The only place to be

Unfortunately the members most adept at offering up constructive criticism seem to be around less and less. The site's becoming nothing more than a chat site for a small clique....Spike is very much part of that so in light of that appointment, I'm not sure whether criticism, 'constructive' or otherwise, serves any purpose.

Because with age comes maturity and maybe even a bit of wisdom (I'm not there yet but I hear it happens). I don't dislike Spike but I can think of half a dozen other members who I think deserved this type of responsibility more than he did, but probably weren't considered because they're not active contributors in threads like this one. Like I said, it's not up to me but the owners of this site. But if they want this site to become a certain type of thing then they should just tell us. Don't think I've posted in this particular thread before, so that 'wolf's den' analogy is probably quite accurate . I don't agree with Kojo on everything, but he's always posted interesting stuff. It seems like this whole forum is becoming very cliquey where certain people have carte blanche to say what they want whereas others don't, and then get shouted down if they do pipe up. Like I said, owner's choice. But there's a reason why the posters who contributed such good stuff when I signed up don't post as much now - if the mods want to think that's down to me then they can ask me to leave.

I have. I've donated money and when you started a thread detailing your own concerns I engaged you in conversation but you deleted that thread as quickly as you could.

You realise that this is the point though. If you want the older contributors who aren't part of the cool gang to just fuck off then tell them. A few already have.

I don't dislike you though. If I did, I'd tell you like I've told other members to their face (or in PM at least). I just think this site has a lot of potential but is becoming bogged down and the really good contributors (they know who they are) are contributing less and less. It's becoming harder and harder to find compelling, interesting posts to respond to and that simply wasn't the case 6 months ago. Now if you don't agree with that then fine, we can agree to disagree. But another admin (Alex) made a thread about the very same thing yesterday and swiftly deleted it when a discussion about it broke out (a discussion on a discussion board.....whodathunk?). I think this forum is becoming nothing more than a chat board for a select few members who are happy to hound off people who don't fit in with their thinking, and that thinking has a very adolescent snark to it. You might think it's a good thing that I'm not around here but some people seem to like the views and comments I offer on minor subjects, like Chelsea Football Club. But hey, if you don't want me around I believe you have new powers you can try out, or you can simply ask me. And you're more than welcome to crash on my sofa as other members of this site have when they've come to Chelsea matches.

A. If you must use terms like 'passive-aggressive' then use them correctly. I'm being quite straightforward with what I'm saying. B. I haven't been around here this much lately precisely because a lot of the better members have contributed less, so quite why I'm being blamed for the state of the website I'm not sure. C. I'm happy to take this to PMs, or face to face. But if you young mods/admins can't take criticism and then act on it, I'm not sure what the point is.

Not grouchy, just sad to this this community going the way it has. Other mods/admins have expressed similar concerns (then deleted said concerns when someone has engaged them on the issue ) but I don't accuse them of being grouchy. Might have been nice for more mature members of this community to have been given more power and try and turn the ship around.

You're a mod? Can this place get any cliquier? Of course really great members like TorontoChelsea aren't cool enough/talk about ban hammers enough....fuck it, let's just make Bushman admin and be done with it.

Googled Chelsea forums and this came up. For the first few months felt it was a great community and saw many great members, so I tried contributing more both in terms of content and money. Recently it's really gone downhill and it's become very cliquey, a website for a few select members rather than an all-inclusive website for Chelsea supporters. Funnily enough never heard anyone at matches mention this site. When I've mentioned forums to people they've assumed it was CFCNet - simple fact is that if they could get their act together then this site would probably fail to exist.

Actually I think Ramires was more to blame, but Luiz's actions led to us being overloaded in defence. Oh, and you're wrong. When Barkley receives the ball, Schurrle is about 3 yards to his left and closing and when he shifts it right then Rami is about 4 yards in front. Another problem is that David Luiz continues to watch the ball when it's shifted right and is jogging back into defence. He's not even jogging back to the right position, but he isn't to know that because he hasn't looked towards Jelavic or Naismith since coming out of defence. But yeah, it's easy for commentators to say stuff because they've watched the game. You should try it.

It doesn't have to fail all the time, just once. Look, he has an inconsistent touch. We all know it. He's capable of putting in ball's like the one for Eto'o, but he's also capable of giving the ball away in dangerous situations. Sometimes that combination will work in our favour and we're a goal up and sometimes it'll go the other way.

Well it's a good thing he closed him down and Ross Barkley wasn't able to get a shot off from 20 yards through traffic against one of the best keepers around, with players closing him down from the sides. Thank the lord Ross Barkley didn't score against us.

He didn't play the heaviest part in it though. Blame should be equally shared between him and Ramires. I'd expect Luiz to have a rush of blood to the head again and do something similar by the way. It's who he is. He's passionate and sometimes that costs him. And Ramires will always have a bad touch in his locker. Again, it's who he is.

It's fair enough to say he's the one who goes out to win the ball, and invoke the memory of Riccy.....but he didn't win the ball. He left us a man short in defence which led to a goal. He could've held his position and we may have had better luck in defending the goal. It wasn't his fault (Ramires gave the ball away in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time) but he had a rush of blood to the head and it helped lead to the goal. That's who he is - that's in his DNA and it's what a lot of people were alluding to when there were concerns over whether Jose could trust him.

Are you kidding? Webb let the game go as much as any supporter of either team could ask.

Not sure how you can analyse this goal without once using the word 'transition'. The point at which teams transition from defence to attack is when they are often most vulnerable, and ultimately it was the combination of Cech's throw, Eto'o's lack of fitness to reign the ball in and a terrible touch from Ramires (something that he isn't unfamiliar with) that led to Everton regaining possession whilst we were moving upfield. That meant players were out of position, and David Luiz had a massive rush of blood to the head. That emotion, that passion, that intensity that people laud when talking about him as captain material is what led to him leaving his position and rushing the player in possession. You can have one fuck-up with the ball and maybe recover from it, but it requires every other player to remain calm and do their job. David Luiz didn't. He just had one of those games where he had some really brainless moments and for the first time ever I thought we missed Gary Cahill in defence.

Really looked slow today.

Dude, sometimes you've just got to tip your hat to a decent performance. He didn't hurt the opposition (although his defensive work did), but he linked up play well. The problem was Mata not doing anything with possession in the first half.

Really? Do you watch the matches? Do you even bother to read what you post on here?

Didn't look close to a Benitez performance. Rafa wouldn't have changed the formation and brought on Torres for Cole.

Stick to reposting twitter shit. We started the second half on fire and were on top comfortably until Jose started chasing the game. Then it became disjointed, but we still could've scored. Everton did well but we win that 2-0 on another day.

Best performance he's put in for a while today. Composed, controlled, strong in the air and didn't seem to give the ball away. Nice one.

Waiting for the German posters to come in and talk shit. Could've done with De Bruyne and Lukaku today.

To replace you?

.