The Big Drog

I would be disgusted if we dont have him as a member of our first team squad next season. Give him Florent Malouda's place in the squad, if the manager (whoever it may be) puts his faith in Kakuta, it could well be repaid.

Marin should be a help in that respect.

Same problems, creativity and a lack of penetrating wingers. Anyway those aren't as likely to be issues in the Liverpool and Munich finals. Looks like we will have to win the Champions League in order to play in it next season,hopefully the lads can do it.

Pretty big game, Di Matteo is resting a few key players ahead oft he FA Cup Final, it's so important that the lads out there playing tonight perform, Newcastle are a good side and it will be a tough task to get the three points. Very glad to see Ivanovic back, up against Cisse and Ba he will be an important player.

Though a draw would have done Man Utd I thought the set up from the start was ridiculous from Ferguson. Here was the most successful English club of the modern era basically admitting that they were an inferior team to their city rivals. As a result they didn't test Hart once, while they looked considerably more solid tonight than they did when the two sides met at Old Trafford, that still doesn't make up for United's shortcomings on the ball. Full credit to City, very tense situation, they looked nervy early on but they settled down and played some lovely football at times and fully deserved their 1-0 victory, they looked dangerous on the ball and solid at the back. Kompany, Zabaleta, Clichy, Barry and Aguero were all outstanding but my pick for MOTM is Yaya Toure, an absolutely dominating performance full of power, running and class, undoubtedly the finest all round midfielder in England. Hopefully City go on to win the league. Having beaten Man Utd twice and generally looked the more impressive side they would fully deserve it. For Man Utd it's a tough pill to swallow. Beaten in the league twice by City, clearly felt that they were the inferior team before the game (and were proven correct during the game) that City seem to have gained an upperhand on them like this in such a short space of time is an issue that needs to seriously be addressed by Ferguson or else losing to City may become a habit.

YES WE CAN!

I think that there is a bit more to it than simply AVB trying to implement a new style, I agree that the changing of philosophy was mis-managed bu that isn't the sole reason why we are 6th in the league. Ye and Im a fan of Hulk, however Hulk is also 35 million so....

I agree and I think Barcelona could do with a big striker. Though finding a top class striker with the technical ability required for Barcelona and with the personality to accept not playing every week (a blow to the ego that Ibrahimovic could not accept) would be quite the task.

It's all well and good beating Barcelona and I agree that our squad and our approach do match up better against Barcelona than Man Utd or Arsenal's does but in case you missed it, we are 6th in the table, we haven't won enough games and one of the reasons for that is because we dont have enough creativity and penetration in the side. While we match up against Barcelona better than Man Utd and Arsenal do, we dont match up against Stoke, Everton, Sunderland or these type of mid-table Premier League sides aswell as Man Utd and Arsenal do.

Obviously the Barcelona style is not the only way to win football games (though you could argue that, with the right players, it is the best way). Im not even saying that Chelsea should adapt that style of play (imagine how difficult it would be to restructure the club from top to bottom) all I am simply saying is what has been said on this forum roughly 10 million times, that is that we could do with more creativity in the side, so that we have a bit more guile and ability to break down smaller teams who park the bus or resolute defences. Let's not forget that during that double winning season, we were comprehensively knocked out by Inter Milan, the general consensus after the game amongst Chelsea fans was that we desperately needed more creativity in the side to break them down because the physical approach didn't work. Our current crop of players are suited to playing a physical type of game, however I dont see why we shouldn't mix in a bit of class and creativity with that (with signings like Mata and Marin) and hopefully we see more of that in the future.

They had a tall striker, Zlatan Ibrahimovic (one of the best lone strikers of his generation) but the experiment failed, it turned out he hindered Barcelona more than helped. Im not saying that a tall striker wouldn't go astray at Barcelona, but as is well mentioned by ZonalMarking recently, the problem is when the big striker became part of Barcelona's plan A rather than being a plan B.

With Cahill and Luiz set to miss this game and Ivanovic suspended it will be interesting to see who partners Terry at the heart of the defence. If Cahill doesn't recover in time for the Champions League final (a nightmare scenario which hopefully wont occur) then there is a good chance that the player who partners Terry against QPR might be the one chosen to partner Luiz against Munich so it will be a decent chance to experiment on that front.

I honestly don't know what to say to you in response to that, I'll give it a whirl but Im honestly flabbergasted. No I suppose the geographical location of Chelsea football club is not within the borders of Spain. Though you may hate the tika-taka style, it works and Im not entirely sure whether Roman Abramovich plans on basing the club's football philosophy on your likes and dislikes, also I dont think the single signing of Marko Marin will usher in a new era of tika-taka at Chelsea, if we sign Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Messi and a couple of others then ye we might see some more tika-take at the Bridge but I doubt we will be able to entice them into joining us. Were we talking about a club who play beautiful football but win nothing (kinda like Arsenal) then you might have a point, however Barcelona are the most successful club team in the last 5 years and Spain the most successful country. Obviously not every player is that height, Busquets, Abidal and Pique are all fairly tall. Im not sure either what the fascination with height is. We all know that we have desperately needed a tricky, quick, creative wide player for quite some time, Marin seems to fit that bill so yes, Im very much looking forward to his arrival at Chelsea.

