Closed Man City 2-1 Chelsea

[Mceachran 109]

I don't know why Ramires finished the game, he was bad.

sometimes I feel that as soon as it seems ramires isn't going to go on some scorching 40 yard runs, we should just take him out haha; but that's a bit unfair

[Jase 43,479]

I don't know why Ramires finished the game, he was bad.

Do we have a choice? RDM had to use one sub early on because of injury. Pretty sure if Ivanovic had not got injured, Sturridge might have come for a MF with Ramires moving into midfield.

Also, I do think all the criticisms on Ramires is a tad harsh. Granted that he did not have the best of games but let's not forget that he was playing in an unnatural position at RW.

[francozola 2,040]

Due to the energy that he has, Ramires will very rarely get substituted even if he's having a bad game because he can provide more than Lampard and Essien

[francozola 2,040]

Also, I do think all the criticisms on Ramires is a tad harsh. Granted that he did not have the best of games but let's not forget that he was playing in an unnatural position at RW.

Agree, mistake was completely RDM's to not play Sturridge there (or bring him on after we scored) I know Sturridge is the most selfish player on the planet etc etc but atm we have no better option. Ramires was simply abysmal as a RW yesterday

[GodZola 630]

I dont think that was what we wanted to do. City were extremely dominant with possession. We tried but couldn't hold on to the ball. Painful to see, really, the gulf in class. Their final ball was just poor but they were in completely control of the ball due to 1) they were at home so they had the initiative 2) they were losing and they could not afford to lose the match 3) everytime we tried to counter, someone fucked it up. I.E. our players simply not good enough.

This is why not playing Sturridge or even including him as a substitute was such a HUGE mistake. He can run with the ball, he would pin their leftback back, he would relieve some pressure of the defense. Ramires was failing miserably. He might even come up with a moment of magic that we were lacking. Bad call.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Sturridge - a major blunder, but what baffled me even more was that he wasn't brought on when Ramires was having a shocker?! I felt a little for Ramires as he looked lost pushed out wide. The reason why things weren't working was pretty obvious in that we had a midfield that bar a reasonable'ish performance by Mikel were rubbish, they just kept giving the ball away & I couldn't for the life of me understand why he went with 1 up front & chose Torres? Not that Torres didn't deserve a place its just Drogba is a target man & if you are going to play 1 up top it has to be Drogba - without question & if our midfield wasn't bad enough RDM brings on Essien who carried on were the other midfielders left off by constantly giving away possession, you just can't do that at this level & especially against City.

For me RDM went there with the sole intention of getting a point which backfired - why not go at them with an attacking lineup? As I said their confidence was at a seasons low, ours was the opposite, they were without their best defender in Kompany so common sense tells you that this would of been the best time to play them & more pertinently we needed '3 POINTS' too! That was even more evident with Arse winning, if we don't beat Spurs on Saturday then a top 4 finish is going to be very very unlikely now & just backs up my point about going at City.

We got what we deserved in the end but I thought Luiz was magnificent & imho had his best game for us, he read the game so well last night - a major positive & one that bodes well for the rest of the season.

[francozola 2,040]

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Sturridge - a major blunder, but what baffled me even more was that he wasn't brought on when Ramires was having a shocker?! I felt a little for Ramires as he looked lost pushed out wide. The reason why things weren't working was pretty obvious in that we had a midfield that bar a reasonable'ish performance by Mikel were rubbish, they just kept giving the ball away & I couldn't for the life of me understand why he went with 1 up front & chose Torres? Not that Torres didn't deserve a place its just Drogba is a target man & if you are going to play 1 up top it has to be Drogba - without question & if our midfield wasn't bad enough RDM brings on Essien who carried on were the other midfielders left off by constantly giving away possession, you just can't do that at this level & especially against City.

For me RDM went there with the sole intention of getting a point which backfired - why not go at them with an attacking lineup? As I said their confidence was at a seasons low, ours was the opposite, they were without their best defender in Kompany so common sense tells you that this would of been the best time to play them & more pertinently we needed '3 POINTS' too! That was even more evident with Arse winning, if we don't beat Spurs on Saturday then a top 4 finish is going to be very very unlikely now & just backs up my point about going at City.

We got what we deserved in the end but I thought Luiz was magnificent & imho had his best game for us, he read the game so well last night - a major positive & one that bodes well for the rest of the season.

