Barbara

were you there? Can you describe how we were set up tactically please? (edit: just reached this page, so yep, you were there indeed. so you wanted him to ask the team to sit deep winning 2-0 or he asked the team to sit deep winning 2-0? I'm confused). I'm not defending Mourinho, I'm just against blind accusation that has been on this forum lately. they blame mourinho even for match they didn't watch and all goals we conceded were 100% defensive mistakes - some of them basic mistakes. So until you, @Liquidator, @Hutcho, @boshman or another fan who watched the match comes here and says that Mourinho got the wrong tactics (better yet, describe which tactics he employed) I won't have an opinion about it like some here are do dead serious that it was his mistake. The team he got should have won, no doubt about it, no matter who he got there, only one youth player - that wasn't at fault at all in any of the goals - 10 main team players, squad members or not, shouldn't have allowed that load of BS to happen. I'm tired of people jumping on Mourinho for everything. And I'm the least happy about him that I've ever been, I'm disappointed about a few things he's been doing, but still, I'm tired of the shit going on here about him. Either I'll block the usual suspects or I'll jsut avoid the forum altogether. It's embarrassing. THANK YOU. There's still hope for this place. Sorry, mate, but if Cahill can't lead a defense against a third division team, he's better off of the club. Maybe this was some sort of ultimate test for him and hopefully now that he failed miserably we'll see less and less of him in the main team.

Tactics? Sorry, but some people here need to shut the heck up about Mourinho in a match they haven't even watched. Watching the highlights we conceded four goals because of defense mistakes, what does tactics have to do with that? Cech should have defended the first and the last three their players were completely unmarked. That second goal is a shame, absolutely embarrassing that a player is left alone a few yards from the goal in our box, completely alone. The third and the fourth are defense 101 mistakes. You always have someone covering the central edge of the box when opposition is attacking. Willian was a passenger doing fuck nothing in the fourth (I don't remember and won't be bothered to rewatch and say who should be there for the third). Ramires, Cesc, Oscar or Willian should have been there, they weren't (Willian actually was in the third, marking his mother's spirit it seems). So please, don't talk about pathetic tactics when you haven't even watched the game and the highlights clearly show what a horror fest our defense has been - which can hardly be a tactics problem. Maybe we didn't have the right tactics for the game, you aren't qualified to answer, only who actually watched the game.

I think the situation with Remy and Drogba is a peculiar one. Drogba scored goals when Remy was injured after a terrible start of season. It seems Drog is back to a rough period technically and physically, so Remy will have more chances. Add to that that Drogba is a legend in this club and this will be his very last season as a footballer and it weights in. If he's scoring and playing well, why not give the legend playing time? I don't think Mourinho did anything blatantly wrong or used favoritism. It's a different standard that makes a lot of sense in my head. I want to see Remy playing more, but that has less to do with Drogba playing more than him and more to do with José giving too much time to Costa because he needed it. I'd say from now on (as Drog isn't at the same level he was until a month ago) it's time to see more Remy. I think the best example would be last season's situation. Demba Ba played scarcely in the first half - with Torres and Eto'o playing basically all league and UCL matches - but then at the second half Ba had many more chances - even started matches. I think Bamford (or whoever our 3rd striker is) would receive similar treatment. People forget that we were keeping Bamford in the main squad until Drogba came and Patrick and Mourinho talked and they decided he was going somewhere where he could have more playing time. So I wouldn't be surprised if he stays and I'm not as negative as some of you (actually some of you are absolutely sure of it) that Mourinho won't integrate him. If he receives the same chances Ba received last season, I'd say it's a successful integration. First halves of season aren't the time where a lot of squad members receive chances because the team (that normally has one or two new signings) is still adjusting. Which is why I'm also positive we'll start seeing more and more Zouma as the season progresses. I say keep Bamford. With Costa and Remy we hardly need to go to the market to strengthen our attack force when we have areas we do need to spend money (CB, DM, RW) and we're the only fools in the world trying to follow FFP rules, so we won't have much money to spend, even if we sell some players. I doubt we'll spend money in a third ST wen many other areas need reinforcement. All that said, Boro seems like getting a spot in EPL next season, I wouldn't mind if we extended the loan for another season. If we do that is because we're seriously investing on him to be our ST in the future (giving him plenty of EPL football and a season under his belt before coming back to us ready to fight for maybe the #2 ST position).

