Barbara

So we need to address that we need to sign a player closer in style to Cesc to play in the pivot... I prefer him in the pivot, but he's equally great as a #10. My preference lies on the fact that it's easier to find a creative #10 than a pivot player as influential in the attack as Cesc.

I actually disagree and I'm surprised few people realize what kind of damage playing Mikel brings to the team. This isn't about creativity, this is about fluidity, dominance, quick play and making the opposition our bitches. What do we realize in ALL matches Mikel played for us this month? That our pressing isn't anywhere as good as it normally is without him. Part of that is because Oscar is one of our best pressers immediately after we lose possession, but that also because Mikel doesn't press much where matters because he's never positioned where matters (way too deep and behind other players), Cesc presses as much as he can, but it isn't that amazing, especially when he's very high in the pitch. But that could be a coincidence, the players being tired and a lot of other stuff that have nothing to do with Mikel. What really has a lot to do with Mikel is that we lose dominance with him in the midfield because we look soft, slow, toothless, and we play way too deep. He simply destroys our newly established style by simply being in the team sheet. He doesn't know what means pass onwards, forward, he doesn't present himself to link up with the AMs, he doesn't take one single risk, he delays, slows down and sometimes kills out transition altogether. He's a good defender - he will offer some stability as José likes to call it, but that's about it. I was discussing with Choulo that we didn't dominate the midfield at all - I guess against Stoke, when combined him and Matic had 16 successful tackles, but that's not dominating because when you dominate midfield your opponent doesn't even have the ball long enough for you to have sixteen tackles!!!!!!! That's the whole point. It really surprises me how nobody mentions or notices that we play completely different when he's not in the team. Proof of that? Many of you said our best match this season has been against West Ham. One single match where he didn't play among many where he did play. Today our best moment in the match was in the second half, and while he was there for some part of it, it was barely because of him (Southampton got tired) and when he was subbed off we played even better. How can't you guys see it? The problem is not that he's making mistakes, or that he's having bad matches because despite not being as solid as he normally was when he played more often (which is natural), the problem with Mikel isn't what he does bad or well, it's what he can't do at all. When Willian, Oscar, Cesc and Hazard are playing - especially the latest three, they go deep to get the ball and they move it quickly, they make 1-2s all the time, they have been working better and better like on that. They're developing chemistry and Cesc has been instrumental for Oscar's improvement imo. With Mikel there he doesn't offer it. When Cesc or Hazard drop to start the play, he ignores them more often than not because he won't pass to them unless it's a 110% safe pass. More often than not he'll pass sideways or backwards. How can we bloody dictate the tempo, dominate the midfield, suffocate our opponent with quick, smart and imposing football if we're softly passing the ball to nowhere that matters? How can nobody notice or mention it is beyond me. And please, you guys are really lacking observing skills if you say BS such as 'when Mikel plays Matic goes higher in the pitch, something he doesn't do much when Fabregas is playing'. Untrue fact and untrue fact. Today Mikel was ahead of Matic on many occasions - because as I said, Mikel drags the rest of the plays to go deep as he can't for the life of him make a pass forward unless the player is 2m away from him. So Matic naturally plays deeper otherwise Mikel will spend the whole day exchanging passes with our back four. Another untrue fact is that he doesn't go high in the pitch when he's playing with Cesc. He does all the time - exactly because when Cesc click with the AMs we just keep the ball moving faster and forward, objectively and in an involving way that is drags Matic higher in the pitch - exactly the opposite of what happens with Mikel. Notice I'm not detracting Mikel as a player - as I said he's a very good, albeit limited, defensive midfield, but he doesn't fit our new style, he detracts our dominating play and he simply has no place starting in a team with Chelsea ambitions - titles wise and performance wise. He brings the team down simply because the kind of player he is. In another situation, in another team, or maybe even in the current Chelsea in a very specific situation he can be really good, but that's not the case anymore. Still people won't admit that the only significant change in the matches we dominated and the ones we didn't in the last two or three weeks is exactly John Obi Mikel. edit: I'll write an article about it with heat maps, passing stats, and whatnot to see how we change our setup completely because of one single piece in the team. Checking the heat maps on Squawka now makes it as clear as day. If anything he detracts Matic's influence in the attack in the matches he plays...