I agree with what you're saying, in theory, but I feel like if we had tried to play an attacking style, they would have won easily due to lack of quality on our part. City started out okay, but after 20-30 minutes they started getting frustrated. Those rubbish fans didn't help! They were groaning every few seconds. The players clearly noticed this and started becoming more and more impatient. We were taking the sting out of the game and it was heading for a 0-0 even before cahill's goal. So the initial tactic worked, but we should have changed it after the goal

Sturridge's exclusion cost us the points IMO, (along with essien's mistake of course). It may sound stupid to some, especially those who were lambasting him after Sunday, but he would have made all the difference in that game. When it was 1-0, I would have rather bring Sturridge on than Drogba. Take off Meireles and move Ramires to the centre.

[Laylabelle 9,539]

Bloody Tevez!! Surprised he didnt score but still played a part!1 Essien mistake..was that a mistake!Like Di Matteo said he couldnt exactly make his arms dissapear and sometimes its just instict and delayed reaction...

Just was a weird game and performance so unbalanced.We were good in parts and in others jesus we didnt seem to be able to pass to a City player or get away from them seemed so have so many on the pitch!And typical how their 2nd goal came pretty much stright after they'd been praising Cech.Other then that he did have a great game mean the crossbar helped but still...just a horrible game and result but...time to mvoe on

[GodZola 630]

I agree with what you're saying, in theory, but I feel like if we had tried to play an attacking style, they would have won easily due to lack of quality on our part. City started out okay, but after 20-30 minutes they started getting frustrated. Those rubbish fans didn't help! They were groaning every few seconds. The players clearly noticed this and started becoming more and more impatient. We were taking the sting out of the game and it was heading for a 0-0 even before cahill's goal. So the initial tactic worked, but we should have changed it after the goal

Sturridge's exclusion cost us the points IMO, (along with essien's mistake of course). It may sound stupid to some, especially those who were lambasting him after Sunday, but he would have made all the difference in that game. When it was 1-0, I would have rather bring Sturridge on than Drogba. Take off Meireles and move Ramires to the centre.

Not saying that we should attack for 90 minutes, I just thought we would stand more chance of a result by playing 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 to start with (with Sturridge!) then reverting to a 4-5-1 late in the game when hopefully the damage had been done with Drogba the lone striker, you could see they were nervous & their crowd would of got on to them if we went for the jugular, as I said I just felt it was the best time to play them with our renewed confidence & their poor form.

As for Sturridge, he just needs to get his head up - that's all, I like players that are selfish it shows their confidence but he just needs to make the decisions of when to go it alone as opposed to laying off to a player in a better position & that comes with experience.

Are you really female? You're knowledge of football is outstanding & I mean that question in the nicest possible way! What I would give to have a girlfriend who liked football let alone Chelsea!!! The arguments I've had..........

[Sheva. 5,373]

Is there a video of Torres vs City?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxB9ueJFjis

[francozola 2,040]

^ lol that music. I thought he did alright yesterday. Nothing 'great', but not the shit-Torres that we've seen for majority of his Chelsea days. He was extremely isolated up front since Sturridge wasn't playing but tracked back a lot which was important for this game. The only real chance he had (when Ramires put in the low cross) he went for it and if it wasn't for a great clearance, he woulda scored. Up til now he was always shying away from those kind of chances, preferring to wait for the ball to feet in the penalty box. Touch & control was poor overall but he did okayish

Not saying that we should attack for 90 minutes, I just thought we would stand more chance of a result by playing 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 to start with (with Sturridge!) then reverting to a 4-5-1 late in the game when hopefully the damage had been done with Drogba the lone striker, you could see they were nervous & their crowd would of got on to them if we went for the jugular, as I said I just felt it was the best time to play them with our renewed confidence & their poor form.

As for Sturridge, he just needs to get his head up - that's all, I like players that are selfish it shows their confidence but he just needs to make the decisions of when to go it alone as opposed to laying off to a player in a better position & that comes with experience.

Are you really female? You're knowledge of football is outstanding & I mean that question in the nicest possible way! What I would give to have a girlfriend who liked football let alone Chelsea!!! The arguments I've had..........

