Barbara

I'd play Oscar for Kevin, to see if we improve, just because I think Hazard can use a real rest, otherwise I'd have Eden for Kevin promptly. If Oscar doesn't improve it, then I'd have Hazard. Ba or Torres need to come for Eto'o. I don't care which of them, but Eto'o needs to be subbed.

not a word is said when he doesn't though. I don't want him to do it, but we clearly have trouble penetrating their defense, we'll see a lot of players shooting from long distance because our AMs can't penetrate and when they do - like Schurrle did a while ago, our striker is outside the box and no one is there to take advantage of it.

why I'm not surprised that both Schurrle and Lampard roofed long distance shots and not a word is said, but when Luiz does the same the posts come?

I really don't get the instagram/twitter/facebook thing that's been brought by more than one person lately. What does social media have to do with football and performance on pitch? Gimme a bloody break.

I think Cech and Ramires stayed in London because they're resting - based on the amount of matches they've played so far. I guess Mata was left out for whatever other reason and he really isn't tired... As for Oscar I can't answer your question either. I have no idea what AMs will play Monday, but I do hope it includes both Schürrle and Hazard.

No, I guess Willian is But to be honest we're the ones who keep trying to fix the players in a position. There's no one fixed in this team, except Hazard that when playing spends like 80% in the LW. Everyone else interchanges A LOT during matches. So yeah, it's sort of pointless deciding if a player is in the wing or in the middle.

Chelsea FC ‏@chelseafc 2m Team v Sunderland: Schwarzer; Azpilicueta, Cahill, D Luiz, Cole; Mikel, Lampard ©; De Bruyne, Willian, Schurrle; Eto’o. #CFC I love every piece of it

It's great that Zizou enjoys Eden so much, but he can stop sucking up because we ain't releasing him to RM

defenders are always unsure, clueless and basically lost in front of Eden when he's in that zone of the pitch. Look at Bannan inviting Eden to get the ball between his legs (forgot how to say that in English) and then he quickly closes them thinking Eden fell for it. LOL

I'd play Schurrle - Oscar or Mata - KdB with Willian and Oscar or Mata in the bench. Hazard at home. I do agree about resting Eden, Rami and JT. JT is likely to be rested if Cahill is fit for the match. And finally Azpilicueta is playing in the RB!!! In the midfield I'd play Lamps and Essien as I favor a more defensive pivot against Arsenal with Mikel and Rami (but we all know José will play Lamps monday)

My tolerance must be terrible because I have nearly 20 in mine. When I identify a pattern, I just move people there. They'll annoy me, I'll be tempted to answer back to nonsense, so to avoid all that, I just put them there. As for David Luiz criticism and expectation, potential and whats not. I think he IS a great CB and he still has some aspects he needs to improve. People talk about him being 26 as if he's done and can't improve. He can, I'm not sure if he will, but he can. The kind of defending he provides to Brazil and the kind he provided to us most of last season is nearly flawless. He'll make mistakes as any CB will, otherwise most matches around the world would end 0x0. If Chelsea paid 3x for him than they paid for Cahill, it's their problem. We all know Portuguese teams capitalize a lot with their signings, so basically any player coming from them will be overpriced. The fact is now we have a team like Barcelona willing to pay 30m for him. Go see if anyone will ever pay even 10m for Cahill. Are they all that much delusional? Are they all that stupid to invest on potential and not reality? Barça has a problem RIGHT NOW in their defense. They aren't looking for potential, but for an immediate impact and the second name in their list was Luiz (Silva being the first). The problem about Luiz's mistakes being talked much more than others' is because normally they aren't subtle. Cahill failed in many goals we've conceded this season, but none of them was as bad as that lazy ball Luiz passed to Cech that led to a goal (honestly can't remember if it was Norwich or Cardiff because my memory sucks). So because his errors are messes normally it's easier to criticize it rather than the guy that has mediocre technique, watches opponents all the time, is slow and can't for the life of himself get an offside trap well done, although he does try them quite often and many times can't reach the opponent because he's slow. Not to say the eventual positioning mistake and how awfully passive is his defending. So it's easy to criticize the guy that makes ONE huge mistake that leads to one goal, rather than the guy that makes many of them, leading to many clear chances to opposition and goals. I'm not saying Luiz was responsible only for one goal, but normally his mistakes are that bizarre whereas Cahill's are there almost every match... but JT, Iva, Cech make up for him and we don't concede much, although we do concede because of him too. As a Brazilian I'm happy with the CB playing for my NT, if English people are happy with Cahill on their defense too, then let's all be happy to have both playing for Chelsea, right?

