Magic Lamps

Actually it would be a disgrace not to beat Corinthians. On every position we probably have two better players than them, their defence is shit, nonetheless they are a different calibre than monterrey. -------Cech----- Azpi--Iva-Cahill-Cole --Lamps-Luiz/Rami Oscar--Mata---Hazard ---------Nando---------

Luiz's long expected stint remains as the sole real talking point, as predicted by many Monterrey, even though they threw everything they had at us, proved to be no match. I hope Luiz playing DM does not mean an injury to Ramires. No idea why we played all 3 maestros today, i always feel it is one to many. IMO Benitez could have rested one of them + Cole from the beginning while bringing Lamps in to the game for Mata after our 3rd goal. Corinthians are a different calibre. They will be fresher than us. Their midfield is really strong, physically and technically gifted. In front they have Paulo Guerrero who used to play for Bayern and Hamburg. He is as erratic as it gets. Usually he is shit but on his day he can do anything, but - as all of their players - has never played a team of our calibre either, so i would still make us massive favourites.

Countries who do not use the metric system: Liberia, Myanmar, United States are in good company. So I am gonna have 200ml of coffee now. Back to the game: I think Monterrey won't cause us too many problems. Delgado is their best player and a wasteful cunt, they are not too quick on the counter attack either and I would like some goals here, even though I know there are not many goals in a CWC cos teams know each others not so well and scan each others before taking a risk. Azpi--Iva-Luiz--Bert -----Ramy--Lamps- Moses--Oscar--Mata ---------Nando-------- should do.

this is what we call the Arsenal disease.

Arsenal classic, suck when the pressure is on, no matter how weak the opponent is.

lol. we should do beat them 5-0 just for his hope to become exact prediction. Btw. i do not think Monterrey will be a problem. No matter what their biggest strength is, we are better at it. Additionally, as we are Chelsea there has to be drama every time we are involved, going out in the first game is not drama, following that logic we have to make it to the final in any case. also like this one by formel Brazil midfielder Alex (remember playing him at Fener in 2008) Yeah the chance of Corinthians winning is far greater when they face us in the final than any other team in the tournament.

Is it true Rafa does not fit into the clubs Dolce&Gabbana suits? No offence, but i think people allocated to sports should take more care of their physique. Especially as he is a former athlete I do not understand how Rafa has always been so fat?

Cool for you that makes you glad, but I think Rafa and some of our Brazilian players know a bit more. In Japan there a 5000 Corinthians fans but more than 90,000 Chelsea fans. Worldwide we are 140m, I do not have a clue why that does matter. Lol, never heard the term "blue chickens" before. Keep calm, we are surely not afraid as our televisions have told us we are the best. You got a really interesting history btw. the club Corinthians Sao paulo is a hommage to the Corinthians from London, a club proud of its working class origin that toured through Brazil for caritative matches, winning all 6 of them. The locals were so impressed by their down-to earth values, they emulated it. That is probably also why you are participating at a merely caritative Fifa tournament in the farmers and crafters state japan...for nonprofit purposes only, of course. Cya in Yokohama, dawg.

Just rewatched the Manchester derby. ManU will probably regain the title, because City are to shit to make the best of that personell. Should have won this game. Rooney was twice so lucky. The first goal it was a brillant finish, but how can a defender just jogg off, when he hits his shot. He is covered by two men, one can chase him and the other should cover the first defender, not jog beside him. Terry would have anticipated and stopped that shot instead of switching off after the shot has been fired. The second is typical ManU goal. But wtf is David Silva doing, just standing around. Kolo Toure is nowhere near Rooney, so Silva should no only half-heartedly track back but help to double Rooney. Btw Hart is so overrated. He was not at fault for any of these goals, but in this kind of game, Cech would have pulled off one unbelievable save that would have changed the game. The people are wanking about the van Persie goal, but it was going down the middle before it was stupidly defelcted by zabaleta. U either block a shot or u let it go for safety, but deflecting a ball into the danger zone is never right.

This. And Kalou also is an excellent penalty taker. He still is not really fast but at least he was never afraid to pull the trigger. Today he was efficient considering the service. We are to play more shit sites in the next weeks, so maybe he can get it going and be boasting when we face the big guns. IMO for a striker it is always about using your chances not so much about how good the opponent is. You always get chances also against Kompany and Vidic, when you are confident you are more likely to put them away, no if you only got your confidence by scoring against shit sites.

