Barbara

Most of our players have showed up for the second half. I hope Mourinho gave them the talk they deserved. I feel Cesc hasn't showed up yet though

I know you are, but it's hard to be so harsh on Mourinho when the players just don't show up. Yes, Mourinho has been making mistakes, but I can't accept the level of performance of 80% of our players in the last month or so. Cuadrado has done absolutely NOTHING to even say he'd be an upgrade to Willian or Oscar. I think people are being too harsh on Mourinho when the players have been so nonchalant about it.

another example... what was the excuse for him not shooting right then? It was a perfect ball to him and he did to it what he's done to 80% of the balls on his feet today. Nothing, easily dispossessed, soft, useless.

sorry, that's an excuse. Every time Cesc had the ball he has been appalling and Schneiderlin has been running the show over him there.

really? who are those best players you're talking about? I'd love to know. Except Luís and Zouma, I don't see anyone in the bench having a case of being called best player than the ones in the pitch - which is telling a lot as the bunch in the pitch are really bad. Just saw Hazard's stats in the screen and yeah - even he had an average performance (not use a nice word), so I stand corrected by my initial assumption he was okay.

Mourinho used to have better player management - he wouldn't accept this level of performance so many times in a row from a team. If he has a fault these days is probably being soft or losing the ability to make players play. The tactical approach doesn't bother me too much because whatever approach he decided for, with the players being so bad, it wouldn't work either. It seems like Terry, Cahill and Ivanovic can't defend anymore, they don't know how to do the basic. I saw a stat on Twitter that Terry + Cahill didn't ATTEMPT one single tackle in 30 minutes of game. What is this shit? If Mourinho doesn't find a way to make those players produce, then well, we should be praying for Arsenal start being Arsenal because we'll slip a lot in those 11 matches...

can Cesc at least get a yellow there? It'd be the best thing he's done in the last few matches - assuring he misses the next two. I've been defending him from the assumption he'd be bad, but well, he's been (it'll take longer for me to say is because is the first semester). Oscar has been beyond useless, Willian hasn't showed anything and our defense probably has the worst positioning in the league right now. Clueless. It's hard to watch those players these days. We can blame Mourinho for Luís and Zouma - some advocate even Cuadrado, something I don't, but what's the list of players paying absolutely shitty or below average? Courtois, Costa and Hazard have played well. All the rest, I mean ALL THE REST are either average or shitty. And then people come and blame Mourinho, but what excuse Matic, Cahill, Oscar, Cesc, Iva, Willian and even Terry have for playing so badly? I disagree with some of his choices, but even if he dropped Cahill, Oscar or Willian and Azpili, Matic, Cesc, Terry, Oscar or Willian would still be playing and probably shitty. I called it against PSG and I'm calling it again, while Mourinho is being stubborn with a couple of players, there's no excuse for our players to be playing SO BLOODY BAD.

we've been royally outplayed the last 15 minutes... playing Cahill was definitely a big mistake. Our defense is way too slow and they've been doing whatever they want in our right flank It's a shame

Courtois has been spending too much time with Hazard

1x0, three to go

woohoo DIEGOL!!!!!! perfect cross by Iva btw

Willian's lack of vision KILLLLSSSS ME if he had better eyes, he'd be a hell of a player second counter in a row he makes the stupid decision (no decision actually)

I know I'm delusional when my prediction scoreline for this match (in a podcast I take part for Chelsea Brasil) was 4x0. Hey, I'm trying the optimism thing Mourinho asked the journalist the other day. I'm very optimistic myself but I guess I'd take it farther, lol #wishfulthinking

I agree... Cuadrado really seems out of the zone playing for us. I hope next season he proves me wrong, but I'll never get this transaction - especially at the expense of Schurrle (though we don't know which was the cause and the consequence of those deals)

Come on, mate, time to shine again!!!!!!!!

a perfect example about my instance right now on Mourinho's thread. There's fair criticism... and then there's this. Mourinho hanged? Players disgusted?

I have around 30 people on my ignore list... some pages in some threads is one line after another saying You're ignoring XXXX posts, click here to view it anyway (or something along the lines). I think the criticism here gets out of hand way too often. The amount of disrespect towards Mourinho sometimes is annoying.

yeah, I was so shocked by not seeing Zouma there despite the mistakes Cahill and Terry did in all goals we conceded to PSG that I forgot about Luís. Playing home, we should always play Zouma and Luís imo... but well, Mourinho can be quite stubborn at times. I hope it works. I hoped Cahill would work against PSG and I wasn't happy with how it turned out in the end. Let's see if today it gets better

why all of sudden Zouma isn't playing anymore? It makes absolutely NO SENSE unless there's some inside info we don't - like injury. Haven't all the mistakes done by this defense called for a change? Sometimes I just don't get Mourinho...