I'm never, ever again choosing someone over Suarez for the armband. We'll play Liverpool in two weeks, I'll have him as my captain. Ofc I don't want him to score against us, but the man is on fire, so even if I don't want him to score against us, he might I have both Ramsey and Suarez, but I believe the latter is the real deal while the former is only enjoying good form and I think it's only a matter of time before he's burn out. Arsenal don't rotate him, and I feel the succession of bad results (especially if we manage to get points at Emirates comes Monday) will take its toll on them and I can predict some free fall effect. But until then I'll have both him and Ozil in my team. My prediction may completely be wrong and Arsenal may shrug off their recent bad results, so I won't touch either of them until I see it actually happening. I wasn't going to change Aguero when they said he was out for only two weeks. He's much more expensive now than when I bought him and I was going to lose so money and risk not having enough of it to buy him back, but being away 4 weeks I really don't have an option I might get Rooney or Lukaku instead of Negredo though because unlike Jype I'm not sure City will carry it on with Negredo, they'll miss Kun a lot imo and I hope it affects their form we all know they weren't that amazing away, so I hope without Kun there to net balls in, they just have some shocking results. In one month they'll play 8 matches and I'm looking forward to them dropping about 5 points without Kun. I'm going to get Toure for Oscar though. Oscar is clearly out of form and I wonder if he isn't burn out for the 130+ matches he has under his belt in 18 months... he's young, but that's still a crazy amount of matches. and I've miss you, Jay.

I don't get all those nostalgic feelings at all. I'm not pleased at all to play against Drogba and Sneijder - both of which who have won their teams UCL titles in recent years. Yeah, they're not the players they used to be, but in times like these those players grow. so Galatasaray would be the last in my wish list (maybe tied with Leverkusen). What if Didier scores the winner that gets them through? They've kicked Juventus out of the knock-out stage... the Juventus that we couldn't pass by last season

Bayern lost at Allianz Arena to us in 2012 (actually drew but you know what I mean), last year to Arsenal and this year to ManCity. I wouldn't write Arsenal off at all. Those germans love to lose at home to English teams.

Draw Ceremonies Fernanda Lima >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I sort of am. Now that we have it, I don't have to obsess over it anymore and although I love UCL for me it's EPL >>>>>>> UCL any day of the week. There's no other football competition in the world I love more than the Premier League. My draw would be ManU - Schalke Bayer Leverkusen - PSG RM - ManCity Galatasaray - Atletico Olympiacos - Dortmund Bayern - Arsenal Barcelona - Zenit Chelsea - Milan

but if he can play as a second striker or a false 9 then we have more than enough space for him next season... anyway, I'd keep him on loan another season - but I don't see a problem if he stays in Vitesse. Chelsea have more control over them than anywhere else... players his age (especially his position) need a lot of playing time and confidence. I don't think he has a problem handling physicality, he's big and he's strong and he already presses very high and he can tackle. I'd rather him there than another Malaga nonsense. People suggested Bundesliga, but it's yet another La Liga, it's too polarized, and only has a bigger name, but for mid-table teams (which realistically is what he'd get) isn't that much interesting imo. A lot of you seem impressed with him, I have to admit I've barely seen Lucas ever since he left Sao Paulo, and he was 17 back then, so maybe he's this player you guys keep describing, but he never seemed like someone especially talented, but someone very objective and with good individual results. Hopefully you're right and there's more to him

Why do I insist on trying to be creative and democratic in the the captains I choose in Fantasy EPL? I should give Suarez a captive position, never-ending captain. Based on the descriptions of strikers Mourinho gave earlier this week about which profile fits us, I do hope he's watching Suarez this season and giving calls to Roman.

