Barbara

I like you and I respect you, but don't say something stupid. Occasional fans are fans that change their allegiance according to the occasion and there are many of them, especially in countries where football isn't that strong. I'd be an hypocrite if I said it's wrong for fans from other countries to support a team somewhere else as I'm one of them. I've never changed teams in my life. So how does it make me an hypocrite? Go read the dictionary before saying something so stupid. You either don't know what occasional is or hypocrite. The thing is you can't call me hypocrite for saying said people exist. I didn't even judge them... I just said they exist and they're not committed with the team. I made a point to say it doesn't matter why a fan decided to support a team, as long as they stick with that team through thin and thick. You can call me a hypocrite all night if you want and while I won't like it,it could make sense... but what you just said makes as much sense as the sun gravitating around the Earth... As for the rest of your post, well, there are so many weak points there that I might just stop it here because combined with what I just said above we could end in a fight, which I don't want. First of all, thank you for understanding I wasn't labeling people here as the bandwagon fans, but those who have a new team in the same league every few years - and they're very common because most of those people aren't committed with the club. One example of that is how many Torres fanboys and fangirls started supporting Chelsea because of Blondie and then we the fans started rightfully badmouthing him they turned against THE CLUB because of Blondie. Those guys are now AC Milan fans... Can people deny it happens? It has nothing to do with people here, I'm not labeling anyone here the same, and if for example, a Belgian started supporting Chelsea because of Hazard, it doesn't make said person a lesser fan if they continue to support Chelsea when Hazard leaves... it doesn't mean that Hazard doesn't drag fans globally (not only Belgians) and that those people don't spend money on Chelsea (some of them - but not a significant percentage) spend money on Chelsea. And spending money is what defines a club's marketability that some were questioning here. Marketing is all about money spent - directly or indirectly. A customer that buys a Samsung device because of Chelsea (on a conscious or unconscious level) is cooperating with the club's marketability as well as the one that buys a shirt because Samsung is experiencing a raise in their sales because of a contract they have with Chelsea. I was against signing Shaw for that ridiculous amount of money and I'd be against buying Sterling, for example, for the price he might cost in a couple of years. My main point here is more conceptual rather than - ironically enough - occasional. I'm not saying we should go there now and spend unnecessary money on English players, but we should keep in mind at all times to keep a core. We should keep and give our English talents more time and invest on them as I hope we do about those names you mention. That's what I'm advocating here. Having a Cahill doesn't compromise us as a team - even if I don't trust him that much - because he works well with JT. Keeping Daniel wouldn't have compromised us. If we work well with Ake, Bamford, Baker and another couple of names from our academy - even if they don't end up being the very best in their position - they could make a job for us. The reason why we don't have English players currently is because we overlooked it a few years ago. I'm against breaking the bank to bring an English player, but we should keep in mind to have them in our ranks as one of our priorities. I also agree we shouldn't keep mediocre players, but I also believe people in general label English players crap without looking at them properly because of their ridiculous NT (sorry, mates...). There are a lot of names in this generation of English players that I like and that I think could make a job for any balanced team in the world (the key word being balanced - and sometimes to give balance you need some key foreign players). My main problem here is people disregarding the importance an English core has to an English team, or a Spanish core to a Spanish team, etc... It IS important for marketability, it is important in the local context and as much as we - foreign fans - make Chelsea a bigger club, what makes difference is still the guys that go to Stamford Bridge and support the team, and give them strength playing away - in England or Europe. There's no denial local support is essential for a team... I'm not saying they're better than us, I'm saying they play an instrumental role for a team's success that we can't for geographic reasons... We can buy shirts - and we do; we can pay the cable companies to watch EPL games and we do (and that helps to elevate the TV quota the clubs receive), buy Adidas and Samsung products among other things, but unfortunately we aren't the people in the stadiums week in and out and we all know local support is important for a team... And that support could suffer if we start losing our identity as an English team. We've survived for 100+ years without winning a lot because the local fans were passionate, saved our stadium, contributed in many ways. We wouldn't have survived without them and no matter how much money is injected, how many stars and silverware we can win, a club will always need the local supporter to survive. So let's suppose having an English core isn't important for fans around the world (to which I disagree, it may not be important for some, but many will want to see Chelsea as a traditional English team), it is still important for the local support and therefore is important for the club as an institution. And I really, really, really disagree about your last sentence. It isn't Mourinho, much less Roman, that gives Chelsea an identity. Both will pass, the club won't. I have a lot of problems with a statement like that, but that's only me, I'm not saying it as a fact.

