Barbara

not for me... as a Chelsea fan for me nothing is bigger than Chelsea... but I understand where people who think otherwise are coming from. Some things are bigger than sports, that I'd agree but supporting vehemently a player who's going to face us feels weird for me. It's just with all those homages it almost looks like we're cheering more for Drogba than Chelsea - something I don't think anyone is, but the feeling is still the same. We can't control how we feel and I know most of you don't feel like that, I do though

The two injured (stabbed) Chelsea fans were confirmed by The Guardian... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/25/chelsea-galatasaray-football-violence-champions-league

Ron Only with titles now

Moyes: the gift that keeps coming. Every week feels like Christmas morning.

when I mentioned the lack of strikers doing their job I meant that this is what hurts us the most, not Oscar, Willian, Schurrle, Ramires in the AMs positions (although Ramires there hurts my eyes with his passing). You have an interesting point. Oscar is amazing to create space because he drags players with him when he has the ball or when he's moving, leaving more space to Eden and Willian. It's the way he moves and carries the ball that makes it possible. But as you pointed out, I don't think he's that good creating space to himself. In this case isn't creating, more like finding as you said. I still think his body is suffering and that it's affecting his game - both good reasons for him to see the bench. I doubt he will though unless he's really injured and Mourinho doesn't want to risk losing him longer.

how perfect does he look in that suit? He seems an Armani model

cause of concern is not having anyone to convert chances created into assists. He isn't very creative - I agree - and we might even need better in the department in the future, but the main problem we have remains the lack of someone scoring goals for the chances not only Oscar, but Hazard (mainly), Willian and others create. I do agree Oscar hasn't created even that many chances. Also, it's always the same, the kind of #10 fans want may not be the same kind of #10 Mourinho wants... so if the system, the manager don't necessarily require a overly creative #10 it's because they're expecting the chances to be created another way. I think Mourinho wants a balance more than he wants the super striker or the super creative guy. He knows a balance should be kept between defense, midfield and attack and doing some things doesn't allow a player to do others and then it's about deciding what's the expense of having something that is very effectively in one side, but exposes the other. If the balance between exposition and results is positive, go for it, if not, it's better have a balanced team rather than relying too much in one player that is too good in something and too bad in something else. Complete players normally are an '8' in most aspects of their games rather than being a 9.5 or 10 in some things and a 4 in others. I like complete players more than one-thing wonders. edit: to illustrate my first point here. We have (or at least had until a few weeks ago) the player who has created more chances in the league (Hazard) still we're far from being one of the top scorers teams. That's the gap that keeps harming us. We just don't score and god, how frustrating some of our games are because of that.

actually you made me realize I didn't ever finish the line 'With our AMs, our good headers in the team and hopefully us getting more dangerous in set-pieces, I think we're good in the attack department' it was supposed to be continued with: adding any of those guys to the squad. oh, my bad then. I only listened to the first vid - the official one - and even then my French is less than scrappy, so I sort of just understood partially. I was trusting the many people here quoting him saying 'I don't have a striker'

