The only place to be

He played well, but he was just an unfortunate victim of the Torres transfer. We couldn't flush a £50 million investment down the toilet without giving him more opportunities and Danny wanted to be the main striker. We did well to cash in on him when we did and we replaced him well with Ba and Moses. Constant recriminations and 'I told you so's' are surely going to get tiresome aren't they?

Pretty fair analysis. Thought a lot of our problems again came from the midfield of him and Ramires (not all by any measure) but that's simply not his fault. He's a legend but in a completely different position from the one he's being asked to play. I do think yesterday's game perfectly summed up where he is in this club now.

Financially it would be bad, but we'd have to count ourselves lucky that it would coincide with the new TV deal. That should mean we could keep hold of most of the big players but we'd have less to spend which might force us to use what we have already. Maybe it's time to blow this team up.

Feruz to be on the bench? Even if Ba can play surely this wakes the club up to the lack of back-up we have. Plus Hazard will be back, which is nice.

Would missing out on the Top Four be the worst thing in the world? It might actually give us a chance to stop and breathe for a moment, rather than continuing this relentless assault on the Champions League. I've said it before, but last year's win papered over a lot of cracks. One could easily argue that we haven't been running this club properly for a number of years, keeping the ship together with duct tape rather than rebuilding it from the hull up. We finished sixth in the league last season and that was about right, but maybe this summer is the right time to blow it up and build something brand new. We've started doing the right things in the transfer market and we're moving towards a point where youth team graduates could slot into the team. Missing out on the CL might actually force us to build something long-term rather than patch a broken system up and go again. We might even enjoy watching the games again (wouldn't that be nice?). I'll admit I'm looking for silver linings in a very dark cloud, but sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can do the right things in future.

You really need to stop with the constant insults to decent supporters. You don't seem to be able to post without doing so. And can we get away from this notion that we simply decided to keep Torres and sell Sturridge. Sturridge's contract was expiring and there were people willing to pay double what we paid for him. That simply isn't the case with Torres (as far as I know).

They're actually thinking long-term which is what the club didn't do five years ago. They're looking at getting the most out of a player over the long-term rather than running around like headless chickens throwing money around.

The problem with Essien is that for the last four years, he simply hasn't been the player we all seem to remember him as. The guy played less than 22 games in three of the last four years, suffered two really bad injuries, struggled with form and still made around £100k p/w. This move might reinvigorate him and he might still be able to do a job for us, or he might simply be a more sellable commodity after a season in the shop window. But I don't think anyone knew what to expect from him this season in terms of fitness, so offloading a few million pounds of wages onto another team probably made sense in the grand scheme of things. Without David Luiz and Mikel, he does seem remarkably attractive right now though.

It is kinda boring. Realistically there's no player out there that really get's the juices flowing. Maybe it's a case of us being burnt before in this window or maybe it's just a case of there not being an abundance of top-level talent available, but at the moment I'd take a bid on someone like Fellaini. In fact I'd love it if we recalled one of the players we already owned. Being a Chelsea fan in 2013 = hoping you sack the manager or recall a player you already own. I'm just going to sit in a corner and repeat the same words over and over again...... Sunday 19th May, 17:45.....Sunday 19th May, 17:45.....Sunday 19th May, 17:45.....

Fellaini for £32 million?

Fair play for going to watch that shit last night. A mate of mine gave me a bell at the last minute with a ticket but I passed. I had plenty of legit excuses like being knackered and it being a bit of a mission to get there in time for the kick-off but that's never stopped me in the past if I'm honest. I'm sick of Benitez now though. I could overlook the myriad of things that make him simply not fit to manage our club if he could do the basics right and close out games but he's done it too many times now against weak teams like West Ham, Southampton and Reading. We were lucky against Arsenal too. I'm counting down the days until he's gone and praying that the team's chasing us continue to drop points.

Our Dutch friends have extended highlights of the game. http://www.ajax.nl/Ajax-TV/Highlights-Ajax-A1-Chelsea-A1.htm Feruz looked sharp again but some of the mistakes at the back were woeful.

Twat.

