Barbara

it's surprisingly comfortable actually. Of course you don't want to stand on them the whole day. But for work or other occasions where you can alternate sitting and standing, they're perfect. they're very soft in the inside. I wore them the whole afternoon running some errants and driving (although traffic law in Brazil doesn't allow you to drive on heels).

but I don't want to jinx us. JDY already blames me for the Benteke goal I don't want Robin to score because I want a clean sheet in Old Trafford... I want him to score against others - and for ManUtd to concede so they drop points. If all of us captain him it seems like all of us want him to score...and we don't. Sort of.

well yesterday I was in the bakery and a guy who was already on his car came back - leaving his daughter in the car - entered the bakery and watched me for five minutes before finally addressing me with words. "Where did you buy those shoes?" I was like... well that store at the mall. "They're divine, you have such small feet, what's your size" "I indeed have, 35 (in Brazil, 37 in Europe)" "I bet you have a lot of those high heels. How many pairs do you have?" At this point I thought he was gay because why else would have asked many questions about shoes?!?!?! Then he introduced himself, I did the same and all of sudden he asked me if my husband was jealous loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool bingo! He asked if I'd like to be photographed - to which I said no thinking he was a creepy photographer. Then he handed me his card - with his contacts, asked me to send him an e-mail So boys, learn from the Master. Stingray knows women's business better than anyone... and I don't mean wearing them, but getting the deal done Oh, and Tom, I'm not going to let you wondering

I'm not transferring anyone this week, but I've changed my subs and I'm also having a captain debate... How are Robin van Persie stats against Chelsea? Not only in ManUtd, but also in Arsenal? I didn't watch their match against Swansea... I refuse to watch Utd, but how did he go? Was Swansea really bad defensively or did he do his magic? I watched their game against Wigan - with my brother - but that can't be the parameter.

I think there are a few things to consider from the match before we crucify players and manager. Last page I used probably 1000 words in a debate with Blue Army about how takes time to a manager to establish and solidify his philosophy and style of play in a team. We aren't the same Chelsea (squad wise) from 6 years ago and neither is Mourinho. So while he already knows the club, is familiar how things are handled there off pitch, he's starting over. There's little he can use from his first time here to find the team that will work best. Even the club's philosophy seems to have changed from his first spell to now. So while he's familiar with Terry, Cole, Cech and Lamps, that's too little because six years are a lot, and those players - maybe with the exception of Cech - aren't the same anymore. He needs to get to know his players, but really know them. Their weaknesses, their strengths, the areas they can improve, the areas they just can't. Then he needs to see how those players compliment each other and compensate weaknesses. I'm sure he already has a plan in mind, but there's a long distance between having that plan and reaching his goal. At some points he will have to make adjustments because plans rarely go completely smoothly. And it means he'll make mistakes, just like he did yesterday. 65 minutes to do the changes was a bit late imo (still way better than 85). I think Torres would have been more suited to the match than Ba was. Whether we like him or not, whether we want to strangle him for playing deeper than he should or not, his movement and linkups against Hull offered more space for Kevin, Oscar, Hazard and even Lampard play. That's not enough, don't take me wrong, but I think he could have done the same with Villa. We insisted on playing in the center where all their players were concentrated and when Torres goes deeper to receive the ball, he frees one of AM to go wider because there are so many players that can occupy the same zone. According to Newton 2 bodies can't occupy the exact same space, but last night we tried to challenge the physics law with the insistence of centralizing the play. I also think he should start considering a rotation with Lampard. Forget the squad rotation now, he won't rotate the squad so early in the season. he might make a few changes to try to find a better tactical result, that's experiment, not rotation. The only reason he's rotating the three strikers is because he's trying to give them equal chances before a new striker arrives, so they know where they stand in his plans. Had Rooney or whoever else been here already, I doubt he'd be trying to give the same play time for all 4 strikers. He's rotating where we are the most deficient because his better prospect is still two young, inexperienced, a tad nervous and he needs to be careful with the boy otherwise he'll damage his progress. Back to Lamps... I think it's only a matter of shape. he can't play twice a week. He will produce really well one match, but the other he'll be more prone to mistakes, just like yesterday. When you body doesn't obey your brain, there's nothing left for you to do and I hope they both recognize it soon. I agree with you guys. But if we know he's made mistakes because he has to know the team better, let's give him time to get to know his players (I'm not implying any of you isn't giving him time) He blamed himself for two reasons: 1) he was to blame 2) he protects his players for the most part. But let's not confuse him with Daddy Carlo. He protects the players, but he's also very tough on them, sometimes even in the press room - where he shouldn't. But the thing is journalists know Mourinho well and they start making questions that will lead him to talk about players when they're sub par or when he, for example, leaves Torres even out of the bench... They're baiting for a reaction, for player criticism and while yesterday the reason was tactical, sometimes it will be technical. But overall I feel like Mou protects the players that trust him and his decisions. It's the players that challenge his decisions (and consequently his leadership) that usually aren't spared in pressers. The problem wasn't where Mata played - Mazacar was as dynamic as they were under di Matteo and they exchanged positions a lot. The problem is Mata is completely out of shape and it'll take a long while for him to be at the same level as the rest of the squad. Nobody is 100% fit already. I'd say in general they're around 70-80% while Mata is I don't know 40%. Then he takes 3-4 weeks to finally be 70-80%, by then the other guys will already be 100%, but he'll still need another 3-4 weeks to reach it. So no matter where Mourinho plays Mata now, he won't deliver what he usually does and there's no way Mourinho shouldn't use him because the less he plays the longer it'll take for him to reach his ideal form and we need Mata - much less than we needed him in the last couple of years - but we still need him. You can't ignore a player of his caliber.

