The only place to be

No tempo, no-one in midfield controlling the pace, Oscar looks 'injured' again.... What we need is Oscar to do what he does for Brazil, set the tempo, touch the ball a lot and drag the play forward.

He definitely gets forward better than Cole does right now. The Cole of old was better, but he's not that Cole anymore. It's part of the reason Hazard has improved so markedly over the last couple of months because Azpi actually gets forward on the outside and takes the full-back with him.

He's been our best player for the last couple of months and he gets forward better than Cole. It's as simple as that. Look at the Galatasaray goal - that all came from him. He won the ball, ran the channel and crossed for Torres.

Looks like he's having a rest on the pitch....half the team are asleep.

http://zonasports.to/canal-2.shtml not brilliant

Entirely possible with his contract and the price it would cost to purchase him. He's also still surprisingly marketable and has a recognisable brand. The lack of a South American player is weird.

Cech Ivanovic Cahill Terry Azpi Matic Lamps Willian Oscar Hazard Eto'o Maybe Luiz in for Lamps if he's fit. Need to win this and capitalise on City not playing a league match, but Fulham aren't going to be pushovers. New manager (like West Brom), relegation-threatened (like West Brom) and it's a London derby although Fulham fans aren't exactly the most vitriolic out there.

I think I agree with you on the physical side. Players like Oscar and Hazard are young and still maturing so they're going to struggle with the demands, but I think Mourinho is okay with this because what is causing us struggles this year will hopefully make us stronger next year, both mentally and physically. He's pushing some of the players now so that they'll be able to cope with more next season. He keeps on saying that this year is a transition year and he may actually be telling the truth. Tactically he's got us doing one thing very well (the pressing and countering, although it's more about forcing mistakes and then exploiting the spaces the opposition leaves) so much so that we're top of the league by February. Some people will sniff at that but these things take time. City were already a good team with a solid spine (Hart, Kompany, Toure, Silva, Aguero) and they've added to what was already there but even they have been accused of being soft tactically. Arsenal are the same. Liverpool are in a similar position to us, getting good at one style of football but not being able to adapt to tactics like the ones we used against them. Mourinho is building for the long-term here. It's not going to be perfect overnight, but what has happened overnight has made us strong again and put us top of the league whilst getting good results against our rivals. It's actually unfortunate that games away to Spurs and United came earlier in the season because we'd probably be looking at beating them in our current state. And people who think that pressing the ball is simple are rather naive in my view. It's fantastically tough physically, and it requires a great deal of organisation so that all 10 players do their jobs and don't leave gaps in the press. If one or two players run at an opponent, they're going to get mugged off with a simple out ball and then there's space for the opposition to exploit. What was disappointing in the Galatasaray game was the number of times Willian would be the only one pressing in the final third. That to me was tiredness.

I know you love your stats so here's a question for you. Since Matic was first given his full debut against Stoke, how many times has Ramires played in central midfield/the pivot? Echo, echo, echo, echo..... The answer is of the 8 games we've played since Matic was signed, Ramires has played in the pivot.... THREE times (and one of those was against Galatasaray where Matic was cup-tied). That also includes the West Ham game where Ramires (Mr. central to Mourinho's tactics) was moved to the wing to accommodate Lampard and Matic after 63 minutes, and then into a sorta full-back role. In the other five games Matic has played in the middle with Lampard or Luiz, with Ramires either on the bench or on the wing.

Left out of the Spain squad.

The tactics at the moment vary on the opposition. Against the top teams we do have less possession because Mourinho's first thought is always not to lose those matches. That means we do set up on the counter and for those matches the best option is often Ramires, but not always in the pivot. There his physical attributes are utilised in a hybrid winger/midfielder role where he'll tuck in more when we defend and play like a traditional winger when we attack. But on the whole we do have more possession than our opponents. It's unlikely we're going to move to a Barca-type system because at the moment we really only have one top midfielder (Matic). Hopefully we improve on this in the future either by promoting from within or going into the market but at the moment I don't think we can really hope to control the possession against top teams consistently with someone as limited as Ramires. Also, you should look beyond those stats and examine the games we've actually played. The games away to Spurs and Arsenal were both away from home and we've only had Matic's presence in midfield for a month so the vast majority of matches were without him. Both of those factors will have a bearing on the statistics.

You used the word 'dominate'. I don't think you accidentally stumbled upon that word by randomly pressing the keys, I think that you're intelligent enough to have an idea in your head and use language to articulate that idea. 'Dominating possession' has a different meaning from other descriptions you could have used so don't get all uppity (see, I've chosen the word uppity there very deliberately) when people look at the words you've typed and discern some form of intent in their usage. OK? You ignored the possession against Liverpool by the way....or were you including them in the catch-all term of 'lowly sides'? So regardless of whether the difference is 2 or 3%.... And no, it doesn't speak for itself. Statistics are there to be interpreted, not to speak for themselves. They can't....they're just numbers. Again, that's not true. We break through very deliberate passing movements that rely on quick exchanges between players, like last night's goal.

