Barbara

for one Eto'o and Fernando didn't have the luck to have an opponent pushing to the net a ball that was clearly going wide. Fernando actually got unlucky with some good saves from goalies in two or three occasions. Dude, I'm tired of this argument. You want to believe Lukaku would have solved or even improved our striker's issues? great. I don't believe it and I guess I'm entitled to have whatever opinion I want in the matter - stats or not. what I did see in the Newcastle game was the defense defending pathetically in both of his goals, but that doesn't count, does it? I do give full credit on that assist. I didn't expect him to do something like that... and as I said, I'm not interested in this argument at all. I'm too Mourinho-like. If we're going to discuss any Chelsea player, then let's do it about players that actually play for Chelsea. The only interest I have in the loaned guys is for them to do well and come better players for us. So sorry to cut the discussion short.

so you think some defender pushing his shot to the goal when it would actually go wide is actually justifiable? I guess I don't need to read the rest, but I'll do it anyway... my argument is good defenses, with players behind the ball. RM defends with tons of players because everyone, except Ronaldo, is committed with work-rate and defending responsibilities because that's how Mourinho molded the team and Carlo didn't do many chances at that point. There's a difference between many players behind the ball, deep defenses and parking the bus - those are three different things and I think Lukaku struggles with all three. Why I can't consider this in NT football I have no idea as teams playing in Belgium totally park the bus or at least play deep. What does it have to do with opponents keeping their legs open for Everton and West Brom? Did you even think before questioning that? I'm talking about tactics, not how big or small a team is or if it's international or clubs footie. I don't care if he comes from the bench or starts playing (I did watch the match he started from the beginning for Belgium and he was crap), my point is he can't handle that situation. If you think otherwise, then showcase matches where he faced any of those three situations and scored goals. I'll be waiting for the vids preferably. If you don't think my arguments are reasonable enough, then good for you, mate. Agreeing to disagree has nothing to do with admitting defeat or being wrong, just admitting that someone else has a right to have a mind of their own.

yeah I meant that when facing defensive teams (although they don't park the bus, just defend the Italian style) like Inter, Milan (against Roma he did nothing and if his shot doesn't touch the opponent, the goal wouldn't have happened because the ball was clearly going to go wide, even though he was 2m from the goal and unmarked) and a well organized defensive team like Madrid he basically did nothing. When the real test in pre-season came he had no answer to give. He has been fabulous against the Asian sides but that was it. He was even chosen as flop of the match against Madrid by goal.com... I also watched him in Belgium a few times this season and he added nothing when he came in (and absolutely nothing at all the whole match he started, except early in the second half with a couple of plays) because at least the matches I've watched teams were well planted defensively against Belgium... but mate, that's only my opinion, I'm stating it as a fact - which is why I said I guess we can agree to disagree edit: I meant I'm not stating it like a fact. I'm the 'not' eater queen

I guess the main problem is that he still struggles a bit with teams that play deep and with too many players behind the ball. that doesn't happen against teams like Everton and much less West Brom... he works great as a target-man in a team where the opponents don't defend exhaustively. He'll keep improving though and I guess he'll come back to us improved because a few teams might park the bus against Everton at Goodison Park

you do realize you're talking to an admin? forever http://espnfc.com/player/_/id/103025/juan-mata?cc=3888http://espnfc.com/player/_/id/84775/mesut-ozil?cc=3888 Mata goals/assists in 161 matches (last three seasons and the current): 48/70Mesut goals/assists in 186 matches (last three seasons and the current): 44/99I didn't bother to drop the NT stats from it though

aren't they a pair?

I can't trust those stats when they can't have something as age - that can be found even in wikipedia - right...

I watched live, don't know if there are already links, mate. sorry

can someone tell Mourinho to stop reading my posts in this forum and quoting me in his press conferences? Lukaku - check Torres - check Eto'o - check pro-active mentality - check Now talking seriously... it's so easy for me to like his approach in football because I think exactly the same way... we agree about too many things and only disagree on detail. I feel blessed to have him managing my three teams in Europe. I'm developing a soft spot for Dortmund, but I may have to stop watching them and falling in love with their supporters because I don't want Mourinho to leave Chelsea and football gods keep spoiling me when it comes to him and my teams. I agree 100% about everything he said in the press-conference because I said it first here, not because he's Mourinho and I'm an worshiper to his alter.