No offence mate but in case you missed the last 3-4 years, Barcelona have dominated club football on the back of players like Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, Villa ect. and none of those could be considered tall, meanwhile in international football Spain have won Euro 2008 and the World Cup with Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Silva, Mata, Villa ect. again, none of them particularly big. Im a fan of Marin, I also think that the Bundesliga is a good league to come from and the adaptation to the Premier League shouldn't be as difficult as it would be from other, slower European leagues and at 23 he is the perfect age, still young but has a good amount of experience playing at the top level.

Im delighted. I like that we are signing players in the Mata mould rather than going for big, athletic players as we have done in the past. Even better is that he will only cost us between 8-10 million pounds, in today's market that must be considered a bargain. I think he will be a cracking addition to the squad, fairly quick, creative, good dribbler, a very encouraging signing going into the Summer and one to look forward to seeing in a Chelsea jersey next season.

A coach who will go down in the history books as one of Barcelona's finest ever managers and the man who created and led, arguably, the greatest team in the history of the game. So often you see people downplay his importance to what Barcelona have achieved during his tenure as manager. You hear ridiculous comments all the time like "I could manage Barcelona" in reality I don't think anybody else could have done the job Guardiola did. To take them from where they were, broken, divided and almost lost at the end of Rijkaard's reign, to the very heights of the world game, winning everything you can win. Real football fans know all of the obvious things Guardiola brought to Barcelona. The intense pressing game (absolutely pivotal in their success), the higher emphasis on possession of the ball, the promotion of youth players to the first team squad (to great success), the most fluid systems football has ever seen, the decision to play Messi as a false number 9, the inspiration and confidence he gave to players like Xavi and Fabregas who idolize him. The man revolutionized football, changed the way the game is played at the highest level, when history is told his impact on the club will be seen as every bit as significant as Johan Cruyff's. Lionel Messi may be the greatest player ever but Pep Guardiola is the most important man at Barcelona. So when you see comments like the ones above, with Chelsea fans saying they don't want him at our club, it's ridiculous. It would be an absolute honor to have him at the club, the same applies to any club he chooses to go to. Anyway it is a mute point, he has said he will take a break from football and has rejected the possibility of joining Chelsea in the Summer. That being said, were he to ever become the manager of Chelsea (unlikely) I would treat it as an honor, not as though we were signing some second rate car salesman to lead our team.

Defintely Sturridge and probably with good reason.

As BlueLion says, he deserves a tonne of praise for his performance last night in extremely difficult circumstances. Yes he is prone to the odd mistake and lapse of concentration but this is a guy who cost 20 million who was a regular starter for one of the top international teams in the world, he isn't some randomer we plucked off the street and, while I would also prefer Ivanovic to be able to start at right back, Bosingwa should be able to do a job there in the final.

Im too young to have seen Osgood play in real time so I cant call that one, but as I say, for me, I've never seen a Chelsea player to compare to Didier Drogba. The main man during the greatest period of the club's history, a genuinely world class player who could have plyed his trade at any club in the world but instead chose to remain at Chelsea.

I've never been sold on him being a permanent starter for the club but full credit to him, very disciplined player, never broke the shape of the two man midfield (which was absolutely key over both legs), gave it absolutely everything he had, a real honest and hard working player and a credit to the shirt last night.

Inspiring, over both legs the great man was nothing short of inspirational. Last night he was everywhere, up front, left wing, right wing, left back, right back, made some absolutely vital defensive headers from set pieces (the one where Puyol got the run on him was nothing short of breathtaking). I said it after the first leg and I will say it again, for me, he will go down in history as Chelsea's greatest ever player, a remarkable mix of physicality, technique and character.

imo, he is undoubtedly the finest full back in the world. He might not have the blistering pace he had before and that does limit his marauding runs forward but he has been able to make up for that and adapt his game, defensively he is rock solid, still a big threat going forward and remarkably composed on the ball and a real leader to boot. Even with 4 players missing, it's because we still have players like Cole available to us that give us a chance of winning the Champions League this season.

Obviously it's a shame that Terry will be missing and it will weaken the centre of our defence but Cahill and Luiz are both excellent defenders, hopefully both make the final, in theory they should form a more effective centre back pairing than Bosingwa and Ivanovic.

tbf mate he was playing as an auxiliary left back, hardly a role he is accustomed to. Yes his performance did look pretty bad in comparison to Drogba's (who was nothing short of heroic) but that goal made up for all of it, worth every penny of the 50 million pound spent.

Fingers crossed, anyway team selection for the final is a matter for another day. Im so thankful to be in the final and Im going to bed now so proud to be a Chelsea fan, as I said in an earlier comment, while I have full sympathy with the 4 lads who wont be able to play in the final, lets focus on who we do have, over 90 minutes, even with those 4 missing, we are formidable opponents.