Barbara

twice now I think we took away the wrong players - who despite being not very good in the first half, were starting to peak in the second: Kevin (against Aston Villa) and André today. I would have given André a few more minutes and then replaced him if he didn't keep the crescendo. I'm not exempting him from guilt, but we didn't lose width because Mourinho purposefully decided to send the width to the skies. It didn't work as he expected. We remind me a lot of RM in the first two months playing under Mourinho. Then we improved a lot (we won in October by 6-1, 1-4, 6-1 and 1-3 - although two of those wins were against teams that ended up relegated), but it took another three months for the team to be sharp. Those were some long five-six months because despite the scores we've struggled and you all know how the weaker sides of La Liga are... shamefully useless and they give up on the matches against RM and Barça in the dressing room. But tactically and technically it wasn't until around February/2011 that we started playing like the RM we were for the next two and a half seasons. I keep saying this season is transitional and a few people disagree because of the squad we have. It doesn't matter how deep the squad - if anything it will make Mourinho take longer to figure out the best players to play.

well I remember many occasions where he was just by Ivanovic's side or with Oscar approaching him. I'm not saying it was a good sub, I'm just saying that Mourinho's plan wasn't to make us lose width - which I don't even think we did to be honest, as I said I remember many times seeing him there with the ball. Mou had a plan - it may have been a bad one and I can agree with you, but we didn't play without width. We played technically bad all over the pitch. Jose's still getting to know the players and right now he trusts a few guys more than the rest: Oscar, Ramires, Lamps, Ivan, Hazard. He'll play with the players he trusts more until others earn his trust as well. He's making a few mistakes, but he's just getting started.

I didn't see anyone singling him out in the match's thread... but in his thread he has to be the player we talk about - unless you decide that blaming Mikel for Mata's invisible match makes any sense and brings him to the convo here (it wasn't you, I know, but I'm still shocked I read it). And if most people think the obvious - that he had a bad match - then that's what you'll read here. If we go to André thread people will talk about him, the same on Oscar's etc and how they perceived the players' display will permeate their posting. This is not singling out a player. Oscar is more and more the owner of the position and that creates a problem for us because Hazard can't figure out how to get rid of the double-triple men-marking on him, Oscar isn't much creative and then we're relying mostly at the right wing. We have a problem and I hope the answer to it comes soon. We have 6 players for the 3 positions, and they're all very good players, so God helps us with them becoming more confident and efficient soon.

@Strike also said the same, and sorry to disagree, but which match did you guys watch? Oscar for Mata did nothing to our width as we changed the players in the center and when Lampard entered Ramires moved to the right wing. Maybe going with Kevin in a direct exchange would have been better, but don't give me this width BS. Ramires was in the RW at all times once the subs were done. Did it work? No. But Mata was completely useless and André while one of the players who created more for us was in a bad day technically - so much for creating and not capitalizing. I said during HT and I'll repeat it: I would have brought Torres for Schurrle and let Samuel move to the right - where he likes to play and where he created a few things for us today. And then I added: if Torres plays badly it'll just be another guy who had a poor day for us. At the end of the day Lampard, Oscar and Torres were just as bad as the rest of team technically. The whole team tried, they fought, they worked hard, but their last touch was just poor throughout the whole match. Also, I'm just disagreeing with you guys, I don't want to fight and I'm not saying you don't have the right to think this way, but it's hard for me to understand someone say we were without wingers and lost width when Ramires was presenting himself to play in the right from the moment Lamps came in. It was yet another case of players lacking quality, but that's the beginning and the end of the problem in my eyes.

