The only place to be

You've got some stick for this, but this is broadly speaking the type of team we should've been putting out in this competition. Maybe Saville should've got a run, maybe Blackman on the bench and even Loftus-Cheek at some point although that would be a stretch. Some people have been trying to sell Bradford in the final as the 'magic of the cup'. Firstly, that only pertains to the FA Cup. The Coca-Cola Cup isn't magical in the slightest. More importantly it shows how devalued this competition has become. I don't think there's been a better time to put it out of it's misery and erect a screen around it Grand National-style.

As one of the 'stupid' people, can you honestly say in the games you watched Bertrand and PVA play when they were 17 that they had the composure and confidence that Shaw has right now? Because I like both of those guys, but they simply didn't. When it comes to tactical positioning they're not even close which is slightly worrying. Now I'd like to see Bertrand given a run in the team but if this kid is available for £5 million as the press have suggested, then it's a very tempting proposition. I've heard good things about PVA this season but both these guys have a problem now that Ashley has signed a new contract. You're talking about another year before they can really fight for his spot, at which point Bertrand will be 25. You say that Bertrand will be 'good enough'. When did Chelsea start settling for 'good enough'?

But it wouldn't seem weird to have spoken about them in this thread wouldn't it? The reason I mentioned him is that we were poor in midfield, and we needed someone who could put their foot on the ball and calm everyone down. We needed a bit of leadership and experience in the middle of the park.

He gave the ball away and stood still for about 5 seconds....then he apologised after the game.

Couldn't one find fault with other goals where he has been present? Like Swansea away? Or Juve at home?

Did the crowd of 8,000 go mad?

'Yes men and naive followers'. I know some of these people and they've supported this club long before you were born and know more about the game then you'll ever know. Disregarding them like that is disrespectful. So is spewing them out without contextualising them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2266329/Rafael-Benitez-calls-Marco-Materazzi-liar-schoolteacher-blast.html It's not quite 'a list', but seriously?

A Buble? Would that be a Michael Buble? I'm just being honest based on what I'm seeing on TV - half-empty stadiums. I'm also fairly familiar with the situation in modern African countries which is much more complex than your telethon-view of things.

It's not unfair to call that team reserves. Apart from Rafael and maybe Welbeck, not a single player was what you'd call a first-teamer. They then brought on 3 youngsters whilst we brought on Oscar, Hazard and Ramires. It was a bit of a fuck-up if we're being honest.

There's a whole thread for Lamps, but when you look at poor performances like the one on Sunday and then go on to talk about everything he offers and his 'experience' part of me thinks that you're giving him a free pass. Sure I'd like him to stay, but that's for purely selfish reasons and not footballing ones. Committing millions of pounds to someone based on that is madness in my opinion.

Even so, I was told by people on here that this was of great importance to the African people. Are you saying that the organisers haven't taken appropriate steps to fill the stadiums? Sounds like half-arsed planning if that's the case.

A manager might, but Benitez is interim coach. You don't stay in a hotel and change the wallpaper. Whilst it might not be an either/or situation, it is one more person in front of these guys and we have no idea if he's happy on the bench. I also don't know how useful he'll be in that position. He was a passenger in the second-half on Sunday and that isn't the first time it's happened this season. That will have to be the coach's decision, unless he decides to commit to some other team.

Sorry Lenny Henry, but they (Africans) aren't a single group of people. They are rich and poor, much like other places around the globe. South Africans especially are becoming increasingly wealthy with a burgeoning middle-class emerging from the shackles of Apartheid and they didn't have a problem packing out the stadiums and supporters' areas in 2010.

The big team we knocked out had their reserves up against us whilst we knackered our most important players. It might've been a case of Robbie showing his inexperience or him simply putting out what was available, but our strategy in this cup has been flawed all season. Personally I'm finding it very hard to give a shit about tomorrow.

People were telling me how important this tournament was when I expressed objections to it. It would appear as though Africans might agree with me based on the half-empty stadiums that both Ivory Coast and Nigeria have played in.

