TorontoChelsea

I was one of the people who liked the Moses signing, but don't you think that 60 minutes over two games as a sub is a little early to be judging whether it was a good signing or not? I think it will likely be, but let's wait at least a couple of months to see. Shevchenko scored 2 goals in his first 3 games and he turned out to be one of the biggest flops ever. There just seems to be this knee-jerk pendulum that when someone looks good in a game, they are fantastic players and when they play poorly, they are worthless.

I saw the ball boy pumping his fist. It was tremendous. I don't understand what people are saying when they talk about attacking dominance. We had 60% of the possession and a lot of it inside Stoke's half, but it was mostly empty possession where we passed the ball around the midfield. What was our second best chance to score? Torres chesting a ball down perfectly (which he did) and turning and firing (which he didn't do)? Oscar shooting wide from outside the box? Most of our shots came from long and never troubled the keeper. We really created one good scoring opportunity against what is a very weak team away from home (The 4th worst away team last season, the 3rd worst away team two years ago). We played well in spots and we won which is really what matters, so I'm always happy about that, but count me as someone who doesn't understand the extreme enthusiasm for the way we played. .

Are you saying out attacking players are too far from each other? To me, the problem is the exact opposite. There were times today where we had 5 players standing within a few yards of each other. None of the attacking midfield 3 seemed to want to go wide to create space.

And he also has to watch his fouls. He has a fantastic first touch.

No, he isn't. He's awful there. He's very good defensively, but he can't make outlet passes at all so Oscar and Mata had to drop way back to pick up the ball. He can't hit long balls, he doesn't have vision to create openings. I''m not saying that I would necessarily have started with a different lineup, just this "oh my god, our lineup was so amazing" stuff is absurd. There were very serious issues which it created that you are pretending don't exist. And being one tackle away from scoring a goal is like being one bullet away from winning at Russian Roulette.

The best we played all year? We barely squeaked a 1-0 win at home against Stoke and we barely even created any good chances. We've played 5 matches in the Premier League and this was our 2nd worst result. The conformation bias here is ridiculous.

Teams don't stay narrow no matter what. If you have a winger, it's not like teams are going to just let them get the ball and pass into the box without marking them. Creating width is about spreading the defence and creating lanes for your players to be able to get through. You need width in every single match, no matter who you are playing. It's about creating space. I'm not criticizing RDM, because he has to rest players and he was probably curious to see what the Hazard, Oscar, and Mata looked like together (and he took off Hazard when he needed to), but the result was not unpredictable. Ramires simply can't make outlet passes because he's not a good enough passer and we were not able to create any space because we were completely bunched into a small area. Where was he supposed to make his runs?

Basically I was watching a game without thinking, "this is the starting XI I want so it's going to be great". We had the majority of possession but we barely threatened goal. We had 4 shots on target. Yes, we prevented Stoke from scoring, but Stoke is probably the worst offensive away team in the Premier league. (11 goals in 19 games last season) and they could easily have scored a couple of goals. This side was actually our least balanced all season. We played with three #10s and 2 defensive midfielders, we had nobody to switch play, no creativity from midfield and nobody going wide. It wasn't until Moses came on, that we were able to open up the game. Before that, we were having all this possession that went nowhere that ended up with us taking long-distance shots. I would be very surprised if we see this formation again anytime soon.

What are you talking about? Stoke had come great chances. Until we scored, they actually had better chances than we did. They hit the bar for crying out loud. Have a look at the average position of our players http://espnfc.com/us/en/gamecast/345799/gamecast.html?soccernet=true&cc=5901 Creating width is not just about being able to cross for headers, it's also about creating space for players to run into and our spacing was just atrocious.We were way too easy to defend against. We completely lacked balance (no width, no central midfield creativity.) Torres actually played decently today. He maybe should have done better on the ball from Mata, but it took a great first touch to even get the ball under control.

Unsurprising problems based on the starting XI. We were way to narrow, Mata, Oscar, Hazard, and Torres basically all played in the same spot which made us very easy to defend against. This made us rely on Cole and Ivanovic to give us width. After Moses came on, our spacing was much better.

] Lampard and Mikel are not meant to do that. Lampard's position is not a defensive one. It's the deep-lying midfielder which is actually geared more significantly more towards attack than defence. It's not absolutely necessary to have a defensive aware player in the attacking midfield, but many teams do have that and RDM certainly likes it (the reason he used Kalou last year and Bertrand and Ramires this year). Even if you decide not to use a defensively able player there, you at least need shape. All three are #10s right now and that's where they want to play and how they want to play. It is possible to change that in training, but it might not happen right away. .