Let me separate this post from the previous. I'm not going to add another quoted post here, but I read last page someone making position by position English players that couldn't displace our foreign players. That's missing the point completely... The right way to ask those questions is (and that's regardless of the nationality of our players): can XXX play the role as a XXX for Chelsea? For example, can Daniel Sturridge lead our attack line? YES, he can. It doesn't matter if Costa is better suited or not - and there might be better strikers than Costa in the world. A team is about an harmonic, working, balanced system. I can name a few CBs better than JT and many better than Cahill. Can JT and Cahill lead our defense? Well they did it brilliantly last season. It's this obsession that we need to have THE VERY BEST PLAYER IN THE POSITION for all the 11 positions that lead to people to think like that. We can have a mix of English players with foreigns that won't compromise our title ambitions. We did it in the past, we won UCL with an English core, we won EPL with an English core, United and Liverpool won UCL with an English core, United won EPL with an English core. So let's say we have a few between JT, Cahill, Sterling, Wilshere, Daniel... does it mean we can't win shit anymore because Kompany, Mangala, Thiago Silva, or Hazard, Reus, James or Vidal, Modric, Alonso or Costa, Cavani, Falcao are playing somewhere or are better than those we do have? That's the thing that is so hard for people to grasp around in the last few pages. We can be competitive with a few English names thrown there because guess what? Azpilicueta, Ramires, Oscar, Salah, Ivanovic (as a CB), Willian among others aren't the very top players in the world and still most of those guys almost led us to EPL title or UCL final last season. If we had Daniel Sturridge we would have won the league last year and we could have beaten Atletico, for example. Wilshere can displace Ramires or Oscar imo. Sterling can displace Willian and even Schurrle. Yes, Daniel can't displace Costa now, but he could have won us the league last season regardless. I don't get this obsession about having the top world class player for each position. I've said many, many, many times that not even RM or Barça have that, it only happens on fucking Football Manager, in real life teams win titles and dominate the football scenario without having the very best in every position and England has produced players decent enough to make a job as long as the team is balanced. Barcelona could have players better than Mascherano and Busquets and whoever was playing their LB (can't remember) when they were dominating. That amazing Bayern team of two seasons ago could use a better CB, a better CF but they had balance and they worked amazingly without having the 11 best rated players in FM...

and do you think Mourinho wouldn't be concerned about making sure we have an English core unless it was important? Yes, we have to fill homegrown quotas on EPL and UCL, but there's more than that. Most people here agree he's one of the best managers in the world and most people here trust his judgment. It should tell them something that this man has been saying for a while it is important for Chelsea to have more English players and that we should be promoting them from our ranks. He hasn't been saying those things just to suck the English media up... there's a very good reason behind those statements. The moment a club starts losing its identity in its own country that's when things start to go downhill. Fans around the world don't sustain Chelsea. Local fans do and that's how it'll always be... Fans around the world make the club global... and you must have missed the memo when I became a fan of each of those teams. I became Inter as a child when we couldn't win SHIT because back then the Italian league was the best in the world and I wanted a team to support. Milan and Juve - and I guess another one I can't remember - were MUCH better than Inter nearly 30 years ago. You said it yourself that RM only became popular because of the Galacticos (first of all, that's a lie), so why I'm a fan for 20 years then? Also I'm not offending people saying they pick the flavor of the month. I don't have a problem with that as long as they stick with them when they aren't winning anymore. Had I become a Barcelona, Juventus or anything fan in the many years my teams didn't win shit in their leagues? Most fans in this forum are Chelsea fans, regardless of the reasons they chose to support Chelsea. I don't need to mention we represent a fraction that isn't worth mentioning and doesn't represent anything in the universe of fans - unless the English fans - do I? Or do you think a few thousand members represent Chelsea's support around the world. Many Chelsea supporters have been Liverpool and Arsenal fans at one point and will become whatever they want in another. They're occasional fans and you have to be naive or badly informed not to know those things happen around the world. It's a very small percentage of global fans that are truly committed to the team.

