TorontoChelsea

Well, in a way he's right. The theory of beating them is easy-we just have to score more goals than they do, it's the actual practical application that's difficult.

Would be shocked if this happens. You can't play with no width against Arsenal. They'd murder us down the flanks. Also, we'd have an impossible time keeping possession in the midfield. Ramires was fine in there against Stoke because there was no defensive pressure at all, he was allowed to just walk the ball up the field. Against Arsenal, you need to be able to pass and Ramires can't do that well enough. If Lampard is unable to go, I'd rather see Oscar there. Even though the deep-lying midfielder doesn't make the best use of all his abilities, he has the right skills to be able to impact the game from there. I think we'll see Ivanovic, Terry, Luiz, Cole, Mikel, Lampard, Ramires, Hazard, Mata. The attacking 3 is the most up in the air. How does RDM balance it? Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Ramires, Bertrand, and Moses could all start.

Should be on the top of every thread about a new arrival. "Too early to tell"

He really plays a different position so if he performs, he'll play. He gives Chelsea real width which is one of out biggest issues. He's barely played, but I like the way he looks so far.

I think it would be a mistake to spend massively on another striker right now. Torres has been playing poorly for 1.5 years, but his lack of scoring is not entirely his fault. If we spent another 40M on a striker and put them in a situation where it would be difficult to succeed, we'd be setting ourselves up for another failure.

Walcott has been used as a sub this season with Oxlade-Chamberlin starting and when Walcott has come on, it's been in a more central position than in the past.. This is one of the things that make Arsenal dangerous. They have incredible flexibility in their squad. Their midfield and attackers can all play multiple positions, so Podolski might start on the left end up behind the striker and Gervinho might move into the striker position and Cazorla might move to the left, and Ramsey might move from the centre to the right attacking midfield spot etc...I am sure it makes it harder to get a gameplan for the coaches.

I get it and Arsenal's speed is worrisome, but I worry as much about Luiz wandering as I do Terry being slow. If Luiz makes those runs he likes to, Arsenal will exploit that space. They are not Stoke. Honestly, I think any combination of our defense is vulnerable but also capable of excellent play. Also, don't think both Bertrand and Ramires will start. I think, as I mentioned earlier, it will be Ramires as Brana needs the cover more than Cole. If RDM really wants to play for a 0-0 draw, then he really should just take Torres out and play with no strikers.

Really looking forward to this game. Will be our first tough league game of the season.Arsenal has used a variety of different lineups this season but they have been very disciplined and well coached so far and have a a lot of quality players. Interested to see what RDM does and think he may revert to a more defensive, counter-attacking scheme for this one and it'd be hard to blame him. No matter what we do, Arsenal have weapons. If we play like we did against Stoke, we solidify the middle of the park defensively but leave the wings wide open and the likes of Podoslki, Oxlade-Chamberlin, Walcott, Jenkinson, and Gibbs (and others) could destroy us there. If we try to protect the flanks, Arsenal can pick apart the middle of the park with Cazorla, Arteta, Ramsey, and Gervinho (or Giroud or others). My best guess is that we'll see a return to the formations we saw earlier in the season with one of Ramires or Bertrand being played on the wing to provide defensive cover (Probably Ramires to help with Gibbs and Podolski as Ivanovic needs the help more than Cole) and one of Hazard, Oscar, or Mata sitting to start the game. Would be very happy with a point.

You're kidding me. We beat a Championship side that was resting all it's players and you're trying to draw massive conclusions from it. You can't. You can't even draw many serious conclusions from a handful of games against normal opponents.

Why do you say that? He plays #10 with Brazil, not in the central midfield. I've never seen him play central midfield so have no idea what he does there. Anyway, we don't play with a midfield 3. We play 4-2-3-1 so the unless we change formations, the choices are for him to either play somewhere in the attacking 3 or as the deep-lying midfielder. I prefer him in the attacking 3 as I think it's a better use of his skills.