Cech Ivan - Luiz - Terry - Cole Ramires - Lampard KDB - Oscar - Hazard Torres This is what I think Mourinho will bring to the table. Anything else will surprise me - except Luiz who might not be completely fit and Mourinho knows that with van Persie against us we need to have the best fit defenders.

don't blame me, love. I said it myself I'd rather have points from a clean sheet rather than from Benteke. You have to pick the order of your subs to make sure the guys you favor get in first. I don't even know my points, but now that you mentioned it, I'm going to check. Now, I'm not going to deny I was lucky with Benteke Let's see if you're still breathing on my neck. I smell of fruits today, so at least it's a nice scent

transcript of Mou's post match presser Were you fortunate to win? It was a free-kick against Aston Villa. If somebody pushes an opponent especially in the box in a dangerous area it is a free-kick against them. Was it a struggle for you tonight? If in this moment we are here with a draw it wouldn’t be an unfair result. I think they fought a lot for a result. I don’t think they played a lot because they don’t play a lot. Every ball the goalkeeper had every ball the goalkeeper kicks so they don’t play a lot but they fought a lot and they created great difficulties and if Petr doesn’t save the one on the far post from Weimann we probably don’t even get a point out of this game. This is what they do. They have a special player with special qualities. They use him. Goalkeeper kicks it and Benteke is fantastic with the first ball and they play from Benteke. They do this and the counter attack. The counter attack we controlled fantastically. In 90 minutes they had the one situation and we controlled it very well and killed their counter attacks because we played with great balance between the lines and positionally we were very good. The situation with Benteke is very difficult to control because the goalkeeper has the ball, you can’t press the goalkeeper. The ball is there and he kicks the ball and after that everything goes from Benteke. It’s difficult. They gave us a very difficult match. Was Benteke in your thoughts as a striker to buy? He is a great player but he is a great player for a certrain style of football. We tried to play a different style of football. We tried to play the way we played against Hull. We tried to play the way we train every day but the good thing from my team today was Villa gave us a different match and we coped with that. Defensively we were strong. I think we could do better with the ball. Better decisions. Maybe my decision of not making many changes, only two, maybe was not the best. Maybe it would be better to put more fresh players from the beginning because I felt my players found the midfield in the attacking areas were not very, very sharp which was understandable but the team fought very hard and sometimes you have to win because you play fantastic football. Sometimes when you don’t do that you have to play based on other things and today other things gave us the game. Did you fear Ivanovic would be sent off for an elbow? No, first of all this is the Premier League. This is English football. For some reason the world loves it more than any other league. One thing is a real aggression. Another thing is duals that land in a certrain way and I think the referee did very well and from minute one to minute 95 there was a real fight. A football fight between Benteke and Ivanovic and fouls, foul on one side, fouls on the other side and I think that is football. Two games, two wins but no goals from your strikers. Is it time to buy someone who can actually score? In this moment we are scoring enough goals to win our matches and I try to I tried to put all my three strikers more or less the same time on the pitch. Today I started Ba. Lukaku didn’t start but was the one who played both matches and I tried to give them the confidence to play and to get into the team. They did their work for the team in different matches. They work hard, they open spaces for the team, they have a defensive job for the team they were humble on the service they gave to the team so I cannot say that I’m not happy with them. What happened on the touchline? When it is 1-0 nothing happened. When the game is over after 20 minutes nothing happens. From the minute until the 95th minute with the result unpredictable when nobody knows what is going to happen, Paul has a certain type of personality and behaviour on the bench that pushes for that. He reminds me of myself 10 years ago when I was complaining about every decision, when I want to coach my team and at the same time I want to have a whistle on my lip. He is the same. He will change. With time and experience he will change because he complains about every, every, every decision. But he is a young manager, very intelligent. He plays very well adapted to the quality of his players. I wish him good. I like him and no problem. Just little discussions. Have your side recovered? Yeah, yeah. Today was today. We played Sunday and Wed after national team matches. Now we have four days with no football, absolutely nothing, and we have Friday, Saturday and Sunday and they are fine. Are you more likely to go for Rooney after Monday's game? I don’t want Chelsea to do it before we go there and everybody in the club in the board they agree with me. There is time to do things. We did it before and we will do later but what I think with this period where we are going to be quiet and just be thinking just about that game. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2399452/Jose-Mourinho-takes-aim-Paul-Lambert-spat-saying-He-reminds-years-ago.html#ixzz2ceFABMNg

