Napoli 3-1 Chelsea

[zolayes 14,489]

explain to me why that is cause he couldn't be blamed for any of the goals and didn't do much wrong elsewhere. Honestly think people in here NEED to have someone to blame after a bad result.

its hard for the scapegoaters when Kalou and Torres dont start and Bos goes off after 10 mins

[Sheva. 5,373]

So much for the Drogba inspired win many were talking about he was just shit.

[Slam Dunk 1,442]

How in gods name is this AVB's fault? His tactics were spot on, and if we had players that could finish we'd be celebrating a famous win.

We need a young, hungry striker in the summer, Send Torres out on loan back to Spain and see how he fares out there.

We have one, he's called Daniel Sturridge. He's wasted out on that wing, he's only there frankly because we have nobody better. You can call him 'selfish', but the fact is he's played his whole career as a striker and is naturally looking to finish.

I would advocate us signing Cavani, however I think he's a dead cert to sign for Madrid.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

How in gods name is this AVB's fault? His tactics were spot on, and if we had players that could finish we'd be celebrating a famous win.

We need a young, hungry striker in the summer, Send Torres out on loan back to Spain and see how he fares out there.

I totally agree. Andre got his tactics right, the start of the first half where we managed to absorb the pressure and counter, and the start of the second half when we completely dominated are evident to that. Individual errors (and a weak midfield) cost us the game.

[TacticalBlues 2,817]

For me this game didn't teach us anything new. We got shown how shit Meireles is, also that we don't have a good enough winger, we're not clinical enough/lack a good striker like Cavani, Mata is practically our only spark. Anything new? I don't think so.

[Las7 951]

How could AVB get his tactics right when we had no defensive midfielders and Napoli were winning all the midfield clashes ?

What did anyone expect we started without a defensive midfielder in a tough away fixture in the CL. Ramires sucks defensively, he is good getting forward and missing/scoring chances and covering ground - but he gets out muscled by strong wind currents. Raul is an enigma, I don't know what his role is and I don't know why he is starting.

It would have been much better if we had started Essien with Romeu behind Ramires in midfield - at least give this defense some protection and play for the draw and counter attacks - away from home in a tough ground.

It was a naive starting 11 to say the least

[communicate 2,703]

Excellent point. Danny really disapointed me today, I was expecting (maybe unrightly so) much more from him on the wing. But even more desperately we need a clinical striker. If we had a player like Van Persie ( or even Daren Bent dare I say) we would've gotten something out of this match. We had at least a dozen chances that were begging for a proper finish.

we saw today what a good winger can bring to the table

Great post. Danny has been fantastic for us this season in term of goal scoring but he does not offer anything else. He does not penetrate to the box very well when he does, his decision or delivery is just bad.

[Slam Dunk 1,442]

but he gets out muscled by strong wind currents.

Amazing.

[YouNameIt 1,511]

Bad day at the office.

more like an ordinary day at the office

[Santiago. 1,500]

Drogba- Pathetic display from a Veteran let alone the Captain of the squad. His performance was dreadful whether it was his bad touches, losing the ball, and his lack of pace. His motivation is absent and seems more happy that distraught after defeats, a common thing that has been appearing ever since the double in 2010, where Drogba was actually hungry. Age, has finally gotten over the Machine. 5/10

Mata- The only bright light on our Club, his movement off the ball was brilliant as on the ball. Though his defensive abilities weakens him, he was involved in every transition which thrived at playing Central. Negatives on the performance, missed open passes and plays caused by frustration or lack of focus, still undoubtedly the best performance from our Club. 7.5/10

Sturridge- Pressure got to him, at times performed well, but his lack of tracking back weakens him. Selfishness as well playing as a RW gets through to him which causes any sort of counter attack to fail. Average performance.

6.5/10

Miereles- Confused, lack of focus, not balanced, as well as under performing consistently. Though he is not a natural holding midfielder, his display was at the up-most pathetic, whether losing the ball, miss marking, ball watching, he looked like a championship player. Why he continues to start is beyond me which is a key figure in why our midfield has been shit the whole season. Creativity inept if that is even a phrase. Defensive abilities absent, was a sole reason in our defeat. 4/10

Ramires- Misplaced passes, lost the ball consistently, unbalanced, was absent throughout the game. One of his worst performances i have ever witnessed, yet again, he is not a natural DM, reasoning for putting him there, yet again, beyond me. Missing his target from 7 yards away from goal over the bar, missed passes, absent in transition, pathetic marking, one of the worst performances ii have ever seen from him. 4.5/10

Malouda- Better than i expected, still not a good performance. Was our only threat in crossing the ball and actually made a few attacking runs and defensive runs, was our best midfielder aside from Mata, and that's fuckin sad. He put up an better than expected performance, but what the fuck do you expect from a veteran. 5/10

A.Cole- Came without warming up and injured, better than expected performance. Though he lost his marker at times, goal line save, and was involved in the attack, he yet again shows why he is a veteran and always gives 100 percent. His performances was below average, but given the circumstances, he performed on top of it. 6.5/10

Luiz- ​Stong character in defense, made important defensive saves, but his continuous act of immaturity continues to cost us. Was more of a threat in the attack than Drogba. 6.5/10

Cahill- Yet again, he is brought up in the most difficult situation. Debut for Champions league with an unform team, pressure got to him massively. Showed signs of potential, but performed below average as expected given the conditions. 5/10

Ivanovic- Strong and Brute in the first half, was a powerfull figure and looked remarkable. After the second goal got to him and performed terribly in the second half, losing his marker, misplaced passes, another Veteran in which the pressure got to him. 6.5/10

Cech- Saved our assess in the most part of the game, boosted up moral and confidence for the defense, but showed absent. Poor individual performance for the last goal, fact of the matter is, saved us from it being 6 or 7-1. 7/10

AVB-

Yet again shows his inexperience and inept tactical ability to all of Europe. His illogical decisions have cost us almost every game, he thinks rationally and does what he wants to do, not whats best. Making rash decisions that shows the whole world that he's panicking. It's difficult to approach this game feeling as the whole world is against you, but his moral to the squad as well as his tactically ability fucked us this match. In the saying, can't make a good dish when the ingredients suck, at least make the best with what you have and that is far, fuckin pathetically far, than what were capable of doing with the squad we have. Pathetic.

