TorontoChelsea

Not fact. You reading into something. Check out the positioning of Chelsea against Arsenal. We had six players within about 10 feet of the centre-circle. It was obviously RDM's tactic to crowd the centre to force Arsenal up the wings. Arsenal played up the wings, not because Oscar was on Arteta, but because we simply had too many players there and they had more players than us on the wings. If you'll notice, when Oscar went off in the 73rd minute, Arsenal's attack didn't change at all. It wasn't any better when Mata was marking Arteta. They still came up the wings because that's where we gave them space. And why do you think that I would say he had a bad game against Juve? He didn't. He was great and he was great against Stoke as well. He was poor against Arsenal. Not all of us are pro and anti certain players no matter what. I don't watch games for confirmation bias like about 3/4 of people on here seem to.

I strongly disagree. Arteta was not in the game yesterday because Arsenal attacked via the wings. Their two players who had the most touches were Gibbs and Jenkinson. As they outnumbered us there, it was natural for them to attack us on the sides. Arsenal players had no problems moving around Oscar and even when he was subbed off, there was no change at all in Arteta's performance (where he was being marked, I assume by Mata). Oscar had a poor game. Again, nothing wrong with that, all players have poor games from time to time, but this is the sort of match where if it were Kalou or any player that's been at Chelsea for more than 2 years, the same people praising Oscar for his work rate would be saying "he loses the ball the time. he makes stupid fouls, work rate isn't important if you can't contribute offensively, he's useless, we need to buy this or that player."

45-55? Hmm...we won the FA Cup and the Champions League last year which means we played almost as many games as there can be and no outfield player started (which is really what you're saying, you want those players to start not to just play) more than 47 matches and that was Mata and it was too many and he wasn't able to play in any league games late in the year because he had to be rested. Now, it didn't matter because we weren't going to win the league anyway, but I don't want to risk a player being unable to play or being sup-par down the stretch in the league or in the CL semi-finals because you're scared of playing anybody but your favoured starting XI against a Norwegian team who doesn't have a single player that would make Chelsea's bench. Second of all, you need to rotate players in anyway. Teams don't have 11 starters and everyone else on the bench except in meaningless games. No team plays like that. Teams, even top teams, will have 15 players who play regularly. You have to keep players you want to be able to use in game form. Third of all, it's not as if a different starting XI would make us worse. Does replacing say Oscar, Torres, Mikel, and Luiz with Moses, Sturridge, Romeu, and Cahill make us a worse team? Not really. I'm not talking about playing Piazon or Turnbull and playing a League cup sort of lineup but if you aren't going to rotate at all, it's going to kill you later in the season,

You do realize that we have about another 55 games to go. Mata was exhausted late in the season last year and he hadn't even hit 50 games. You have to sit your starters for about 10-20 matches and if you can think of 10-20 better matches than this one to rotate some players in, I'm all ears. I'm not saying to treat it as a League Cup fixture, but there definitely needs to be some rotation.

What is this? Thoughtful analysis based on watching what actually happened in the match? That has no place here!

I'm not. He'd be perfect as a relatively cheap backup striker and he's a big target man so he offers something different. He's had 2 starts in the league for Arsenal away to Liverpool and Stoke and people are acting as if he's been bad for 5 years or something. There is such so much overreaction to tiny sample sizes.

Wow...off the post.

Sometimes, I love being a neutral. Fantastic game and I don't care about the result. If this were Chelsea, I'd be tearing my hair out.

He'll still play plenty. RDM is very tactical so I assume Ramires will play in games where he wants to clog up the middle of the pitch and Lampard in games where he wants to attack more. (In other words, I think Ramires will start mostly in games where we use the Mata/Hazard/Oscar front 3 and Lampard if we use wingers.)

