Closed Chelsea v Manchester United

[Rmpr 8,977]

Both? That's too much to ask for!!

Classic Footballer Quote: You know, I just hope for a win, even if it is by half a goal.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Torres is not the one to blame. In fact Shaktar cound scored at least 4 goals in that game, while we had only few chances.

It's odd to me how much Torres was defended last year when he was awful. This year, he's been OK. He's not the long-term answer to our striker question. Torres was certainly not the problem against Shakhtar. People love our attacking midfield 3 so they don't want to blame them for anything, but they were terrible. I'd really like to see RDM rotating players into the attack because 1) I think rotation is necessary 2) I think those three can get too cute sometimes and could use a different sort of player playing alongside them. When it comes off, it's brilliant, but when it doesn't, it's just annoying. Really would like to see Oscar pick up his game some as well. He burst on the scene against Juve and was fantastic and then had a solid game against Stoke, but he's simply not getting involved in the scoring enough. 4 starts and 2 sub appearances in the league, 0 goals, 0 assists. Hasn't really been involved in the goals. He's the best defensively of the front three, but so was Kalou. (I'm not comparing Oscar to Kalou, just pointing out that you don't splash big money for a player who is solid defensively). I think Oscar will come good, he has all the skills necessary, it might just take a little bit of time and I'm willing to be patient.

Still not sure why RDM hasn't played Moses on the right after his brief sub appearance where he looked quite good. It seems like RDM has a very difficult time trusting players. I don't want to see wholesale changes or anything remotely like that, just want to see us rotating 14-15 players into the game rather than 12.

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

If we can control rooney and rvp then i am pretty sure we will win.

thats their whole team.

[Rambo 1,729]

I just facepalm each time I see comments like that.

It's not impossible. Torres did a fantastic job vs. Arsenal. As much as I'd like to see Sturridge start, RDM will go with Nando.

[Kezza 1,965]

@Blue-in-me-Veins,

Put a lot of thought into that post. Glad someone appreciated it

[Blue Armour 4,168]

It's odd to me how much Torres was defended last year when he was awful. This year, he's been OK. He's not the long-term answer to our striker question. Torres was certainly not the problem against Shakhtar. People love our attacking midfield 3 so they don't want to blame them for anything, but they were terrible. I'd really like to see RDM rotating players into the attack because 1) I think rotation is necessary 2) I think those three can get too cute sometimes and could use a different sort of player playing alongside them. When it comes off, it's brilliant, but when it doesn't, it's just annoying. Really would like to see Oscar pick up his game some as well. He burst on the scene against Juve and was fantastic and then had a solid game against Stoke, but he's simply not getting involved in the scoring enough. 4 starts and 2 sub appearances in the league, 0 goals, 0 assists. Hasn't really been involved in the goals. He's the best defensively of the front three, but so was Kalou. (I'm not comparing Oscar to Kalou, just pointing out that you don't splash big money for a player who is solid defensively). I think Oscar will come good, he has all the skills necessary, it might just take a little bit of time and I'm willing to be patient.

Still not sure why RDM hasn't played Moses on the right after his brief sub appearance where he looked quite good. It seems like RDM has a very difficult time trusting players. I don't want to see wholesale changes or anything remotely like that, just want to see us rotating 14-15 players into the game rather than 12.

He doesn't like straying outside the comfort zone. The starting eleven doesn't change much except for maybe Cahill for Luiz or Lampard for Oscar.

I suppose it was necessary though, in order to build up the team chemistry.That's important when playing against tough opposition. Hopefully from now on (after the Man Utd PL game) we'll see more rotation. Hopefully more width rather than always playing through the middle.

[channing 8]

i was so disappointed at the mid-week lose but when i get up this morning i feel relieved ......for Manchester City hahaha

[BOSS 372]

We will win this one Shakhtar >>>> Man United.