I'm not English - I love having Brazilians players in my team, but I absolutely hate that we don't have an English core because it feels like we've missed our identity. I know it's hard because England hasn't been producing the top players in the world right now, but we had Daniel up to a few years ago and he was better than anything in the attack we had bar Didier Drogba and hopefully now Costa. There are decent English players that could be here and the fact that there are less and less of them playing a part here makes me feel like Chelsea are losing their identity as an English club - and that will ALWAYS interfere in perception. Which is why Bayern, Barcelona, United and even Real Madrid are such big names all around the world. You look to those team and you see German club, Spanish clubs, English club. Whether we want to admit or not, a club needs to keep its identity to be more marketable - and I think it was in this thread I read people talking about how little marketable we are. It helps for a team from a certain country to have a strong link with the culture, the style and a core of players from that country to make it a strong brand. That's how marketing works. Clubs go global especially because of weak leagues around the world. Because there isn't a better league in their country (or for the minority that is just crazy about the sport that they'll watch the best leagues in the world regardless) those fans turn to EPL for example and if they develop a liking for the league, they'll choose a team to support (there are many, many, many people that watch foreign leagues and don't support any team). There's the bandwagoners that will choose the flavor of the month which is whoever has the biggest stars and more titles. A few years down the road they change their allegiance because now another team has the biggest stars or more titles. But normally you need to feel like the team you like represent the league, culture and style of their country. Chelsea were able to keep that even when Roman was here. We've had many foreign players prior to Roman and we kept many English players in the early years after he bought the club, but lately those players are being replaced by foreigns... that's not a good sign, that's not how this is supposed to be and that affects our marketability.

but what does Oscar have to do with it? I just laughed thinking Ramires can offer anything in the attack other than the odd goal now and then. Yes, he runs, I said that many times. And he scores some beautiful goals, but the frequency he does those things isn't enough to say he offers us drive and penetration... I said a few days ago - in the Oscar thread coincidently - that I thought Mou played Rami instead of Oscar in the big matches because he's fast whereas Oscar isn't and how can we play counter-attack being a tad defensive if the players in the attack don't have pace? I even said as long as this is the setup in said matches Ramires should start ahead of Oscar... the point here isn't who should start, but what a player effectively offers. Ramires end product is so small in the attack that I can't make up my mind around saying he offers anything other than a huge amount of frustration vs some pretty goals from time to time, but still more useful than Oscar in a extra defensive system based on counter attack. And said that I'm one of those people who absolutely HATE playing Ramires as the third midfielder let alone as a winger because it's frustrating to watch him destroy 8 out of 10 attacks he takes part (Willian, for example, has the same pace, but is much more composed, although with just as bad end product, but he won't frustrate us misplacing a standard pass). Then he has one match where he assists twice and scores once and suddenly he offers us drive and penetration... he offers us legs, that's the one constant thing he offers in the attack. Drive and penetration happen once in a blue moon if we consider how things normally go. My problem with this is the same as someone saying Torres offered movement and dribbles. He did offer that, and messed up and missed the easiest goals in history, so despite moving well to receive the ball and runnig to the goal, dribbling occasionally, he's never offered effectively anything in the attack, because he received the ball, ran and dribbled and then roofed the shot just like in preseason twice in a row. The same goes with Ramires contributions in our attack - they're so far and between apart that we can't say he offers anything. At least that's how it has been in the last three seasons. And that's why we can basically count his goals by heart and remember not more than a handful assists (if as much). And for God's sake, I'm not comparing Ramires to Torres. I'm comparing situations.

oh I did say a few times - maybe not enough - he had a great first half of season. But what he normally offered in those matches were more defensive rather than offensive. That's my first point. Ramires has played some stretches of good football for us, but not as an attacker that makes runs and gives us drive. He makes the eventual run, that isn't wasted by many things - sometimes he doesn't even have anyone to pass as no one was able to follow him - but the best Ramires played last year was about being an effective box to box player in the first few months.

dude, relax, I only meant the way you worded the sentence... it's bushman style. as for the rest of your post, I don't bother with whoscored rates, they're even more nonsense than EA cards...