4/10

Team performance-

In the greatest amount of respect, loyalty, and love for this club, this was absolutely pathetic. No unity, no stability, no composed players, no focus, no creativity, no leadership, no moral, no character, just fuckin nothing. Worst performance i have ever witnessed in European competition from Chelsea. Shaky defense, unbalanced midfield, and shooting blank forwards. There is no chemistry within anywhere in the squad, no where. A bunch of Individual mistakes and lack of focus from everyone cost Chelsea the game. Simple as that. There was a better performance in the second half, still not enough to rate it highly. We are still in this cup and we need to fuckin put our shit together to pull this through.

4/10

[cchuka 99]

Poor performance by our midfield yet again. We should have taken better advantage of the transfer window.

Oh well, we'll just have to win them 2-0 in March

We do need to give Bolton a really good spanking to lift our spirits.

[Blue Armour 4,289]

Said it countless times for the last month but i keep saying it until im blue in the face

KALOU IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To be frank, I was actually hoping he would bring either Kalou/Torres on. All their defenders were like 30+ somethings and were slow...If we can somehow race into a two goal lead at SB before half time..nope..don't wanna jinx it

[Kez 2,727]

If by some miracle we get through to the next round the embarassment will only get worse, this team isn't even capable of beating a championship side at home...

[MikeyBlue 11]

I struggle to see why I've got any optimism watching Chelsea over the past few months. I feel as though we don't have the same mentality as other top teams.

It's funny because I had high hopes after we took the lead, but to my suprise we lost that lead and the match! Don't really know why I get so frustrated at such a game, when at the end of the day if we can't beat Napoli, then what chance do we have with the barcelona's, real madrid's or milan's of the world? Shouldn't allow myself to get so wound up about it.

Never been this down, frustrated and angry at a Chelsea team that doesn't want to win games, move forward and prove that they are really among europe's elite.

God help us!

[Ollie 4,400]

I chose the right season to not renew my membership didn't i just.

We played ok today but the defence was awful and Drogba was worse. That's the back and the front of the team, how are you gonna ever win like this? Regardless of what the midfield do! I don't know what to say any more, it's the same every week. From having the best defence for 5 years we now have one of the worst, it's so weak and embarrassingly breachable and then to make matters worse, we have a striker whether it be Drogba or Torres that play so badly so often and do not show up or do fuck all. I don't wanna criticise Drogs as a true club legend but if he thinks he's fit and ready to play, he's gotta do a hell of a lot more than he did in this game. Anyway, as i said, we played ok, we dominated most of the 2nd half really but only Napoli looked threatening. Not too pissed off because i wasn't expecting much, happy with some of the football we played but just so pissed off with Drogba and the defence. This wasn't AVB's fault too much. The players are supposed to show why they are at this club, they are expecting to be given chances so if they get it, they need to prove why they deserve it.

Malouda did ok in patches but you can see he's almost finished, he doesn't have the burst of pace or the quick turn that you could see Sturridge has. He gave effort but that's not enough any more, he'll be gone in the summer for sure. Meireles.... All i can ask is why? Why is he playing ahead of Lampard and why is he playing every game? He's just a runner, a player with lots of energy but no quality what so fucking ever! Can't tackle, can't dribble, can't shoot, can't pass, can't score, can't play the killer ball...MEH!

Mata and Sturridge were very good. The back 4 was pathetic. Drogba was pathetic. Luiz is not NOT NOT NOT NOT!!! a defender FUCK SAAAAAKE somebody please see it, please for the love of christ! Essien is almost finished (Only played a bit but just aint got the power or speed anymore). Cech was good in the first half but does some strangeness too often.

There's very small hope now, our UCL dream is over for another year. It's not that 3-1 is insurmountable, it's the fact that Napoli will 100% definitely score here so we need to hope for a rare UCL penalty victory or something or score 4!. It's like Monaco again, not good.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

How could AVB get his tactics right when we had no defensive midfielders and Napoli were winning all the midfield clashes ?

What did anyone expect we started without a defensive midfielder in a tough away fixture in the CL. Ramires sucks defensively, he is good getting forward and missing/scoring chances and covering ground - but he gets out muscled by strong wind currents. Raul is an enigma, I don't know what his role is and I don't know why he is starting.

It would have been much better if we had started Essien with Romeu behind Ramires in midfield - at least give this defense some protection and play for the draw and counter attacks - away from home in a tough ground.

It was a naive starting 11 to say the least

We had two defensive midfielders in Raul and Rami. I know that this isn't the position they usually play, but tonight this was their role which they failed to do properly. Essien did not do any better when he came on and is obviously not back to form (if he is ever going to be) while Romeu is not ready for such a match especially that he has not been getting regular starts lately.

[Steve 10,227]

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[cujo101 75]

We have one, he's called Daniel Sturridge. He's wasted out on that wing, he's only there frankly because we have nobody better. You can call him 'selfish', but the fact is he's played his whole career as a striker and is naturally looking to finish.

I would advocate us signing Cavani, however I think he's a dead cert to sign for Madrid.

Thank you - Sturridge is a striker and I don't blame him for complaining about not getting a chance up front. Do you really think he will do worse than Drogba/Torres?