Barbara

The amount of goals Oscar contributed the last two months in addition to chances created and link up with Hazard, Cesc and Costa is probably more than Willian's two seasons here, so I have no idea what edge you're talking about. Both disappear in way too many games, but Oscar at least offers goals and assists whereas Willian offers literally nothing to our attack...

I'm in severe denial these days. I pretend it never happened Won't get over it any time soon...

wrong sport then? Or is it just a Ramires-ity where he only scores goals if they're very difficult - only on his case a basket instead of goal?

Look, a manager who can decide which kind of player he wants to have or not on his team, based on the tactics as well as allowed. Then he allowed a player to move on or chose to sell him. What a moron! He should keep all players fans salivate over instead of building a team with profile he wants and sees important to his system. Sack Mourinho for daring let go of Kevin. He proved he doesn't know which kind of player he wants by bringing big flops such as Cesc and Diego. Things you conclude from TC

I'll give him a chance alright, despite not believing him much, but you convinced me he isn't a lost cause as much as Willian is (scoring and assisting wise). When I meant he's worse than Schurrle I didn't mean as a player, but a fitting player in the system. In theory Schurrle was exactly the kind of player we needed, but his inconsistency and lately his illness and the aftermath of that were a big downfall, but still I think we needed a player that was goal-directed. Hazard isn't much yet, Oscar has too many off days and Willian doesn't deserve a comment on his goal scoring ability. So someone fast, with simple and direct approach, seeking the goal and making runs behind the defense is exactly what we need with one dribble already in the team, a slow #10 in pace (Cesc) and a slow #10 in outcomes (Oscar). If we keep slowing down our attack one way (dribbles) or the other (slowness, passiveness), it will only get worse. Of course, many times dribbles don't slow down the attack but they can't compare to a player running down the channels and presenting himself in a direct way to score a goal. A good team is a mix of different things that brings some balance, I swear I don't get why you guys want a RW that is a dribbler, a #10 that is a dribbler and a striker that is a dribbler (reading Willian's, Cesc's, Oscar's and Costa's critics that's the main idea you get about dribbles, take ons, hold up and link up play). The lack of balance today is that Hazard has to produce creatively for all the AMs, as we can't count consistently on Oscar because we never know which version of him will show up and Willian's contribution on posts is actually higher than his contribution on goals and assists - literally. So instead of finding someone that would give us the same as Schurrle, except more consistently, we have a mix of Hazard and Willian. I'm not convinced it will work, but I'm less convinced he'll be a Willian. That's as much progress I can make about him unless he makes a Costa here - or a Fabregas - and scores and/or assists in an incredible rate right from the go. Until then, I still feel that while not being as bad as I initially thought, he isn't the answer to our problems and may make our side even less balanced, slowing down the play even more.

After a few very successful transfer windows that made opposition fans envy and us proud of our board and manager, I feel like Mourinho and Co made a mistake. Letting go of Schurrle and Salah for this guy doesn't look like good business to me. I've said it before and the more posts I read here, the more you confirm my suspicions. This guy is a Willian signing all over again. He's slightly better than Willian all things considered. Bad direct contribution (may dribble everyone and their mother, but then a bad decision will ruin the last pass or he will hit the roof with a shot), moments of headless chicken, bad decision making. But I'm sure there will be people salivating because he will dribble dozens of players while producing NOTHING to the team actually score. I hope to be wrong. This isn't even about the players who left, but more about the player who came. Not Chelsea material imo, worse than Schurrle and offers exactly the same as Willian + dribbles, which honestly makes me consider slamming my head on the wall until I see blood. It's already difficult dealing with one Willian in the team, dealing with two will drive me nuts. All that said, he's now a Chelsea player, so I hope to be wrong and I'll support him - obviously - every time he plays, but if I had to assess this transfer window I'd say we worsened our squad, not only we now have one less AM than before, but we have one with the exact same characteristics of our least producing AM - which is stupidity in my head. Schurrle offered something different. Yes, I love the guy, but I'm actually very cold analyzing what's best or not for my team, all feelings apart and I try to be as rational as possible. Schurrle >>> Cuadrado in terms of goal threat and ability to turn a scoreline around. I feel like we took two steps back. If it had been a better signing, I wouldn't mind Schurrle leaving much, but for Cuadrado? I think we just became more stuck with the current starting XI than we were before. The problem is those players - Willian included - aren't robots and they will run out of gas and some may get injured from excessive playing. Prove me wrong, Juan, and I'll be a happy girl.

