Dion

Just report him. There's no point in arguing.

Problem in missing so many chances in a row is that it will only increase Schurrle's anxiety and self-doubt again and again. Should probably be benched, today is not his day. His finishing only seemed to get worse as the chances were going to waste.

Come on now Schurrle. This is borderline trolling.

It's almost like they're playing at the beach, so much sand thrown around at every step. The pitch is looking bad.

YEAH! MATIC!

What a beautiful play

It could have been four but Costa was offside and couldn't go for the ball.

This is already the best attacking performance I've seen from Oscar in quite some time.

FFS SCHURRLE PUT IT IN

Hope it's nothing serious with Ivanobeast.

Was that a good pass from Oscar or nah?

Good ball from Oscar. Costa should have done better.

Yeah, it definitely has a "why would a white man choose an asian woman when he could have picked ME?" vibe to it. Cringeworthy, I couldn't even manage to get to the bottom half of the article. Edit: I persevered and read through all of it. I now believe she's trolling or seeking attention by spouting gibberish, nobody can be that stupid. Having to read stuff like that is one of the shortcomings of freedom of speech I suppose.

The comparison between Pelé and Robinho is bollocks of the highest order. Pelé destroyed in World Cups and also at club level against European clubs too whenever Santos came to play in Europe. And to be completely honest, only retards thought Robinho was the new Pelé. I always thought Neymar was better than Robinho, for example, and even then I knew he wouldn't be the next Pelé or anything like that. And those things are kinda unpredictable really. Ronaldinho was not too outstanding in Brazil but later on he turned crazy good at PSG and Barcelona. There are players who were mediocre in Brazil and turned good in Europe and also the opposite. Also, according to you, only in the recent past Europe began concentrating all the talent, so there were still a lot of good players in Brazil when Pelé was destroying everyone, so many that we won 3 world cups almost in a row with local players. In addition, playing with top talents in your club also pushes your own performance further, especially when you're playing the fodder from your league. You don't see Messi and CR dominating as much in their respective NTs - because they're playing with a squad not as good as their clubs and the decent opposing NTs are usually way tougher than most teams of La Liga. The concentration of talents in the top clubs makes it actually harder to assess, imo the gap has never been this wide. When you are in a team that often thrashes smaller teams it gets way easier to pump up the numbers and performance, since you can find a better understanding with players at your own level.

Nothing from what you said goes against my argument - the cannon fodder were there for everyone, not just for the greats of football. It's the same to the tactical side, everyone was lacking, it was not like Pele's team (Santos) had it any better than anyone else tactically speaking. And besides, there is still a lot of cannon fodder today - it's just that Leicester is a good team in the EPL, the most balanced from the top european leagues (and even then there's quite a gap, it's more about Man Utd struggling than Leicester being a super team). But look at the La Liga or Bundesliga, the small teams rarely ever beat the top teams and it's not uncommon for them to get thrashed really hard - RM and Barça have just thrashed some teams in their last games. And if anything, it's the opposite, you got it backwards, today the smaller teams have bigger gaps to close than in those times, just look at England, the domestic league winners used to vary a lot but now the gap between the best teams and the weaker ones is such that you know the teams who have a chance to win from the very beginning. Just look at the time frame from 50 to 70 which is close to the same as Pele's professional carreer - there were 11 different teams winning the most important domestic league in England. Do you reckon there will be 11 different teams winning the major leagues in the next years? I don't think so. For example, in the last 20 years only 5 have won it and just because Blackburn has managed a title, otherwise only Chelsea, Manchester Utd, Manchester City and Arsenal would have won it. One could even say the fact it was more amateurish and less tactical made it more even and fair to every player back then, whereas now, the stellar squads the top teams have leave little room for anyone else to have a shot at the championships, these top teams have better players and usually also better managers - so they're on top in every regard. The only valid argument against past legends is about their numbers, because of differences between football ages, some ages had higher average goals scored and things like that, but I don't think I have seen people comparing stars from different timeframes with the argument that X is better than Y because X has 1000 goals and Y has 500.

Besides, Lampard has a stronger connection to Chelsea than Mourinho. Edit: Oh, that edit before I quoted.

This is one of the shittiest arguments ever. If that was true, everyone would be Pele/Cruyff in those times, if the defenders were shitty and not athletic why didn't every attacking player shit on them like Pele/Cruyff? Were the other attacking players facing different and better defenders? I don't think so. Also, if Pele/Cruyff were athletic when others weren't or if they took it more seriously than other professional players, kudos to them, they understood what it took to win better than the others. According to your logic, let's say in some years from now everyone is born from genetic selection, people are then gonna say Messi wasn't actually that good because he played against natural born people who weren't the best genetic composition their parents or the human race could offer? Gimme a break - Pele, Cruyff and Messi were playing under the same conditions as everybody else from their respective professional times, if they stood out from everybody is because they were incredible, they were ahead of the bunch. That's what makes them legends of the game.

I understand he's a professional and everything but I wouldn't have minded if he missed the goal on purpose. I know if I was in his position I would have hit it to go slightly away from the goal, and I would have firmly stated beforehand that I wouldn't want to play against Chelsea, so if the manager played me anyways his loss. I'm not mad with Frank or anything but I must admit I'm a bit disappointed that he seems to be going back on his words again and again. First he said he wouldn't play for a rival and then that he wouldn't play against us but not only he plays for a rival and against us but he also scores, you can't help but feel a bit cheated on.

There are goals and goals. You have tap ins (which don't get me wrong, they may show a good instinct and positioning from the striker, but in a scale of difficulty and skill required to perform are one of the lowest amongst every possible goal), you have goals when a player dribbles past several defenders by himself and scores, you have goals where the assist was way more phenomenal and fundamental for the goal (like that Fabregas pass to Schürrle goal)... There's a whole lot of different goals and also a whole lot of different teams with different players and different play styles. For example, it is easier to score for Chelsea in this season than in the previous one. Costa would most probably have scored less last season than in this one even if he played both with the exact same amount of skill. In other words, the exact same player may have significantly different stats and performance based around factors which are not bound to him - teammates, tactics, league, weather, you name it. That's one of the reasons why stats can't be trusted alone - you have to look at player as a whole, looking at stats and awards is too misleading. Anyways, I'm off to bed. Cheers.

Just came back from my graduation party and I'm absolutely wasted. Going to bed right now and there's no way I'm waking up in 5 hours. Leaving here some good vibes for the game and hoping for a win. Let's go blues! We can do it!

From those 4 golden balls, at least two are questionable. And given how fucked up these awards tend to be.. they're even less reliable than looking at stats alone. Stats are important but they don't tell the whole story.

I was expecting a deep analysis of Costa's gameplay but nice article anyways

While that is true and I would really like to see him performing more "miracles" and saving our asses, he has done a fair share of difficult saves - even 1v1. But the more the better I guess.

Really? It didn't smell too good but I liked it. It has this really different and exotic taste and texture. Not my favourite ever but good nonetheless.

Cahill got a not so good performance today. People are suggesting Iva at CB in his place and Luis + Azpi as the fullbacks.