unfortunately we can't rotate better because seriously, everyone who isn't in the starting lineup except Zouma and maybe Luís - depending on the kind of match we have ahead - are in way worse form than the ones starting. Schurrle, Ramires, Mikel, Salah are all out of form and worse than Hazard, Oscar, Willian and Cesc. So how do we rotate when we don't have anyone playing well in the bench? Someone said it's because we haven't rotated enough. Well Zouma is playing even better than Cahill imo and he hasn't had that many more chances than some others. Some were ill, injured and whatnot, which made it harder for them to get more playing time. So not we're between a hard and tough place. We need to give them more minutes, so they recover form, but at the same time we aren't playing Palace, Burnley (LOL CITY), WBA in sequence,so we can't afford to have players far from their best form jeopardizing important results, like Schurrle did today. So yeah, we have a good squad, but we also have many players out of form, which sucks. And as I had to drive five hours from my mom's house just after the match I missed the meltdown, but it's funny to see how the tone changed after City drew against fucking Burnley after leading 2-0. Reality check for some people here. And we played great football in the second - just like we played against West Ham, just like we played the first three months of the league. We struggled in December, because it was packed and clearly our squad players aren't bringing much to the table. But we were flawless in November - which used to be our achilles heel. So how about we just stop overreacting. The team is struggling at some moments, but we're still playing better than anyone else in the league in general. City have been scrapping some results, and that's what champions do, but it's one thing to scrap a result against Leicester or with a penalty given by the referee and another to go to Stoke, Newcastle, play most away games against top teams and even West Ham and Southampton while they are playing with big confidence. But I had a laugh reading through this thread, lol.

I don't watch Brazilian football anymore... and I don't watch French either. Sorry I couldn't help I've been done with our league for a couple of years now. This whole year I haven't watched one minute of Brazilian football as far as I remember

My brother - who likes him, but as any Manure fan, think we overrate him - finally conceded today that it must be a nightmare for a defender when he comes face to face with Hazard (even with a backup, helping him). He's so hard to mark and defend against. He's so resourceful and skillful that one just can't guess what he's going to do. Mata, Willian, Schurrle and many other players we had, always do the same thing over and over, they cut inside, or beat opponents running, or stop a run before cutting. Hazard is completely unpredictable. You don't know what he's going to do next and that's just hell on earth for a marker imo. They must hate and feel hopeless and desperate when facing him. He was so good today, he was unstoppable, but too bad only he and Cesc looked inspired. And he did what I said at the beginning of the season would be a must for him this season in his development curve. And today wasn't the first time. When things got thick he came to the rescue. I don't give a fuck how many goals he scores and assists he provides. What I've always demanded from him was to shoot more (which he did), then I said we should give him time to find his best finishing again (he has very good finishing as showed lately, he was just in a run of low confidence) and mainly that he would step up when the team had a bad day, that he'd become our match winner when as a team we struggled. He's done it many times this season imo and today was the epitome of that. We were lost, bad, toothless and he came and took matters into his hands and won us the away point. That's what I think a player as talented as him should do. Who cares about how many goals he scores and how many he assists if he's the guy bailing us out of the jail? I don't! I know he dreams of winning the Balon d'Or thing and I really hope he has a chance to have it at least once in his career, but I couldn't care less where he stands regarding Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Bale and whoever else people include in this bracket. I look at this boy, and he's 24 next week and it seems like the sky is the limit. I just want the damn contract printed and signed and him to continue his development. He has taken HUGE steps in his development this season. I think the stupid award will once again be Ronaldo's (come on, the guy has been a scoring machine), but I think with the level Hazard has been playing he's by far the best player in the EPL (for me he finally passed Cesc, I was leaning a bit towards Cesc until a few days ago, but Hazard is just better, end of it - imo), and he's top3, at most top5 of the world right now and he's only 24. We should appreciate and praise this kid much more than we do and stop demanding things from him. I'd say he's progressing faster than I expected and that's all that matters to me, that he keeps growing because then I know in a couple of years we'll be feared all over the world because of this guy. He was unbelievable today and here's hoping he repeats what he does most seasons as far as I remember, and plays his best football starting January-February. He'll be the reason we'll win the league if he plays even better than he's been doing now (I'm not saying he needs to, I'm just saying if he goes by as he generally goes, and playing better in the second half, we're in for a huge and beautiful treat).