I think Cuadrado's shadow already influenced Willian's performances. Still it's a joke for people here to say Willian has been influencing our games more than Oscar, but well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how little sense it makes. With Ramires back on form, I'm curious to see what Mourinho will choose to do. He could deploy him in the pivot, and Cesc in the #10, but he could also deploy Rami as a RW (he loves to do that) because even having atrocious passing at times, Ramires brings more impact to the attack than Willian does and they offer the same work rate, running, pace that are important for our defending and pressing. On form, Ramires is already an upgrade to Willian. Time will tell if Cuadrado is going to play there on big games, but I wouldn't be surprised at all by Mourinho playing Mikel alongisde Matic, Cesc as #10 and Rami as RW - displacing both Oscar and Willian. We know Mourinho loves Ramires... If we had a player like Luiz to play in the pivot (because Mourinho knows quite well about Mikel's limitations) I would bet all my money on Ramires in the RW instead of Cuadrado, Willian or Oscar... but as we only have Mikel, it gives Willian and Cuadrado more chances to play because between Rami and Mikel in the pivot, I think Mourinho will still pick Rami, with the RW game being less likely.

Only thinking about imagining this is giving me a nightmare. Seriously... where do you guys come up with such bizarre ideas? Cuadrado a RB? Luis a LW? Come on, whatever it is you've been playing (or maybe smoking) you better stop it

Love, I tried to send you a PM, but you can't get more of them (deleting some old ones might help ) There's a message for you on Skype and a PM on Twitter. (sorry for going off topic everyone)

@supporter, I particularly love the bus picture you decided to post. We'll definitely be parking that bus comes May oh Ron, I liked this post half way through reading it, then I caught the part in the end. I'm not perfect, but I feel like some people here are crazy... or dumb... or very unhappy (and that's not directed at you Excalibur, I didn't read your posts on this discussion)

I miss you!!!! As I don't buy the big bottler thing, I think he was very much missed today. If he was playing as #10 instead of Oscar I think maybe we could have pulled a result. Hopefully he'll be back for Villa. Villa Park is already a place we don't flare well, we won't have Diego, so I hope we'll have at least Cesc. Oscar can't play another match (not because he sucks and all that, you all know I like the kid)... he's completely battered, knacked, exhausted, next weekend will be soon for him after 300 minutes of football... so either we play Cesc at #10 or we already give Cuadrado a start, supposing he does come. I'm not confident about Cuadrado in general, but even less after only a few days training with his new team, so I hope we'll have Cesc.

I haven't been following the discussion here, but wasn't the goal today from open play? What exactly are you talking about with the 200 minutes? I remember most of our goals against big team to be from open play.

allowing City to have a corner taken nearly 30 seconds after the additional time he stipulated... Also many fouls on our players he didn't give. The throw in was blatant though. There was no angle I've seen it that it looked like even a close call.

I know we should have defended from a throw in that was near the midfield line, but I think the linesperson intent here was to stop our counter. The goal was a plus. And yes, I'm judging their honesty here. Cuntburg has a clear vision of where Hazard and the ball is, the linesperson should just think that if Eden's left leg is over the line and he's touching the ball with his right, his right side in the pitch, obviously the ball didn't cross the line. How could it if Hazard himself hasn't? If his left leg was blocking the linesperson vision from the ball is because the ball was still inside the bloody pitch. It pissed me off. Are Hazard's legs and body shaped in an X form so his right side can be across his left side? and gifs!!!!!!

of course I will @supporter, your presence has been requested on Mourinho's thread. Please don't delay

he played very well defensively and even better than I expected supporting the attack. He's been barely playing, recovering from something physical, we can't just expect him to be perfect. It was a very good match from him, one of the few that had stamina (when he doesn't, although Willian is giving him a run for his money on that department) and he worked well on both ends of the pitch. He presented himself for the transition, he presented himself for the attack. If Ramires can somehow reach the form he had very early this season before he got injured, I can't see him leaving the team. He was very good then and he was very good today. Hope he keeps surprising me, as I don't normally expect anything good from him offensively or from his passing.