Maybe, but I think you take away a lot of his best skills if you put him there. He certainly has the ability to play in central midfield, but he's not going to get into shooting areas often or be able to directly set-up attacks from central midfield.

1) Lampard did not act like a massive twat. It's nice that you buy into the anti-Chelsea media though. 2) Saying Lampard is not creative is just stupid. He was statistically the 7th most creative player in the entire Premier league last season. I don't ignore Lampard's defensive duties at all. He has them. What you and other have consistently ignored is that a lot of the pressure on the midfield often comes from the attacking players not properly doing their jobs. People look at the Juventus game and say "the central midfield was overrun" but it was overrun because it was outnumbered all the time. You just want to pin all the blame on Lampard (and maybe Mikel) and it's ridiculous. The issues have been mentioned again and again because even before the pre-season people decided that the double-pivot was the problem (because we didn't buy anyone new to play there and don't have a 21-year old in the spot) and they watched the games to confirm that. It isn't perfect at all, but it isn't nearly the big problem people want to pretend it is. People like you just turn to the same "double-pivot" problem that doesn't exist every time. We don't score? Well, it's because Lampard doesn't move the ball quickly enough. We do score? Nothing to do with Lampard of course. We concede a goal? The double-pivot is at fault? We don't concede a goal? Nothing to do with the double-pivot. See how easy it is?

First of all, he was upset at being dropped by AVB, but so what? What do you want? Him to say "oh yes, I'm happy to be benched"? You want your players to be upset when they don't play. And second of all, he deserved to play. Lampard was one of our best players overall last season and he was being dropped for players who were much worse than he was. AVB was not fired because of Lampard, he was fired because Chelsea were losing. If Chelsea win, any coach can do what they want. Second of all, you are flatly wrong. You simply cannot have a regista without creativity. It is the most important feature of the position. The entire set-up will not work otherwise. Discipline is important at every position but pretending that Lampard is some completely undisciplined player who attacks all the time and doesn't track back is just not true. In fact, our discipline in the attacking midfield (and Ivanovic so far this season) is much worse. You can look at this average position in the game and it is exactly where it should be. People just have this idea that his positioning is terrible and then look for his runs to criticize them. look at our goal versus Stoke. http://www.carefreec...pl-h-12-13.html Notice Lampard perfectly positioned defensively, then rushes up to join the play, is perfectly positioned to switch the play over and does so and Chelsea score. Nobody gave any credit to Lampard for that but that's exactly what his job is. Lampard is just getting ridiculous levels of criticism that are just not true. As I said, he's not the ideal player for the regista position, but he is easily the best choice on the squad for it. RDM plays him there because he is aware of that not because he's scared of him.

None of the players you mentioned are good fits for the regista portion of the double pivot. The attributes most needed by that position are: passing, vision, and creativity, the other players just don't work there. They are all defensive players with limited creativity. Lampard is simply our best choice for the creative midfield spot right now even though he's not ideal for that position himself. The idea that we are playing a formation solely to please Lampard or that RDM is only playing Lampard because he's afraid is absurd.

Nice win but as we were playing against what was essentially a league one side (they played fewer of their regulars than we did), it was to be expected. Happy we move on as every round means more games for some of our players who don't get to play very often. Now, on to the first huge test of the season in Arsenal. Really looking forward to that match.

The vast vast vast majority of players don't go to teams because of loyalty. If City had offered Hazard more money and guaranteed playing time, he would have gone there. It doesn't bother me in the least. That's the way every job in the world works. I think supporters have these expectations that players are like them, but they aren't. They want to make the most money and play in the best situation possible.