Well, I love Woodynho with all my heart. I've always felt you guys were dreaming too high (still not sure if you aren't because I don't know what are the real chances of him ending up here), and that he was a luxury signing if he came, but I definitely would be looking either a MD to play the Cesc role in the pivot or a RW next season (definitely not in January). I believe it's about time we replace Cahill (having been said for a while now), but maybe we also need to take care of this other situation at the end of the season as well.

Definitely. I'm starting to agree with all you guys. We need one more signing. Whether it's a Cesc alike to replace him in the pivot without compromising how we offensively dominate games and dictate rhythm when Cesc is there or we sign someone to the RW. We're falling short because whereas Cesc is amazing, unbelievable and incredible versatile, he can still only play one position at a time. Some times today I saw Mikel playing higher than Matic and I wanted to slam my head on the wall. If we have a better AM - a more creative one - Oscar and Willian can rotate the remaining position according to the profile of the match. Oscar should play home games because he links up better with Cesc and Hazard than Willian can even dream of. Willian for some of the away games and definitely in the bigger matches. If this player doesn't come, and we have to move Cesc to #10 then we need another someone years light better than Mikel to play alongside Matic. I feel if Ramires was fit we'd be playing him in the pivot and I suppose it'd be better. Whereas he's way more wasteful than Mikel, he has 2-3 insights of good things in the whole match. It takes Mikel 50 matches approximately to come up with one good insight in the attack. I'm far from being Ramires' biggest fan, but I admitted then and I state in present time based on how he started the season - back then he was better than anyone among Willian, Mikel, Schurrle and who else we might think about playing in the RW or alongside Matic. Hopefully he'll recover fully soon and will carry on from where he's stopped. The problem is, when Ramires is in bad form, he's even worse than Mikel.

whether he was ill or not, there was no way he would have played today (in a good level at least) after only 2 days since the last match. He doesn't have the physical endurance for that. Still he was deeply missed. I think if he had started we would have won... we've missed the way he presses and recovers the ball and as only Cesc and Hazard looked somewhat good today, his link up with both (which has been improving even more with time) maybe would have given us more control of the game. Hopefully he starts against Spurs, but I don't think that's the kind of match Mourinho won't have Mikel in the starting XI. And if Mikel plays, Oscar doesn't, but he was missed today.

I feel hopeless about our RW at the moment. Schurrle completely out of form, Willian completely useless, Salah feels like isn't even part of this team anymore, he doesn't even figure in the bench for matches in a row. Seriously, I'm the last one to join any transfer bandwagon, I think we have a great squad, but I'm starting to concede we really need to sign a better winger. Schurrle only fits a certain kind of game, so even when he's in form (and hopefully he will) he can't play teams sitting deep - or as Mou said, with a low block (although I suppose there are a few differences between those, but fact remains he can't play either situation). So if the guy that could be useful if he gets in form can only fit certain kind of matches and the other is absolutely and hopelessly useless attacking we just have one side of our attack that is moot. We have to find better options.

not really, but is he the player we need to win the match? No frigging way the problem isn't what he does, it's what he doesn't. He adds absolutely nothing

the slipping here is killing us We are no bloody Liverpool and we are no fucking Gerrard Come on, boys

Worship the Lord, fucking Mikel is off!!!!!!

what a pass by Cesc now, and unlucky Hazard

Schurrle was really disappointing. Hopefully Willian will find some A game to bring to the table. andré is about runs and shots, passing over and over finding space isn't his forte. He moves very well, and he needs to be found. He wasn't because we played bad and he was very bad himself as well. We absolutely need a better pivot partner for Matic when we play Cesc as #10. A team like Chelsea should NEVER play a player like Mikel. Not anymore.

MY PRECIOUS MY FANTASY CAPTAIN MY EDEN!!!!! AWAY GOAL AND CESC ASSIST

Antony can GO FUCK HIMSELF, BIG CUNT

which means they'll be dead walking in the second, especially only 48h after their last game

the overreaction here is unbelievable. GET A GRIP PEOPLE

finally we started playing some football. Cesc Hazard

there are shadows... no sun at all on his eyes

I was going to make Costa my Fantasy captain... completely forgot... now it's Hazard. Hope it doesn't come to bite me in the arse

Oh José, how much I love thee!!!!!!!!! After all bites and fingerprints I spent the last few days saying that if we played Mikel we should play Schurrle instead of Willian, you just do that Nice to know we continue in sync, my lord. There's no way Oscar can cope with two matches of football in 48h. Just no way. I don't see him starting against Spurs either, but then I think will be for tactical reasons. Today was just for physical.

