darrus

God, this Diego Torres guy is still obsessed with Mourinho... Really, if he was a woman I'd think he'd made some advances on Jose, been told to f*ck off and can't let it go ever since, but he obviously is a man, so - it's hard to imagine a reason for all this obsession and all the lies he's spouted all the time and looks like still keeps spouting the year after Mourinho left Madrid. The man is ill and needs help.

Then too bad for us because we need them to. Though I'd prefer a draw in their match.

Those two guys we bought in winter transfer window look a real deal

City is 4 points above us, if they lose 5 points we're 1 above. Again. If we win all our matches it means we beat Liverpool too - so they'll be 1 point behind in the end.

Really... Maybe he'd better do the talking on the pitch?

It is bad. Just about the most stupid way of thinking right now. We're not winning CL this season, that's about as sure as anything in football can be. But we win our 6 matches in PL and City loses to Liverpool and draws with Everton and we are champions. So what is worth fighting for?

As much as your confidence that City will beat Liverpool.

Or maybe City will collapse like all other Pellegrini teams, including Real, tended to do by the end of the season. You just never know.

Because our reserves team and its coaching staff did nothing to deserve such punishment.

Torres is still our player. Imagine any manager saying "this guy is sh*t and is not with me, we're ignoring his existence from now on" about any player. That's not done even if it's deserved, like in this case. I don't think he's afraid to scare any potential buyers because if there is someone stupid enough to want Torres in the team they won't be scared off by Mourinho stating obvious things I suppose it's just keeping it polite while giving Torres a final kick in the ass that will make him fly as far from here as possible. I hope.

More amateurish is not getting rid of him as soon as it was obvious he's not what we thought we bought and while people still didn't realize how bad he is. Right now what hope do we have of any decent club wanting him? Well, Inter rumours may be true as their transfer dealings are mostly facepalm-inducing recently, so there is hope. I can't help but think Torres is being pushed out, cruelly so. But I rememeber in the middle of the season we already were talking about Hazard and Oscar ignoring him on the pitch, which too is a problem, if your midfielders refuse to pass to your striker because they know for sure he won't finish anyway. Lack of striker is surely not the only problem in our team. But it almost looks like Mourinho is doing his best to get rid of him any way possible.

You're looking at the names, not at the quality. On paper Lampard, Torres, Ba and Schurrle are good. Or were good some years ago and therefore for some they by default constitute a good squad, regardless of theur current ability. That's the problem of many fans, not only you. It's the same when you say "Barca have Messi so they should be champions". On paper - yes, in reality with the problems the team has from top to bottom they're most likely not winning anything and rightly so, but people like you will still say that they failed ignoring the fact that this season they're overachieving massively already.

Liverpool had last season to build the team the meneger wanted. Remind me where they ended up last may? And then see what it brought them in the scheme of things. And as for players - you've named a grand total of 11 men, and one of them is not worth mentioning. And then people wonder why players look tired and why we're not running away with the league. 11 (I'd say 13) relyable players to play 60+ games in a season - that's worse than Liverpool, Arsenal and MU. We're talking about Liverpool's short bench - and our bench is?

Actually, it depends on people. Say to Terry, for example, that he is sh*t and can't perform and you'll get "I'll show you" response. Some of the players need constant reassurance, sure. But how many times in this same thread Jose was called deluded or worse for praising his strikers for doing good work, for saying good words about Torres after another horror performance. Now he's gone for another apptoach or it's simply a way to push Torres out. And this approach worked with Eto'o.

If we try to move Cech out we're bound to get a full blown debate on a Casillas/Lopez scale, that's what I'm afraid of. Cech is a legend, and I don't doubt he's a good and honest guy, but he won't go out without a fight, and even if he will, the fans would be bang against it, at least some of them. It's dividing the fanbase and at least 2 years of "Cech would have saved that" debate, that's what I'm afraid of. Still the jury on Cech is out now. Noone can live by past glory.