That's giving credit where credit isn't due. Arteta was taken out of the game because Chelsea had 8 players in the middle of the pitch so Arsenal attacked via the wings where they outnumbered us 4-2 and that's where all their chances came from. Oscar was taken off in the 73rd minute and I suppose Arteta marked by Mata afterwards and he wasn't anymore influential.

It was definitely poor. He didn't create any chances, he fouled needlessly and he gave the ball away all the time. As well, defensively, he was hardly a standout. Arsenal players just stepped around him a number of times. It doesn't worry me, he's young and coming from a very different league and everyone has off games, but a bad game is a bad game.

Yeah, I haven't watched a lot of Cazorla, so can't say one way or another, but you're right about the "one game proves something" nonsense that is rife among fans. It's incredibly annoying.

Pretty much exactly how I felt after this game.

Difference between the keepers was huge today. Cech's reactions on the deflection were superb and their keeper let in a very soft goal.

Not our best performance, but we were solid and it was our biggest win. Top of the league!

Giroud miss!

That was out of nowhere. I'll take it.

Wow....

Very exciting first half. Torres and Hazard have been excellent. Predictable lack of width has been a problem. Would love to see Moses for Oscar who has been atrocious.

3 Things I am going to be interested in watching for. 1) Can our front 3 midfielders create width 2) Can Ramires pass well enough to move the ball in the midfield 3) Can our back 4 stay solid with all the speed, movement, and creativity in the Arsenal attack?

Very excited about the match. Should be great to watch.

My problem with Torres has never been missing great chances. Even top strikers miss those. My problem with him it threefold: 1) He isn't getting into the proper position to get those chances. He is found in wide spaces far too often. He doesn't attack the net looking for the ball so when crosses come in, there's often nobody there. 2) He isn't creating his own goals. A striker at the top level should be able to turn decent chances into great chances and sometimes turn a nothing-looking play into a goal.Torres seems to require the ball at his feet in front of goal to be able to score. Players like Mata, Drogba, Lampard,Sturridge, Oscar, etc...have all been able to score on well-taken shots from outside the box. When Torres gets the ball, even in a decent position to score, he often tries to cross the ball over or go around his opponent and turns what is a good scoring opportunity into a lost bit of possession. Maybe it's a confidence thing, but he seems to only want to shoot if he is alone in front of the goal (Newcastle goal not withstanding). 3) He's too predictable and hasn't adapted his game. He wants to get a through-ball in the middle of the pitch. When defenders take that away from him he seems lost. He doesn't have the speed he used to have so is unable to go around defenders but he still keeps trying and decent defenders just stay with him and force him out wide so he ends up on the sides of the pitch too often.. I think everyone can agree that the way Chelsea are set up right now, it'd be very difficult for any striker to have a lot of success, we aren't creating any space for the striker to run into, but Torres has been particularly awful. I do find it almost amusing that everyone has gotten on Torres this season when he's actually been generally OK after defending him last season when he was genuinely terrible.

Yes, it's amazing how a former player with hundreds of games at top levels in his career who is a professional coach with his UEFA Pro license who has been coaching for years, including winning the Champions League, who has access to video and statistics that we can't even imagine, who spends days studying them, who has special assistants to analyze them and break them down, he, he knows nothing compared to you oh wise RAMICFC9. It is clear that your knowledge and your analysis are simply the truth. (Seriously, this is my least favourite type of post on here. I sometimes don't like RDM's tactics, but to pretend that somehow we know more than him about anything to do with football, is not only arrogant, it's just dumb. Disagree, say what you'd like to see and why, it's fun to debate that sort of thing...When you win the Champions League as a coach, you can come back and be a dick about it.)

Exactly. Terry's version of the story was always virtually impossible to believe. People just don't speak like he claims to have spoken. He made an ill advised comment out of anger. I don't believe he's actually a racist. He should have apologised immediately and accepted the 4 game suspension and fine. From the moment this started, this outcome was inevitable and dragging it out hasn't done anyone any good.

Terry can appeal so I think he'll play and Lampard looks likely to be back for this one.