Magic Lamps

When we can carry the 2-0 lead to HT, we should be home and dry, Inter are obviously a week behind us in terms of fitness and preperation

I am surprised Lukaku has not been as imposing as he uses to. Ranocchia and Campagnaro deal with his strength with good tenacity. The boy still has much to learn.

Any idea what defensive tactics we got? Surely no high line but obviously also no medium block.

oh sry triple post with the two above... somehow sent it multiple times instead of my new posts...new server still having some problems

we are not at our best but still cruising. All over Inter...

we are not at our best but still cruising. All over Inter...

Hazard is not quite as sharp as he should in his mind and with his body. Not trying to beat players in the sprint and missing easy passes is unlike him.

amazing work by moses adn great goal by oscar

Inter are open like barn door we really should be countering more efficiently.

Jason Cundy said this. It is just a pundit's opinion, not the general opinion of Chelsea TV

Not that I do not enjoy the Chelsea TV coverage of training and the interviews but can the bloody match please start now?

I woke up particularly for this match while having the most painful sun burn of all time . It will take years for me to actually find a position to be able to sleep painless now, so FUCKIN FIGHT BOYS1 I want a performance so I can put by sun scaled skin to shame and say: i don't give a shit, as long as it was worth it.

ah ok, thx. Still a hectic schedule for them. Maybe an advantage for us, when we face them.

Well, there are enough pitches at our HQ in Cobham and only a bunch of people go to the pitch to actually watch regular season youth and reserve games. There surely must be more to it, are we really so selfless to rescue a club we are not attached to in any way except the vicinity?

Just noticed sth. How on earth can AC MIlan participate at the guiness international championship while at the same time participating at the Audi cup in Munich?????

I heard 80m + modric, which would be an even more amazing deal for spurs, making their already fine midfield scary. Gareth Bale might be currently the 3rd best player in the world, but who knows? One major injury.... Ronaldo was a success and made up for his 80m fee, but at Bale's age he was a CL winner, EPL topscorer, ballon d'or winner, who had not been injured for 3 years ..Bale is very similar to him but is 2 years later in his development. Still Real will have an frightning squad. If they had a worldclass striker they would be almost unbeatable, esp with a coach like Ancelotti. No idea why so many members here cherish this move. AVB will have enough money at his hands to built a crazy squad which does not rely on one single player, Real will be even stronger and the EPL loses its best player...

Hey Jim, great news, the new server is quick and speedy. One problem though: When I click to the Talkchelsea banner at the top of the side to return to the forums outline, I get redirected to the old server and the error message appears, maybe it is only me or maybe the link is not updated yet. Would be pretty awesome if you could have a look at it. Cheers.

One has to reckon, having players like Mikel, van Ginkel, the ex-bison in a midfield that has seen Lampard, Deco, Ballack, The Bison, Makelele is the mother of all downgrades. De Rossi would bring a bit of glamour back You should., he got your entire midfield in his pocket at several occasions at Old Trafford - even though he completely lost it at others. Btw. how confident are you going in the next season? Doesn't it worry you that last season a Chelsea team which was far from vintage dominated you in all 5 encounters and would have won all 5 if it wasn't for some very dodgy refereeing? The one thing I always admired about Utd was their incredible killer-instinct and ability to grind out result while being completely outplayed. I also associated this ability with Ferguson...not so with Moyes. Meanwhile you missed out on Strootman, Fabregas and will most probably miss out on Modric, too. If you still had ferguson, I would be sure you would compete despite your average squad, but now I can't see you catch up with City's killer team.

I am wondering why we are even considering options such as Gustavo and now Khedira, when we reportedly could simply have bagged de Rossi. Just as Gustavo, Khedira would be a slight upgrade on MIkel, but I also rate Ramires higher than both, cos he is a player who does more than what he is supposed to do and actually takes responsibility in the big moments. Khedira does not. he is a good DM, but not the guy you want to have around when the tide turns against you. When Real got raped by Dortmund and ManUtd and completely overrun in midfield, he was completely unable to do anything against it. He is only as good as the players next to him and will never be the one to stand up. De Rossi is the complete opposite. If his team is in danger he will fight tooth and nail to turn it around. That is why he raped the German midfield in any given Italy vs Germany clash. There are good players and there are great players...

Actually I would not want him here. He is totally overrated, has only played one decent season ever in his entire career. He was only voted player of the year in Germany because the magazin that organized the vote sent 80% of the voting cards to the wrong addresses so only a fracture of the representative number of journalists actually voted. I know many of you reside in Schweinsteiger's rectum and only leave it to lick his feet, but as a long-time follower of his performances i can say he is so damn inconsistent, always injured and usually lets his team down big time. Though one has to admit, that his experience, positional sense, reading of the game, tactical skills and general footballing ability are above average you have to know he was a winger at first but he proved technically too bad and too slow for that position. He is not only damn slow, much slower than Mikel for instance. Also no one really knows what he actually is, for a B2B midfielder he is extremely useless in front of goal (the goals he has scored in his entire career are about as many as Lamps scores in an average season), for a DLP he has too few key-passes, for a DM his tackling is shit. I am not saying he would not improve this team as we do not have one proper player for the DP, but he only would do so because he is a good footballer at the peak of his powers, but there is no way he is the worldclass man everyone outside Germany thinks he is. How much would he cost hypothetically 30m? 40m? He is worth half of that at best... As long as the weather is nice and everything goes well for his team he will always be in the middle of the party, but as soon as it gets dirty he will be either the first to disappear or the one to ultimately fuck it up so no wonder his only decent season was one his team had no struggles at all and never got near a problem just because luckily the oppositions where coincidentially sabotaging themselves. When they lost in 2012 to us, as soon as he faced Lampard of course he was the one to only role the ball to Robben 20 times for the Dutch to shoot over instead of taking responsibility himself. Of course it was him who missed the crucial penalty. Of course it was him getting fucked a 2nd bumhole by Daniele de Rossi a month later when Germany exited the Euro. Just as I wrote in the Khedira thread, there a good players and there are great players.... He is fuckin 29 and at his peak, but however you look at it, whether he is a DM, DLP or B2B mid, there are a host of players better than him at any of those positions currently. Some people even think he as a player overall is in the Lampard, Matthäus bracket. Actually he is not even in the Gerrard, Ballack bracket. He might be in the upper half of the Torsten Frings, Michael Carrick bracket but only when you are really kind to him.

No. http://www.chelseafc.com/player-of-the-year

Still miles away from Chelsea quality.

who actually gives a shit, if an average team buys an average winger?

I strongly doubt that Bayern really offer 47m € for David Luiz. It would be a German record transfer fee. Even though an amazing player, he is not worth so much money. But as stated above he is one of the world's best centrebacks and so important to us cos he is the most all-round skilled defender we got. also it is not we got too many classy centrebacks while there are no equivalent replacements on the market. Anyway, if Bayern come up with stupid money - i doubt they will even come up with reasonable money - I honestly would consider to accept. For 50m or so we could buy an army of good centrebacks and some of them would probably turn out great.

Fullbacks never get player of the year awards.