Hazard only made a decision to come here because we won the UCL - he wanted to go to a place where he'd win big titles. We won an Europa League since he moved here, but that's not the kind of title he was aiming for. If I had to take a guess on why he hasn't signed yet I'd say it's because he isn't sure we can even win the league... when (please God, no if) we win the league, I think he'll sign. He isn't the kind of player that dreams about money, fame and I even defended here the other day when people were saying he would move so he'd have an upgrade to the players surrounding him (as if Costa and Cesc aren't among the best footballers in the world in their positions). I called it bullshit, Eden doesn't have this kind of ego, but I think he's always been eager to win things collectively and individually. If he feels Chelsea won't give him conditions to that, he'll go somewhere where they will. It's not about money, having better players by his side or wet dreams of playing under Zidane (I doubt he has them and Zidane isn't with Carlo anymore, he's coaching Castilla - RM B. I totally support any player to have this kind of ambition. Actually our problem currently lies on that imo, not many of our players are this obstinate to win things.

I doubt - and my memory sucks, which is why I can't support my conviction with facts - he's made only one mistake that led to a goal in the league. This data is created by computares, not people, so they have very specific criteria to define what an error would be. Cahill cost us more than one goal in the league, that I'm sure of. Still my initial point stood, we don't even have another Chelsea player (the first picture I quoted was only in the Chelsea team) in the screen and he's among the leaders in the league in terms of errors - leading to goal or not. thanks for that.

^^ well, as it normally happens - I completely agree with Mourinho on basically everything. We didn't lose because of Christensen, those players should get the job done against a third division team, no matter how long they haven't started a match and it's embarrassing. Hopefully it will help the team in the long term, but we seriously need more players from the same profile we had in 2004... we do have a bunch of bottlers among a few warriors - and it concerns me. I've came from very unhappy with Mourinho lately to understanding more why he's been so keen to the same selection over and and some tactics. The awful truth is this team while very technical, with some very skillful and talented players has many players that aren't born winners... it shows.

If there was such a table with mistaken actions he'd lead too, by a very long distance. He makes too many mistakes, that has always been his problem. He's limited as a player, simple as that.

Salah may have been awful, he's got nothing to do with us conceding four goals to Bradford... unfairly? Who decides what is unfair? You or him? If he feels he has a bunch of bottlers that won't get the job done or he doesn't trust technically or tactically he'll make a decision. It may be unfair in your book, it doesn't make it universally unfair. He doesn't drop Iva because he doesn't believe Luís can handle it and because Iva can make a million mistakes a match, the guy never stops fighting. Who else hasn't he dropped? He started Zouma a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure he'll do it again in the League, he won't throw the boy there and he has to try to recover Cahill (although for me he's a lost case since the beginning). You don't know his reasons. If he has 'untouchables' for the right reasons, it's his prerogative. Every fan here would play X instead of Y, does it make one group unfair? Please, Jason, that's presumption and opinion, nothing beyond that. Nobody has been treated unfair because that would be a whole different thing. The players that he trusts or that can do a half job are kept, the others he knows won't respond well. As they haven't - regardless of how much they played. Azpili hit the ground last season, Zouma has been very good every time he played this season and sometimes they were months apart. Even Luís played well given little time and some considered Mikel's appearances last month good as well. Those players have had very limited time... they are paid to do a job, they won't be sharp, but they should be able to play a match of football decently.

or the thing is he knows exactly which players he can really count on and which he can't. He could have come with all tactics wrong - the players shouldn't let that happen. As if players were robots and followed strictly what managers say. He's to blame for some things, sure, but the fact that bunch allowed Bradford to score FOUR goals in the second half have more to do with their very common lack of interest, lack of winning spirit, being complacent. Mourinho says he doesn't have complacency in the team. It's a lie and he knows it. We have a bunch of accommodated players. Many of them featured today.

I don't... some players like Luis and Zouma have in general played very little this season (Luis went weeks without playing) and they were very decent in their presentations. Luis made a few mistakes, but Zouma has been brilliant in most matches he's played. And this is a second division team, the should do better regardless of how often they play... they practice everyday! Rusty is one thing, toothless bottlers is something else.