Hazard is the player with more consistent voting in our MOTM poll. It really doesn't matter what he does in the matches, he'll always have at least 15 votes - regardless of how invisible he might be. I don't know what people take into account - and I don't mean Belgians here, as normally there are votes for Eden from all over. It makes no sense in my head. He's doing a good amount of nothing for us - with a few exceptions - since the season began and if you check the others polls he had certainly at least 15 votes in each of them. It's not even that sometimes he does play well, but how in all of our matches this season there were players who had clearly much better matches than him but he's still always voted expressively every single time - for someone that so far had one good match, one so-so and three completely forgettable matches with one, at most two moments of shine there's some serious overrating going on. It has to be wishful thinking because everything else is a stretch in my eyes.

I agree... just looking to the bench and seeing how the alternative is Bertrand is so depressing... and I've been complaining about Cole for a while now - because the guy is only human, he has great matches, but sometimes he disappears and others he's just plain poor. we have two good RFB and one good prospect in Wallace and half a good LFB... That said defensively I think Cole is still decent most of the time, is going to the attack where he fails more often now.

thank you, Mourinho for saying the obvious!!!!!!! Although not so obvious around here it seems. The only situation a team that lost deserves to win is when they're unlucky (this is not a fact, just my opinion). We weren't unlucky, we were incompetent finishing, our defense had moments of pure bad positioning and coverage and there wasn't a pattern, we didn't seem to have a clear game plan. We had a bit of everything and still nothing. I voted for Eto'o because he tried a lot, the same goes for Schurrle. Were they awful in a couple of their finishing? Yeah and we have a couple of unlucky shots, but a couple of them don't make us the ones who deserved to win when we failed rather than Everton made the impossible. 22 attempts and only 6 on target is a horrible stat. Everton had 11/5... so they deserve to score more than we do. Did they players fight and tried their best and gave their everything? Sure they did. One question though... is anything different from that expect from them? This is not me saying we are a disgrace, just that we were awful. There's no problem to admit we had a bad match - it wasn't clearly our day. It isn't Mourinho's fault and not even the players if everything they tried they were bad while doing it - with some exceptions. Admitting a match we played bad - especially the second half - is okay. It's no overreaction, it's been only the 5th match in the season and we have to wait until the tactics settle, the team gets used to Mourinho and things start happening. It's a process, not immediate consequence. I'm not worried, I don't think it could cost us anything - title, CL spot, whatever because it's only a loss when we had a bad day. The season is long, there are other 34 matches to be played. But to say anything but admit a poor performance, on a bad day - even if the players showed clutch - seems like settling for too little or just making up excuses.

it was an individually poor match individually from at least 12 of the players who took part on it. As a result collectively this match was just a big failure. I can't choose a man of the match right now because honestly, they were all either awful, poor, or indifferent. For the sake of the poll I'll vote on someone, but it was through and through a poor performance from basically everyone involved

can we at least draw this?

this is hideous and a nightmare

Hazard fouled Luiz... not Mirallas...

lol Torres for Cole

which is why I suggested having BOTH for the second half... Eto'o is creating more than all of our AM together. He'll get tired by 60-70 and then we could get Kevin in. way better than simply getting Kevin now

WOO HOO INTER GOAL oops, wrong thread

he scored against Bayern a goal much more difficult than the ones Mata, André e Eto'o missed tonight, so yeah, I'd take my chances as everyone is sucking balls. If he sucks too, he'll just suck equally. The hate on him here is so overboard

Eto'o has been by far the best player creating chances for us - doing what Mata, Hazard and André clearly didn't, put Torres ahead of him and see how it goes.

I'd have Torres for Schurrle.

Eto'o is the one that difference in our AM... yeah, not our attack, but our AM creating plays. The three players in the AM had a completely forgettable first half... Hazard was the only one not to miss a chance, but didn't create much - although the best out of the three imo. Our defense had a few weird moments... no wonder to conceded

André WTH?

kudos to André

this AM is a walking nightmare

Mata did the same twice in a row... so? Ramires is one of our best players...

Luiz

so close!!!!!!

Eto'o played I guess 5 matches this season for Anzhi, Willian didn't play ever since Anzhi was on sale - or a week before, he's probably lacking a bit of rhythm