Yeah the mistake was to stick with the same tactic throughout the game. Either start with a slightly more attacking formation as you suggest and then become defensive in the 2nd half OR start with the 4-5-1 like what happened and change it later. After the goal, everyone knew what was coming but we didn't change anything at all. Took off some legs in Meireles and brought on a tired/past-it Essien, took off energetic Torres.

RDM was perhaps making a statement with the Sturridge snub. I hope he starts against Spurs. He'll have learnt a lot in this last week. He got a lot of criticism from the fans on Sunday (groans every time he didn't pass) and RDM surely had a word with him after that game.

yes I am female. and single :eyebrows:

[communicate 2,703]

Not saying that we should attack for 90 minutes, I just thought we would stand more chance of a result by playing 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 to start with (with Sturridge!) then reverting to a 4-5-1 late in the game when hopefully the damage had been done with Drogba the lone striker, you could see they were nervous & their crowd would of got on to them if we went for the jugular, as I said I just felt it was the best time to play them with our renewed confidence & their poor form.

As for Sturridge, he just needs to get his head up - that's all, I like players that are selfish it shows their confidence but he just needs to make the decisions of when to go it alone as opposed to laying off to a player in a better position & that comes with experience.

Are you really female? You're knowledge of football is outstanding & I mean that question in the nicest possible way! What I would give to have a girlfriend who liked football let alone Chelsea!!! The arguments I've had..........

IMO Di matteo selected the correct starting 11. Clichy was quiet all game long because ramires tracked him back really well. If he started sturridge over there Iva or even worse bosingwa would have major problem defending city attack.

He had to bring essien to bring more protection to midfield (meireles was awful) and Drogba to hold the ball for us (Torress played well but he is not a target man who can hold the ball) to give our defense a break. We were just unlucky that he had to made a early sub, because I am sure he would definitely bring Danny in after the goal if he had one more sub.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Here's part of RDM's post-match conference if anyone missed it:

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

Quality won on the day, just shows that Citeh are Better. We were too sloppy, Meireles was Bad, not enough Spark and Creativity going forward, we just didn't look overly Dangerous.

[lupinastic 0]

Not a really good result

hopefully that won't stop our momentum

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

Torres' ball control is absolutely shocking at times.

[nullabletype 987]

Not saying that we should attack for 90 minutes, I just thought we would stand more chance of a result by playing 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 to start with (with Sturridge!) then reverting to a 4-5-1 late in the game when hopefully the damage had been done with Drogba the lone striker, you could see they were nervous & their crowd would of got on to them if we went for the jugular, as I said I just felt it was the best time to play them with our renewed confidence & their poor form.

As for Sturridge, he just needs to get his head up - that's all, I like players that are selfish it shows their confidence but he just needs to make the decisions of when to go it alone as opposed to laying off to a player in a better position & that comes with experience.

Are you really female? You're knowledge of football is outstanding & I mean that question in the nicest possible way! What I would give to have a girlfriend who liked football let alone Chelsea!!! The arguments I've had..........

^ lol that music. I thought he did alright yesterday. Nothing 'great', but not the shit-Torres that we've seen for majority of his Chelsea days. He was extremely isolated up front since Sturridge wasn't playing but tracked back a lot which was important for this game. The only real chance he had (when Ramires put in the low cross) he went for it and if it wasn't for a great clearance, he woulda scored. Up til now he was always shying away from those kind of chances, preferring to wait for the ball to feet in the penalty box. Touch & control was poor overall but he did okayish

Yeah the mistake was to stick with the same tactic throughout the game. Either start with a slightly more attacking formation as you suggest and then become defensive in the 2nd half OR start with the 4-5-1 like what happened and change it later. After the goal, everyone knew what was coming but we didn't change anything at all. Took off some legs in Meireles and brought on a tired/past-it Essien, took off energetic Torres.

RDM was perhaps making a statement with the Sturridge snub. I hope he starts against Spurs. He'll have learnt a lot in this last week. He got a lot of criticism from the fans on Sunday (groans every time he didn't pass) and RDM surely had a word with him after that game.

yes I am female. and single :eyebrows:

Watch out though, that's her in her avatar.

[Term-X 7,891]

Wish I knew the inner workings of the club, I can’t get that image of Essien's sheer delight at the end of the game out of my head, hugging Nasri and all. Essien is a snake in the grass, he should be under surveillance. Roman and his goons should place hidden cameras in every room of his house like off the TV drama Homeland.