yeah, I mean, did I like what I watched? The amount of curse dropping from my normally quiet mouth said otherwise. But I agree with you, and I feel like we now have the champions luck on our side, but mainly the forced result. But that's how champions do it. I said in the English Football thread the other day that ManUtd force the wins, they somehow leave with the win when they play like crap. I don't mind us doing the same as normally we would have dropped points here. I'm not saying I like to play like that, but the result is the most important thing at this point. The team will improve. It's still transitional and tentative. Mata was completely out of shape, I disagree with everyone who said Oscar had a bad match... thing is apart from Cech and Ramires nobody played really well. Maybe Terry too, but that's about it. Eden started as if he was going to be the man, it lasted a few minutes - not 30 as I read (in my opinion). Mata slowed down our transition, there were way too many long passes - most of which inaccurate and Mourinho made a mistake with Ba imo. This match wasn't for him. I can also see the confidence slowly building on Lukaku and for God's sake, let's not start the boy in the most important match we have in this beginning. Why throw him to the lions? Burn Torres or even Ba again. I'm more concerned about how we'll defend against ManUtd than I am about who will score for us. Someone will and although Lukaku could be the man to solve the match, let's have the kid come from the bench again, without putting all the pressure on his shoulders. We should protect him now. It sucks we don't have someone else to count, but I'd rather protect him than use him and risk him being burned, disrupt the mental progress he's doing for one match... one match we aren't even sure if he'll score or not. He's our super sub now, and until he feels like he can boss those games, let's be careful with him. He has to play at least 30 minutes though. It seems he loves to score against ManUtd

that's how ManUtd have been doing it for years now. All good with me. We will struggle a bit. The good news is that Luiz may be available next week already. It'll make me feel much better.

Cech is my motm

as if the previous comment wasn't silly enough, you had to make it worse.

