Closed Chelsea 0-1 QPR

[Wfisheruk 23]

As much I want to put all the blame on rafa I can't that team should be more then capable of beating qpr,it's simple none of our players didn't turn up last night was a very poor performance from start to finish!!

[Rmpr 8,977]

He does need to step it up if Chelsea hope to stay in the Champion's League spot. It's not fair, but Oscar is one of the most expensive midfielders in history and one of the most expensive players we've ever bought (6th), and because of that, we need to be getting better performances. Oscar was more expensive than Mata, David Silva, Alexis, Cazorla, Reus, Kagawa, Ozil, Dembele,etc... Young players who had established themselves in top leagues. It's not his fault he cost so much money which is why I'm not upset with him. but it's an insane amount of money to spend on someone you need to develop. Think of it this way, if Chelsea had chosen to sign (in a theoretical world) say Van Persie or Dembele and Ba i(or any other combination of ready players instead of Oscar in the summer, where would they be right now? Probably seriously challenging for the Premier League. So, Oscar might be worth it in the long run, but every year of development, costs us short-term both in terms of results and in terms of money.

And every young player is a gamble. Every player period is a bit of a gamble, but for someone who has not proven themselves, it's a big gamble. Ronaldo could have turned out to be Quaresma or any other number of flops. Yes, people knew Messi was going to be great when he was young but there are tons of players people "know" are going to be great and most of them aren't.. Here is a list of Don Balon's top-100 young footballers in 2001 (apologies for posting a link to a ManU blog, I feel dirty) http://www.redcafe.net/f7/top-100-young-players-2001-a-205125/ You can see what a complete crap-shoot young talent is. Even the elite of the elite of young players are vastly more likely to fail than to succeed. I do think Oscar will likely be a great player and his chances of being a complete flop are tiny because he has a lot of very good fundamental skills, but it's still a risk.

I know we could have bought a great CM with that money, but transfers need to be individually analised. Oscar was in a team that did not need the money and had just bought him, they sold him because the money was too good to turn down. Cazorla for instance, Malaga desperately needed the money because of FFP (they are banned from UEFA next year) and the first offer that came to them had to be accepted. It does not mean Oscar has more value and should be compared to Cazorla (atm) because for their pricetag. I might be the only one, but I prefer Oscar for 25mi, than Cazorla for 16mi. Oscar in 2-3 years will be better than him and would still have a good 7 years. I prefer to "miss" two years and gain seven. I don't know about you...

I am not saying Oscar is doing a great job in EPL (because he isnt), all I am saying is that he can't be compared with players in their prime and be asked to lead our team in the absence of Mata and Hazard. He is not ready to do so and should receive a pass for at least a year. If we have this conversation one year from now, I will have to begin to havely criticize him. Not now, though.

Also, it is quite different to say a transfer has risks and/or is a gamble. I mean, buying Falcao has its risk, but you wouldnt say it is a gamble. Every single transfer in football has its chances of going either way, but a gamble is when you don't have any control of what the player might become. Definetly not what happened with Oscar, Ronaldo, etc.

[The Big Drog 1,110]

Did you also miss the bit where we finished last season sixth, got knocked out of the Champions League and that whole two decades where the Champions League became the most important competition in European football?

Did you also miss the bit where we drew against QPR in two of our last three matches? What about the bit where we drew against teams like Fulham and Swansea who aren't the strongest teams in the league? There aren't any easy games in the league so we can't really take chances.

I suppose the idea was to rest Mata by having him on the bench, but it didn't work out so basically every aspect of this strategy failed.

And who gives a fuck if we do something in the cups? The league has to be the priority.

Maybe you missed the bit where we spent like 100 million on players in the Summer. To add to a Champions League winning side.

Did you miss those 17 consecutive games that QPR failed to win this season? Or how utterly dreadful they looked against Liverpool? So your saying don't take chances? Never rotate? Based on this conversation I've changed my entire opinion on football, let's sell the squad all but for 11 starters, let's just play all the kids in the cups cos nobody cares about those anyway and there we have it, Rafa can't "take risks" by playing nearly 40 million pounds worth of replacements and we ignore the cups. We are definitely onto a winner with this one.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Maybe you missed the bit where we spent like 100 million on players in the Summer. To add to a Champions League winning side.