I showcased plays that we showed the team working as team, covering one another, linking up plays, pressing together, moving without the ball. That's supposed to improve from now on. In one analysis it doesn't make much sense, but next match we can compare how the team is progressing into playing the tactics Mourinho has in place. The same goes for chemistry. It's a way for us to see the team working as a whole. There wasn't a case where they failed - except if you count that messy box play at the very end of the game when we tried to clear the ball away, but no one could until Cech held it (but the referee had stopped the play for a foul on Cech). I don't think that was lack of team work or chemistry, I think that was a hot mess where we just couldn't kick the ball away from the dangerous areas. But let's suppose we show like in the Everton goal - where Luiz moved to anticipate the ball and wasn't properly covered and didn't properly come back to fix his mistake. That's a typical failure in team work. We saw in one of the plays I showcased this time that he made the same mistake at some point, but Ramires (if I'm not wrong, I don't know all the plays by heart, hehehe, but it's in the spoiler tag) was there and covered him and cleared the ball away. Mourinho has a special player (in his eyes) in Luiz. His vision and boldness are impressive and he offers something else to the defense, but it comes with a risk and we need FB or CMs to cover him for those attempts. It's an aggressive defending, a pro-active and Mourinho said one week ago he doesn't want us to play reactive football. that's how it's made, but for it to work someone has to cover him. It's risky, but with the right amount of chemistry and team work it's actually a good tactic. In this match it seemed to me he gave Luiz fredoom to do it anywhere he saw fit. I don't think he'll have as much freedom in three weeks against City for example, but even then I expect Luiz to press pro-actively in the second third... So, next time I do this - I'll try to do for the Norwich match, but I will only provide data and let the tactics analysis for @hjperdeath, so there will be only the rating part, team chemistry, team work and individual highlights, that Sherry may want to use on his tactical analysis or not. I think it's important to have contextualized rating of the players' contribution... sometimes a player contributed a lot and we don't even realize it because he did the invisible work. There wasn't much of it last match because we played nearly perfectly, but my objective is to start rating players movement as well even when they don't actually touch the ball. There was a couple of cases of that when I mentioned a player pressed, but didn't actually tackle or intercepted, and still he was rated. His off-ball movement and pressing was important and helped someone else to go for the killing. Sherry, sweetie, do you think we can work this way? I only provide data, but won't 'interpret' it and will leave the whole analysis to you. Feel free to use any of the stats or not. You let me know.

I meant when Mata was unfit... that's the problem. If a player is showing he's unfit, he should be recovered first. Hazard is completely out of shape. Why should we keep him in the team while André is playing like that? That's the only thing I meant... not that Mata should be benched now, but when the season started and he didn't show up in the matches he played...

yeah, I guess I led to the confusion without realizing it. I wasn't taking part of the debate itself and I didn't make that clear, I just disagreed about a minor detail, not exactly TorontoChelsea's reasoning - or yours. I don't even like to make players comparison to be honest... Players are normally different from one another, and in this case Oscar and Mata are very different and can contribute in very different ways which makes the comparison even harder. Even as #10 they offer two complete different end products in my opinion. One fits tight matches more imo while the other fits better counter-attack, one controls better game pace while the other controls better games period.

Actually in the post I said André was the man of the match, despite Luiz being the player who contributed more. This match wasn't a tight one for us, but closer matches a performance like the one Luiz had for us is what may feed our attack players. 10 interceptions in a match, most of which moving from the common place, anticipating and taking risks is an out of this world stat. But I agree André was the best. And the opposition was weak, but we made them miserable. Our good performance made them seem much worse than they are - except the Geogie...whatever full back that was marking André. He will have all kind of nightmares involving blond Germans for a month, poor thing. Rapha, there are two kind of assessments here 1) good plays those are rated from 1 to 5. Remember that ball that André brilliantly passed to Oscar and he shot poorly, the ball seemingly going to Budapest? It was a poor finish, but at least he finished, so it's not a detractor and he got a 1 for that finishing. now remember at the end of the first half that he gave a pass to the defense, but it was sloppy, strong and Cech had to get out of the box to clear it because otherwise their player could reach the ball and we could be in trouble? That's a mistake and he was -5. Separating the positive and the negative contribution you have a more realistic view of the match because for example Cole although exchanged tons of passes with André didn't exactly take part of many dangerous plays so he had few contributions and consequently a low rating (19), but he also didn't contribute much negatively either. Sometimes a player can have a bad rating because of mistakes he did when in fact he contributed positively in many other things. At the end of the day he will have been a neutral player contributing and detracting, but when you separate things you can say 'he should get better in X because he already is very good in Y'. Did you open the spoiler section? I decided to put the matches breakdown in a spoiler tag so the post wouldn't be too long - also that is informative the analysis was up in the post. In the breakdown you can see the positive and negative rating clearer

well I'm all for debate - although not interested in taking part in this particular one because it seems outdated now that Mata is in the team... they were competing for positions, now they aren't anymore as it seems Mourinho will continue to play them both... It's the fact that your answer had no relation whatsoever with my post that makes me wonder wth you were talking about because I couldn't get how I said comparing last season's stats is unfair to warranty someone replying to me that they aren't saying Oscar should never play... it's a little bit I didn't talk about potential either... I'm talking about present. We should compare their stats now, this season, present time, not 2, 3, 6, 10 months from now, but right now. I said both are closing gaps now, not that they will in x months or seasons from now. The more I read my post and your answer less all of this make sense... I guess it must be the avatar I had (me wearing a Oscar shirt) or the fave player name in my profile because I only made a comment about something I disagree that wasn't even the main point of torontochelsea's post... and then because of info in my profile I guess people are assuming I was picking sides. It's all good though, mate. I was just confused and a bit frustrated with the kind of answer I received for something I thought it was clear in my post. But as we're in this, I think we should play 4-3-3 with Oscar behind the wingers/strikers those being Schurrle, Mata and Torres or Eto'o. In my head he wouldn't be a #10 in that position, but a joker on the team's sleeve performing on different roles during the entire match.