Yep I live 25km away from him, we're from the same part of Brazil. Totally normal. Just yesterday my brother came from the shower, in only a towel, he put his clothes on in front of me and his gf... totally normal, I changed clothes in front of him too. I slept in the same bed as him too, also very normal. And he slapped my bum, totally normal too. At least in my house and I suppose Oscar's too.

but surely we don't need 2/3 of our AMs to be working hard defensively and offering so little in the attack. I think we can afford Willian or Oscar, but both is unnecessary. Of course we can handle most teams playing the two of them at the same time, but when you have a pivot made of Matic and Mikel, you don't need Willian as an AM. It should be a crime actually, but to play against a team like Stoke, it's enough. Then when you do have Cesc in the pivot, I think we can afford to have only one workhorse among the AMs. We don't need to have two guys with little attacking threat. Oscar - as I was saying in Willian's thread, imo, is more dangerous, direct and more suited to play 1-2s and link up with Cesc and Hazard. Both Cesc and Hazard said this season how they benefit themselves or enjoy playing with Oscar. So I think for the profile of matches we can afford Oscar to play (Stoke ain't one of them and one might even make a case about his shortcomings playing against big teams, not because of him, but how overly defensive Mourinho approaches those games), he should play and Willian should be rested, with Schurrle playing in the RW. If Ramires, for some miracle, can keep the form of early the season, even he is a a better attacking threat than Willian. Than the matches where we can't afford Oscar to play - very physical matches, against teams parking the buses, vans, trains and whatever else they find, as well as the big matches where it's Mourinho who's playing defensive, with Diego playing basically isolated in the attack with little support from Hazard (who more often than not is also swamped with defensive responsibilities in said games and plays with less freedom) and relying on Cesc through balls, we could play Willian instead as he deals better with those than Oscar does (although Willian seems to be easily dispossessed if you ask me). But the thing is we aren't replacing Oscar for Willian. We're replacing Oscar for Cesc. As I said after the Stoke match I think playing Cesc as a #10 in those matches is 50% because of Oscar not being suited to them and the other 50% is because Cesc in the pivot for those matches might not be wise. In that case I say play Ramires alongside Matic in the pivot and make the three AMs with Hazard - Cesc - Willian. Those overly physical matches with teams parking the bus more often than not, aren't very suited to Schurrle either. He can't make a lot of runs if we have possession and there are 10 men behind the ball, so playing him makes no sense. In that case stick Willian in the team. He'll offer what he normally does, but at least we have Ramires instead of Mikel in the pitch. Ramires is the opposite of Mikel. Mikel rarely gives the ball away, Ramires gives all the time, but against buses parked, that's okay, out of 10 attempts he'll end up having 2-3 good plays, so I'd say it's a better return than what Mikel normally does in the attack. It's not like we'll be threatened a lot by opposition in this scenario. At the end of the day playing Willian and Oscar in the attacking midfield or playing Mikel in the pivot and Willian in the AM position is just Mourinho being way more cautious and pragmatic than he should imo. We lose a lot of attacking threat with both lineups, except the matches that Oscar shines - which doesn't happen as often as it should to make us afford him alongside Willian. I know few agree with me, but I'd rather have an in form Schurrle, offering a lot of runs, shots, and linking up than Willian receiving the ball in the run and then doing absolutely nothing with it. If we have either Oscar or Mikel in the team, much less reason for him to be there. The only case I think André doesn't work is the aforementioned (teams sitting way too deep, with 10 men behind the ball). We don't play those as often as some believe. We play a lot of teams that a tad more defensive against us, but not many of them just park the whole bus in their boxes. We don't need so much protection and pressing, and Schurrle while being no ace pressing and tackling, he isn't a moron either. He can do some defensive work.

well, we were first except for the second or third round don't remember when Spurs had a better GD, the thing is, we were there