They didn't play that at all. Aguero was used as a striker.. Here are two different samples from games they played last year. http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/04/09/arsenal-1-0-manchester-city-city-lose-the-midfield-battle-and-probably-the-title/ and http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/05/01/manchester-city-1-0-manchester-united-kompany-tactics/ In the first, they are sort of playing a 4-2-3-1 with Milner, Nasri, and Balotelli. In the second, they play the 4-2-2-1-1 that they often played last year with Tevez behind Aguero and Nasri and Silva giving width. In that formation, Toure and Barry provide the defensive balance. This year, what they seem to be doing is actually moving Ya Ya Toure a little forward and using Javy Garcia, Rodwell, and Barry to rotate in and cover their defensive midfield

No, real football is actually different than playing FIFA12. You can't just put on the players you like and say "go, play", there has to be some balance in the side and player roles. An attacking midfield of Hazard, Oscar, and Mata is too offensively minded, doesn't provide enough width, and all three want to quarterback the attack. It doesn't mean that they aren't all incredibly talented, just that right now, playing them altogether would be imbalanced.There is a reason RDM has been playing Ramires or Bertrand in games even if they are out of position and that's because they provide defensive cover and track back, don't need to touch the ball very often, and provide real width (i.e. happy enough to actually stay in their lanes.). Contrary to popular opinion, it's not that he's an idiot or a coward, it's that he understands that shape and balance are important and the players that would naturally give us that (Moses, Marin) were hurt or just recently brought onto the team. (and yes, he's conservative ). (We could still beat most teams playing like that, but we could beat most teams in a lot of different ways. There's a logic I don't understand- when a manager makes a decision and the team wins, people will say "his decision has been justified". Well, not really. If Chelsea sat Hazard and played Terry instead at attacking midfield, could Chelsea still win? Yeah, sure, they'd still be favoured to beat poor sides. If they won, would it have been a good decision? No, it was a terrible decision no matter what. Similarly, if a manager takes a risk and the team doesn't win, it doesn't mean it was a bad risk. We don't have time machines where we can go back and play out every single possible variation.)

I still think the best magazine around. I even read the "about town" stuff because although it's about New York, it's often about an interesting new off-Broadway play or something. I also think their arts critics are excellent and they sometimes have some very good fiction as well.

I don't know about what's been done in England, but I was referring to the War on Drugs which is a series of horribly failed anti-drug laws and campaigns by the American government.

Speaking of the absurdity of the war on drugs, for all you intellectual types, a fantastic story in the New Yorker about how police are using minor drug charges to get people to turn into drug informants. (This is what journalism should be, not endless stories about celebrities, or "gotcha" moments for politicians, but bringing a systemic problem to light.) . http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/03/120903fa_fact_stillman

To be fair, I think it's a natural thought when you have two strikers and one of them goes down and the other ones has been awful for almost two years.

We could but we won't.

We're being reactive instead of taking the game to the opponent. This is in a large part true, but it's also to be expected when there is such a high turnover of players and so little continuity with coaches. We have had 3 coaches in the past 2 years. We've had a lot of players leave and a lot of new ones come in and there will undoubtedly be more new players to come.Of the 18 players who were available to play in our opening game against Stoke last season, only 8 are currently with the club. It will take some time to find out how players fit together and even who goes where and how to best integrate a style that fits the squad.

Any way we score is a good way to score.

Ramires has probably been our worst player so far this season but we all know he's playing out of position and being asked to do things hes just not capable of. I'm not sure there is a good role for him on this particular team, but he's an excellent player if given the proper role. Ivanovic has been poor so far, but has been great for us for years. I don't care if someone has a bad performance or even a bad stretch of games, it happens to everyone. Mata was our best player last season but finished poorly and started this season not that hot either but it's fine. People have stretches where they are just not at the top of their game, especially if the system requires them to change their game somewhat. and if the criticism of Torres was based solely on this season, I'd be with you, but Torres has been awful for a year and a half. It hasn't been a bad performance here or there, it's that about 90% of games, he's been basically useless.

UEFA's passing stats have him at 33% but I think whoscored is probably more accurate.

Speaking of Scottish footballers, what about bringing Mark Yardley back from retirement? He would give us size up front.

Sickening racist monkey noises from Lazio supporters in their match against Spurs. This sort of thing needs to be taken seriously and actually stopped.

It's not just about resting Hazard, it's about our lineup. Oscar deserves to start and Mata has been rested a lot recently so should start as well. I think the three of them together is just too imbalanced unless they drop Oscar into Lampard's spot for Saturday (which could make sense).