no, they just have different profiles and Oscar is more versatile tactically, but I don't think he's more technical than Mata or vice-versa. Different players

Has there been any news on his NT retirement? I remember reading the L'Equipe article about him saying he wouldn't play international football anymore. If that's the case I think he can benefit of the extra couple of weeks training to regain his better fitness. I also think he will play against both Norwich and Cardiff and who knows if Torres will be fit for playing the first match against Schalke... so I think he'll improve with the extra training and another couple of matches.

you guys really make me feel self-conscious about my ability to communicate in English... where did I even say who should play there and who shouldn't? Are you sure you didn't quote the wrong person? My only point was that comparing stats from a guy adapting to a completely different and much more demanding football to a guy that has been completely adapted already isn't fair because the former will have his stats damaged because of his adaptation issues... I didn't say Mata or Oscar should play CAM because I got over it the moment Mata started playing well again without being a liability defensively. For me now it doesn't matter as long as the two of them are there. then my second post I exhaustively explained the same thing, being more detailed about what makes it so hard for south american to adapt in Europe and still I didn't say who should and shouldn't play there. Also I commentated on Mata closing the gap by becoming a more complete player under the influence and management by Mourinho and said that Oscar was also closing the creativity gap, although I believe Mata will always be more creative and Oscar will always be the more complete player. Unlike most of you I don't see this as a competition... now that Mata is not only finally performing well again, but also contributing more to the team work-rate I'm too happy to get into petty arguments about who's best because guess what? Both play for Chelsea. So in some matches one will be better than other, while in another bunch of matches it'll be the opposite. I couldn't resist though in my last post commentating that Oscar was statistically better because well, he was... So now use that info and have a field day or lose sleep at night because of that... or you know, just ignore it.

did I use the age card? I said you can't compare a player adapting to a complete different style of football especially when he's so young (which makes it more challenging, but the problem isn't the frigging age) to a player that is completely adapted. Overlooking that every south american player has to go through a huge adaptation when moving to Europe, especially England - is ignorance... maybe you guys don't have any idea of what playing in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, etc is and think that magically the player is ready to play European football. But that has been said (and seen in the pitch) so many times that it never ceases to amuse me how people just ignore it. Did you know for example in Brazil a football match normally has 40-50 fouls and many of them reach 60-70? You know why is that? Because the smallest physical contact here is considered a foul. Also the playing is slower, wider, the pitches are huge, players are used to have huge amount of space to play, etc... how shocking do you think it is to be playing in minimal spaces, where most physical contact is considered normal, in pitches that seem to be as big as my bedroom? How much a difference does it make or how does it affect a players ability to continue to do his thing, especially a midfielder. So the adaptation problem detracted his stats which is why I said we should compare both this season - despite the age gap. I mean people are becoming so blind in their standings that it seems like they don't even bother to try to read posts before jumping to conclusions. btw Oscar was more creative, had more chances created, more vision and more attacking contribution than Mata yesterday. But continue your ...

I said it once, and I'll repeat... comparing a 21yo Brazilian first season in Europe - in England nonetheless - with a guy well established there for two season is unfair. we should compare their stats this season... (ignoring the age gap between them). I concede that Mata is much more creative than Oscar, but Oscar is creative himself - just not as much as Mata. He seemed a more balanced player than Juan before Mourinho started to work on Mata tactically. In terms of completeness I can see already Mata closing the gap (meaning Mourinho is making him a better player despite all the shit said about Mata being who he has always been and Mourinho just having to play him because he's Mata). As well as I see Oscar in terms of stats (and even creativity) also progressing right now, but each one will probable continue to be better than the other in what makes them so special - Mata's creativity and Oscar's being a complete player.

In the stats article I wrote is the clear evidence of how immense this lad is. Immense! He was absolutely superb and if that isn't a world-class performance I don't what else is! from the article:

thanks, that's the objective so they can be contextualized and make more sense. Even then you see Schurrle as only the 5th more influential player in the pitch statistically and he was much more important than that. But on the other hand Ivan's and Luiz's stats can show how important and how they basically made no mistake (Iva literally didn't). So one can conclude that although the opposition was very weak - and they were - defensively we have been immense making the quality gap even more pronounced.

I won't be doing this for every match... I just didn't know you'll be doing for all matches, Sherri. It's not my job to do it here either (only in CB), I just feel bad because it seems like I took away something you were supposed to do. sorri

I didn't now you were doing all post-match analysis... my bad... I'm scheduled to do some post-match reports for CB and I thought I would translate them here... I won't get into your business anymore, sweetie

it's not sweetie. The kind of scouting you do is different. This is more really rating statically the players for their most important actions in the game (positive and negative) giving them different weight depending on the importance the play have. Then there's a brief tactical analysis. What you do is much more dynamic and less statistical than this. Go ahead and do it

from cfc site