about hasn't cost us anything in Lampard's first three matches. Anyway, Lampard's job is not generally to provide cover for Mikel anymore than it's Hazard's job to provide cover for Lampard. (And I can't imagine you blaming Hazard when Lampard is outnumbered in the midfield). Mikel should rarely be exposed anyway as he should have two central defenders behind him most of the time (unless one of them is making a run or they are splitting wide).

For the millionth time, Lampard's position is not as a defensive midfielder. It's a deep-lying midfielder which is a playmaking positions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-lying_playmaker#Deep-lying_playmaker Also, how exactly has our problem been Lampard's runs? Again, in Lampard's starts, we've scored 6 goals and conceded two, neither which have been Lampard's fault. In yesterday's game, we didn't score a goal and what's the problem? Lampard leaving Mikel exposed? How often did that happen? This nonsense has just gotten out of hand.

I get your point and I think it's a legitimate concern, but I'd like to see our team evolve some before making any big moves. One of the major reasons we didn't have much possession against QPR was playing Ramires are Bertrand. Neither are really possession players. (Also, Torres, couldn't keep possession up front.) I think with Mata back in the starting XI and hopefully moving out left more (the biggest imbalance for me has been the attacking third, it hasn't been sorted out yet and unlike the deep-lying midfield, there are tons of options there), we will be able to keep the ball more. We did have 72% possession against Reading after all. With a lot of new players, RDM has some definite tinkering to do. I'd rather he do it at his own pace than be forced into some ridiculous panicky changes that so many on here seem to want.

The article at the beginning of this thread was terrible because it makes the same basic mistake in thinking that the double pivot is two defensive midfielders. It just isn't. Many teams play the 4-2-3-1 and the roles are almost always the same. One defensive midfielder, and one deep-lying playmaker. You can't play with two defensive midfielders because there's no bridge from the defence to the attack. Instead of freeing up the attackers to do more, what it actually does is require the attacking players to come further back up the pitch to receive the ball. So you have a team that has static movement and very limited creativity Also, I found the criticisms of Lampard kind of ridiculous. The biggest pproblem at Chelsea is that Lampard makes too many runs and that opens us up too much space? Chelsea have conceded 2 goals in the 3 games Lampard has started and neither of them were remotely caused by Lampard (One, brilliant header Cahill could have done better, one horrible error by Cech)? Why is something that has cost us zero goals this year suddenly the biggest problem with the team? (The criticism of him not being an ideal deep-lying midfielder is legitimate.) Also, the article is wrong about Lampard's positioning. It's not a debate. It's just factually wrong because we actual have Lampard's positioning data available. Look at Lampard's average position in his three starts and each game he averaged being right around midfield which is where he should be. He plays where Xabi Alonso plays and actually more defensively than Pirlo plays. He hasn't played well this season, but so much of the criticism of him is based on a lack of understanding of what his position is supposed to be and what he is responsible for.

Don't see why Athletico would do that. I am sure Chelsea's valuation of Torres will be higher than most teams would pay for him. If he struggles until January, how much is anyone going to pay for him? 15M? Van Persie just went for 24M and he's only year older than Torres and much better. Also, Torres us on what 170K/week? No way a team that is struggling to break even is going to pay that kind of wage.