The only place to be

Except for doing nothing to stop the goal from Toure. That's the story of Mikel - he's great, he completes passes UNTIL he doesn't and costs us a goal.

Ramires just isn't good enough. Not on the right, not in the middle.

Now you're just factually wrong. Chelsea couldn't have brought him back after 2 months - they could only have brought him back in January. Now you see how that's factually wrong - apply that to the rest of your thinking on this subject. The Lukaku you want to bring home now wasn't the Lukaku who was loaned out in August. Now if you want to suggest we should've brought him back in January, then you might have a point. That'll be new for you won't it.

So now you understand what some people thought before the season started. He needed this loan and he will be a better player for it. I've tried to explain to you before why Chelsea have loaned the players out, but you're baffled by all of them. What you need to understand is that you're wrong. You're wrong about Lukaku's loan and you're wrong about most of the other loans. It's why you can't formulate a response that backs-up your assertion.

Timid. That about summed that performance up. Could've said toothless or even gone as far as gutless but I'll be kind. Clearly has so much talent but the game just passes him by so many times. There have to be massive question marks over his stamina too because he looks knackered the whole time. Rarely breaks into anything more than a light jog, lazy in defence although his passing is accurate and his vision is often the best on the pitch. Just watching Modric playing for Madrid and he's playing in a similar position, but everything is done with more effort. I have no idea if Josh can have a work ethic coached into him because so often that's something someone either does have or doesn't. He could have all the talent in the world, but if he doesn't find a way to apply it on the pitch then it's meaningless. Middlesbrough were poor but so was Josh. 5/10.

There were people writing him off in the summer, and now he's banging them in so it actually was a pretty fucking clever move wasn't it? Jesus. The board gets all the stick and none of the credit. Some people here are saying we should go into the new season with Ba, Lukaku and Feruz (which I would be happy with). That's one striker who cost the same as Bebe, one who is perhaps worth double what we paid for him at the age of 19 and another who has something special about him and could be great for us. That to me is the work of a football club who has a bit of nous about them.

Oh look, an insult from younameit. Lukaku's problems were different. He was younger and he was in the wrong physical shape. He should come back next season and be a big player for us. And what would that have meant for Danny? There's a good chance he'd have left at the end of the season for nothing (or close to). Instead we got £12 million for him. You talk about thinking, how about spending a moment thinking over this scenario - a scenario that doesn't take into account the likelihood of us buying another striker in the summer. I think this thread will simply turn into an area for 'fans' to slag off this club.

And finished 6th in the league.

People who want to compare the likes of Xavi and Iniesta to McEachran should probably acknowledge that those two players had between them more than 100 appearances for Barcelona B. That's simply something we don't have at our disposal and serves only to highlight the problem facing all English clubs in promoting youth. People also say we've failed to promote young players - who? Which young players have come through the academy that we've missed out on? Jack Cork? Scott Sinclair? The academy in it's current state is less than a decade old. Is it any surprise that only now we're seeing young teams with maybe four or five players who could realistically make the grade here? Also, when people accuse me of taking their comments out of context (which I didn't - I quoted the line in it's entirety) then maybe they'd like to explain just how they feel they've been misquoted so that I can apologise if needs be.

Are you talking about the recent Arsenal home game where we defended with our backs to the wall for almost the entire second-half?? That's exactly the type of game he thrives in and I said at the time that the midfield two of him and Lamps was the root of our problems. They failed to control the game.

Actually Danny was given the full 90 against West Brom and had TWO clear cut opportunities which he failed to convert. Personally, this thread is simply going to be people looking to bash the club for letting a player go. We doubled our money on a player who was on an expiring contract and who was never going to be out number one striker. We have another young striker out on loan at West Brom looking to come in and challenge for a spot and we'll probably sign someone else in the summer. Now I can't defend the Torres saga but it happened and there's nothing we can do about the last two years, but constant bitching about us selling Sturridge is fucking tedious and personally I'd rather look towards the future of the club than look for reasons to moan about it's past dealings.

The amount of disrespect you show Chelsea supporters is rather extraordinary. But then you are a RAWK troll, so we understand that..... It's not your fault....

We won the CL with a large dose of luck. You can't rely on those tactics to win every time and I don't think any club would aspire to. We essentially said to Barca that we would allow them the ball and force them to beat us, which is massively risky. With our backs against the wall, his driving runs allowed us to break from defence to attack quickly and take advantage of Barca committing players forward. But if you plan on being a top team, you can't do that for 60+ games a season. How many times a year do you anticipate us playing with those types of tactics going forward? Half-a-dozen maybe? I'd much rather we build a team which aspires to control games and the one word you don't think of when you consider Ramires is 'control'. Thinking of the type of squad we'll have next season (if things go according to plan) I don't see where he fits in.