[ymalleb 14]

Just because we lost against a team that hold a string of unbeaten record in Europe, somehow this kind of " the trio wasn't good enough", "should start danny", "bring moses instead of oscar" and whatnot appear. i don't we should change our winning line up, the same line up that beat the crap out of spuds & arsenal. look around, even the greatest Real Madrid & Man City humiliated. UCL is not a stroll in the park for any team, tell that to Barca.

[TrippingStep 336]

Who said we need Oscar, Hazard and Mata together to attack? The 3 guys can barely help in the defensive system. I remember Spurs second goal, someone lost the ball and then none of the 3 return to help in the defence. Spurs had a lot of chance to score, and if they had better attacking players perhaps the result would be different.

Fernandinho, best Shaktar player yesterday said it:

"They have a different team from the one that played UCL final. Many times the offensive players attacked and didnt return. They were left with the 4 deffensive players and only one DM in front of them. Its a different style, the team that won the CL was more compact."

He said Shaktar players had too much space to create, and he think Chelsea were exposed to the counter attacks.

imo, this is a problem with this system. Barcelona have Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta, all players that are very good in the defence, and specially Xavi and Iniesta are superb in the attack. The 3 players are good in the attack but they still lack the defensive skills, like Malouda and Anelka had in previous years. Even Robben, Kalou and Joe Cole could help a lot in the defence. Just see Oscar, the guy run a lot when he is defending, he try to mark, to almonst never he desarm the opponent.

If we start with these 3 players against Manchester, I think we will be in trouble.

Mikel, Lampard, Ramires, Oscar, Mata; Sturridge.

I agree and what made it worse was that we often had too many players in the same line around their box, not enough people in the middle to keep the ball and moving it and if you add that our back 5 are not very fast and agile, there was a huge gap in midfield.

But even in the champion's league win, I thought that the team was not defending that well if you consider that we were parking the bus around our box. There was a bit of luck that when players were having good chances in the box, they didn't make it.

Gomez had two huge chances in the beginning of the final.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

Our defense needs to have a good game. We also need to defend well out wide, although we should dominate the midfield. It will be the biggest test of the season and I cannot wait to face these cunts.

[meetdoscar 335]

I think we cant start Oscar, Mata and Hazard together in this match.

We need more cover in our problematic defensive system.

We must start oscar,mata and hazard because all the games we've done differently we have either drawn or lost especially when we use ramires on the right. Infact I think that should be our permanent blue print for big games except when we want to rotate in smaller games.

[meetdoscar 335]

Just because we lost against a team that hold a string of unbeaten record in Europe, somehow this kind of " the trio wasn't good enough", "should start danny", "bring moses instead of oscar" and whatnot appear. i don't we should change our winning line up, the same line up that beat the crap out of spuds & arsenal. look around, even the greatest Real Madrid & Man City humiliated. UCL is not a stroll in the park for any team, tell that to Barca.

Exactly. We should start oscar, hazard, mata bcoz technically and strategy wise they are our best attacking players. I get disappointed when I hear fans saying we should play more defensive minded players when manu are coming to attack, you would think this game is being played at old trafford.

[Milan 17,835]

Their last three games - Braga, Stoke, Newcastle. Against Braga they scored all their three goals after crosses (corners). Against Stoke all of their 4 goals were after crosses (corners) and against Newcastle they scored at least 2 from corners.

This is something we have to be aware of. We may be better in the middle but we have to close their wings. Plus we need to be well organized when defending a corner.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

We need to come out flying. Don't give them any breathing space from the 1st minute to the last. Annoyingly they always have the ability to comeback so we can't switch off.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Who said we need Oscar, Hazard and Mata together to attack? The 3 guys can barely help in the defensive system. I remember Spurs second goal, someone lost the ball and then none of the 3 return to help in the defence. Spurs had a lot of chance to score, and if they had better attacking players perhaps the result would be different.

Fernandinho, best Shaktar player yesterday said it:

"They have a different team from the one that played UCL final. Many times the offensive players attacked and didnt return. They were left with the 4 deffensive players and only one DM in front of them. Its a different style, the team that won the CL was more compact."

