Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 Chelsea

[Term-X 7,891]

He said he felt dizzy & sick though.

Remember, he'd also received a kick to the head in that first-half.

Fair enough, I remember he was kicked, which is why he was holding his stomach. AVB jumped the gun and took him off as a precaution.

[zolayes 14,489]

Fair enough, I remember he was kicked, which is why he was holding his stomach. AVB jumped the gun and took him off as a precaution.

It was long after he was kicked so no jumping the gun .AVB stated Luiz was subbed because he said he was feeling sick and dizzy. That is why he was

replaced. That seems sensible to me.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Perhaps you don't remember Ranieri

Tinker-man

[oman43 45]

Good post , i forgot about the penalty that should have been given , he was right next to the incident how could he miss it ? though we haven't had the best run of getting penalty in Europe

We played a lot better in this game , couldn't complain with the defence in the first half , it was a couple of defensive lapses that got punished again. Once we play Valencia i hope we have ironed out these mistakes.

If AVB is given the chance , next season we will see his team form weather that's in the CL or not only time will tell.

Refs never like us in Europe. Remember the Barca game ? The problems will get ironed out, Chelsea are a winning side and just in a bit of poor form. One thing I will say about AVB i wasnt happy with: Merieles was in my opinion one of the best players on the pitch, now to take him off and put mikel on is slightly confusing. I know he was on a yellow card but pro footballers should be expected to calm it down when they are on a yellow. Personally i do dislike mikel as i think he doesn't do his job that well. Did you see Song last night ? he was amazing, especially in the setting up of the goal, could mikel dream of doing this ? Course not. But apart from subs i think AVB is right to attempt to play good football !

[The Big Drog 1,110]

I really think this might be the worst Chelsea team in the Abramovich era. On paper its great, in reality it isn't. Terry isn't what he was, Luiz is still trying to forge a partnership with him, Ivanovic isn;t a top class right back, Cole is showing worrying signs of deterioration, Cech has also looked less than convincing lately, Mikel is is a depressing sight to see in a Chelsea jersey, Lampard isn't as good as he was, Sturridge is good but still needs a bit of work, Mata must be wondering how he has gone from playing in a side with a developed passing game to this and on paper we have the best damn strikeforce in the world, honestly a couple of years ago how many Premier League dream teams had the Drogba/Torres pairing up front, we actually have that in real life except Torres appears to be a less pacey shadow of himself and age is catching up on Didier, meanwhile Nic Anelka (another highly rated striker) continues to pursue his dream of developing a cross between a winger and holding midfield position whenever he is chosen to play. All of that and Florent Malouda still gets game time.

It's a sad state of affairs. I outright refuse to blame the manager, he has been charged with a task and I have sympathy with him because the team he is working with isn't up to scratch. Neither was it up to scratch in Ancelotti's second season.

On the game itself. Ramires, Luiz and Sturridge played fairly well and the standout was Drogba. After a slow start, he grew more and more into the game until finally he became our only source of danger, there were stages in that game where it looked like Drogba doing it alone against Leverkusen. Scored a cracking goal, made some tremendous flick ons, held the ball up very well and should have had a penalty too, it was pretty much vintage Drogba and even at 34 (?) years of age, he remains our only true great attacking player and hopefully will be the focal point of the team, at least until January because had one of our other strikers been leading the line tonight, we would have been lost. He might not cost 50 million pound but he is undoubtedly our finest all round striker.

If we don;t qualify we only have ourselves to blame, threw it away tonight, threw it away against Genk, threw it away against Valencia and even if we do qualify it will probably be as the second place team which is just what we need, a potential tie against Real Madrid and Barcelona.

[Hysteria 159]

If we continue playing like this we will start to opening match threads on thursdays...

[Naked Mole Rat 437]

Am I the only one who's outraged by yesterday's performance? The whole team looked down, they weren't pressing enough, and we let Leverkusen, who came into that game not even expecting to win, to exploit our defensive flaws. That's how I see it. It was especially infuriating because it wasn't even like Leverkusen were pushing up like Liverpool had because they wanted to play safe. Yet, they won the game and had more possession than we did. Yes, they were lucky, but we once again let the opposition penetrate our defense way too easily with one single pass and couldn't deal with them in set pieces. Also, I don't understand why Drogba started and why he wasn't taken off in the second half. I don't blame him, but he was clearly unfit and wasn't pressing enough, and other than the goal, he played pretty badly. That was the same sort of reaction I had when he played against Liverpool; beside his free kicks he was sub-par. And something's gotta be done about Mata. I don't think he plays very well on the left wing. He should probably play in the centre.