sweetie, you're not understanding my point at all. He's here to create a new style of playing and that requires time. It has little to do with winning titles. My post was about Mourinho creating a hit team, the team everyone will talk about. Just like Barça has been and now Bayern is. He has the quality to do that and while he doesn't have all players now, he has a few of them that will mature into the next generation of A players and a few more might continue to join. Read carefully what I've written. It's about changing our style because he's changed his. And becoming a reference in the world of football. It requires time and those young players to mature. If we happen to win titles in the between, great and I believe we will. Next year I believe we'll be able to repeat the first 30 minutes against Hull to a T and for nearly 90 minutes in most matches already. This season we might do that a few times, but we won't do another few times. That's what I'm talking about. Titles are consequence of the philosophy and style. And let's not forget we have really hard competition in EPL - let alone in Europe. And you said well in your post. RM had the second best squad in the world at the time. I'm not sure currently we make the top5 or even the best squad in England right now. I think comparing this season to the 2004/05 is a bit of a stretch. The players were older, more experienced... a complete different profile. Again it's not only me saying it, José said it just yesterday... My point is - as a RM fan I can say - in 2010 (from Aug-Dec) the team was still a mess tactically. Pellegrini was sacked basically because of yet another terrible CL result and a very embarrassing early exit in Copa del Rey. The team had great talents and when Mourinho arrived he of course brought a few more names, but that team while great technically, was still lost tactically. What tactics should we use to capitalize the talent we had? Let's not forget this is La Liga - the level of competition doesn't compare to the EPL and still they struggled to find a pattern and a style of playing. Until the 5-0 we were leaders and after that disaster the team was emotionally unstable, they lacked confidence and the main reason they continued to win is because a team like that playing against Mallorca, Levante, Hércules (), Deportivo, Almería, Getafe, etc would of course win. But we had problems, we struggled, it took José a long while to define and establish a pattern, a style and see what really worked given the players we had. That team changed Mourinho. He tried to emulate what he did in Inter (which was much closer to what he did in Chelsea), but he couldn't because he had completely different players in his hands. The squad itself presented a challenge to him and it took him a while (and an embarrassing loss to Barça) to understand that what he did here and in Inter wouldn't work with that profile of squad. I remember vividly that season, I've followed Madrid very closely because I was excited to have Mou managing yet another team I supported. It took him months and we were very lucky with the teams we had on UCL (Lyon and Spurs). It wasn't until February-March that the team finally seemed to have settled and for Mourinho to learn how to work with a squad that was so prone to attack, fast, talented in every position (from the pivot on) and with the second best player in the world. But before that he tried ball possession, he tried tikitaka, he tried two strikers, one striker, he tried a lot of things, until he realized what Madrid did best was counter-attack and fast paced football. We had more possession than opponents, but we were in no way a tikitaka kind of football. It took time for him to find the balance and for the team get used to the new tactics and that was a team that had a lot of players on their peak (Casillas, Ramos, Marcelo, Alonso, Cristiano, di María, Higuaín and players on verge of peaking such as Benzema and Ozil - although some would say they were already peaking). When Mourinho came to England the rest of the teams had to raise their level to compete with his team. And that improvement is still there for a couple of top clubs and the smaller clubs can be challenging because the league is very physical. Which league (among the big ones) is more unpredictable (or competitive) than the Premier League? La Liga and Bundesliga are all about two teams, Italy currently is about Juve and someone else that won't really threaten them but will still be much better than the rest. The rest (including Portuguese, French and Dutch leagues) are 2nd tier leagues. Winning in England is harder. I prefer to keep my titles expectations low and look forward to this team progressing, maturing and taking the first steps into marking a generation in a couple of years. Everything beyond that is icing the cake. I have no doubts we'll be a force to reckon with next year and in a couple more we'll be the 'it' team. That's one thing missing in Mourinho's resume and it's great that Roman seems to aim the same. Whether they'll succeed or not, is yet to be seen, but I think we have all tools to make it happen and until then I'm prepared to see a lot of rotation, experiments and adjustments and hopefully titles mixed with all of it. It does help ManUtd has a new coach in nearly 3 decades and that ManCity pressed the reset button again.

Of course it's transition... for we have a new manager. There's no way it isn't a transition. RM team in 2010 was better than ours - any team that has Cristiano Ronaldo has something else compared to the others and they had him and a bunch more that were older, on their peak and experienced - and it was a transition season where he was spanked by Barcelona in the biggest beat up between the clubs lately (5-0) and although they finished 2nd in La Liga by only 4 points, that was mainly because Barcelona had a huge lead and they started dropping points towards the end of the season (9). They made it to CL SF - again their team was better than our current squad - and only won the Cup (Copa del Rey). I'm not saying we won't win, but to deny this is a transitional season seems nonsensical as we're under a new management, we have new players, we have many young players (9 under 23) and we'll change the mentality the club has had for the past few years. There's no way you don't go through a transition to reach the goals. There isn't magic in football and that's the capital mistake ManCity does year after year. They build a team with great names, and then the next season - because it didn't work as good as they wanted - they change half of the team again. There's no immediate and magical result. It's a process and Mourinho already asked time himself. I never said though we won't win titles. I just said next season we will be a hit and that hopefully we are able to grab some titles already in this one. José faces this season as transitional. He already said that although he'll do his best to win titles now this is a team for the future. There aren't really many ways to interpret a sentence like that...