Is it really a bad idea to create The Mourinho Moaning Thread? I'd love not to read some posts. I think if people are unhappy with him and his methods, if they're setting deadlines for him to change, if they think he's outdated, if they have a list of managers that could replace him, wouldn't it be nice if they had a thread for them to bring all their feelings out without others calling them off. It's a win-win situations. We - the people who have minor problems with him won't have to read through pages and pages of what we consider bullshit, and they - the people that can barely stand Mourinho ahead of Chelsea would have even more freedom to tell whatever they please without having someone to criticize their points of view. I'm not kidding, I'm as serious as a heart attack. For some people Mourinho really represents Chelsea, he's one of us. Other managers that were at Chelsea in recent years don't come even close to what Mourinho represents for the club and many (probably most) of its supporters. He's a class of his own, which is why I think we could make an exception and allow him to have two threads. It's tiresome for both sides. Then when someone feels compelled to have a discussion, they go to the Moaning thread (ofc the name is a joke, it should be something else) and have a discussion, and people who want to criticize him without going as far as some like to go in every single posts of them (and they're numerous), come here and another discussion happens.

The advantage is there, it's real and as Mourinho said, anyone else would be happy to be at Chelsea's place right now. I also prefer this than having City or Arsenal sniffing our neck. I just worry a little bit about how this team handles advantages. If they don't know how to properly approach games with a short advantage, I wonder how they'd do with so much room for mistakes. I'm a bit afraid they'll take the foot out of the pedal, get too comfortable and waste the lead. This lead should help us in case things go wrong against United, Arsenal and Liverpool, not Hull, Leicester and Sunderland. I think a bad result tomorrow (draw or loss) is even acceptable - as Southampton is a good side, but then we should be winning those matches if we want to win the league. I hope the lads show up and play (something they didn't bother to do against PSG imo).

my point was which league is outstanding? None. The fact that we talk - even if badly - about 5 teams in England is more than we can do about any other country. Unless you count the 'surprising' third place in Spain and whoever chases Bayern with less than 15 points behind. I wonder how much better would Valencia, Sevilla, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg do in our league over more than one season... Even Atletico is fading already.

but with this team's behavior and attitude I don't know what's less ideal - playing under pressure or sit comfortably over an advantage - because that's what they do something, they sit. We see what happens when we take 1-0 leads. I hope Mourinho really works with those players' psychological aspect, they seem too comfortable in certain situations and they feel like they can win matches when they please (couldn't be farthest from the truth given our defense record in general and our chances conversion)... this worries me a bit, but I'm positive we'll be champions because if there's team that crumbles under pressure for sure, that's City. I can't bring myself to worry about Arsenal although it seems clear to me they'll end up grabbing that second place from City - which tells more about City than Arsenal themselves.

the league is quality, the thing is the big teams are going through a few peculiar things that should be taken into account. City has the funds, but no stability and they just don't seem capable of signing defenders and managers as good as the strikers they sign. United was overachieving with Fergie - and that's all Fergie's credit. Now they're competing with RM to see who spends more money and make more stars signings. It took a while for RM to actually make a team. Those galacticos buys are more for marketing purposes and Perez' vanity than anything else. They don't sign who they should. United seem to be following the same route. At some point it will work, but it's going to be very miss and hit for a while, if I can risk a prediction. Arsenal is the team with the most potential, but their manager really holds them back. Liverpool is a joke sorry. And then we have ourselves. We were a mess ever since Carlo left. No manager stability, crazy and pointless signings, key players leaving or entering the descending years of their careers. The team José built was fading away. Then José came back and started building a new team. Those things take time even for giants such as Bayern, Barcelona, RM, United... This transition between a winning generation and the next can go smooth and happen in a couple of years (rare cases) or it can take 3-4 years to happen completely. Chelsea were very lucky and competent when they transitioned from a medium force in the league into a top contender under Roman in a couple of years. That's not the norm. City struggled, PSG even in their mickey mouse league didn't have a cakewalk, Monaco didn't make it at all, nor did Anzhi. It's a 'bad' moment for English football because the main forces in Europe lately (Chelsea and United) are going through a transition (Chelsea started a bit earlier and is far more advanced on it, but we can all agree we still need a few pieces in our chess board and we're still a young team in age and time playing together). Arsenal and City can't be taken seriously with their defenses and managers (City also have the stability issue). Liverpool is a non-factor. The fact we're talking about 4-5 teams is more than we can do about any other league in the world. La Liga is proving to become again 2-horses. Atletico had an exceptional run in recent years, but they seem to be going down from their high. Spanish teams aren't used to play physical football and it wouldn't take too long for them to figure out how to play against the odd team that chose it. Only RM will continue to be victim to Atletico's style - everyone else is adapting or already know how to play them and leveled things up again - which means there's RM and Barça and then a few miles behind the rest. Germany has Bayern and that's about it. We don't know what will happen to Dortmund. Wolfsburg is this season's 'one-season wonder' like Leverkusen, Werder Bremen, Schalke, and others were before. Dortmund was the one team that was able to last longer than a season, so I need this Wolfsburg team - who had always had Volkswagen money (a company that hasn't really had money troubles recently), so why aren't them the second strength in Germany for years now? This is how German football has always been ever since I follow it from distance (don't watch Bundesliga, but I keep track of what happens there). Bayern dominates a couple of years, then has a shocker season, then dominates again a couple years, than a shocker season with the odd one-season wonders team grabbing titles whenever Bayern fail. It tells more about how Bayern used to fall apart every few years when they really shouldn't seeing how much money (through more than questionable ways) they have running their machine. Then they came to Barcelona, and watched and learned how they planned their football, academy, how they were faithful to a style and made everything in the club work around that style. That's why I believe they're now going to dominate longer as they should have always had. So people talk about how English football and the league isn't that great when there are three big teams in the world and coincidently two happen to be in the same league. Chelsea and United were fighting for the 4th spot for a few years, but then went through transitions themselves. Barcelona had been in a transition for a couple of years now. The fact they continue to win things in Spain just show how easy it is to win there... That (ridiculous) thread opened a couple of weeks ago about the EPL champion being the best among a bunch of averages teams could be opened about other countries too, the difference is that Bayern, RM and Barça are well established forces of recent football, but that doesn't happen overnight. United took years to become the force they were in England and more often than not a serious contender in Europe. UCL titles are overrated to no end imo. In a league where the best teams from all countries - and more and more leagues have money injected on them - is a tough tournament to win, but it's also a KO system championship with means anything can happen. No country have been having teams in the SF for years and years. It changes every few years, so I don't get why people are using this as a criteria to decide if a national league is good or not. Whoever draws Shakhtars, Galatasarays, Monacos (LOL Arsenal), Italian sides, German sides aside from Bayern have more chances to advancing. If those sides draw themselves, even more likely. It says nothing about the leagues they represent. European football has three forces currently (Atletico was never one, but just like Dortmund had a good run, one they may repeat or not) - they should draw no conclusion about how strong or not their leagues or other leagues are. We can laugh at City as much as we want, but getting two of the three giants in the continent every round of 16 is a tough task.