1. How you would call 8 years without winning anything then? 2. Fixing our scoring problems meaning getting someone up their who can score. Unless you suggest Mourinho goes on he pitch and does it himself 3. Technically, he's won a trophy last season by the way

Mourinho has to take blame for some matches we've played to draw and actually drawn instead of winning - MU away and Arsenal away as examples. The players are to blame too, we've seen some lifeless and clueless performances. But I think there are 2 problems. First - we have a team that is very expensive and good on paper, but in reality is a bit overrated and very unbalanced. Maybe it is true that it was built for some other manager (Guardiola or otherwise) to take on, but mostly it looked like we were buying everything that looked trendy and had a high price-tag. In the end we ended up with a lot of creative midfilders, pretty thin defence, two excellent goalkeepers and bad-bad-bad strikeforce. We've made some steps in right direction, like Mata out - Willian in, Matic in - Lampard (effectively) out, probably Salah looks like the right mould of player but the judgement is sill on, but we're too far off being a team, currently it's no more than assortment of players. It pains me to say but maybe if AVB was allowed to make his clearout we would have been better off in the long run. RdM and his reliance on the old guard created another problem - we have young players, we have old players and basically no inbetween. But the thing that gets to me, really gets to me - that team has no fight. It's astonishing to see, players who should be fighting for the title that is withing their reach just go and put in performances like CP one and today for example. That's partly on Mourinho too because it shows he can't get through to them, but where is ambition and work? It's not Mourinho's team, but not so much in the sense of players' profiles but in terms of character. Wether he manages to get him up and fighting would be a real proof of his ability. Before this week I was seeing distinct parallels with the Porto team he inherited in 2002 (I'm following Porto since 1999 so rememeber that period clearly). It was a bit of the same mismatched mixture of players not clearly knowing what they are doing, and they got some bad results after ok-ish start, and after the lost match Jose promissed the massive clearout. And that's when parallels suddenly end, because that team responded by going on the winning streak with players going out of their way to prove that they are good enough to stay. And then they went on their 2-years run. This Chelsea team at the sight of any adversity or criticism (from coach, fans, pundits etc) just, figuratively speaking, lowers head and goes to sit in a corner. Maybe they don't trust the manager - and then Mourinho has a big problem he needs to either sort out or leave. Maybe they're too young as a whole and it will come. It just pains me that Luiz, Oscar, Shurrle, Torres etc don't go out on the field trying to prove that they belong in the world elite and are good enough for this club. It's worse than defeats and season with no cups. It's just... bad. Sorry for rambling.

I see there is a question being raised already - why is Cech training with his own coach he chose when Silvino Louro, who is considered one of the best GK coaches out there, is in the staff? Mind you, I'm not saying Cech's problems are Lollichon's fault, but really that's a strange arrangement that kept bothering me since the beginning of the season, and with those small mistakes that cost us dearly this season I keep thinking that some change is needed. I wouldn't jump onto "Curtois in" bandwagon just yet. It's not that he's blameless in every match and the quality of strikers in Spanish league apart from top teams is rather dire. And Cech is not that old to be written off. But I'm just wondering if some of the coaching routines should be changed.

Ibra in serious doubt, looks like. Problem is - they're good enough without him. The biggest problem is - well, balls. What kills me is not the result - hard, but can be overturned. Not the idea of finishing the season without any cup to show for it - there is always the next. What kills me is that I don't believe that these players have it in them to turn things around - a cup, a tie, anything. This team - it's not Chelsea. You can be behind in terms of quality, you can lack forwards, creativity, whatever, but you have to fight at the best of your ability from start to finish. Old "frog in the milk" thing. And I don't see it - from most of the players. Terry has this fighting ability, but he's dead by the end of the season and it's not the first season when he's beginning to commit silly mistakes by the end of the year. Lampard is too old. Azpi is a model player in terms of combining fighting spirit and quality, but he an Cahill are basically alone, and it's too little to drag the team up. Hazard needs his head sorted out ASAP. Willian too, probably. Oscar definitely needs serious work or probably be out. The team still has 2 titles to fight for - and doesn't fight. For God's sake...

http://gofirstrow.eu/watch/251257/1/watch-paris-saint-germain-vs-chelsea.html

Yes, thare's reports of fans fighting

Exactly. With Torres we're often down to 9 field players as he's doing nothing and falling over when he shouldn't. Playing with no striker but with a packed midfield where all 4 players can cober for each other and make runs is an idea. Not exactly a good idea, we'll see. But really, can it be worse than Torres even on his good day (as his good days look this season)?

But we can hope that our defence will hold, and counterattack. But really, a lot depends on our defenders.

Sure, he should be talking in the PC about each and every problem the team has and the ways he thinks we should solve them - for anyone interested to hear. Sure he is paid to do that, not to work on this problems. Really. Really. I dare anyone to come out and say that any of the players came out there yesterday wanting to win and giving everything they could to get 3 points. And then let's talk tactics.