I don't think it would work like that. I assume they would have regions for the groups. Like Group A would be played in Britain, Group B in Spain, Group C in Germany, Group D in Turkey etc...so if you wanted to watch your country, you could safely go see the first round in one location. Then, you'd have the quarter-finals in maybe two different locations (close to where those groups were based, say the groups that were based in England and Spain would have their quarterfinals in France), the semi-finals and the finals in the "host country". I think it would be more expensive to see all the games, but less expensive for those fans who wanted to go to one or two games (since no matter what, there would always be games near you.) The travel would not be extensive as the only time it would be needed is in between rounds where there is a few days break anyway (no different than playing at home on Saturday and flying to the continent for a CL game mid-week,.) The biggest benefit to me is that countries that would have no shot of ever hosting a tournament could still host games which would be a huge deal. (Countries like Latvia, Cyprus, Estonia, etc...) Also, the games would actually be cheaper to put on overall and save a lot of money for host countries. Poland had to build four new stadiums for the Euros, which, was a massive waste of money. Poland and Ukraine spent a total of $40 billion, most of it being public money. Countries that don't have the infrastructure to host and entire tournament don't have to spend $40 Billion for stadiums and infrastructure they really only need for a few weeks, once They can use their existing national stadium or at most build one stadium. I'm not saying that I'm for it, but there are some benefits. I'd rather this than the added teams to the tournament (which is already happening unfortunately.) .

Absolutely. People love to write about Lampard's decline as if he was a great player five years ago or something. Last season plenty of fans ripped on Lampard when he had a few bad games but... OPTA stats had him as the 7th most creative player in the Premier league and the 19th most valuable overall. EA Sports PPI had Lampard as the 21st best player in the Premier League (and third most valuable on Chelsea.) So, last season, Lampard was still one of the best players in the Premier League, integral to of our success in both the attack and in defending, captained us to the CL victory, switched positions without complaint, and because of a few mediocre matches after missing the summer due to injury, people are writing him off. No, he's not ideal for the double pivot, but he very likely has a lot left to give to Chelsea.

I have many of the same feelings about Torres as you. I never like judging a player after only a handful of games. Every player has good streaks and bad streaks so it's possible those games were just one of those. I supported him through the his first awful half a season with us without reservation. Early last season, I still supported him fully, as he was still having the occasional moment of brilliance (first half ManU). Even as the season progressed, I kept thinking he was bound to come good, but was already starting to get annoyed at the absurd lengths his defenders would go to justify his incompetence. By January when his play had reached historic awfulness, I just gave up.

Interesting possible change to the Euros. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/sep/24/wembley-euro-2020-uefa-final The continent is not really that large, so I can really see this. Not sure how I feel about it.

And he wants to change things. It's something I've never got. If I had like a billion dollars, sure, I'd buy my houses and live a very comfortable life, but I'd also really want to make a difference. You look at a lot of super rich people and they are really big into philanthropy. There was the "giving pledge" where the super rich pledged to give away at least half their fortune. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge. It's not only the moral thing to do, it makes sense. You literally don't need that money. It's impossible to spend it all. On the other hand, you have people like the Waltons (owners of Walmart) who are worth $93 billion and interested only in ensuring that their employees never earn a livable wage. Great piece here http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-13/wal-mart-heiress-s-museum-a-moral-blight-commentary-by-jeffrey-goldberg.html. Even worse are the Koch brothers. Their companies have ANNUAL revenues of $100 billion. How do they spend their money? Giving it to reactionary politicians who want to crush unions and lower taxes so that the Kochs' can keep every dollar they can get their hands on. It's the height of immorality. You have everything and most people have nothing and it's still not good enough for you.

It's not just the UK. http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/ . The worst of it, is that a lot of it is legal or semi-legal. There are all sorts of loopholes and deductions that the rich have (not to mention the better accountants they can afford). The US is even worse. Mitt Romney who makes millions of dollars a year from doing nothing, pays about 14% tax. That's just insanity.

Wouldn't want Mourinho back. He was the right coach for a specific time and team. For the team Roman wants to build, he's not really a good fit. Mourinho loves defensive discipline and explosive counter-attacks. That is simply not the team we are building.

Yeah, but this is not a thread about favourite players, it's a thread about best, and you picked a player who has played 35 league games of varying quality. If you made a real list of top-Blues of all time, he wouldn't make the top-100 at this point.

Yeah, but you know it doesn't matter. Mikel will have 10 very good games then have a bad game and we'll get the "see, he's horrible we need ....instead".