they might be reliable, but the way they translated the quotes is weird. I didn't get the notion that Mourinho was questioning Eto'o's age rather than making a joke along the lines 32 or 35, same difference. Also he's never said we don't have Falcao. He's said we don't have a striker and Falcao doesn't have a team. So I think they're trying to make it a bit bigger than it was for the sake of making it a hit story or something. To be honest, we don't need an absolute world class striker. Bayern proved it just last season that you don't need the very best striker in the world (although they do help a lot). We need a consistent, reliable guy that keeps scoring - especially if he manages to do it in important moments (few manage that). It's not the amount of goals, but the goals we need. That was something we had with Drogba. Look at his stats and he wasn't that big a scorer in most of his seasons here, still he scored some of the most important goals that led to titles. Benzema, Costa, Mandzukic, Higuain among others aren't world class or at least not as big as Cavani, Lewa, Falcao, Aguero, Suarez but they score decent amount of goals. I do think they aren't that great in big games, but I think any of those guys are decent enough to have us being favorites to the competitions we play. I'd rather have two guys like those, or maybe one of those guys and some guy like Lukaku (as we don't know yet if he's staying or leaving), than have one big name. Cavani, Falcao, Aguero, Sturridge all got injured this season, if we only have a big name and spend all our money in only one player, and they get an injury we're back at square one. With our AMs, our good headers in the team and hopefully us getting more dangerous in set-pieces, I think we're good in the attack department with any of those guys added to the squad. In a team where the star is a winger/cam (just like Messi and Ronaldo), the striker is just the supporting role that steals the scene sometimes, but just keeps working hard and scoring decently enough. I hate to keep crying on guy we let go and you rarely see me in ex-blues threads weeping about the talent we wasted, but Daniel was the one guy I wish we haven't sold. I don't get why we sold him at all (unless he put a request because he wasn't having as much play time as he wanted). We aren't a selling club, having two good strikers shouldn't be too much (and that's being nice to Torres). We need someone like Daniel. I'd love him to come back like Matic did, but there's no way Liverpool is allowing that... especially if they're back in the UCL which they fatally will with the gap between them and the rest below them.

I swear I don't get this guy's need to be rude to people so gratuitously... It was a relief not having to read his unnecessary rudeness towards others for five days when he was warned. It seems he's learned nothing though. It's one of the worst members I came across here. Always taking jabs, being rude, harsh and judgmental. Adding to ignore list for sure.

isn't he at the 0:22 mark just behind Lamps? I guess it is. Just after Ake passed through.

I honestly don't get the point of registering to a forum just to bash the team because your own team will face them. I'd never do that because the idea doesn't appeal to me at all. Is that an internal and uncontrollable need to release all jerkiness and cunt-ness they have inside? So I guess I understand now why I don't feel the need to do that.

the best thing about this article is the 'Super Stat' box: beast!

lol didn't even know there was a Babi player in Atletico until today (they were abysmal). Everyone in Brazil calls me Babi, so when I ran my eyes through the post you answered to for a second I thought the guy was being sarcastic and saying even I was better than Rami. hahahahahahahaha And Atletico are just as overrated as City, except City are a better team, but they're very overrated. Call me crazy, but I think our chances are better in UCL than in EPL, despite facing better teams in the former than in the latter. We won't face a team parking the bus at home - and maybe not even at the Bridge - in UCL and those are the hardest kind of teams for us to play now. We've proved we can face the top dogs (including Bayern) and that's the kind of teams we'll be facing if we qualify to quarters. EPL will have some complicated teams where teams are just very well posted defensively against us - especially at the Bridge - and teams fighting relegation with tons of motivation that will certainly lead us to drop points. As we can't break defenses down, I think chances are we'll repeat a 2012 rather than a 2005.

probably very unpopular opinion: I'm not up to the Drogba-everywhere-thing we have going on the forum now . As much as I love him and I'm grateful to him, he plays for the enemy now, the opponent and I'd show my respect, thankfulness and whats not in non-official competitions, but not now because Chelsea legend or not, he could cause us damage in those two matches. It's weird to see him in the banner at the top of every page as well as in the many avatars (as suggested). I don't know, as I said, unpopular opinion, I'd rather homage him after the two legs of the knock-out - regardless of which team goes through. If he's responsible for us losing the spot in the quarters it won't undo or tarnish any of the amazing things he did for us, but I'd rather celebrate him back at the bridge only after it. It's quite weird for me celebrate him prior to the matches...

