Phil Driver

You are dead right ,hence we need Mikel nowhere near a pivot place at Chelsea. You must always remember Jose's words he watches the player not the birth certificate ,as I do ,you will be told when Lampard is finished and it is not yet . Here is a prediction ,he will be offered another year contract by the manager who knows best. His mobility is not gone in extra time of the European Super Cup and in the Europa League final he was as mobile as anyone in extra time ,he is a fitness freak like Giggs. Forget the age watch the performance v Spurs when he and Rammy bossed them .

What an absoloute lod of bull,Mikel was annihalated first half he has no mobility and strength ,second half Frank and Rammy bossed it ,but either would have been annihalated on their own against them with Mikel hanging back and slowing the play down,allowing the Spurs midfield to dominate. Watch the match again and the evidence will surely outweigh your pre judgements and then you were mad enough to claim you were right .

Watched the full game on TV now and him and Rammy were superb in the second half,dominated the Spurs midfield,why?,because they worked together and pushed Spurs back ,not one of them just sitting and letting the other battle alone. Lamps won a lot of tackles second half,him and Rammy bossed it.

Cmon Roman,let's not mess about like we did with Frank ,if it were me it would be a 2 year deal for our leader,superb on Saturday.

You can't argue with the Mikel fanboys,if they did not learn anything from Saturday they never will. We are calmer with him in the team? It could be time to air his win/play stats again,if the two halves against Spurs were not proof enough of his negative influence on Chelsea .

You seem to be quite good at guessing . No he did not have to take anybody off ,he took Mikel off ,

How could it have the same effect ? The effect was only achieved because he took Mikel off . Any other effect is surely a fantasy? that is impossible to be sure about ,I am sure Jose knows that ,the only effect you can be sure of is the effect Mikel had on the first half and the effect he did not have on the second half. The Ramires / Mikel combination would still have seen Mikel sitting back and doing not a lot ,right ,otherwise why didnt Jose take Lampard off and blame him for the problems we had in the first half answer - because the problems were caused by Mikel hanging back and playing very slowly in a high tempo London derby which allowed Spurs to dominate our midfield with Mikel on the pitch.

Yes it is Mikel who forces the team to hang back and you cant dispute the fact that we dominated the midfield after his removal . Jose said he saw the problem in the first half and he changed the problem and the game,the problem was Mikel ,nobody else. His removal meant that we did not hang back and the result was Rammy and Lampard engaged there midfield and we dominated and they failed to pick us up ,we only managed this because Mikel was removed for hanging back and Ramires supported Lampard in taking the game to Spurs . it was blindingly obvious . If you have one of your two midfielders hanging back the other one becomes isolated and the opposition dominate ,yesterday showed this graphically . Jose said he saw the problem and he changed it and we were much better . We took the game to them and they had to hang back and were not picking us up,Mou did not clearly set us up to hang back and let Spurs dominate . The midfield was only conservative as you put it ,when Mikel was part of it . You do remember how poor Rammy was in the Fulham game? There is a theme here and that is whoever plays with Mikel will struggle .

...............Cech................ ....Ivan....JT...Cahill..Cole.. .....Ramires...Lampard/Essien.. ..Schurrle....Mata...Hazard.. .............Torres....... Our terrible loss v Basle means we must win this at all costs.

Watch the match and you will probably not see that in the second half we were pressing and dominating and it was Dembele and Paulinho who were losing their men . If you are hanging back or being forced back you will lose the player you are supposed to be marking . Ramires and Lampard dictated the game we didnt lose their players because we DOMINATED . Mikel was subbed as he was the problem and we dominated the game from then on .

One tackle he made second half made an echo around the ground and it was made midway in their half and when he burst through only to be taken down by Vertonghen (who should have been sent off nobody was catching Rammy) ,it was all a contrast to our DM? in the first half who just sat deep and invited Spurs pressure . Rammy worked in tandem with Frank and we dominated and reversed the trend of the first half.

Frank and Rammy bossed the midfield in the second half ,we took the game to Spurs they worked as a pair ,nobody was hanging back filling gaps that we make for ourselves by errrrr...... hanging back and leaving your partner in midfield isolated . All of a sudden Spurs midfield were filling gaps and not marking our runners in the second half ,that does tend to happen when you take the game to the opposition rather than errrrr.... sitting back and let them attack you and control the midfield .

Vertonghen dived and should have been sent off for taking Rammy down when Rammy was clean through ,Torres reaction was as a result of Vertonghen conning the ref with a dive ,do you not expect Mourinho to defend Chelsea players?

And I think people need to watch the reasoning for our improved performance in the second half and understand how and why that performance changed and why Spurs will be looking at why our players were not being picked up ,you can blame everyone but Mikel for any goal we ever conceded ,but the fact is if you sit deep and are slow ,you will concede chances and if you press and are quick and bright ,the opposition will be asking why Chelsea players were not being picked up ,as we saw yesterday .