I really like the kid. First I love smart people, so he scores thousand points with me on that alone. Then he has a killer instinct, very good technique, knows the shortcuts to the back of the net, is a good header, is football smart (general brains and football brains are two worlds apart and he has both), is English, will help our homegrown quota and can only improve. I mean, what is there not to like? I think people can see based on my posts about our youth players that I'm very calm, patient and careful with how we handle them. A handful minutes given every 30 matches isn't developing youth or giving them chances, this is to make fans and players' families happy in my book. I think we should identify which kids really have a future here, give them the best conditions to play football - here or on loan - and when they're used to play and prove they can do something on a regular basis they should be incorporated in the first team with actual playing time. We have a great generation coming from the ranks. I see posts like Choulo's a few pages ago saying Patrick had always had near to zero chances to make it here.... I don't get it. How can one decide something like that when the player is only 21? I think that's too early. We have an old guard of players that will retire/leave soon and based on how we handled our business lately I don't see us splashing money right and left like we did when Roman first bought the club. The academy is to fund new players as much as it is to form new Chelsea players. The best of them will stay - the ones that prove in the pitch (no matter whose pitch) they're Chelsea material will stay. If Ryan Bertrand had chances in post-Roman Chelsea, than any kid with decent talent and effort should as well. People talk shit about how we wasted too many talents from our academy and didn't give them the proper chances... so let me ask them one thing: enlist me five players we let go or who never got themselves out of the loan soap opera that went somewhere else and became great players. Someone like Courtois for example, that we loaned to Atletico and in a couple of years became one of the top 5 GK in the world. Where are all the mistakes done by Chelsea? One could argue that the lack of chances and stability detract a players' career and I agree to that to a certain extent. There are many examples of players that overcame many changes early in their careers (Costa being one of them), bench, few opportunities, but still proved their value. Youth players are like religious prophecies to me, they're the real deal when the promise becomes fact. Until then it's nothing more than what could have been and a good idea. So if they don't turn anything good anywhere, they wouldn't cut it to be a Chelsea player anyway. The player will always be the main responsible for his own success. If he has discipline and puts an effort to back up his talent and it works out, it doesn't matter the system, it just does. Didn't Kane himself have many loans before having his breakout season (that he has yet to follow up with another one, btw, but fact remains it's been a great season for him). Didn't Diego do the same? Didn't Courtois make the best out of a long loan? Aren't Bamford and Traoré proving their worth in their loans? The only cases I have problems with is when we keep the kids here like Aké (sorry if I don't think it's the same situation with Ruben yet) and detract his development by giving him nearly no minutes. Youth players shouldn't be here simply to complete our homegrown quota. Either they're ready to figure in the eventual match or they should be shipped to loan contracts. Aké should have been used more (the only case in our current squad imo). If Patrick stays with us next season, he should receive the same amount of chances Remy did this season... For strikers is easier to get minutes than midfielders, not only there are less strikers in every squad (three, at most four) and the bench guys are one injury away from getting chances. Midfielders compete with way more people, with the tactical approach and other things. I think we should give Bamfordinho a chance here next season because if he gets Remy minutes - playing most domestic cups, grabbing a few minutes (or many depending on injury) at the end of league matches, he'll continue his development just fine. But I wouldn't oppose at all to an PL loan. It's the Aké situation that can't happen again - with no one, but even less with Aké himself.