Hutcho

He will probably come here and sit on the bench every game for 80 mins whilst goldilocks has a mooch about.

I would simply go with Turn Azpi Ivan Cahill Cole Luiz Lamps Marin Mata Hazard DEMBA BA Luiz and lamps is probably the strongest physical pivot we can have without mikel being here which we will need vs stoke. JT would start for me instead of Cahill but only if he is 100% as we don't want to start risking a re-injury by playing him too early. Marin to do the sort of moses role, and because i don't like just chucking oscar out wide, though we could put oscar down the middle and move mata wide; but thats not something i particularly want to do considering how effective (usually) Mata is from that position, and the rest is fairly self explanatory...

Would be great if we could sign him, even if part of it is for them to have him to the end of the season...

I don't think we have to drastically alter the tactics, just the personnel which will do that... If you take someone like oscar off and put marin on then marin will give you something else, the same with ba for torres. There is no real tactical change except the players themselves which play differently. And he has a big laissez faire attitude, in that it will all work itself out for too long. He needs to be pro-active in seeing what is lacking rather than being reactive all the time and changing things when its too late.

I like the sentiment and in theory it sounds good but i really doubt it would have any affect. If we thought there was a chance we could convince anyone to give lampy a deal then everyone would but i just don't see it in the slightest... Just look at recent history.

I think there can be a fair argument for marin starting to provide some width but i don't think that is exactly a blame on benitez as i a fine with who started. And back to your question, i don't think that was the key substituation... I agree that he did pretty well when he came on, but for me the main thing the team was missing was ba up front. He definitely added something to the team, but i think giving marin 20 mins is fine tactically from rafa. But imo you solve the biggest problem first and early when we have lots of time to change this. I hope that answered your question lol.

He won't go to another english club i doubt, i reckon it will be LA galaxy, which is my preferred destination if he has to leave.

For that price he would be a steal... sign him up!

He is the best on that list, but then he is also probably one of the oldest... Cant wait to see him become a regular with us, i hope he doesn't slip through our fingers and go elsewhere like a lot of young talent we have.

I think we have had a bad season, but i am not buying the whole, "our club is in bits" situation. We are fourth in the league with a game in hand, in what has always been deemed as a transisition year. Yes we have problems but we have a great attack which if we start ba should be more than enough to keep us in the top 4 this season, and avert any disaster.

Its a lot lot harder to replace a whole board than a manager. And how many big teams truly listen to their fans anyway so we are not exactly that different.

shotgun manager...

But then british media also reported how we had got falcao, neymar, modric, can name another 20 players if need be.... They generally report everything so they generally will get something right through a law of averages, but it is weird there isn't a story from them yet as the first sign of anything and they will write it up. If Fellaini was once in the same room with a chelsea steward they would say we are in talks.

how about this guy:

The backlash from us (the fans) will be far worse than the rdm situation, if we have a torres is still our main man situation when it is clear to everyone demba ba is the man.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me... The way our seasons going we will probably go to the liberty as well and smash them 3-0, qualify for the final then lose to bradford.

1. Torres isn't a star 2. The board would surely prefer to win than lose 3. Disrupt the squad mentality???? Hazard probably does a little dance in the changing rooms when he says ba is starting as he will be able to actually play with a striker who he can count on... 4. If anyhting squad mentality will be more disrupted by keeping playing torres. 5. It's not a difficult dilema, at all. Who is better, the whole world knows who that is, everything else is immaterial.

What he said!

We only allowed 1... But seriously, with petr hopefully back and our captain back in there. We can do it. At least there is no way we can lose on the away goals rule now.

No, and that is why we lost. If we play like that at the liberty stadium in 2 weeks with ba upfront (without the crazy defensive line errors), we will win the game..

I think we set out ok and without the errors we wouldn't have lost this game... The blame falls on him when he leaves our best chance of scoring on the bench til the 80th min. And the blame also falls on him if he doesn't see Ba as number 1. And Demba better be starting vs stoke.

I think everyone saw that torres was shit vs Leeds except a minority. And some people will say about his goals this season and whilst some have been quite spectacular the majority are tap ins and are unimportant or came with a bad performance. He still can't score a 1 on 1 and seems to get lost for 75 Mins on the pitch. And on the rafa front... The blame comes to him on how late he made the changes not the team setup. I would have played torres before giving ba a run of games starting with Stoke and we dominated throughout... I can't remember them having a good chance that wasn't an Ivan present... If he puts ba on at half time or even 60 Mins I am confident we don't have a 2 goal deficit going into the second leg. We saw what he could do in 10 Mins.

I hope rafa is just saying that he didn't think ba was any better than torres in his short time on the pitch to keep the peace as if he actually believes that then he is either a) delusional worst manager ever C) torres fan boy D) roman has told him you can't touch torres. I don't get how every proper Chelsea fan on the planet will tell you that ba is better than torres, yet the one bloke who matters doesn't.

That's what pens are for.

Bit early for that. It's not an ideal situation, but on another day we could have won that 3-0, and with their lead they will probably sit back... Big demba ba will rip them apart... I BELIEVE!