Now, why does things have to be so polarized? Just because we acknowledge a player's limitations or weaknesses it doesn't mean we're ignoring his qualities and strengths. Don't we talk all the time about how Oscar isn't as creative as we'd like for a #10? Or as fast and strong as we would think useful, etc? While acknowledging that, we still acknowledge the things he does do well. We're currently talking about digs of form, so I was focusing on that. Ramires in the pivot has his problems, but also a lot of good things. As a RW though - as he's been used way more often than I'd like - those things I've said are exposed further. Still with all his problems in the RW Ramires played WAY better than Oscar did last match, so while he has problems it's not like he's a donkey in the wing. We could start Schurrle and use Rami as a sub (or moving him from the pivot the wing if he's already in the pitch) and spare Oscar a couple of matches. I'm not saying Ramires is useless, but I do believe we should get an upgrade once our stakes also rise. Improving a team is always a nice objective and I wasn't saying the other days Ramires is useless (as this is about my view on Ramires, not necessarily my view on Oscar). I think Oscar should miss 2-3 matches without taking any part at all. Do you think he made a positive difference against Everton? If he's going to play that bad, then we better rest him. We have players to replace him. I further explained my point with Mata and Kevin in my answer to The Skipper. We have depth and neither Kev or Mata left while playing outstanding football for us - despite their very amazing potential - so why can't we use those players and rest Oscar? Mourinho found ways to rest Ramires - less than he's wanted I suppose, so he can find a way to rest Oscar too. But even he Mourinho decides to drop Oscar for bad form and not just to rest him, we should have enough replacements without saying we should have kept two players that didn't adapt to the system at all. That was the main problem for both Kev and Mata. They had struggled (Mata even physically at the beginning of the season) mainly because the system doesn't suit their style. Kev also had to adapt to the league. So if they were struggling a lot with the system, how could they be useful now? I mean in an objective way, not hypothetically. If they're just numbers, then we can use Schurrle, Rami, Lamps and even Salah. I honestly don't understand what the problem with André is, but as I said I trust Mourinho on that and in all other matters, but we have replacements for the #10 (Willian or Hazard and even Lamps) and enough depth to replace them in the wings (Schurrle, Ramires himself, Salah) and regardless of Oscar's situation, we should be giving Schurrle play time to prepare him for next season.

I think we don't know at all what's the matter with Schurrle tbh. Why can't Willian or Hazard play #10 and Schurrle play a couple of matches in the wing. Or maybe even Ramires (I hate it, but hey, Mourinho loves it). With their form here, struggle to fit the system and whatever motivational issue Mata and Kevin had, I really wonder if Schurrle's been so bad in training sessions so he wouldn't be picked ahead of two guys that had a lot of issues the season. Poor as piss as Oscar was he was still better than Kev imo and Mata contributed really little while Schurrle had a few good moments for us. That puzzles me. If we didn't have a healthy Schurrle I'd agree with you. But when you think you have Schurrle, Ramires and Lampard to play among the AMs, we don't need two more options, we can rest Oscar, have one of those playing and two of them in the bench (in addition to Salah, although that's not really a viable option) even if those guys aren't what I'd call first class options for the position (giving how bad they were playing for us, neither were Kev and Mata). I don't understand some of Mourinho's decisions, but I trust him and I hope that's not a mistake (the schurrle situation) because although I trust him 100% it doesn't mean the guy can't make a mistake now and then. dude, but that's my point. When I say he's fatigued I don't mean it to be an excuse for his poor form and therefore why he should be excused of it. I mean that he needs to rest, period. Two months ago I was screaming at the top of my lungs Ramires needed a rest. His bad matches are also influenced by fatigue, but also by his technical limitation. A fresh Ramires is a hit/miss finishing (more missing than hitting), a terrible passer, a guy with very limited vision. Those are his weaknesses and Oscar has his as well and both are worsened by fatigue. But Ramires hasn't played as nearly as much as Oscar had. Among the 1092039435 matches Oscar played he's also adapting from one of the less physical leagues in the world to the most physical one. That only make matters worse. I'm saying we should rest him so we recover him - or at least try to recover him. I'm not saying he's tired and still too young as a way to say it's okay for him to have digs of form. It affects us, but if he was our only problem, we'd easily remedy that. The fact remains Hazard is making up for the lack of creativity, but nobody is making up for our lack of strikers. That's why we don't win games more easily or why we fail to win matches we were supposed to. But I'm not saying he isn't poor and that fatigue and age should exempt him. I'm just digging the problem, but it is a problem nonetheless.

