TorontoChelsea

That;s not remotely it. If this were all about Lampard, RDM could easily switch to a 4-3-3 with Mikel, Ramires, and Lampard in the midfield and Hazard and Mata on the wings. He doesn't because he wants Hazard and Mata running things from the #10 spot.This is about RDM thinking that the 4-2-3-1 is the best formation for Chelsea and the team literally having no other options for the deep lying midfielder. That position requires creativity, vision, and long passing ability. Romeu and Ramires would be awful for that position. They have basically the opposite abilities for what is required from that position. This is a problem caused by Chelsea spending 80M pounds on three players who all want to be/should be playing right behind the striker. Because the squad is so imbalanced, RDM has limited options. This is also because Lampard played very well last season and for the past decade, has been man of the match two games in a row for England, so three mediocre to poor performances in the league doesn't make decent managers panic. It's amazing that so many Chelsea supporters have bought the media conspiracy theories of last season. AVB was not fired because of Lampard and Terry being pissed off, He was fired because his ideas didn't work. He was fired because he couldn't communicate to his players. But most of all, he was fired because Chelsea were losing. Lampard is not playing because of some conspiracy, he's playing because RDM thinks he's the best man he's got for that role.

I think we'll see the regular starting XI. Changes likely to be made for Stoke which makes sense. Kind of silly to give someone their first start in the CL against Juventus. It's clear that RDM likes people to prove themselves to some degree before giving them major responsibility and I think the positive outings from Sturridge and Moses, however brief, will at least let RDM feel more comfortable about using them more.

Not just harsh but ridiculous. RDM is going to be judged on what happens over the course of this season. Not by one match in September.

What? We dropped two points in four games, we have kept three clean sheets, it's obvious we need to make earth-shattering changes. Every time we don't win, we should discuss why RDM needs to go. Every time we don't win 5-0, we need to make big changes. Here's my starting lineup for the Juventus game: Cech, Cesar, Hutchinson,Luiz, Bertrand, Romeu, Oscar, Mata, Hazard, KDB (recall him from loan), Hulk (kidnap him and use him at striker.)

Part of that is Cole is the best 1 on 1 defending LB in the world and Ivanovic is not near that level. Ramires didn't have a good match, but he wasn't nearly as awful as people make him out to be but then again, he never is Look at the game thread, 10 minutes into the match with Ramires creating the best chance of the game and people are writing "take Ramires off" and "he's useless". If it were Oscar who had played that 10 minutes, the same people would have written "that cross to Hazard shows his quality, and he has great pace, he deserves to be starting." It's almost as if the game itself doesn''t matter because no matter what, people will say the players they liked played well and the players they didn't were awful. The reason we didn't win against QPR is that Hazard and Luiz missed 3 glorious opportunities to score and we didn't get a deserved penalty (or two). We really only conceded one very good chance (when Terry cleared the ball away from the empty net, although to be fair Cole was right behind him if it got through).

That's not what is happening at all. I have no idea why people think that the double pivot is two defensive midfielders nor do I have any idea why people think speed is crucial for a deep-lying midfielder. I think there is just a narrative that has taken hold that cannot be shaken. Possible the three best deep-lying midfielders in football today are Pirlo, Iniesta, and Xabi Alonso. None of them are particularly fast (in fact, I would say "slow" would be applicable to Alonso at least). None of them are defensive midfielders. They are distributors and they also know how to get forward to join the attack. The deep-lying midfielder position is a creative, distributive one with some defensive responsibilities. Speed is simply not crucial for the role. Lampard's problem has been that his passing so far has been sub-standard and he's probably making one or two too many runs a game. Maybe it's that he's lost something but it could also be a bad few games to start the season. Players do have bad stretches. The reason we have been playing Ramires on the right is that neither Hazard or Mata track back enough (and Ivanovic needs some protection as he's been caught out of position often so far this season.) It's clear that no matter what Lampard is going to get blamed for everything (and this is a trend that went back to last year after he had a few bad games then.) If we give up goals, it's because of Lampard in the double pivot. If we don't score, it's because of Lampard in the double pivot. (And if we do keep a clean sheet or score, it has nothing to do with Lampard.) People just have the same ideas for what's wrong with Chelsea and they watching games to confirm these opinions. It's really the same with Ramires. He's not ideal for the right attacking midfield, but because people hate him there, they don't see any good that he does and exaggerate how bad he is there. Nobody seems to have mentioned Ramires' pass to Hazard that he should have scored on. Nobody mentions Lampard's beautiful through-ball to Bertrand that he should have done better with. If it doesn't fit with the narrative, just ignore it. With Ramires, we do have other options to play on the right. With Lampard, we don't have any other options. He's not ideal for the deep-lying midfield positions, but we literally have nobody else right now to fill that spot. Perhaps Oscar will develop into that spot, but he has a lot of adapting still to go.

I'm getting tired of this discussion but I just don't get this POV. Torres hasn't had great service with Chelsea but if a striker needs to get the ball at his feet in front of net to score, he's not very good. Many many players can score if you give them excellent service. What makes a top striker is the ability to put those chances away, the ability to get himself into great positions to get those easy chances,and also to create their own chances. Torres has been poor at all three aspects.

