dumps

This game as shown a lot for that double pivot: 1. Ramires is certainly better than lampard there. 2. Romeu is just as good if not better than Mikel in most areas. 3. against bigger teams, we could play Mikel AND Romeu for extra defense against more gifted attacking teams. - then we can play with 3 attacking midfielders... 4. against weaker teams, Oscar can easily fit in there, Oscar has got the eye for a killer ball and is very good getting forward, but may leave a gap there which is why it may be a better choice against weaker teams.

i really wouldnt be suprised if Sterling ends up at a big club at the end of this season now that hes in the spotlight. I had never heard of him, but ive watched him this season and been blown away. he really does look good. and consistently good. even surrounded by the crappy players. even better thats he's English! back to the match, pretty sure i could make this wolves team.. they are awful! and Moses should have squared that ball early on where he ran down the wing before falling/fouled.

2 clear chances wolves had, and better teams would have netted those. hopefully its just down to the fact we are 4-0 up so the defense is a little bit asleep... no lampard may mean hell start against arsenal.... as much as i love lampard, he shouldnt be starting against arsenal. at least not in that defensive role.

I know! its like he doesnt understand his own position?! it is a bit worrying. his body language is pretty bad as well. i think Sturridge needs to come in and give him some competition... Wolves are REALLY bad. they arent even pressuring or closing us down until we are in their 18 yard box. but you could say with our attacking powers and hte early goal, that what it does to the mentality of opposing teams. im watching this really hoping RDM learns to leave defensive duties to defensive positions. this game and agaisnt stoke we player with attacking players in the attacking positions and we played just like this (just a harder team) so i hope it stays like this. The commentators also picked up on that if Terry is out for a long time with a ban from the FA that we might see a lot more of Azpi, whcih would be just a delight. he's not had much to do, but he looks decent!

I hate to say it, because im always one to hope he does well but Torres does not look good (40mins in now). Maybe he has been told ot take it easy because we dont need another striker injury, but his touches and runs have been pretty bad. Hopefully this means Sturridge to start vs Arsenal? i dont see why not. if RDM really doesnt like it just bring on Torres at half time.

Ramires works so much better there than Lampard. you can clearly see that Ramires understands the role and that Lampard just isnt adapt to it. Against arsenal, if RDM wnats to be defensive without having defensive wings, it could be worth playing Mikel and Romeu rather than one or the other +Ramires or lamps because Arsenal play fairly narrow without walcott or chamberlain on the pitch so they should be able to deal with that whilst we leave out 3 attacking midfielders as attacking midfielders... great start. Wolves are really bad though.... Oriol is very good in that position, good positioning, good passing good tackling. and Ramires is looking so much more natural (just as he did against stoke) really hope this now keeps Rami off the wings. oh lovely goal by mata. great build up. really hope RDM learns from this for future games! this is the first proper game ive seen of Piazon and he looks very very very promising. Rami and Oriol really impressing me so far. whats even more exciting is that this is a B team...

what a great stream! thank you for bringint this to my attention! just got back from work, gonna watch the game. cant wait!!! so today looks like we played well. however theres a 90% chance RDM uses none of what he learnt tonight against arsenal. i can see maybe some of the players that shined starting if we were facing a team like aston villa or something, but with Arsenal i can see RDM resorting back to his familiar defensive style. hopefully not, hopefully he indulges in this dreamy attacking mentality!

oh right lol, i thought you were just adding to it to scare us all even more!

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1170722/ashley-cole-rejects-one-year-chelsea-contract?cc=5739

Ashley Cole Rejects a new one year contract (ESPN) there is no harm in giving him a 2 or 3 year deal. but i dont see why he cant accept the 1 year deal. I would be way more concerned about this if it wasnt for Bertrand. As it stands, next season i think Bertrand would be an acceptable replacement, but hes not 100% there yet, he still needs a couple more seasons of development so it would be nice to have Ash here to keep tutoring him and to use to rotate the 2. PLEASE SIGN A NEW DEAL!

im thinking of walcott as moee of a replacement for sturridge... as it stands, Sturridge will not be a chelsea player at the end of the season. like i said, he's not going to sign a new contract unless he gets a lot more game time.

pretty sure there is a highlight show for the league cup? so it must be being filmed from someone? it better be being filmed because i want to see the highlights when i get back from work! I totally agree and understand why Moses is more effective on the wings and why he should play there, but i think with sturridge injured, we need to test it out. because torres and sturridge could easily both be injured and then we'd have to play someone like moses as a striker and i think RDM will use tonight to test that out.

to be honest, it could be any of them. although Bamford is the only 100% natural in that position, i can see it being Moses as a striker so that Marin can play on a wing with Piazon just behind the striker. having said that, it could be Torres, and if it is torres we can then be confident Sturridge would start against arsenal.... which would be nice!

Walcott on SSN saying he may be leaving arsenal because he wants to play as a stirker instead of on the wing. anyone see him as a useful striker? i personally see Sturridge as a better player than walcott but they are both very similar, but with sturridge looking like he may not even be a chelsea player after january (and if not january, his contract expires this year and i dont see him renewing it unless he gets some serious game time) it could be a good replacement? leaving the rivalry out of it; what are your thoughts?

we have a great team! i love how Moses, Azpi, Marinand Piazon are classified as fringe players. im so gutted im going to be working whilst this is on >.< will be really interesting to see how well the players play and if they can push for a start in the prem. Azpi and Moses i think will really help their chances if they give a solid performance. Everyone seems to think RDM will stick with the 4-2-3-1 but i wouldnt be suprised if we saw a bit of a different formation. maybe something a bit experiemental. at least for the first half depending on the score line.