If you are sitting back and letting the other team dominate they will create chances and then when we do gain possession it it results in a slow sideways pass they will recover their shape,if like in the second half you are pushing them back and you are attacking you will dominate and create chancesand their defenders will look slow and will be at fault. You can't sit back and defend and not expect your opponents to create chances to score and Spurs did and won the first half 1-0 and dominated. You can blame anyone for conceding a goal ,but the fact is if you are defending deep and letting your opponents control the game they will create chances. With Mikel we sit back and other teams create chances and when we do win posession we are slow and sideways,yesterday showed this emphatically and supporters should have learned a lot about our game ,we had a big problem in the first half ,the manager saw it and changed and it changed the whole shape of the game in one simple but obvious move. Lampard and Ramires completely dominated the midfield in the second half because they engaged the Spurs midfield and made them look slow and this put us on the front foot and instead of us blaming Ivan for enabling them to create a chance ,Spurs were looking at their defenders to see who was at fault for the chances we were creating.

I have come back after our and his performance against Spurs ,to be honest he did what he always does ,the question is "Is that enough" . When the best manager in the world is quoted as saying "I could see the problem at H/T and we changed" and the whole performance of the team changed ,surely it emphasises the problem we had and the change that made the difference ,our two midfielders pushed up and took the game to Spurs ,it was very obvious and the midfield was ours ,Spurs looked slow and Mikel like 2nd half and we dominated. If Mikel plays against Steau we are in danger of a poor performance again,the firat half and the second half v Spurs showed that perfectly ,you do not need stats for that.

Doesnt look good for Obi ,yesterday summed Chelsea up graphically in one game and two halves. Some of us were aware of it before then ,but the 1st and the 2nd half emphasised his stats beyond doubt, 1st half awful and lost 1-0 ,2nd half dominant with two proper midfielders who worked together and pushed Spurs back and we dominated and won 1-0 , Jose said he could see what was wrong at H/T and he changed it and we dominated. The slow sideways passes and the sitting back letting Spurs dominate was gone,our two midfielders dominated and pushed Spurs back. This seven year experiment now looks over as Jose would have learned a lot yesterday and he saw what was wrong at Half Time (his words).

Oh dear if ever two halves summed up what difference a single player can make to a team ,today was it ,we were slow and backward in the first half ,letting Tottenham take the game to us ,second half when we get two proper midfieders in there who can run and play and we dominate ,Jose made a great decision to whip Obi off at H/T and Rammy and SFL ran the game second half . Another bad day for Obi's stats lost 1-0 and were awful with him on ,won 1-0 and were the much better team with him off .

Those stats compare very favourably with Mikel's and confirm that great players like Lamps,The Drog,JT,Makelele are always likely to show a positive influence on the team they play for . With: Played 44 Won 27 Drew 9 Lost 8 my maths make that roughly 61% win percentage compares very favourably with Miklels whose were terrible and nowhere near a 61% win percentage over the period covering the end of last season when the waiter dropped him and the start of this.

Any team with a midfielder who scores as often as Lampard has will always have a very good record it is a priceless commodity in football . Sideways passes are less sought after unless they come on the back of a Makelele who was a superb shield and reader of the game.

86% pass completion as opposed to Van Ginkel 95% v Basle. It means nothing in that role . You should be scoring a high % . Your Drogba stats are skewed they do not show how many games he played in and we won ,they only present half the story ,the stats on Obi show what we do with him and without ,you are only presenting what we do without the Drog and he will have played nearly all the games ,when Mikel does not play and Lampard does we tend to win more often . You need to show both sides of the story.

Yes some stats are skewed and some are not ,what you fail to do is present both sides of the story ,like how many games did Drogba play in and score that we won ,and how many games did we win without him? There is honestly no need to look it will be very positive. As it will be for Lampard,class players will help your team win.

Bobby Tambling scored in my first ever Chelsea game v Southampton I was 5 and my father took me ,we sat in the benches and he scored with a low left foot shot from the corner of the edge of the eighteen yard box . I can still see the goal in my head.

New breed of Spurs players? You are making me feel scared ,not . I am sure they are more scared of Lampard them him of them .

Not on yesterday and at West Ham plus Bale was missing for Spurs last season so it was easier and our Three AM's turned it on for the 4-2 you are right though we did concede 2 . I feel sure after Fulham that Mourinho will have seen that Mikel - Rammy is flawed ,Rammy was dire and Mikel was his usual self ,White Hart Lane is the place for our leaders and big game players. Swindon will tell us the team for Spurs. When Mikel plays his record is win one ,draw/lose 2 and after the Fulham win we are due a set back.