Hutcho

Beating swansea by 2 goals is gonna be hard no doubt, but impossible is a stretch too far. If we play our best team and they all show up, swansea will sit back concede, and start to panic and demba ba will see us over the line. I'm feeling confident... This is the song that comes to mind

I would go with Cech Azpi Ivan JT Cole Luiz Lamps Oscar Mata Hazard Ba We need to win by 2 goals and in some way we can approach this in a simple attacking way. It doesn't mean be stupid but theres no point getting knocked out because we didn't give it a big enough go.... Could even play Oscar with lamps given that they will most likely be sitting back and play marin on the right... Oscar on the right isn't ideal but the only other option is marin and if we can replicate our first half performance with arsenal, with demba ba up front we should be able to score the goals required. JT back in for his priceless leadership and to keep the team going as well as him being our best defender (which is the most imprtant reasoning).

Wouldn't mind moyes tbh. He is a good manager. Probably wouldn't be there for very long, but it would be nice to concentrate on football without the manager being the main focus of everything. Yes, that is partly caused by the majority of us don't particularly like rafa, but it would be great to just have a manager doing his job that wasn't disliked by the fans and that we could all unite behind... Mourinho would be great as he really brings everyone together and really knows what he is doing and is just the best, but it seems unlikely and it would be great when we don't have the rafa and torres stigma hanging over our club.

It makes me laugh how many people bring up FFP for a reason of getting rid of lampard as his wages are too high etc, yet malouda is sitting there chilling with some kids for 100k a week. WTF!

Away goals count after ET. Edit: Just saw someone else has already said that.

Lol... Ok firstly they didn't have their best striker sitting on the bench for 80 Mins. Or have their best defender sitting on the bench the whole game. And it's only Chelsea fans.... So arsenal fans going crazy about wenger didn't happen right... When rafa makes such obvious mistakes they are still mistakes whether we win lose or draw that have already come back to bite us... Please tell me how I have said every game we lose or draw is on rafa... I didn't say that. This game we won contained some major managerial problems... We got away with it which is great. But he has too often been reactive in when he makes his changes rather than being proactive and that is concerning...

Great player for us and a great value signing for a youngster who can hopefully make that position his for another 10 years. Not a big name signing and not a signing that breaks the bank but certainly a very effective quality youngster... I'll admit i didn't imagine him taking that position for himself as quickly as he did but i am so glad he has.

Sturridge is a very good player who will perform when he is playing regularly and he is starting to prove that with liverpool. He did that somewhat at bolton, and we are getting in a similar situation with romelu as people saw him in pre season and a tiny bit last season and said, he was not good enough for chelsea etc, he isn't technically good enough etc. He goes to west brom, gets some regular game time and is starting to prove what he can do... The issue is that we play with one striker currently and are likely to end up buying a big name striker like falcao in the summer at which point he is pushed further down the pecking order and then we get to another situation we have been in too regularly, and its not like we can loan him out for 3 seasons in a row (well we can i suppose)... It's an awkard situation and i am not sure what the solution is tbh, without us just saying in half a season, or 1 and a half seasons time that lukaku is our man... But that is one big risk to take. But looking on the brightside he is doing really well at west brom and hopefully one day he will be our amazing striker that scores for fun.

I think messi has slightly better acceleration and passing, but it was a nice trick.

At times today he looked john terry like, espically in his last ditch tackling which arguably saved us today... We need JT back in there for sure but for the most part he played well today.

LOL! Joker!

We beat stoke 4-0 away... We can do the same vs swansea.... In theory

What are you on about... Rafa is the one making the tactical changes and substituions. He has made glaring errors that are obvious to everyone regarding those things. Where did i say that whenever we draw or lose its rafa's fault. Specific to this game, are you trying to tell me that he did some amazing managerial work today. You don't get it do you... I am more than happy winning every game 2-1, but we should have been comfortable and we had to hold on against that arsenal team for virtually all of the second half which isn't an ideal situation...And thankfully we were able to, due to some defensive heroics from the likes of cahill etc.

3-1 Start demba ba and Big JT! Playing away from home... No worries.

1 correction mate...

He is making a very valid point about our transition from being dominant to being lucky to hold on. We are all very happy in regards to the fact we beat arsenal and got the 3 points, but we made it much harder than it should have been and some of his tactical decisions leave a lot to be desired.... Especailly his subs and lack off them. Everyone saw the need at half time to put our star striker up top early on yet again as always he was reactionary and not proactive. This is something which isn't just specific to this game, but several games. Vs southampton is a prime example of waiting til its to late to impact the game and then deciding to take off lampard for torres, which is absolutely ludicrous when you are drawing with 10 mins left... To then add to that he puts torres on the right... He can't play down the middle let alone on the right. These are all pressing concerns and something that the result does gloss over somewhat.

Yep.

The stupid move was not making the change at half time, or at least 5/10 mins after the first half, which put us in a terrible position throughout the second half. Also, If he was making a defensive change then why didn't he put our best defender on?

LOL fergie is blaming the linesman, and talks about how they were unlucky vs us with drogba's goal... LOL. How about hernadez's goal vs us fergie... Was that offside??????

Draw is a good result for us. Tottenham win was the worst result. But both dropped points. 11 points behind, so if they do have a major stumble we have a little chance and we have a 4 point gap to 4th. Good day for us.

Yep you did say that indeed. And i stand by what i said. Something like, he would have to be the most stupid manager in the world to play torres over Ba. What i think now is that we got the win and that is the most important thing as 3 points is very useful and keeps a cushion between us, but rafa and his second half tactics and subs (or lack of them) is a real problem. Ba cannot start every game... But arsenal at home is one where he absolutely must. He has to start vs swansea in midweek... Especially when we need to win by 2 goals.

Torres makes games much more risky in regards to ones health.

Double post.

2 votes for torres... Lool.

No I am 4....Well are you telling me that ba shouldn't have come on til the 80th min. He did sweet fa for 30 Mins whilst we were getting hammered... Yeah that was real beneficial for us.