Hopefully lampard starts and hes rested/super sub against Arsenal. Azpi, Romeu, Moses, Marin id like to see start. a Piazon start would be nice as well. If Torres for some reason starts, that could mean we'll be seeing Danny vs Arsenal...

Man united are the luckiest team in the world. i HATE them. and whats worse is that they are consistently lucky!

took a gamble putting him as my captain in the fantasy league. he wont start, they said. he's on loan, they said. 18 points I said! same again next week please Rom.

Just watched the highlights and Torres wasn't as bad as the majority of you are saying! yes he could have done a lot better, but form what you guys have said i was expercting to see him laying on the floor frothing at the mouth for 90mins. he got in to good positions, should have done better with a couple of chances. this was one of the worst games ive seen him play this season, but he wasnt as bad as you have all said. Ww may have had few shots on target, but he had a lot of attacking dominance, and a fair few attempts. Hazard, Mata and Oscar looked good. and exciting. Oscar was superb, very good at defensive side of it as well, my man of the match. the only problem is we were a bit narrow, which isnt all that a bad thing, but Stokes defence is pretty solid and if we played a lot wider, we could have opened them up. Im satisfied with this performance. I expect to see a similar line up Vs Arsenal. Terry would probably come in for Luiz which would be decent. Will be very interesting to see the line up and tactics in the wolves game - should be an experimental kind of game because its most likely bottom of our priority list and could result in a bit of a change in RDMs approach. depending on how it goes. EDIT: please tell me someone else saw the chelsea ball boy cheering in the stoke players face when Cole scored.... brilliant. thatll be a Soccer AM 3rd eye next week

was out all day, anyone know a good place to get highlights from? im happy with a 1-0, not many teams score a lot past stoke. good to see us having the majority of posession. more entertaining than the counter attack game...

Exciting lineup! Imagine if we lose....

the only time RDM will ever try this: Torres, Sturridge and anyone else that can paly striker (maybe Moses) are all injured.mind you, even then he'd probably get a youngster in. Under RDM i dont think this would work. just because of his defensive mind. and even if he did, he'd chose the wrong players. nice idea though, and i could see it working maybe under a Manager that has experience using this tactic. but not with RDM.

it's just our style. its not built for a striker! its the tactics. any striker in that position will struggle. and Torres gets frustrated. the formation is fine, it doesnt really matter, its the mentality. i dont know if its just me, but we all know David Luiz runs riot and ignores a lot fo tactics... and i think he also realises Torres gets no feed of the ball. you watch when David has the ball. He always looks to torres and a lot of the time he'll try a pass (normally a long ranged ball that a defender just heads away). In time i think our tactics will change. probably in the carling cup: i think we'll see a fresh line up, and a different mentality - win 10-0 and from there onwards we will be more attacking. you heard it here first

I must say, I think you are viewing these goals in a very negative light. but i do know where you are coming from. however, the way we are set up, this is where the goals are going to come from. I believe Robbie is counting on the counter attack to get us goals (normally in a counter attack, a lot of players are out of position, hence Ivanovic slotting the first goal against wigan... and it also may be the reason for putting Rami and Bertrand on the wings - keep them defending then smash on the counter attak... meaning, there position on the wings isn't acutally their position, their names are there for the sake of the team sheet and formation...). I think RDM wants us to score on the counter, the shots ouotside the box are just an added bonus. The penalties: you could argue lampard is playing (despite poor form) just for his penalties simply because Hazard gets fouled a lot in the box - thats a hell of a conspiracy and a longshot and is most likely untrue! (I hope!) we won't see that many glamorous goals unless RDM plays our attacking creative players. Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Sturridge, Marin and tactically changes our passing system. when we are in possession i cannot really see any pattern tactic apart form (lets jsut see what we can do with the ball) so I think RDM is very focused on the defending and counter attack (our possesion stats suggest we want them to come at us then pounce on the counter...) This worked fairly well against barca and Bayer last season (relying on some luck as well) so you cna understand why RDM likes it... but against Wigan??? Reading??? QPR??? we should be smashing and dominating these teams! this is also a system that doesnt work for Torres (or any striker playing for us at the moment i'd say) and its why he could be gettign stick. I dont think we have all that much in terms of a plan or tactic when we have possesion (and if we do, its not very good/working). like you said, the goal agianst newcastle was very well worked, but its the only one that showed a creative attacking team goal! A goal is a goal though as said. we are top of the league. sure, we have 2 draws we should and could have won both, and we got demolished by At. Madrid. but other than that, we aren't doing that bad compared to teams around us. I wouldn't worry - just dont look at everything in such a negative light.

Horrible nasty scummy people out there. And abuse from his own fans? What's is wrong with people? I hope anyone on here that contributed is banned. No need for it. Disgusting. And in reference to his recent performances: he hasn't been that bad at all. People are over reacting way to much. I see him as a key player. And he understands the tactics and has a lot of experience in that role. All players make a few mistakes...