Always scores when he plays... that's what strikers are for, so I'm very pleased he did it once again. I said a couple of weeks ago (this thread, Costa thread, can't remember) that I could see him being this season's Ba. Last season Ba started playing more frequently in the second half of the season and was used in many matches towards the very end. DD had a good moment while both Remy and Costa were injured and he carried on the good form, so it was expected for Mou to give him more playing time. I said I expect this equation to be reversed now and I think that's going to start now with Costa's suspension. Given the circumstances and how our midfield was absolutely invisible and ineffective, I think he did just fine even when we put the goal apart.

honestly, their rating system is computer based, it'll always be deeply flawed, it's never been credible for me... Varane may not be needed now, but we don't know how long will Terry continue to play at high level and free of injuries. It'd be nice of us to bring a good CB, even if it means Zouma will take turns with this new player. We have to think about the future as well and not replace Terry just when he runs out of it because he could get injured between February and May and jeopardize a whole season of work simply because we don't have good enough back up (and yeah, Cahill doesn't fill even that imo because if we have Cahill and Zouma, we'll need Kurt to step up as Gary most probably won't). He's very young, has time to complete his development with us, he should get plenty of chances to still start matches next season if we still brought another CB next summer.

I said days before the match - just after the match against Liverpool ended actually, that he should be dropped from the team today because playing 210 minutes within four days would harm his presentation because he just can't cope with this amount of football especially in the second half of the season. I was expecting him to be really bad and he was exactly that. BUT I don't think it's that much fair to judge him on his quality, ability, etc... given the circumstances. He already showed that he has inconsistency issues that he needs to work on and other limitations to his game, but Mourinho only played him today because he literally had no other option... Mourinho played him twice in the cups games planning on have Ramires and Cesc for this game and bench Oscar. He wasn't counting with Cesc's injury and as a result Oscar was battered and except for the last ten minutes, it looked like we played with ten because he did absolutely nothing. Like Matic said (according to some, I didn't see post match interviews) players aren't robots, they get tired, even more players such as Oscar who aren't physically on par with the demands of the league. He struggles when he plays too many minutes in such a short streak of time. I said it before the match and I'm not surprised at all with his terrible performance.

Came here to post the same. Not only he completely shrugged off starting in one of our most challenging games (definitely the most in the second half of the season) he made up for Terry having a sloppy game. He was proactive, he took responsibility, he didn't roof every other ball, he didn't back off, he was precise in his tackles, clearances and everything else you can name. For a 20yo to have this level in his second match for us in the league is already impressive, but to take matters into his hands when the team's leader, a real legend and reference in the pitch isn't playing well, makes this much more immense. A lot of praise to him and to Mourinho.

First of all, people have to decide. Either Fabregas completely disappears on big games or we deeply missed him today. You can't say a week ago that he's a big game bottler only to come here a week later and say he was what we missed. People complaining about the tactics and the performance... well, I was waiting to put tons of you on ignore list because I'm tired of your negativeness, constant moaning and what not, so today was the fitting chance I've been waiting for. We played 210 minutes of football in a week... players such as Oscar and Hazard were really tired. Ramires made a few mistakes that not even him usually do because he's still finding his best form. Matic is really tired and he's been sloppy compared to his standards. Terry had a complete nightmare, hand in hand with Ivanovic (despite the cross to Hazard assist the goal). Even Courtois made a mistake that cost us. Under those circumstances and with a bench filled of youth players, I support the tactics, I understand why the players didn't play better and I'm more than happy with the draw. Without Fabregas, Ramires not totally recovered and Oscar and Hazard battered, there's no way we were going to dominate midfield, to play smooth attacking football against City. If there are fans that should moan right now is City's... they had a week of rest, they have all their best players but one available for the match and they barely threatened us. Yes, they were the best team in the pitch, but their attack produced basically nothing. If Azpilicueta didn't make Navas look like a world class player, they would have had even less. Ivanovic tried to gift them two goals early in the first half and still they didn't score. They had the advantage, the need, the players. The only thing against them was the away factor. They even had Mark the Cunt to give them throw ins when the ball didn't even crossed the line... Pellegrini is the one that seemed to have no tactical plan whatsoever. Based on how bad we played - and I understand given the circumstances - City (not us) should have played much better. We played home, yes, that's true, we didn't have two of our three most important players, the third, who did play, was really tired (and still found some energy to produce a few things and came up with a class assist), our captain had a nightmare, Iva was the liability he normally is and Oscar was also very tired. Had Mourinho played Cahill this could have been another completely different story because I'll tell what, Zouma completely closed the door in the defense - especially when Terry wasn't on his best days. Few are praising Mourinho for playing Zouma... but they don't waste any time saying Mourinho doesn't promote young players. Yep, ignore list is a blessing.

I'm mnore than happy with the draw

Oscar seems to have woke up in the last five minutes.... TOO LATE

as long as Zouma stays the CB... Cahill can be a midfielder...

Drogba drawing fouls... worth already