Don't we need someone with 'traditional technical abilities' if we're looking to dominate games? He performs best in games where we're under-pressure and looking to counter (Barcelona last year, Arsenal this year) but in games where we have the ball for long stretches and teams defend deep he simply looks like a headless chicken. He's a poor facsimile of Essien who compared physical strength and endurance with good technical skills and he's been one of the reasons we've struggled in games this year. He needs replacing ASAP if we're looking to win titles although he may well have a position on the bench when we need someone to close down teams or play on the counter. Nice guy but not good enough for any team with aspirations of success (and I include Brazil in that).

He's been impressive in both positions, and I think putting him in an advanced position serves Everton well but restricts him from doing what he did so well at Liege and in his early days at Everton. I don't think he's a particularly limited player and he's shown an ability to dominate games in a way Mikel NEVER has for Chelsea. The things you listed are simply over-exuberance. I don't care if he gets the odd booking because he puts himself about well, but you're right that he needs to cut out the more extreme acts. None of that makes him unlikeable in my opinion though and he's a long way from the Duncan Fergusons of this world.

Did you ever watch Fellaini as a DM? I did and I disagree with pretty much everything you're saying. Not sure what makes him unlikeable either. He's a hard-working lad who isn't afraid to get stuck in - those used to be qualities people admired in footballers.

I was talking about Chalobah, not Mikel.

He was under very little pressure last night and he's always fine in those situations. It's the tough games where he's more suspect. But he's lucky. There are about three more positions where we're in greater need of strengthening than his, although I think he's going to be under increasing pressure from Nathanial Chalobah. He has the composure on the ball that you need, but also has that little something special about him.

A few months ago I'd disagree, but he's really not been playing that well for a while now especially on the ball. He's still a valuable player but I think next season he'll take a backseat role with Azpi locking down the RB position and Luiz the main guy in defence (providing we get a new midfielder) with Terry, Cahill and Ivanvic fighting for that other spot. He'll be a great squad player though and the type of depth we need.

In what way?

A trip to Bucharest less than three days before an away game at Fulham.

You might not have, but football fans certainly knew who these guys were 'before they were 25'. Let's just ignore the hype surrounding both of them (especially Xavi who was the heir apparent to Guardiola from his teenage years) and focus on the facts. Things like them both having 300+ appearances for their club before the age of 25? Didn't you have a fucking clue who they were by then? No? Okay. What about Iniesta having been in the UEFA and World Team of the Year TWICE by the age of 25? No. Fair enough, maybe you don't pay attention to such things. What about Iniesta's FOUR La Liga titles, TWO Champions League titles, his World Club Cup title and that little competition known as the European Championship which he won in 2008, was named MOTM in the semi-final. Player of the Season in La Liga in 2009?

I hope you've started learning to make excuses in Russian so you can piss off decent fans on their forums when he leaves. Our 'shit' midfield only created about four chances for him last night including one straight through on goal - how many does he need to be able to score (to the nearest dozen please)?

Not good enough for us. The day he's sold will be the day we accept that we need skilful players in midfield who can comfortably handle possession of the ball. There are times when he struggles with the absolute basics.

Can't add much more to what others have said. Torres is absolutely shot. Morons (well one moron in particular) like to defend him by attacking our midfield for not creating enough chances. By my count he had FOUR clear-cut opportunities and he fluffed each of them. Not just that but his passing was awful. When the crowd laughs at you when you get hit in the bollocks by your own player, it's time to fuck off. Ramires makes up for what he lacks in quality in enthusiasm - but I'd rather have someone with better ball skills please. He only has a place in the team if we're going to let the opposition dominate possession and try to hit them on the counter-attack, and I don't think that's a solid plan to be a top team. Therefore, if we plan on winning stuff on a consistent basis then we should probably sell him. Bertrand is a very solid left-back. Mata played 90 minutes less than three days before an away trip to the Champions. Rafa - You're A Cunt. You're not Chelsea, you'll never be Chelsea. Eden is starting to look like the player we bought. It takes time for players to get used to a new league but he's definitely getting there. It was the right decision to bring him on but we shouldn't have been in a position like that in the first place. Sparta were unlucky not to beat us. Their fans were tremendous and they fronted up. Quite honestly the thought of at least two more games in between the West Brom, Fulham and West Ham games terrifies me. We've got ONE POINT from these teams already this season and we're going to lose prep time and rest time for key players when we're being pressured for a top four spot. But let's just take it one game at a time and then if we do fuck up it'll be a nice surprise.