Benitez has no say on the Lampard situation though, and saying stuff to the press simply exacerbates an already divisive issue. Mourinho may find use for him going forward, and he's certainly be able to handle him in the squad unlike certain other managers, but I'm not sure where he'd use him. We need to sign someone in that position for next year and I'd rather have a young prospect like McEachran or Chalobah coming off the bench but if Jose thinks Lampard will help us win stuff then he might keep him around.

It's not Rafa's choice to make though. What on Earth can he say? As for Mourinho keeping him, I think he might but having come from a team with Alonso and Modric in it I'm not sure exactly where he'd play him. Maybe he could use him on the coaching staff though although I have no idea if Lamps wants to go into that side of the game.

For years and years, we've had the squad depth to have a go at different things. We've also been a very pragmatic club and right now we have to be realistic and plan accordingly. Also, not all cups are equal. This is very much a tin pot cup nowadays and we should've used it purely to give young players experience, not gassing them against United's reserves before a long trip to Swansea. A cup where the final four are us, Swansea, Villa and Bradford is not a top competition anymore.

Mikel has an average rating of 6.79 in league games on whoscored.com. Fellaini's is 7.56. Throwing stats around without context is fun. Personally I like to factor in what I see on the pitch too, and I still haven't received an adequate answer as to why Mikel has still failed to win over such a large proportion of supporters.

Which is what I think we have through the likes of Hazard, Mata, Moses and the playmaker I'd like to have alongside a DM in midfield. I think Ramires is great at turning defence into attack against teams who commit men forward, but if we had a stronger midfield I don't think they'd be in a position to do that quite so much. That's what my original point related to. If Ramires is our best player, then chances are we're playing on the back foot and he's either defending well (as he did on Sunday) or leading the charge on the breakaway (as he did against Barca). Ideally, we wouldn't be in that position in the first place though.

You can't tell everything about that goal from one gif. You need to see the players' movement before the goal to see who was marking who and the dropped assignments. On the 'human being scale', I've actually been mightily impressed in a couple of games (Man City 2010, Man United 2012) to really see Fellani put the team on his back. That is to say he's taken over games, be it in a defensive capacity or as a second striker, and drive his team forward whilst dominating the other team. Not all players have the capacity or the will to do that. Sorry I don't have a gif or a chart for that.

I think that game perfectly encapsulates where Ramires is at his best - when we're playing with out backs against the walls and teams commit men forwards. He's able to exploit the broken field, when players are pulled out of position and transition into defence slowly, and make surging runs. But that depends on other teams dictating the tempo and dominating possession. My contention is that other options in that position would actually allow us to control the game better. Some should really put individual performances into the context of the game - that's the game they see on the pitch, not on whoscored.com.

You realise that Luiz has only played less than 10 games in midfield don't you? It's not about covering space, but also making a nuisance of yourself to disrupt the other team's rhythm (I'm not sure which graph best shows that for you) and getting the team moving on the front foot.

Wow. That's an amazing picture. And a gif too. All I had was my eyes . I'm not saying he's the greatest player on Earth and I'm not saying he's perfect, but I think he'd be better in our team than Mikel. I was actually surprised with his passing last night. I thought he kept the ball moving around the pitch well (especially in his own half). To me he looked to be playing deeper, but if you tell me he was playing a trequatisa then who am I to disagree. When I watched him, he looked to be playing a lot deeper. In fact he seems to be all over the pitch which is fairly impressive. Having looked at whoscored.com though, he seems to have an 80% pass completion percentage with 2 shots on target, 5 tackles and 3 interceptions. The problem is that anyone who watched that game and also watched either of our games against Southampton could see that it's hard to compare what he does in that team to what he'd do in our's. Firstly, he'd be asked to sit a lot deeper most of the time. But more importantly, he'd have better players alongside him who would get themselves open better. He'd also be up against teams who would sit deeper and put less pressure on him. It's another of my problems with people's reliance on stats. They don't tell the whole story and they especially ignore the other players in the team and the opposition.