I don't play the game, but in which world are Busquets and Lloris better than Fabregas and Casillas only slightly worse? Some of the other names don't make sense for me either, but you could at least make a case for Mata, Martinez... This is stupid.

I did say he was becoming bushman...

I know you didn't say he was the answer, but people talking about that match as if he always is that effective in the attack and as if it didn't come with many liabilities it's odd. He's fast - which is why he starts in bigger games rather than Oscar - and he can make runs, but the end product is so poor and rare that is not worth it. Mourinho only uses him in those matches because Oscar would be nearly useless if we were to park a bus and only counter-attack. Also, I'm not positive we will approach the big matches the same way we did last year. Maybe for this year we will, but I'm positive in the near future we will change our posture altogether. Mourinho will never give up on a solid defense, but I'm still convinced he will try to emulate and improve his RM tactics here and although the team was more cautious in the matches against Barça and the SFs in UCL, it wasn't as defensive as what we played against City and Liverpool, for example. I feel he'll try to give us a better reputation - he said Roman has asked that, that he wants a more attractive style and I think he'll try to deliver it. Maybe right now it's too early, as he just set up the team he's been dreaming about and there are adjustments to be done. But maybe by the end of this season and the one following, I don't expect us to approach City, Liverpool and big matches on UCL the same way we did last season. Ramires offered a problem to us (although a collective midfield problem, not only his) as much as he offered solutions in the attack (that also worked collectively). It's not okay to be dominated by Everton as we were, having only 27% of possession through half of the second half... We turned things around, we were effective in the attack, Ramires did have a good match in the attack, but that wasn't a perfect match, Ramires didn't remotely close have a perfect match. The only reason it was positive imo is because of his goal and one assist. Yes, I'm quite aware he had two assists, but he intended to really assist only in the Iva goal. The pass to Matic was yet another pass, at the edge of the box, that he even moved forward expecting to receive the ball back. I'm not discrediting him, after all it was a completed pass - something he couldn't do 34% of the times he touched the ball, but it was a mere pass. I won't forget in a very long time that in one of Brazil's matches in the WC Ramires had a bizarre 50% pass accuracy... I guess it dropped a bit later, but that was just that bizarre.

So we're sort of stupid as a club and a board. One of the things we've missed the most last season was exactly drive and penetration. We were too stupid not to have seen the answer to that right under our noses and spent almost 30m in a player that actually gives us that... Ramires has a match like he did last weekend in a handful times a season (if as much). Normally he excels on something else when he has a good streak (defense and pace), but now people are talking as if they forgot the last seasons he had here. He wasn't, isn't and never will be the answer to drive and penetration, and I do find it funny. ONE GAME, one game and people ignore a history of three years. He has a TERRIBLE decision making, his passing DESTROYS many of our attacks, his vision is the same of a person with cataract and all of sudden, Ramires offers us drive and penetration. Unless you mean driving as a chicken and penetrating as a boy in his first time... no quality, no sense with the odd good result in the mix... then I'll agree with both of you. Come on, name me a dozen matches he offered us drive and penetration and it solved our issues winning the match. I'll be sitting while I wait.

LOL so Ramires has two assists and all of sudden he gives us drive and penetration in the final third? It's absolutely AMAZING how memory works.

In the official fantasy they credited the assist to Hazard... who exactly are you guys saying didn't credit him the assist? There are so many stats services with their own criteria...

