Thomas Williams

I think when Oscar gets older and hopefully bigger, he would be fine at defending, he certainly has the aggression.

Cahill is good at bus parking!

I'd waayyyy rather have Schweinsteiger than Gomez

I really hate the title of this thread because our champion's league run was beautiful and something I hold sacred. I don't want it tarnished by the disappointments of this season, we had YET ANOTHER midseason manager switch, and to a worthless fsw at that. My favorite player Lampard is now useless to the team because instead of giving him a deserved contract, they hung him out to dry after all he's done for the club. Now all he cares about is his scoring record (which I can only partly blame him for) because I think he believes it's the least the club could do for him. We lost the absolutely class of Drogba, which left a hole that Torres only exacerbated and Ba could only partially fill, and now we miss that crucial #9 that a top class team needs. Our team is young and inexperienced and many of them new to the team, and without a proper leader I barely expect them to play at their best. But they hold so much promise, and although we overloaned, those players hold maybe even more promise and with a proper LONGTERM manager I can't see Chelsea being less than a trophy winning monstrosity in a few years with our Belgians and other young talent maturing and staying with the team. Unless we royally screw up, I am very optimistic. I can handle a 4th place finish this year, even a trophyless one, with the prospect of a rafa and Torres-less future. I still love this team more than could even make sense, and every disappointing game will just lead me to cheer harder for the next one. Ktbffh! :blue scalf:

The reason I believe in playing our youth players in games like today is because I'm sure a bunch of the chelsea players are already looking towards playing United this weekend. The young guys who don't get any starts are going to play their heart out no matter what because they have a lot to prove.

I'm thinking he's referring to the french milieux offensifs centreSo CAM basically. ......I think

I Think the most impressive thing is that despite having 9000 other registered members, Alex has managed to created 4% of all the posts on here .

Ramires better not be out on the wing is all I have to say, I'd almost rather see bertrand. I wouldn't mind him in the pivot unless he's with lampard, the two are too offensively minded to protect our defense well enough. My best idea is ------Cech Azpi Cahill JT Cole ---Luiz Lamps Mata Oscar Hazard -----Demba Ba But that's still not good. I actually like the idea of this: ------Cech Azpi LUiz JT Cole ---Rambo Mikel ------Lamps Mata-------Hazard --------Ba With lamps playing as a sort of number 10 but who can drop back to Ramires' spot if he makes a sprint forward, but he can still arrive a little late to the box if he wants to score that long strike. More like a fifa idea than anything really practical, even if it would work Chelsea would disband the team before giving up on this damn pivot idea. (I like the formation, just none of our players besides our no 10's are suited for it)

I think we need to play him against the weakest oppositions we can, and put him when we are already up by several goals and the opposing team is collapsing. This way, we'll artificially inflate his stats, and other teams will think "Wow! why do Chelsea complain so much about him? These numbers aren't half bad, and I bet if he went to a more supportive team, he'd be right back at his Liverpool quality." They buy him >15 million, GET HIM OFF OUR BOOKS AND OFF OF OUR PITCH , and now we have that money to invest to either invest in a good young quality striker, or put towards buying a superstar like Cavani. Then we sit back and laugh as whatever team buys him realizes what a piece of shit he is (now he won't even have Mazacar to feed him gorgeous balls) :lol2:

Best and most consistent player for Chelsea this season, one of the best players in the whole EPL. He has turned around so many games earlier in the season (Lampard has been doing that for us more now). We wouldn't even be close to top 4 without him. I mean sure, he has his weaknesses, but his passing, vision, and finishing is top notch, so its no wonder he has so many assists and goals (more in each than Rooney, silva, whoever else you want to mention in the EPL) Point is, I love Mourinho, but if he is the great manager I know he is, he would recognize Mata is true talent, that will only become greater in the next few years. Mata's biggest flaw to me is how often he plays the ball to Torres, he should know better by now.

goal.com gave Azpi a 2.5 star rating. I don't even know how to respond to that.

Azpi was phenomenal, lampard made a few bad passes but did very well other than that. Marin's goal was a bit of a fluke, but I would love to see him play more. Torres for a CAM substitute?

When we have Hazard, Mikel, and Luiz back I'm sure we'll start doing a lot better than this. Our players are obviously burnt out now, they've played so many games. With more player to cycle with and fewer fixtures I'm sure we'll be top 4. We have a very thin squad (not really, they're just all out on loan) and with all the trophies we've been competing for, it has really hurt us. Our starting 11 is definitely at least top 3, and with Ba in, probably top two.

It'll be tough, but he is truly a goalscorer, I think he can do it. What we really need is Hazard to start getting us a penalty every game like he used to.

Because up to that point he was playing pretty terribly. However, striker is one of those roles where you can play awful 90% of the game but make up for it with sparks of brilliance.

Lampard has to be exhausted, playing this many games in such short time, unfair to ask that out of someone his age.

6 AM for me, after what will be a long night of drinking. It's not always easy to be a Chelsea fan, but it will be worth it if Chelsea win and I can see Marin play!

Highlights from our last game with Swansea were on Chelseatv today and it reminded me that we had so many chances that we could have (and should have) scored on. If we can just do a good job of finishing all the good chances I'm sure we'll make, we'll be fine.

Why does every thread have to be an over-argued pissing match...

I don't get why he doesn't get more playing time, as exhausted as our wingers have been lately and with moses out for international duty. He's not that bad, he just needs some playing time.

I honestly can't see us advancing, I would almost consider this a good time to just rotate the squad to rest some players (who desperately need it) and let people like marin and such get some playing time. However, I can't stand a loser's mentality, so I hope we go out there and give them hell!

Alas, the difficulty of humor (especially sarcasm) over the internet. Anyway, I definitely see Hazard becoming a world class player in the EPL, especially if he gains a little weight/strength. I feel like if he was ever completely fresh for a game, he'd be a lot better than he is now, which I still think is quite good. I wish we had put marin in a little earlier to rest him some, he wasn't getting anything done in the second half anyway.

One of the things I like most about Ba is that if we kick it up field, he is very likely to win the header, and help us keep possession. He's good at keep possession in general (especially compared to torres) which helps in so many ways besides just helping us score more. Midfield looked awesome first half and dreadful second half, I don't know how to explain it, maybe they're getting tired with all these games... On defense, Cahill looked solid, Ivanovic has been more questionable lately, which upsets me because he's always been one of my favorites. Azpi and cole played pretty well too. As for Torres, well, we all knew how torres would play. Nice to see him use his pace a little today (I think a lot of us forgot he had it)

Lampard goal!!

like that by Hazard