Sorry, completely disagree. Those three - or at least those two first should do a lot of things in 20 minutes against a third division team. If they didn't it may have not been down to them, but at how bad collectively we were - but they should have to be able to score one goal against such a team. It doesn't sound like Bradford were impressive parking a bus (not even sure they actually parked a bus at all as commentary was awful), but like we weren't into this, or weren't sharp or whatever. Probably the same old story from last season when we lost to Villa, Palace, Sunderland and drew against the likes of those too.

as I answered to someone else, I don't think the problem is the youth players themselves is how frail this team is that you need to have the best players every single match for them to scrap a result. Christensen - from what I can say - hasn't influenced the match negatively (or positively - I reckon it was a neutral match, which is a positive imo), but the lack of our 'best players' certainly has. For one player from the bench or the youth to play, one of the starting XI has to make room for them. When our bench is filled with crappy players (doesn't matter if they're really crappy or have been crappy because they were injured, ill, and whatnot) you have to stick with the same starting XI because you expose some deficiencies you have in the starting XI with players that aren't at their best. Salah seems to have had a nightmare, Mikel compromised, Cahill compromised (although this is routine), Cech compromised (saw a few tweets about people saying their first goal should have been stopped) - so the fact that Christensen himself didn't doesn't change the fact that there's a reason why even someone as mediocre attacking as Willian has a captive starting position. I'm still convinced we need to improve the character of our starting XI to really be competitive and for God's sake, our defense needs reinforcement as well as our pivot, because if Matic has a bad match or doesn't play, we don't have replacement. Cahill is a walking liability, Iva has the craziest matches there, Willian doesn't offer anything in the attack and Oscar doesn't show up consistently. Add that to lack of winning spirit and it's clear to me why Hazard hasn't signed a contract extension yet. He came here to win titles, but it seems like winning titles isn't much of this group's specialty and I can't measure how much falls on Mourinho's shoulders and how much doesn't. I haven't approved many of his choices, but it's becoming clearer and clearer to me why he sticks with the same team always and forever.

I'm lost in this thread, I started writing my first post it was on page 1, it's now on page 6 and I have only read a few posts - some of which I quoted. I'll have to go through the beginning of it.

I think the root of the problem isn't Christensen and the youth itself is that this team lacks so much character and spirit that if we don't play with our very best technical and experienced players we look average. Sad, but true imo.

and he had a bad match in both, because you know, he's human, has been playing every match that is there to play and is entitled a few off days throughout a long season. What I mean is without Matic - playing well or playing at all - we're vulnerable because we don't have good enough pivot players to replace him and because it exposes how fragile our defense can be. cahill is a walking liability, I don't need to watch the match to know at least one goal has to be credited to his account. I'd be utterly surprised if he isn't guilty at all.

Haven't seen the match, so I obviously can't talk, but there's a reason why Mourinho sticks with the starting XI he does. Unfortunately our squad has little bite. When you need a match winner - even against a league 2 side - in the last minutes of the match you can't find one within the squad. The bench players have been awful. And please, don't tell me they're this bad because they don't play... they practice everyday, they SHOULDN'T lose a 2-0 lead to a league 2 side. They're shit. Mikel, Ramires, Cahill (although this one here is first team material apparently), Salah - all names you heard from the commentators in the goals we've conceded. It seems like Christensen and Zouma had good matches - which proves even further that this shouldn't be an excuse to crucify Mourinho. Actually Zouma played well in every single match he started for us and they're far and distant apart - meaning he also has little playing time. So let's stop with the excuse that those squad players don't play better because they don't play enough. I don't blame José for not mixing up much. We have a bunch of chokers in the squad, which is sad. That 2004-06 team won so much because there was bite, players were warriors, they hated losing as much as Jose did (does), but they had spirit. The current squad choked last year and keep having those horrific matches from time to time. There's been absolutely technical improvement, but it seems to me what we need the most is character improvement. We need players that are stronger mentally, that are tougher, that hate losing, that die in the pitch fighting. we have a few who are quite the opposite of that and I believe that's what kept us from winning last year despite not having a brilliant team and I hope that it won't repeat again this year (this year being brilliant though).

Zouma actually qualifies based on his age... Salah is shit, or has turned shit - either way it has Willian, Hazard and Cesc now... You know what it comes down to? Without Matic we're SHIIIIT even against league 2 sides

4-2... omg... where do I hide?

Seven minutes of added time? This is embarrassing, lol

at least youth was playing... isn't that what 80% people here demand from Mourinho?

3-2? fuck me

Well... that's unfortunate...

Cundy's in love with Oscar, isn't he?

Ramires' goal! Assisted by Salah

I lost count of how many times they've said Oscar's name in this match...