If there's one thing I was happy with, it was Sturridge's performance. He was really up for the game, made some good runs and crosses and showed some signs of a mature player.

[manpe 10,857]

The fact is Leverkusen just tried harder... They covered more distance and made more passes, not to mention they earned 10 corners as opposed to our 0. In the style of play they seemed more lively and motivated.. a single glimpse at Ballack's overhead kick demonstrates it, what an attempt! They simply grinded it out, we were too lazy (apart from Studge).

[Ollie 4,400]

I woke up yesterday morning to find out the score, i noticed we lost 2-1 to a 90th minute goal and my day was effectively ruined before it had started. I was thinking about the 2 last games most of yesterday and i'm supposed to be on holiday trying to forget things, stress free and enjoying myself. I saw the Leverkusen score and i started shaking ffs. We can only come 2nd now at best but the good thing is that Man Utd are in the same scenario and City could be in Europa league. This November has been another tragic one, last season was bad but this tops it. I'm fed up of trying to defend this team, we have the players to win games whether we're playing well or not, whether the ref is being a cunt or not and whether we're creating chances or not. Fact is we've won 2 in 9 i think, lost 3 in 4 and the one we won was against a shit blackburn team and even then we were lucky to win as Ivan nearly put one in his own net very late on.

Football is about winning, not feeling hard done by because "we deserved to win" and "We we're unlucky" blah dee blah we are on a terrible run and it hurts me because of my love for this team. This season is already a right off, we just have to try n qualify for the UCL now and win a domestic cup, even if it's the mickey mouse one, i'd take that now. FA Cup would be lovely tbh.

It's sad when the premiership is over by Xmas and i'm actually worried to get a big team in the UCL, we're not as solid as we once were and could genuinely get a right whipping. Still.... a game agaist a Barca/Real could be good for us in a sick kinda way.

Anyway...... it is funny to see we've been so awful, yet have the same points as both Liverpool and Arsenal but now we have 26 games to get top 4, preferably 3rd. We'll lose more too so it's gonna be a rough ride

[dodojojo 510]

The fact is Leverkusen just tried harder...

Sadly, the same could be said for Liverpool. That's a good side with average to slightly above average players and one superstar.

[Tortilla9 390]

Maybe BL and LFC were listening to AVB's words about the 'collective'. Doesn't seem Chelsea players heard it.

[bluephoenix 1,125]

Maybe BL and LFC were listening to AVB's words about the 'collective'. Doesn't seem Chelsea players heard it.

I second that ... AVB certainly has to do something about the way we play ... I don't really think its all players fault. 30% of the blame should go to AVB, DD+Torres something that AVB should have sorted long back. If one player can play in the presence of another its *sh_t.

I don't know if I am being fair in making this statement but I some how think we need to work on passing ( through balls and mostly importantly short passes.)

[Naked Mole Rat 437]

The fact is Leverkusen just tried harder... They covered more distance and made more passes, not to mention they earned 10 corners as opposed to our 0. In the style of play they seemed more lively and motivated.. a single glimpse at Ballack's overhead kick demonstrates it, what an attempt! They simply grinded it out, we were too lazy (apart from Studge).

Exactly. I want to point one thing out though, and that is that the two teams looked equally demotivated going into that match. Leverkusen, however, changed their attitude when they conceded, and we didn't when we scored. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing, but our attitude actually got worse after Leverkusen's equalizer, and the game in general reminded me of our loss at Goodison Park at the end of last season, except that that time nothing was at stake, and this time, a loss could mean humiliation of having to play in the Europa League.

[Blue-in-me-Veins 4,067]

That game against Leverkusen summed up last seasons campaign and sadly looks like it will this year too. I agree with RottenBanana & OllieCFC plus how long are we goin to have to try and defend this heartless play!! We need someone like a joe cole back in our squad. i dont care who or what position he plays just someone that will run and run and run for the complete 90. not stare at the ball being passed by the opposition. AVB should have also given his all to get A.Perriera from Porto. and a replacment to the lost cause in the modric saga. (you think he really wants to come here now??) This squad lacks competition, we dont have someone that can take Ashley Cole's spot. or someone to challenge lampard in the cm role. or someone to challenge mikel (who in all honesty needs to be benched till january.) man u can leave berbatov out and send him a message, but over here its the constant drogba then torres, then drogba then torres etc.etc. rotation. its simply a replay of last year and we'll make the same dumb overeaction purchase like last year. WATCH!!