did you miss last page? It already started, along with KDB should have stayed. According to the experts here you play a crazy amount of matches for 2 years in a row with reduced vacation, playing more than any other player in the world and you aren't entitled to have some fatigue. Robert Downey Jr should watch out for his Iron Man role... The best part is that no one is exempting him from being poor. Does it really matter if the guy is poor because he's injured, tired, or just having a dig in form? Doesn't the main fact remain? He's been poor more often than usual in 2014 and no one here is denying it. Some of us are just reasoning what may have caused it, what could help and the fact that he hasn't been the only one to alternate good and bad matches... It's too much logic for the usual bandwagoners... I'm positive he'll miss some matches - just like he's missed the FA Cup. Hopefully the rest of the amazing and over-performing players we have will do a better job without the poor performing detractor. If we lose the EPL title it's because of Oscar. You've heard it here first. #sarcasm maybe you should read this from the official website... José himself admitted the mistake of trusting the player's assessment. José talked about Oscar's bad fitness before and after the match. Is he a future teller now too? Could he predict Oscar would have a terrible match because of physical issues or was he just honest Friday and then again Saturday when he admitted Oscar was in bad physical form before and during the match?

Ofc we're trying to win, but that's not a season where we're in a position to win it more than we're in a position of other teams choking and us taking advantage of it (although I do think Mourinho has the winning experience to make a difference now). Who wouldn't be trying to win as they stand at the top of the table? What I'm telling you is that the manager and club's highest priority isn't winning any titles this season, but building a very strong team for next season that they expect will be high level for a few years to come. And that's why we can afford what you call passengers because passengers is what we have the most now (Ramires, Oscar, Willian, strikers, Ivanovic, Luiz, among others all had hits and misses performances lately). We may win the league, but it's more about City losing it than us winning it imo because our players aren't there yet. So some of them will be passengers in some matches... And that's not only regarding Oscar. Mourinho hasn't playing down our chances just for the sake of mind games. We aren't a final product team yet. We have showed to be inconsistent - smashing a team and then struggling against the next one and looking absolutely clueless and sometimes dire. We - AS A TEAM - haven't been playing well in the last few matches - including the FA Cup where Oscar didn't even play. So that's why I said we may win the league, but we aren't exactly fighting up there with Arsenal and City because this team stills struggles a lot more than a real contender should and that's because we have some young players mixed with players still adapting to the league and least but not last, we don't have strikers. How can we overlook all those things and just put us at the same level as City? I don't overrate City at all - never said they'd win the treble, let alone the quadruple as some here did, but I'm not going to pretend they aren't a couple of steps ahead of us, especially because they have great strikers. Blaming Oscar or implying his passenger performances can't be afforded anymore when the team as a whole is oscillating too damn much is not only biased, but also unfair. At least you admitted he hasn't been awful for months, but has hits and misses for as long. Except for our defense (and let's not forget december was just two months ago when we conceded 9 goals to the last teams in the table in two matches) and Hazard lately, we've been having up and downs for a while now and if we were indeed ready to fight for the league, we'd be leading it by a few points, as the results against Stoke, WHU and West Brom - among others, would have been different. Yes, he should be benched, but that's because we should try to recover him physically, not because we can't afford his misses. If we'd drop every player who's had misses and hits in the last three months, we'd be dropping more than half of the team and the reason is simple, we aren't ready and despite having to mature and overcome our ridiculous attack (strikers wise), we're still at the top of the table. Imagine when this team is ready...