Throw in Lampard and that's probably £250,000-£300,000 off the wage bill which is handy. I've not been too worried about the future because we seem to be buying well (and young) and also have a few youngsters coming through to go alongside the more mature members of the squad. I'm just shitting it about this season and whether we can stumble towards the finish line.

I think I was one of the ones who did say to give him time and even gave him credit for what looked like defensive improvements, but last night was the final straw for me. His two substitutions made sense, but not bringing on Terry when we were playing with our backs to the wall was monumentally stupid. And his explanation that he 'didn't have time' doesn't make it better. It actually makes him look inept. Throw in the fact that once again we underestimated weak opposition by not fielding our strongest start XI and you have a manager who fucked a game from start to finish.

Begovic would be a good signing considering we're going to be short on back-ups next season, but I really hope these stories about us losing Courtois are bollocks. Even if we're using him to sign Falcao it absolutely beggars belief that we would give up one of the best youngsters in world football. Would like us to sign Fellaini too, not only to strengthen an area we're weak in but also to weaken a team who are chasing us.

Spurs and Arsenal both have Europe too. Personally I'd just stick the youth team out in those games and focus on the league. All the teams have got tough games left and we've got Spurs at home so it's at least partly in our own hands. It's going to be tough and I'm not confident by any means but we've got a four point gap at the moment and the teams around us simply aren't that much stronger than us.

It's possible, but Arsenal are 8 points behind us at the moment. We've got Mikel, Moses and Luiz to come back and we might even do some business today. I'd find it hard to predict how it would turn out 4 months down the line. I couldn't even pick this weekend's results confidently, with us going to Newcastle, Spurs at West Brom and Arsenal home to Stoke. We could be one point clear or seven by Sunday evening.

Who will finish above us? The two Manchester clubs and.....

The thing is you seem to just be talking about personnel changes rather than tactical changes. He could've swapped Oscar or Bertrand for Terry and gone to five at the back. Don't forget, he didn't choose not to bring John Terry on, he ran out of time. This world class tactician couldn't make ONE subsititution in SIX minutes. Oh wait....yes he could. He brought on Ba for Torres, which I don't have a problem with in and of itself, but when we don't bring on a defender when we're defending a lead then it's somewhat irksome. And this isn't kneejerk stuff. This is the same problem over and over again. Underestimating opposition and not playing his strongest team from the start and then making like-for-like substitutions rather than making changes to his oh so precious formation. The point that few people seem to have mentioned is that Reading were utterly dire tonight. They were toothless in attack and aimless in defence and yet we still wasted chance after chance against them. Why are we not playing our strongest team in the league when the priority is fourth? Why has Demba Ba played about 15 minutes in the last two games, starting neither one? Criticising substitutions might be easy. How about criticising a manager's inability to make a substitution when there's six minutes of extra time and you're defending a lead? Because those seem to be the fachts of the evening.

And 5 minutes before that, they bought on Rafael for Anderson and (I'm assuming because I haven't watched the game yet) moved Jones into midfield. Benitez didn't put out his strongest team to start the game and he didn't act quick enough at the end. He said it himself. He said that they didn't have enough time to bring on Terry which actually sounds like bollocks, and is most likely a case of him trying to cover his enormous, fat arse.

According to Rafa, we didn't have time to bring on Terry. They scored their first goal in the 87th minute, their second in the 94th. That's seven minutes - the fat cunt could choke down 69 hot dogs in that time (if he pretended they were Torres's cock).

Backs to the wall and he left John Terry on the bench. That's his fault.

Would that be the worst thing in the world?

Can't say much more than everyone else has. That fat fucking cunt lost us the game. He didn't put out his strongest team at the start and he didn't make the right substitutions at the end. Terry should've been on and I hope he lamps that fat fucking cunt for everyone of the Chelsea fans who watched that tonight. We were good enough to win but we simply didn't convert enough of the pressure into goals (because despite Torres having a half-decent game tonight he still can't score goals against half-decent opposition) and we didn't defend the lead at the end. And despite all that we are so fucking lucky that the teams chasing us dropped points. We have to throw the cup and the Europa League because getting a top four spot is going to be a massive task. Youth team, reserve teams or just those three Beckham kids and a few under-9s to make up the numbers. This is the point at which we go to the mattresses and pray for things to go our way.