Smallest squad we've had?

[Bambiny14 25]

I'll give you that. But we wouldn't have used him if it wasn't for JTs mind explosion.. Very decent player though.

Still saying no buy in Januray was ever good is stupid. David Luiz was bought in january, Ivanović was bought in january...

[Strike 7,474]

But have we really improved? Or was the game vs Athletico a massive wake up call? I mean sure we beat 2 championship sides and Newcastle, but are we really ready to play sides that can actually attack?

i think so, yes. we controlled the play against a strong newcastle side. we are retaining possession better and working out chances. as the players gel in it will only get better

[Rowan_Osborn 58]

I don't know whats wrong with David luiz.. when he first came here, he was rash, always out of position and when he had the ball he tried to take the whole team on... now not much has changed, he's still rash, he still goes out of position on a regular basis (although he has improved), and instead of trying to take the whole team on he now tries to pass it across the pitch which mostly always fails.

We are still trying to adapt to a new system. Before the start of the season most Chelsea fans were expecting us to take a while to settle, as we have performed well in our opening three games people seem to have forgotten this. Luiz will come good, he has the qualities to be a good player and if he can iron out his mistakes then he will be a top player.

[Rowan_Osborn 58]

agree it was a blip but as i said cant really judge the defenders on last season. this season they are going to play a very different role

Yes i don't think we can judge our defence on last season, as basically we sat the whole team back with Drogba up top. Remember how long it took for us to adapt to AVB's defensive tactics ( we never really did), hopefully it won't take that long but it won't be the immediate success people seem to be predicting.

[gary gordon 1,777]

We have improved, we are much better in attack and our defence is as good as it was last year. Wigan are a good side and we have struggled at the DW recently, it was a good result. Against Reading we showed great determination to come back and the goals scored against us were a strange mistake form Cech and then some great attacking work.

You think so? Reading had us pinned and exposed our weak defense as a result of our attack. We need to have that balance between both. Wigan were absolutely shithouse! There best player was deciding what number he will be wearing for us in a weeks time. Newcastle forgot that they needed to score and to be honest had there worst game in two seasons.

[OneMoSalah 8,883]

We will only beat teams by outscoring them this season. Guaranteed. We haven't been able to defend for shit for like 2 seasons now.

[Rowan_Osborn 58]

You think so? Reading had us pinned and exposed our weak defense as a result of our attack. We need to have that balance between both. Wigan were absolutely shithouse! There best player was deciding what number he will be wearing for us in a weeks time. Newcastle forgot that they needed to score and to be honest had there worst game in two seasons.

Reading's goals were not really defensive errors but goalkeeping mistakes, we were on the front foot for most of that game and did well. Wigan and Newcastle were made to look poor by our play and the defence and holding mids prevented Newcastle from attacking, Ben Arfa was hardly mentioned due to the good job Bertrand and Cole did. I agree we need a balance and it will take a while to come, but i don't think people should be so negative this early on, even if we hadn't won our first three games.

[gary gordon 1,777]

Still saying no buy in Januray was ever good is stupid. David Luiz was bought in january, Ivanović was bought in january...

But what did they do in that year? Ivanovic didn't play a single game the year he was bought and 10/11 when we signed Luiz we finished equal 2nd with Man city and 9 points behind united without a single piece of silverware.

[Pacquiao 1,834]

Prices are too inflated in the January transfer window. Besides, when has buying a player in January ever helped anybody?

so is that going to stop us buying players we need? i dont think so. and when has buying a player in January ever helped anybody? where do i start how about Anelka, G.Cahill, Papiss Cisse, Vidic, Evra, Suarez, Mascherano, Walcott, Agger, Jelavic ect ect ect the list goes on and on! Im baffled that you would even think buying a player in January wouldn't help anyone!

[Rowan_Osborn 58]

We will only beat teams by outscoring them this season. Guaranteed. We haven't been able to defend for shit for like 2 seasons now.

I don't think so. We can defend when we need to, as we did against Bayern and Barca. What we need to develop is a balance between the two.

[themightyblue 443]

You think so? Reading had us pinned and exposed our weak defense as a result of our attack. We need to have that balance between both. Wigan were absolutely shithouse! There best player was deciding what number he will be wearing for us in a weeks time. Newcastle forgot that they needed to score and to be honest had there worst game in two seasons.

See once again your looking at it very negatively mate. Reading had a good 25 minute spell, for the other 65 minutes we completely dominated them and had we taken our chances would have been out of sight. And your reasoning for the Newcastle game, surely we could just use the same excuse for the athletico game yesterday. Our tactics were good, we didn't allow Newcastle to get in the game and we were comfortable. Wigan we once again had our chances, Torres had something cleared off the line and should of won a penalty. That was probably our weakest game out of the three and it wasn't great, but we would have lost a game like season. We've definitely improved which is a good sign as the team are still settling

[Rowan_Osborn 58]

Prices are too inflated in the January transfer window. Besides, when has buying a player in January ever helped anybody?

We would of been in the dog house if we hadn't bought Cahill in January last year.

[Bambiny14 25]

We will only beat teams by outscoring them this season. Guaranteed. We haven't been able to defend for shit for like 2 seasons now.

Oh really? What i remember was three good defensive performances (one with a bad goalkeeper error) plus one total failure. Come one people! Stop judging everyone and everything after one really bad, bad performance. RDM as well as the players have a lot of time to think about it and i'm sure next game will not be such horrible.

[gary gordon 1,777]

See once again your looking at it very negatively mate. Reading had a good 25 minute spell, for the other 65 minutes we completely dominated them and had we taken our chances would have been out of sight. And your reasoning for the Newcastle game, surely we could just use the same excuse for the athletico game yesterday. Our tactics were good, we didn't allow Newcastle to get in the game and we were comfortable. Wigan we once again had our chances, Torres had something cleared off the line and should of won a penalty. That was probably our weakest game out of the three and it wasn't great, but we would have lost a game like season. We've definitely improved which is a good sign as the team are still settling

As much as i would love to agree with you I'm still not confident. It's a very long season and even with a bigger side last year, we were stretched to the limit. This season is very risky as an injury to either Torres or Sturridge will see us competing for nothing.

[OneMoSalah 8,883]

I don't think so. We can defend when we need to, as we did against Bayern and Barca. What we need to develop is a balance between the two.

Ok so because we defended like that for 4 games we can automatically do it for a whole season? Doubt it because if we could why couldn't we not do it last night? Or against Reading? Or Man City in the Community Shield? We've been ripped a new arse hole at times and gotten away with it the last few seasons, the defense is faltering. The current team has no balance too.