Yes, Mourinho always made sure he had the best requirements at his new working place. He is no god, that's for sure. What happened in the summer transfer periods of 2006 and 2007 cost him his job and condemned us to the search of a new identity. He never achieved to transform a team. the signings of Ballack and Shevchenko were forced on him but we he made the best out of that and won two minor cups, only lost the league because of JTs and Robbens lengthy injuries and some bad luck. But then he blew it. We still had an epic squad entering the 2007/8 season, but we sold Robben and his replacement, Malouda did not really got familiar to the EPL soon enough, nonetheless he should have strengthened our strikeforce with some solid, proven epl class and width we were lacking then already. but he only bought squad player in Sidwell, Ben-haim and some other guys who all turned out to be shit, Claudio Pizarro who did not fit either and Juliano Beletti as a squad player instead of a proper replacement for Paulo Ferreira. Here he should have incented the transformation, he never really recognised anyone from the youth nor bought successors to Lampard or Drogba. At Inter he just tinkered a bit with the class players he had, got the best out of them and set them perfectly up for that kind of astonishing defensive displays. At Real Madrid he again got one of the best squads ever and made them play successfull. Mourinho is brillant tactical wise and great with the players but transfers are not exactly his major strength and i do not know if he is the man to make our transition if Roman wants us to play Barca style. Personally I would love him to return and make us the remake of our 2004-2006 team, but you do not get players like Makelele, Lampard and Drogba again, football has changed and so players have. The manager only can make the players fulfill their potential and catalyze that to success but when the board signs the players, it is more important they get their ideas started out and sign players that we need and that fit our system and the football we play.

I mentioned beofre, a deep lying playmaker who can spread the ball and incent the counter + a direct out-and-out winger with real pace, who can cross and shoot like Bale or Sanchez would make us a force, because we could easily shift. the difference between Hazard and Bale is that Hazrd might be better technically and also is a better passer, but Bale has such a high capacity of running, he can defend without that impeding his offensive contribution. Hazard gets tired while defending and hence is not able to burst out of defence for the break as we have seen several times today. Mata, Oscar, Moses, Bertrand are all fast, but lack that lightning pace a world-class winger has over any distance. Even into space they slow themselves down, taking too many touches, looking for the pass all the tiem instead of just kicking the ball into space and sprinting after it. I think sturridge is our only attacker who can rally do that + outsprint everyone, but he is no winger. As for DLPM I got no idea who is out there, but i see any of our midifelders except Romeu and the loan boys josh and Kevin (but they are still young, ahve to develop) as a fit for a double pivot. Real madrid is probably the team with the best double pivot. Khedira + Xabi alonso. Both can defend and distribute and have a wide range of movement with khedira occupying rather a "destroyer" part and alonso is the playmaker from deep. at the no. 10 they got özil, who spares the playmaking duties with xabi alonso and that's it. Neither Ronaldo, nor di maria are playmakers. Both are lightning fast and strong dribblers, have a wicked shot and then you just need a good striker up front. But we opted against playing this way, playing posession football. IMO a 4-3-3 like spain and Barca play is better in this case, cos when you got you playmakers in a deeper position (xavi and/or iniesta always find themselves in the middle of the pitch) they got the play in front of them and do not have to dribble around all the time to find space. they do not need to create space as there are lightning wingers like pedro, sanchez and messi who do. Xavi + Iniesta are actually very good defenders. Barca spare themselves energy cos they get the ball back soon due to their great pressing and movement. Mata, Oscar can't do that so we play them further up front. As a consequence of our double pivot not being able to either build-up play or ball retention, they have to be all over the place resulting in early fatigue. If you had the playmaking duties delayed into the centre and some genuine wingers, who simply cover their flank but not have to be all over the pitch you can solve this. With the players and the system we have now we will never win a big title. I don't know what was the idea or the concept behind buying AMs to overkill instead of deciding on the football, then on the system and then on the players. but we have either have to axe one of the three maestros or dragging one of them, preferably oscar behind + shift back to 4-3-3, cos our 4-2-3-1 is not how it should work with the players we have.

yeah and i really expect them to win, but all their qualities are on a level way below us, so if we are clever enough we can thrash them. If we were still the physical side we were one or two years ago, i would be already sure we would have this in our bag as neither Asians nor south Americans are of recognisable size, now we are no different, we have to win this on a technical level. But when we maintain pace and concentration and Rafa prepares us well for these rather unknown opponents, they will not be a match for a -hopefully- kick-started Torres + mazacar + Lamps.

