Corner

Britton, De Guzman, Ki, Routledge, Dyer, Graham Still a lot of creative players there. Capable of beating Arsenal I think.

Planning to sell Luiz? I seriously doubt it mate.

I hope Ba doesn't play. Williams will try to kill the lad.

True, but Lamps is 35 and he's not going to play every game. He's also not the 20-goal-per-season midfielder he once was. (I wouldn't get your hopes up about those rumours mate. Just wait for something official and you'll save yourself a lot of stress. )

Not exactly. He most likely has a limited amount of games left to play for us, so he should take every chance he gets to beat the all-time record.

I've been calling for this for over a year now, so I'm not going to get my hopes up.

That's a good point!

You either have an insanely good memory, an eidetic memory... or you know of a fairly reliable statistics website.

Considering the level Shaw is at now at the age of just 17, I think he has the potential to be a lot better than Bertrand.

Definitely. That's actually a very under-rated quality in a full-back. IIRC, Azpi assists Hazard's goal against West Brom with a left-footed cross after cutting back from his right. 7 million, is that what he cost? A bargain. It's so hard to find a quality full-back nowadays.

I agree fully with this. But he usually does have a good cross. He's whipped in some lovely crosses and has a few assists this season so far. But his crossing was woeful today, like you said. And it really is delightful to have a quality right back. I was never convinced by Ivanovic at right back, I much prefer him at centre-back. But yeah, Azpi was awesome today.

Fucking hell. How? How do they always do it?

In what way has Lampard taking penalties ever affected the team's morale or performance?

The biggest cheer from me today came when Lampard scored that penalty. I desperately want him to become our all-time top scorer. He deserves it.

I can see where you're coming from mate, although the word 'disagrace' might be a bit too harsh. But surely you can understand, after everything Lampard has given to this club, why Lampard took it himself?

Ba is going to get all the headlines, and he deserves them to be fair. It was a breath of fresh air to have a striker that poses a constant goal threat. But how good was Mata? It just shows how much we missed him against QPR. How many times did he take the ball down from the air with an amazing first touch? And with ease too. It's no secret, but Mata is truly a class act. A future CFC legend.

Demba Ba's first Chelsea game: - 2 goals for Ba - 2 assists for Mata - 1 assist for Hazard Need I say any more?

No Mikel?

I think it's pretty likely that we'll still bid for a top striker in the summer. Ba seems to have been signed as a way to help us out for the remainder of the season with us playing so many games. I reckon we'll sign a top striker in the summer and Lukaku will go somewhere on another loan move.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11833/8378846/Barcelona-s-Victor-Valdes-would-consider-move-to-Premier-League In other words, Barcelona could potentially be chasing Courtois.

I fully agree with this! In a way, it made sense for Di Matteo to use 4-2-3-1 after us buying a bunch of attacking midfielders/wingers. What I will never be able to understand is the board leaving us so short on holding midfielders. Attacking midfielders and holding midfielders are obviously both very important in a 4-2-3-1 formation, but they left us with two true holding midfield players (I'm not counting Lampard, Ramires or Luiz as none of them are naturals in this position). It was questionable decision making by the board, to be honest. I still think 4-3-3 suits our players better and suits the system we're attempting to adapt more, but that's just my view on it. As you said, Ramires would obviously benefit from it. As would Oscar and Mikel. I think it makes much more sense to try and adapt Hazard and Mata on the wings than trying to turn the likes of Luiz, Lampard and Ramires into holding midfielders. Hazard has the speed of a winger to begin with, and while Mata may lack speed, his intelligence and off the ball movement makes up for this. Under Mourinho, we played a 4-3-3 with Cole on the left wing and Robben on the right wing, more often than not. Both were instructed cut inside frequently which left us very narrow at times. I think Hazard and Mata could do this perfectly. There's strengths and weaknesses in every formation, no matter which one you choose. And if we're going to persist with possession football and continue to buy technically gifted player then 4-3-3 is the best fit. And to be honest, I would like to see us make the switch for the above reasons, but also because I'm sick of the 'pivot'. I'm sick of everyone talking about it, mentioning it in every thread and all of the problems it seems to cause. Because of this 'pivot,' we've started turned central midfielders and centre-backs into holding midfielders.

I think the intention the Chelsea board always had was to gradually move Oscar to a deeper position (deep-lying playmaker role). I still don't agree with Oscar not being ready, he's more than ready to play there. I think the problem is not Oscar but the formation. 4-3-3 is much more balanced and suits the style of play we're trying to play much better than 4-2-3-1. I think it would accomodate Oscar much better as well. Assuming we were to buy Benat, then we could have a midfield trio of Mikel, Benat and Oscar, which could work very well with Oscar in a slightly more advanced role than Benat. The only question is how Hazard and Mata would work on the wings. They could still push inside like they naturally do anyway and the full-backs could provide with. It's essentially what Di Matteo was trying to do but playing 4-2-3-1 instead, which left us vulnerable to counter attacks.

Yes but Cech won't be playing. I'm pretty sure Cole is after Cech, then Ivanovic.

You think so? I can see Luiz being moved back to CB as soon as Mikel is back from ACON, especially if we sign another DM this month and I think we will. And like I said, I don't think Lescott would be interest, unless we throw a lot of money at him. But it's also unlikely that Chelsea would even want to sign a 30 year old CB, they especially won't want to throw a lot of money at one.