I love this quote by him in the article: And that's the Mourinho I've been repeatedly telling has been training RM for the past three seasons. If anyone here expects the 2004-07-Mourinho to have returned, prepare yourselves for something else. The man completely changed his view on football and while there are many things that continue the same from his first spell here, how he approaches the game isn't one of them. He's been very effective with this new mentality in RM (imo) and I have no doubts he'll be the same here, especially because we have the players for it. He's betting a lot on André - although I'm still not convinced André will become what he hopes he will. He will be very careful with Lukaku and see if he can also become what he aims. I don't feel like I know both players enough to say, but if they aren't what he needs them to be, he'll bring others. Hazard, Oscar, Kevin, Moses in addition to those two are the ones he's going to watch closely. I'm so excited about his time here with us. This season is the complicated one, the transitional, and it'd be great if we could bite one of the big trophies, but next season will be the hit. And from there on I think we may have the chance to become the next 'it' club in the world.

According to ESPN plans B and C are Samuel Eto'o and Buruk Yilmaz respectively http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1528333/chelsea-jose-mourinho-plan-c-wayne-rooney-pursuit-fails?cc=3888

This should be like tennis. There are 8 seeds (teams with the best coefficients) and all the other 24 are randomly drawn. But as it isn't like that, at least RM, Barça, and Bayern are in the same pot as we are so we won't have any of them (in addition to both Manchester teams). Having Borussia though would be tough as well as Juve (in a lesser degree). The rest is the rest imo and while there are quality teams, we should be able to face them. PSG and Monaco included.

Well, I think Mou will want to see if the team can repeat that first half display, but I expect one change and another one I'm unsure. Cech Ivan - Cahill - Terry - Cole Ramires - MvG Kevin* - Oscar - Eden Torres *my doubt here resides if he'll start Kevin and sub him for Mata @ 60' or if he'll do the opposite. I'll go with this and seeing how the team plays with Mata in the second he'll decide who's going to play against ManUtd. and yeah, I do think he might not play Mata against ManUtd depending on how the team performs with him compared to how it performs with Kevin.

my plan was to have Kevin for the first two matches (gw1) because I believed he would start both matches with Mata coming in the ManUtd match (in addition to being a sub tomorrow). Let's see good of a plan that will be tomorrow. I'd rather Terry warranty me 4 pts for a clean sheet than Benteke to score, to they better not allow anyone to score tomorrow. It's not even for Benteke, Terry could give me 0 pts and I don't want Benteke to score. I'm not making any transfer for the gw2 and I'll use the two to offload Terry and Kevin because we won't play in gw3. None will come back to my team I suppose as I'll go with cheaper (money wise) defense players such as Coleman and Shaw, so I'll replace Terry for one of them. I'll probably have Toure to replace Kevin for now and later I plan to have Oscar. I also had lost points in my bench...10 if I'm not mistaken only for Whittaker so I'm in the same boat as you, Ollie. and Robin will be the captain of my ship forever and ever, unless he gets injured.

Mourinho's presser for those who missed it (vid and transcription) http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3419363/title/mourinho-considers-the-contenders

couldn't agree more. And he used the same graphic I've used in a an article a couple of months ago

I really feel happy when I see media praising our legend

I laughed really hard. I'm easy like that.

so you're the one breathing on my neck! and about to pass me. It's okay, I like you Jedy I don't expect to score many points tomorrow, unless Hazard and de Bruyne do really well. I pass scoring points with Benteke though. I'd rather have only 2 points from him

I had it a few times during the match. I click the back button, then clean my cookies caches and then proceed to click whatever I want and it's fixed. I think we should try once during the regular season, to see what people think and have a new poll. The serve is stable, but I still like the chat more. I feel more free to say what I want because I think posts in the live matches are sort of wasted posts...