Magic Lamps

the ref is such a joke. if this is a dive, it was also one by mane

If ivanovic is not having a brainfart it is one of our cms. until our defensive choesion is not sorted we have to play 2 defensively apt midfielders at the same time in the double pivot IMO. Any 2 of Ramires, Mikel, RLC and Matic would be better than having Fabregas there. I'd rather have to chose between Oscar and FAbregas than conceding the midfield to the opponent by not playing a proper dp

we need more structure in our play and a midfielder who can actually defend.

ramires is back to being torrid again

great marking fabregas

was coming. great goal by them and deserved. why the heck did we stop playing football after willians goal?

falcao wins every aerial duell but always heads it to a southampton player

but it was a dive.he really threw himself to the ground.

Willian so great these days. 4 set piece goals in 4 games in a row

I know what you mean but feelings can be subjective. SAF was extremely unpopular in his first few years at OT and no supporter would have trusted him to build such a legacy. I can honestly not think of a manager who would be immune against this sort of slump. we had it under carlo, rdm and avb. Simeone the arguably best coach in the wordl is experiencing a very patchy period, too. Dortmund even drifted to last place in a much weaker league under jürgen KLopp. Patience is all we can give MOurinho. But if we are patient or not, we have to get out there and sacking the manager is not an option atm IMO

No only Müller is Müller, but everyone with the same stature, skillset, playing style and technical attributes can be successful in the same niche.

I hope Rom lets his contract at Everton run down and join us on free to replace Costa in 4 years once the former has matured into a world class CF. God what i would give for that to happen just to see Martinez's face.

No one will ever replace Lamps. He is one of a kind. No box to box midfielder will ever be that creative and dangerous in front of goal whilst at the same time offering an immense passing range and physical presence. It is more that his goalscoring and creating job has been outsourced to the wings. robben, cole and duff were great but not at the level hazard is. Because all-round cms like lampard, gerrard, ballack have become extinct, their responsibility has been split up into the 2 holding players and an AM. When on form, Matic, Oscar, FAbregas are ok to do that job but neither are real world class players at that. IMO before buying reinforcement we should always look at what we could improve with the players we got and their composition. Matic is without alternatives. Mikel and Ramires can both do a job in dm but are mere squad players. Playing Fabregas and Oscar/Willian in the middle has a couple of major disadvantages: 1) they lack physical presense which is why our midfield often gets overrun by quick or strong midfielders like experienced with Toure, Imbula, Shelvey or even Naismiths. 2) none provides that offensive spark on a consistent basis. lampard always found so many avenues to find a direct connection to the striker be it lobs, short passes through the gap, 50m passes, lay offs you name it. Fabregas, Oscar, Willian are all much more one-dimensional in their offensive contributions. 3) whilst all three run their lungs out defensively they do read the game well enough to really make an impact defensively. I remember Ballack/Lamps/Essien/Makelele averaged at least 3 interceptions per game each. which equals to 12+ attacks of the opponent just broken down before they even get into the danger zone. what i could imagine working on the short to middle time horizon is ------Matic------ RLC-----Willian Pace, physical presence, defensively extremely solid and very reliable on the ball. does not produce as many turnovers like oscar+fabregas would. In Willians current form also a goal once in a while. IMO defence should take priority atm and these 3 are some o four defensively most astute midfielders. also willian would have the game in front of him which is what he strives utlizing his bags of pace. Oscar and FAbregas could be extremely vital coming off the bench. against tired legs their lack of pace and physical presence does not become as evident. alternatively this could change to --------------------Matic-----RLC(Fabregs if chasing a game)--- Pedro/kenedy-----Hazard------Willian----------------- IMO Hazard is a bit more dangerous in the middle than from the left. MOst of his best dribblings come through the middle. Hazard has that bit better close control and bit less pace compared to Willian that both would be more effective this way. Willian can beat a player on the left much easier as he is less predictable here. also with having azpi by his side he will be much more effective. To sum up, a few tactical and personnel tweaks could do wonders to sort out our shaky defensive organization. Including RLC from the start will give us a more solid first half. Oscar and Fabregas should start on the bench and provide some quality subs later in the game. Also Willian, as demonstrated in the last few games can be utilized more effectively as the last few games have proved. They also proved that Jose is finally ready to experiment with the lineup so I hope we will see at least a fraction of these amendments in practise.

But honestly, if we would have kept mata we would not have fared any better for the time being IMO. Put mata in our current team and we would be as bad off. still it was maybe a mistake to sell him to ManUtd a direct rival.

He was crap but that statistics is wrong. he won 2 easy headers early on against some 5'5 porto player early in the game. anyway. i did never expect to say that but i want bosingwa back.

wtf. he did not say you were a twat. he said people would think of the manager who doesn't play 16 y.o. players are twats. he has a point. ofc zouma and kenedy are youth. they are 19 and 20 years old. how young do they have to be. IMO mou is spot on with the introduction of youth this season. just bad timing to it as our senior players are sho shit atm and do not really take the pressure off the young guns.

Sacking Mou will not solve the problem. We would still be left with a disjointed team with far graver problems than a stubborn manager. Apart from incredibly shitty individual performances we have almost no communication and organization in defense. Cahill-Zouma is horrible in terms of communication because both are better as junior partners to jt than on their own. matic and cesc just look tired after a season full of running. both need rest to sharpen their minds again. Hazard too. This team has to grow together again and practise some tactics to get going. especially mentally they have to find that cohesion again. but that will take time and until then just built on our current strengths. we got willian, ramires and mikel on form. Rlc and kenedy look promising. azpi is strong as always. begovic has been an amazing stand in. costa also is combative as always.

Play on the counter and set the defence deep that is the only way i see us conceding less than twice. A high line would see us raped by their pace (sane, long etc). i think they Bego Azpi Cahill JT Baba Mikel Ramires RLC Kenedy Willian Remy Set up to counter and frustrate. plenty of pace in there, azpi, willian and kenedy on their strong sides each. jt back to organize the defense. i am convinced we can at least get a draw with that lineup.

it is not even that he just plays ivanovic all the time. admittedly baba can't possible be as shit as iva, but even if he was, why the heck didn't we be sign a fucking fullback jose would actually trust? there are dozens of fbs better and more reliable than ivanovic ffs.

i think we should sign him to play as rightback

for sure he is not alone at fault that our defense looks disorganized as a chicken cage. But he is by far the weakest link in our team and i wonder when Mourinho will accept that. he is so bad, not even aina or baba could do a worse job as fullback. i honestly believe that having played rb myself i could do better than him right now.

why even play football. this uefa traitors league is just some corrupted piece of shit. every game every ref huge bias. should as well call it refball and let them give the results before the game so we need not even bother.

if iva does not get dropped after this game i will lose faith in anything at last.

we are lacking what chelsea has always been about. physical strength and defensive solidity. ivanovic, cahill might look strong but lack the determination to impose themselves on opponents with their strength and size.

the players look completely out of shape. no idea what they are doing atm. no team effort, no cohesion just some primitive hoofing the ball around.