This should be 'must-read welcome post' for every poster - regardless of who and what their opinion about Chelsea and Mourinho are - to post in Mourinho's thread and post-match threads (not to say some players' threads too). Seb, can I adopt you? I like do adopt prodigies Jokes aside, I normally don't have patience to read vast articles (regardless of how long or not they are) because there's too much data to check, so I normally do it in 2-3 times because normally there's too much info and I want to be able to absorb everything and feel like I really took as much as I could from what the author expected. This one was an exception because the connection between the data and the text was so strong that the more I read the more anticipating I became and I just had to keep going and make it all at once. I'm positive I'll re-read it a few other times, but it's a gem, absolutely brilliant. I had no idea you had this coming and I just said earlier today in the Mourinho's thread that this is a high pressing team, that likes to attack a lot - counter-attack or not - and this article is a testament to that, explaining in depth why it worked back in October and why it hasn't been working lately. Way to explain the transition phase Mourinho is going through without using the word transition once. Absolutely brilliant

I liked the AM - which is why I liked your post I have a lot of doubts about this pivot though, especially against Arsenal. We need to defend well against them and I don't think Rami + Essien is the best combination. Willian is currently providing the same work-rate as Oscar, especially if he plays fixed in the middle. We should try that as Oscar is clearly out of form right now.

to be honest I'm surprised he's doing so well. I like him, but I tend to agree with @The only place to be that he's nothing special. Maybe he did come too early here and is only now resuming his development from when he was in Brazil. I still don't think he's that much technical, but if he's lethal, he doesn't need to be the guy with the best technique around. Players who capitalize is what we miss the most now imo, whether in defense or attack.

I covered one of the matches in October - I guess it was Norwich or Cardiff (the one where both Oscar and Mata played) and people were saying Mata didn't play center, Mata was in the wing. So as part of deep analyses I did for that game I measured every second each of them passed in the three AM positions and despite people saying Mata wasn't playing entered, that was where he spent most time of the match... The thing is our players interchange so much that is easy to lose notion of where players spent most time. But here is Squawka's heatmap and action areas to correct you in the assumption he hasn't played in the middle. Against Crystal the middle is where he spent more time and where he touched more the ball... http://epl.squawka.com/chelsea-vs-crystal-palace/14-12-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches Against Stoke it was even more evident http://epl.squawka.com/stoke-city-vs-chelsea/07-12-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches The games where he's spent more time in the wing recently were against Southampton and Sunderland (still he played plenty in the middle in both) http://epl.squawka.com/chelsea-vs-southampton/01-12-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches http://epl.squawka.com/sunderland-vs-chelsea/04-12-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches The thing is as he hasn't been producing what he's used to, we tend to forget of him during matches, but he's been playing in the middle just fine. I stopped posting my analyses here, but I could post the next match's and once again measure by seconds where he's played, but if feels redundant because I think heat and actions maps show that quite well.

@Steve, mate, can you help him?

I wish I was able to like a post more than once because this one certainly deserves it. I'll add a few ideas though. Everybody here remember October? The month we didn't lose and we scored 3-4 goals in most matches and we beat ManCity? We even beat Arsenal when they had more first team players than we did... So if Mourinho was failing so much in creating whatever he's trying to (imo it seems to be a high pressing team, that attacks a lot, not necessary only in counters) then how did the team evolve so much from a shaky start into that? And why we can't continue to replicate that? Did Mourinho decide during November that whatever he had working so well in October wasn't working anymore and did a 180 turn? Did he start sending a new message to the players? Or said players started oscillating damn frigging much, and stopped doing what they were doing until then, in addition to some of them losing form and facing minor injuries that led to even more rotation? One might think we're in transition, where teams normally have ups and downs because players are inconstant in some cases because of age, in others because of their adaptation to the league, but also to settle down to the 203984th manager's tactics we had in the last 3 years. Also I ~love how people say EPL title is ours to take because we have the best squad when 1) ManCity is said by most people here to have the best squad (I think we have more talented players, but they're more balanced imo) 2) the strongest teams without exception had tough games against the weakest sides and dropped points 3) people complain every single day how unbalanced our squad is. So how can we have the best squad if Mancity do or when we complain about how crappy our MD and ST positions are (which is true)? Am I the only one to think that's contradicting?

this is such a shitty comment of someone who rarely makes sense. Lamps didn't play one single minute today and I guess we were the worst we've been in the last four matches today. Next time bring a comment that at least makes sense.