Next game against either Monterrey from Mexico or Hyundai in Toyota (sounds strange but the team is called Hyundai Ulsan and the city is Toyota) in 5 days, 19:30 local time, i guess that's about 10:30 in England so I'll have to watch it during my last accounting class before the mid-term exam, I'll take my laptop with me . I expect us to take that hurdle with ease. the final in Yokohama will be a little tougher against Corinithians probably. They got a decent player in paulinho, but the rest is rather average our overall team value is around 8 times theirs and brazilian coaches tend to be tactically inferior to european top coaches so hopefully Rafa does us no shame. Hope jetlag will be no factor cos we are the last team to arrive.

btw is there a gif or video of torres first goal i somehow missed it and 101greatgoals is down

Really? Oscar was okay getting himself out of difficult situations when having the ball, but neither did he contribute greatly to our build up play nor had he anything to offer defensive wise. Our defence lacked shield without a real dm on the field and we lost control of the match for vast parts of it. Don't see oscar as a deep-lying pm, still no idea if signing him was really necessary.

mata also not been that great but still assist and goal for him. he is just not as sharp and fouling much atm

The ref is doing a good job. How often do we see the ref being eager to make make calls overcorrectly as a booking a player for playing on hence disrupting the run of play entirely. I like refs who just do the "normal" thing and make the right decision even if it is not accurate.

HE IS BACK

why do we always try to break when we don't really have the space right now? we have all time in the world, when he have the ball, just pass it back and roll it around

yes, that's also why Drogba only scored a crazy number of goals in 2 seasons, he could have scored so much more if he had put in the extra effort. Ivanovic too. sloppy defending from him after our 3rd. We should give it some concentration now

This is shit right now. We were well in control and still are but now we let this become a frenzy encoutner. we are 2 goals up. We should calm the play and pass the ball around not try to force the 4th. Lampard will know what to do.

now that is a game out of the textbook. Close to no chances for Sunderland. Torres has a good day, hope he is able to hold that 3-1 unnecessary goal to concede, could easily have prohibited that. Btw why does a player like johnson only play for a club like sunderland this guy is class. should throw in marin and lamps now. double pivot of ramires and oscar is shit oops wrong thread but hey, what about Adam Johnson as acquisition

Person A accuses Person B of a crime. The FA decide who they like better. Take the case this is person B. Then instead of investigating the case, they decide to punish Person A even though there was no charge against him and search for some evidence to ground that. Then they announce that verdict, no matter if it has anything to do with the case. Get that now. That's how justice works in English football. When the judicial site interacts with the indictment and the defense side directly. Saves time and money. Great stuff, guys.

This. Cheap, proven EPL-performers, in their best years. They are cheap because they are not big names or there is a hype around them. often these hypes are not really based on the results of thorough scouting. I think with Fellaini it has been more about his hair and height at first and then he caught some eyes with his goals, but is that really what we need? Bayern Munich bought Javier martinez for 40 fucking million €, which are more than 30 m pounds. Is he worth it? Of course not. One could have got a player as good and versatile as him for 10m if one would go after performance only. But he is spanish and had some good performances in the Euro league and the fans demanded a star signing in the DM position as they thought the only position they had no really big name in was the no.6. So they bought a player who they already have in Tymosthschuk and Gustavo. The really important signings were Mandzukic and Dante, which were - guess - bargains, best age, proven performers in that league but no big names. Now they have ripped everything to shreds (which isn not only because all their opponents have been . Another example. We bought Cahill for 8m, Luiz for 24m, either in January, either when we needed a good defender for instant impact. has Luiz really been 3 times as good? How much did we paid too much cos of his big Hair and skillset? Well we needed a Defender not a technically brillant joker. You sometimes need big names. They sell merchandise products and add something special. But at the moment we do not need that. It is not moment for spending big as we did in summer. We set the direction of football we were aiming to play, now we have to adress the new and old issues that are left and just have been created by that decision. We got enough potential and flair in the team, we also got enough big names or at least great prospects, which we opted to purchase instead of finished superstars. we should look at what we need now, which is some steel, build up and passing abilities in midfield and a decent striker. No idea if Diame and Ba are exactly the men for this, but i think we should be scouting exactly guys as these. They can still develope here but are already mature enough and used to the football to make immediate impact. They might not solve all our problems but also most big money purchases don't guarantee that.