This I agree with (the previous post too). The third goal is the one I think it's more about how good movement and finish Eto'o did than our defense being sloppy. What happens with every single player when a set-piece is taken? They start moving forward, the defenders because they want to anticipate the attackers and the attackers because they want to reach the ball. Eto'o's decision of staying still and maybe even taking a half step back (can't remember) is brilliant and the header execution is perfect. That's the kind of goal you'll concede because the striker made his job well. Sometimes the striker makes his job well and you can still prevent a goal, sometimes you just can't and that's one of those cases imo - regardless if it came from a set-piece or not. I also agree about the first goal. As much as one can blame Cesc for not tracking Mirallas, Ramires is between him and Mirallas - marking or pressing no one, moving nowhere... So it's only normal once an opponent enters your teammates 'marking zone' you leave it for him to do the marking and go find someone else. The moment Mirallas got passed Cesc, he entered the zone of the pitch where Ramires was supposed to cover, but the fact that Ramires acts and moves like a headless chicken effectively marking, pressing no one, leads Cesc to try to regain ground - but he was nearly the half line of the pitch, and he isn't that fast, so of course he won't reach Mirallas in time. In the meanwhile Ramires continues to be badly positioned... In this frame you can see he can make positioning decisions as bad as he can make passing decisions. What on earth is he planning to do? He should have stopped running and positioned himself at the edge of the box where he just needs to know more players are coming to from behind. Every time a team attack there are players coming from behind. You may need to take a quick glance behind you to know where you should go... instead he decides not to think, to keep running and join another 3-4 players that are already closing in Lukaku. That's the same mistake Burnley made in that Schurrle's goal. No one tracked Fabregas coming from behind, none of their players around the box decided to hold position instead of crowding the box and Fabregas was left with time and space to make that brilliant pass to Schurrle's goal (he didn't even use the time, as his pass was immediate). Ramires should know and do better. His space awareness was terrible in this goal - although Cesc and Matic weren't that well positioned either, but at least they were at different moments, marking someone. Ramires marked/tracked no one since the ball was in the midfield. Also I'm only commentating on a goal, I'm not crucifying anyone...

Okay, so maybe I was extra harsh but it's a case of what I teach my kids: the higher the expectation the bigger the room for deception/disappointment. I'm one of his biggest fans, I wrote an article worshiping this guy the moment we signed him before he ever touched a ball for us and I stated then and I stand by those words even more now, that he's the midfielder we've been missing since Ballack left us and that he would bring us the stability we had in the 2005-07 seasons again because he's a beast. So with expectations so high - because of him and because of what he offered - I may have been too harsh upon his 'poor' presentations to his own standards. It only proves how important he is to our system. With their positioning and movement better drilled, I'm positive we'll improve our defensive system. We also need time for that to happen. I just want to make sure - again - that I only meant he had a bad first half, not that he's bad or should be replaced. We also need to find a way to fill the sometimes huge space between our defense and our midfield. Also re-watching the match again with Dion yesterday we both noticed that sometimes we have too many of our players surrounding a zone of the pitch or opponent, leaving other areas/opponents with a lot of space. Some of Everton's most dangerous attacks and goals (particularly the second) comes from that positioning mistake. but it's early days and I'm not worried yet. Actually it's a wonder that our attack - with two new players (counting Cesc's contributions in the attack) has adapted and clicked so fast. The defense and the midfield are going through the normal rhythm. The important thing is try and do our best not to drop points and so far, so good. We have a good challenge coming Sept. 13th with Swansea and hopefully we'll continue to get three points. The team's chemistry, positioning and all the little adjustments needed to be done will come. So apologies for jumping the shark (although he had a poor first half) And thanks for the nice answers and debate.

so don't. You know what works even better? The ignore function. I could tell you to read a book instead, but I guess that won't work.

they have to have something to comfort them... although Liverpool are right there with the English core, aren't they?

only second to ours imo. I think it's the opposite actually. I don't rate him, I don't like him, I think he's as bad as Torres, but he plays better as the target, in the middle, not in the wings... he has an incredible work-rate and that's why he plays there, not because it's his best position...