His wife is pregnant, the kid isn't born yet. I think Hazard was a father at age 19 or 20... being a father makes you mature in a lot of aspects in your life, your football isn't one of those, so this argument isn't really a valid one imo. He's a kid in the curve of his football development. As for what you are implying he's a man way before he's a father. He's been affording his mother and sister since he was 15... his first more significant amount of money was to buy his family a house, not get himself a fancy car while he was living in a big city. So this kind of maturity he has for a while now. It influences little or nothing in his development curve as a footballer. I was thinking earlier today... when you look at a guy as Oscar, you know he'll only get better and better and be a top10, top15 player in the world because of the class, talent, flashes of amazing skills. It's about waiting him to mature. When you look to a guy like Piazon or Schurrle, you know they're good and they have some nice things about them, but as much as they progress in their game (and they will), they won't ever become one of the big stars. That's the difference about Oscar and some nice prospects. We can't look to a 22yo and think he's ready, the final product or something near it. He's far from it and I think he's been amazing the past couple of years given his age. Right now he's at most very good (if not just good) in most of the aspects of his game - except work-rate, which he's great. But he's showed many times before (but also quite far and between) that he can improve his vision, his dribbles, his passes, his finishing based on key passes, outstanding strikes, movement, sprints, etc... We can see when he does those really well isn't just a coincidence, but rather the conscious decision. It's a matter of him practicing them (in training sessions, but also executing them in matches) until he improves them. Some he might become better than others, but the prospects about this kid are great. Could we be wrong and he never live up the expectations? Yes, we could. But as some of us keep repeating, very few players in the world were able to do some of things he did at age 21-22, and then when they were 25-26 which is about the time players peak, those other guys were great. So if Oscar was better than them at age 22, it's only natural you expect him to be better than them at his peak. We're very lucky to have him and also Hazard. I have no doubt they'll be two of the biggest names of this generation in 3-4 years from now. Oscar is very technical, tactical and smart. He isn't anywhere nearly talented as others, or maybe he isn't that far behind and his simple talent compared to flashy talents just pales in comparison. But those three aspects of his game makes up for his minor talent compared to others. With Oscar and Hazard for the next few years with us, we'll be one of the most difficult teams to play against because they compliment each other ridiculously well given their characteristics.

A lot has been said about City breaking out league record of most goals scored, but right now iirc Liverpool have scored one more than they did. 69-68 if I'm not wrong. Somehow we scored as many as Arsenal did

I don't get why you guys keep complaining. This right here requires a great amount of skills. Look how he contorts himself from scratch, no touch involved. Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Leo di Caprio charge millions for a few weeks for their CGI work and you still come here to this thread to question his miserable 150k a week? Do you think it's easy to have to act against the green screen/pitch, without seeing or touching what's attacking you and having to imagine it all in your head and synchronize it perfectly? It requires precision, skill, touch, vision, and ability to move through small spaces. Torres got it all. Torres' is completely underrated in this forum. I'm disappointed.

tumblr never fails me

He hasn't been awful the last few months. Don't know which team you've been watching, but definitely not Chelsea if you state such a thing. He's had a few very poor matches recently, but they were still mixed with good ones and decent ones. And, no, we are not trying to win the league, but we may win the league. The goal was never this and as the team progressed more than Mourinho maybe expected, or preferred to bet on, we're very much in the title race. This team isn't being built for this season, but if stronger teams such as City or more stable such as Arsenal won't win it, we gladly will. We can agree to disagree though.

maybe to others or to the team in general it isn't, but I think in Oscar's case it was a bomb ticking and waiting to blow in our faces. It's obvious he isn't the strongest guy around and not the most physical. The amount of matches he took part in nearly two years is ridiculous and it's taking its toll on him. He needs a couple or three matches in a row without taking any part in the matches. Just like Terry had (although he did have a minor injury). Eden himself doesn't look too far from getting burned out imo and Willian is still adapting as well as Schurrle - let alone Salah. If we don't protect Oscar now and when he's back, Eden, we'll risk highly losing one or both at the final sprint of the season. It's easily predictable and anyone who pays a little attention can see those things coming.