1) It's not the formation I would have chosen, but no manager ever picks the exact starting XI I want. I don't care if you disagree with it, I do too, it's the overreaction, the "RDM is an idiot" or "Should RDM keep his job?" just because he put up too defensive a formation one game. There are also things that we are not privy to. Maybe Moses didn't track back at all in training. Maybe Oscar keeps getting physically pushed around in training. It's the armchair general view of things. You will never have to field your starting XI so you are immune to criticism so your theoretical starting XI is always perfect and since no real starting XI is ever perfect, yours is always better. (And I am using "your" in a general sense". 2) That's not any different to me. Dropping someone after 2 bad games after months or years of solid play is ridiculous as well. If managers did that, nobody would ever play for them. The idea that the team top of the table is going to make massive personnel changes because of one away draw in a derby is absurd. We are likely to make changes for next game simply because we are playing 3 games this week.

I agree with Zolayes, you are hardly the problem. It's the people on the match day thread who do the "take so and so off" after 10 minutes because he made two bad passes. It's the "so and so is crap" because they had a bad game. It's the "fire the coach" when you're on top of the table. Look, I have said many times before that my main worry with RDM is that he seems too conservative which means that he's slow to make changes both between matches and in-game. There is a lot of room for legitimate and reasoned criticism and analysis which you do quite well. (I very much like your game analyses) Nobody is saying that you have to love everything RDM does or think that every player is great, I just would love to see reasoned discussion take the place of insane over-reaction. Right now, the latter dominates.

Exactly. Some people expect us to win every match against a decent side 3-0 and 7-0 against poorer sides. Going into the season, a realistic expectation was (still is) 3rd place. Last year's 3rd place team Arsenal lost 10 matches and drew 7, winning 55% of their matches. There are just so many ridiculous expectations. 1) That RDM is going to use tactics that you want and the players you want. No manager will ever do that. They also know things we do not. 2) The RDM will drop a player after one bad game or one bad match or even a couple of bad plays. The truth is, every single player has poor periods and some need to play out of them. 3) That Chelsea will play well and win every single game. (Just absurd). 4) That not only will they win every single game, but they will look great doing it. Fluid passing, excellent finishing, dominating possession. 5) That the players you want to play well will play well every single game and the players you want to see replaced will play poorly every single game. The levels of confirmation bias are just insane. We're top of the league and people are freaking out. Honestly, stuff like this puts me off of this board.

Nice to see him FINALLY get a few minutes as a striker. Should probably start against Stoke. We need to give him a chance to show what he can do and he's played well in pretty much every match he's played this season (with us and with England).

I thought the opposite. He made a few very good key plays late, but overall, his positioning was atrocious. He was upfield way too often, drifted off to the right too far and kept trying to bomb the ball forward instead of playing the simple pass. You don't notice it as much when the other team doesn't score, but he needs to stay back and play simple, short passes instead of being caught upfield. He played like a defender late in the game (perhaps because Terry was hurt and Luiz knew he had to cover some for him) and was great in the last 30 minutes, but he needs to simplify his game.

Before people overreact too much (and I guarantee that's going to happen, actual match threads are almost unbearable due to the insane overreactions), 1 point away in a derby is not a terrible result. We didn't play terribly either. If Hazard hits one of those sitters or we get one penalty, we get three points. We had many more great opportunities to score than QPR. That said RDM is very conservative and our starting XI was incredibly defensive but RDM seems hesitant to make any changes. The changes he made were the right ones, he just made them too late. Pissed off at Torres for storming off. That's not the way you play the game. He had a poor match and deserved to be subbed off. It's the first time in four games. Does he think he's going to play 90 minutes every single match?

And Torres went straight down the tunnel.

Sturridge coming on it looks like. Hopefully for Torres.

Moses for Bertrand. Good change.

Not nearly as bad a half as people are making it out to be. QPR had no real chances, Hazard should have scored (set up by Ramires), probably should have had a penalty as well, and Torres had a great chance.

Bertrand could have seen red there. Silly challenge.

RDM is so conservative In his unwillingness to make changes. I fully expect us to win anyhow, but at some point, other players are going to have to play their part.

This would be just to pick up somebody else we like and then we'd loan him elsewhere. Olivera isn't even ready for regular action in Portugal. He scored 0 goals last season. Nothing to do with Falcao or Cavani who would be bought as #1 strikers.

Not one of those players would be playing regularly, if at all, for Chelsea. None of them is remotely close to being a star. We have hundreds of youth players that come and go, we really have two choices. 1) Keep every single one until they are 35 which means having about 20 youth teams and spending millions of pounds on players who will never become anything. 2) Use our best judgement and let most of them move on. This means that inevitably, a few will develop into decent players.

Is there any other kind of power? Congrats you two. Although Choulo, your profile no longer says "Member of the month" so you have to add that to your signature or something just to keep reminding us.

Great to see. Loved him when he was with us. Scored a goal every 3 games despite playing largely as a substitute.

If he can't pass well enough to play as an attacking midfielder, there's no way he can pass well enough to play as the deep-lying midfielder. That's a position that require the skills that Ramires doesn't have and doesn't use the skills that he does. Really, he just doesn't fit into this system which is a shame.

He did often drift to the centre last year, but he also played LW with Valencia and he is perfectly capable of playing that position. I'm not attacking him because he's one of our best players and his instructions probably come from RDM anyway, but he really needs to move wide for us to have prolonged success. Right now, his positioning is overlapping areas that Hazard and Lampard are supposed to be in and not being on the left side leaves a massive hole. It imbalances the entire side both in attack and defending. About Ramires. I agree that he is more suited for the counter-attack style, but the position in this system is not as a true winger. It's an attacking midfielder on the right side. Again, he's not really suited for that position either, but there's really nowhere else to play him in the 4-2-3-1 if RDM wants him in the lineup.