tbh II meant it the other way around. We were solid as rock because among other things he was a solid protection, the moment he flutters, so does the defense imo. He's the one player that made us solid, if he starts producing less, we suffer... We have slow CBs, protecting them is important. I didn't mean like he's villain, I meant more like he's thermometer, the guy that made a difference when we're at the top, if he isn't on his best, we suffer. If you read ALL my posts about our shaky defense I keep saying I'm not concerned yet, as I think the players aren't there yet shape wise, that Mourinho will make some positioning adjustments now that we changed our style to a more offensive approach... etc. You can't find one post of mine saying our defense is a major concern of mine. I keep stressing I think it's due to physical fitness and the change to a different style - both things which demand a few weeks. I said I'll start be concerned if by the end of September we're still making the same stupid mistakes. I also agree he can't get replaced, I said that in the very first post, when I look to the bench Mikel offers something similar defensively, but the rest can't be comparable and I don't expect a DM to only offer tackles and pressing. He also offers transition, quality passing and he is a thousand years ahead in terms of vision. By the defense conceding too much, I'm taking into account the feeling we had since pre-season, while I'm one of those people that believe PS is only for fitness, it left a feeling about the defense, that carried on through the regular season. We owe it to Courtois to have had a clean sheet against Leicester. He made two brilliant saves when 0x0. I know a few people here shared the same feeling that now we don't feel like we won't concede, but we go through the match afraid that maybe we will. Last season we felt like leaking our defense was a top level task... Also I'm quoting my two posts. First, I said maybe because then I realized we couldn't bring Ramires, as Ramires was already playing and Mikel would only do half of the job. Then in a subsequent post I made a condition: if we have a better replacement compared to Mikel (should have been HAD to be syntax correct) we would have brought this nonexistent player. We don't have a replacement for him, yesterday I liked the post below mine stating as much. I thought he could have been subbed, unlike what Mourinho - or some of you maybe - think, I don't think he's up there in form with Iva. He's been making mistakes he usually doesn't, which I can only credit to physical fitness. He improves our defense, and if he's having bad match, he exposes the defenders more than usual. I didn't blame the goals on him directly - I think he was bad positioned in one of them though, but I'm considering his slow start one of the reasons for our defense shaky moments. Even against Leicester - when we had a clean sheet - we had brainfart moments... In the very post you quoted, I finish the sentence saying I don't blame him alone, I think we have a few problems, but one of the major problems so far is the huge space between defense and midfield. Do you disagree about that space existing? Who should be filling said space? Against Leicester the space was ever bigger... I'm not crucifying the guy, but I understand why you would think that based on the sentence you highlighted alone... the thing is, my post had many sentences, not only that one. So in the context I think his slow start is exposing our defense and that is one of the causes of our shaky defending at the moment. And he had a bad first half, period.

add the 2 years of Torres' wage off of our books. Then the priceless - literally - relief of not having to ever again see him sport a Chelsea shirt again (my last meme of the day, I promise, I never post them, but it's deadline day and I'm in excellent mood seeing our rivals doing stupid business)

I know you didn't suggest I'm an idiot (that I concluded all by my awesome self), but you were right, it's bewildering to be astonished by what shocks people here. I'm perplexed I haven't noticed it til then how the basic can still baffle some. Now top that

I edited my post edit: do you want to stream or to download?

And it hurts, you're absolutely right, Chou, as usual I'm the idiot here

LOL First of all, I didn't defend Oscar's first half ONCE because I said a THOUSAND times I didn't see the first half, how could I defend a player I haven't watched? What I said a couple times was that everyone was saying the whole team was bad, so people nitpicking on Oscar were just the usual suspects. That I said... Then I watched the second half and said he was our best player tied with Iva in my opinion. Get your facts straight before sprouting bullshit. Can you conceive there's a difference between Leicester playing away and Everton playing home or in your head is the same situation? He was setting up Everton's attacks in the first, was that what Oscar was doing? He was giving the ball to a powerful Leicester side and threatening Courtois? Also, maybe if I had watched the Leicester first half I would have advocated for an Oscar sub if I thought that it would have improved us, I've asked him to be subbed out many times before... as I didn't watch, I couldn't speak. Seriously, when did the level of comprehension on this forum dropped so much? People can't read, can't understand and make up things... I don't have patience for stupidity, never had and never will. I think our midfield has issues controlling the tempo and that was general, Matic, Cesc and Ramires. We struggled a bit positioning and covering the defense as you pointed. But Matic was technically having a bad match. As I said watching the match live, I counted four Everton attacks started by him misplacing a pass or giving in under pressure. We were used to Matic being the machine he's always been, so it was eye-catching for me. He improved slightly in the second and had some amazing last 20 minutes. But I agree with your point too... Everton midfield moved smartly and made our job harder (no way comparable to Leicester playing away... but people will compare the two situations anyway).