My friend endorses this statement

Well three of those teams we've only played away from home. At home to Liverpool we had more possession. I also dispute your use of the term 'dominate' when in reality it's more like 55-45 in their favour. Dominating possession is like the 70% we have against the likes of Palace and Newcastle. In fact if you want to say those teams 'dominate' possession in matches against us then the reality is that we 'dominate' possession in most games with our average possession of 54%. Liverpool's is also 54%, Spurs's is 55%, United's is 55% and the masters of possession football (Everton and Arsenal) are 56% and 57% respectively. That almost makes it sound like he willingly gives up possession - he doesn't. His tactics are based around forcing teams into making mistakes in key areas and then striking quickly in first phase play. He doesn't instruct them to pass the ball to the nearest opposition player are the third phase breaks down. It's efficient football, but it has to be precise at the same time. Look at our goal yesterday - that was a designed play of overlapping runs that look to exploit gaps left by attacking teams who then turn the ball over. But it wasn't just about running forward as fast as possible, it was about accuracy of pass and timing. Those aren't Ramires's strengths.

I agree....the problem is when he actually has to get on the pitch.

That is just an example of how misleading stats can be. A pass from Matic to Hazard through the lines which forces defences to reorganise and a pass back to a player who has no option but to hoof it long still count as passes completed but are in reality completely different. The problem is that those who defend him constantly fall back on stats which have little context.

It wasn't 'good' though. It was at best the bare minimum you'd expect from a professional footballer with such a tiny amount asked of him. I'm surprised one of the stats used in his defence wasn't 'number of bootlaces done up correctly'. One of the things overlooked is that Galatasaray took off Drogba in the last ten minutes as well who, despite being fairly old now, was probably still the focal point of their attack.

This. It's a fairly open secret at this point. Fortunately we have two left-backs then we can flog for a bit of cash, and there's Cole's wages to lose off the books as well. Throw in the fact that he's expected to be here a long time which means any fee is amortised over about a decade and it's not a massive whack in the FFPs either. Just been called up to the England squad as well, and one of the few players deserving a spot. Honestly, he should be going to Brazil ahead of Cole.

I'm coming round to it. I think he can be a situational player next year, against the big teams when we want to play purely on the counter but the introduction of Matic has really been an eye-opener. It's like putting a beauty queen amongst a few good-looking women. You start to notice the acne more, or the lazy eye or the weird bump on the bridge of their nose. Ramires's deficiencies are just magnified when he's given possession. It's weird that a player would look worse when he gets the ball more, but in his case it's looking true. He's an athlete first and a footballer second in my opinion. That engine of his is fantastic and can be a weapon but it's the inconsistent first touch that undoes all of that. And yes, he scored a great goal against Barcelona.

Salah has barely played for us, is new to the system, new to the club, new to the league and new to the country. Mikel is one of our more experienced players, and EVERY fan knows what he gives us at this point in time. It's the same old shit though. If you don't like the way a player plays football then you must be a hater, or you must be scapegoating him or it's just the 'hip' thing to do. That is quite frankly bollocks. I've seen people give him credit for good performances (like Everton away) but they're so far and few between that he simply doesn't get that much praise. Throw in the fact that we've bought a genuinely good midfielder in Matic who is completely different from Mikel in every way and he's going to look poor in comparison. The fact is that there's a few people on here, on Twitter and elsewhere who have long defended Mikel. They've said he's misunderstood, that what he does is beyond us mere mortals comprehension, that he's unfairly singled out, that he's actually the best DM in Europe (except for Busquets obviously), that he's key to what we do, that he's going to be here forever....and they've had to eat their words because Matic has come in and done a much better job in his first few games. He's been proactive, he's been hard-working, he's been driving the team forward, he's been passing through the lines, he's been taking players on and he's even shown a nice eye for a chance. It's hilarious.

Becoming inconsistent. At his best he's unplayable and in matches like last night he's just....there. Worked hard defensively so you can never say he goes missing but I miss that little burst of excitement he brings when he's really up for a game. I will say that bog of a pitch really didn't help. Ultimately it became easier just to knock balls over the top rather than try and play too much football.

The Man City example isn't typical. They're probably the only team better than us in the league and yes they dominated possession....then against Newcastle we had 59% of possession. Against West Brom we had 60%. Against West Ham we had 72%. Because we did that against Man City....right. It's not possible that we're looking to play different types of football against different oppositions is it? Because the stats seem to suggest that. We even play different formations at times. Ramires is great at getting the ball in open space and knocking it a few yards ahead to run onto.....and that's it. Occasionally he'll do a bit of skill (obligatory Barcelona goal reference) but eventually that's not going to be enough. Mourinho didn't need a whippet in Madrid because he had Khedira, Modric and Alonso and hopefully at some point we'll move on from Ramires too....unless we just keep him around for games where we do nothing but counter-attack, like we did last night.

Mikel didn't lose the ball once....he lets other players do that. What he does is he shields the ball, moves towards his goal and compresses the space between the opposition players who are pressing him and the player he's passing to. If you watch the match there's a moment where he does that to Azpi, so Azpi has to clear it. And no I don't like Mikel but I have no problem with a player like him being introduced to slow things down and ease the pressure off of us. I'd just prefer it was someone better. Before he came on they had 4 chances, after 3 chances. Before he came on they completed 85% of their passes, after 86%. After he comes on, we actually play more in our third of the pitch. Very little changes with his introduction.

Actually he made three times as many passes as Ramires in the last 15 minutes. I'm not saying that you didn't watch the match but it's simply incorrect to suggest he didn't run for the last 15. He was retaining possession and did no more or less than Ramires did defensively.

Lack of quality up front, lack of quality in midfield in European games and teams sitting deeper against us. It's still only 8 months into Mourinho's second term here so the players are still adapting.