He said Shaktar players had too much space to create, and he think Chelsea were exposed to the counter attacks.

imo, this is a problem with this system. Barcelona have Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta, all players that are very good in the defence, and specially Xavi and Iniesta are superb in the attack. The 3 players are good in the attack but they still lack the defensive skills, like Malouda and Anelka had in previous years. Even Robben, Kalou and Joe Cole could help a lot in the defence. Just see Oscar, the guy run a lot when he is defending, he try to mark, to almonst never he desarm the opponent.

Right now, we have a very imbalanced squad. We lack width, we lack a deep-lying midfielder, we lack defensive discipline. What we have is an incredibly talented team and a coach who is a quick learner so that will win us a lot of games but, we do need tinkering. The parts we have don't really seem to fit. It's the same old story of lack of coaching continuity and input on transfers. For example, there is no style of play or formation that will suite a player like Mata (who is fantastic in the style we play now but was almost useless when we played the defensive counter-attack in the CL last season) and also suite a player like Ramires (who was awesome in those CL contests but is not a ball possession type of player on either side of the ball-he isn't a very good passer and is too aggressive a tackler for the system). I don't want to come off as whining or anything because we are definitely on the right path and are off to a fantastic start, but I also think that positive results have blinded some people to some real flaws that need to be fixed. Because we beat Arsenal and Spurs, people act as if we dominated them. We didn't. We were out-shot 42-20 in those two matches. (We've given up 49 shots in our last two matches) That's just not a ratio you can keep up and expect sustained success even with a goalie as awesome as Cech.

[Sheva. 5,373]

Because we beat Arsenal and Spurs, people act as if we dominated them. We didn't. We were out-shot 42-20 in those two matches. (We've given up 49 shots in our last two matches) That's just not a ratio you can keep up and expect sustained success even with a goalie as awesome as Cech.

We were also away in both games and went to attack not defend. You can't expect to play the type of football we have been playing and also have the defensive solidity of last season, you have to choose one, and we've chosen the former. And fyi we did dominate Spurs, they only consistently threatened for 15 minutes and on set pieces.

You just need to watch when teams like BVB, Real Madrid, Man city play - top teams that use this same formation - they're not exactly great defensively, but they sure create many chances and score lots of goals. Even fucking Barcelona can't defend lol.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

We were also away in both games and went to attack not defend. You can't expect to play the type of football we have been playing and also have the defensive solidity of last season, you have to choose one, and we've chosen the former. And fyi we did dominate Spurs, they only consistently threatened for 15 minutes and on set pieces.

First of all, Spurs were down four starters including probably their two best players and their key player was lost at the last moment which meant that the teams' entire tactics were thrown out the window (can just imagine what that did to a tactical coach like AVB). That Spurs team was mid-table quality and with no preparation Second of all, we didn't dominate them at all. Spurs definitely had more opportunities to score than we did. It wasn't just that small window. Sigurdsson alone had about 4 decent chances to score but luckily for us, he's not Bale and he can't finish. We kept letting their midfielders into dangerous spots right outside the box unmolested. Even late in the game when we should have been feverishly protecting a 3-2 lead, we let Spurs have way too many chances. The ball falls a little better to Adebayor or he's a little sharper, he scores in the 90th minute. Lennon and Walker both had dangerous shots from just outside the box that were saved in the 85-90 minute period and they were allowed to just run the ball up for those shots. You can't dominate a team and be outshot 26-10. We won because Mata was brilliant and Walker and Gallas were atrocious.Luckily, we have Mata and they have Gallas and Walker so we deserved to win, but it was not some fantastic performance by any stretch of the imagination and it was a harbinger to the problems we had against Shakhtar.

And yes, you can attack and defend at the same time. It's not one or the other. We don't need to play a defensive formation, but our attacking players have to be more responsible in their defensive duties. You can't have prolonged success if your attacking players aren't helping out at all on the defensive end.