Did you miss those 17 consecutive games that QPR failed to win this season? Or how utterly dreadful they looked against Liverpool? So your saying don't take chances? Never rotate? Based on this conversation I've changed my entire opinion on football, let's sell the squad all but for 11 starters, let's just play all the kids in the cups cos nobody cares about those anyway and there we have it, Rafa can't "take risks" by playing nearly 40 million pounds worth of replacements and we ignore the cups. We are definitely onto a winner with this one.

We aren't in a position to rest Mata for important games. Yesterday was an important game whereas the cups simply aren't as important right now.

Yes we spent a fair amount of money in the summer but £30 million of that was on the bench alongside Mata and the rest simply aren't able to cope in their absence. At the start of this thread we had people saying we should win 9-0 and QPR are shit and they lost to Liverpool, but everyone knows that local derbies are different beasts. You could feel the tension in the ground when it became known that Mata wasn't starting, and the wait to bring him on only exacerbated that.

Even if they were bottom of the league with 0 points, they're still QPR. That ALWAYS means something.

[The Big Drog 1,110]

We aren't in a position to rest Mata for important games. Yesterday was an important game whereas the cups simply aren't as important right now.

Yes we spent a fair amount of money in the summer but £30 million of that was on the bench alongside Mata and the rest simply aren't able to cope in their absence. At the start of this thread we had people saying we should win 9-0 and QPR are shit and they lost to Liverpool, but everyone knows that local derbies are different beasts. You could feel the tension in the ground when it became known that Mata wasn't starting, and the wait to bring him on only exacerbated that.

Even if they were bottom of the league with 0 points, they're still QPR. That ALWAYS means something.

Yes so we should have been able to do an adequate job with the replacements.

It means that they are the worst side in the league, that's what it means.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Yes so we should have been able to do an adequate job with the replacements.

It means that they are the worst side in the league, that's what it means.

Like I said, it's still QPR. That means something to Chelsea fans and it should mean something to the club.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

I don't fault Rafa for not starting Mata (although sitting both Mata and Hazard on the same day is strange. We can rotate and still play one of them). We need to be able to beat teams without Mata. Early in the year, we played great without Mata doing anything (and Hazard carrying us). We had mostly regulars in our starting XI and they should have done the job. I do find fault with Rafa for waiting so long to bring Mata on. I'm not sure it would have made a difference ultimately, but it was clear we were struggling to get any sort of attack going and the 75th minute was just too late.

[The only place to be 11,313]

We need to be able to beat teams without Mata.

There's a difference between what we should be doing, and what we're capable of doing.

Leaving it so long was fucking ridiculous.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

There's a difference between what we should be doing, and what we're capable of doing.

Leaving it so long was fucking ridiculous.

We are capable of beating teams without Mata. In the knockout stages of the CL last year, Mata was our worst player, and we still won the CL. Yes, we have a new style, but even this year, early in the year, Mata was terrible (he had played too much and needed to rest) and we won without him. It's the same issue we've had all season. We don't really have a plan of attack. We just hope that a moment of individual brilliance will give us goals. If you watched yesterday's game, you'd think our game-plan was to set up our defenders for 35 yard shots at goal or to try to score from a set piece. Almost like a Stoke game-plan. We could have scored. Moses could have got a hold of Marin's cross, Lampard could have been onside, Torres could have beaten Cesar, one of Ivanovic's close headers could have gone in. Even if we had, the goal wouldn't have been the result of some well thought out game-plan.

I also think that it's possible that our managers are under a lot of pressure to win something. We saw RDM use too strong of a lineup against ManU in the league cup which certainly cost us points in the league and now we see Rafa resting people in the league (I assume at least partly) to be able to play in the cups. Maybe it's their choice, but maybe it's helped by pressure to "win something".

[Rmpr 8,977]

I don't know why people are criticizing Benitez for not playing our strongest lineup. We have 4 games in 10 days, this is insane, we needed to rest our team at some point. It really made sense to do it against the worst team in EPL at SB.

Having said that, we did have a horrible performance (both from the manager and players) and deserved to lose. More than the tactical mistakes, we were fucking lazy...

[The only place to be 11,313]

We are capable of beating teams without Mata. In the knockout stages of the CL last year, Mata was our worst player, and we still won the CL.

That was last year. It's different this year and he's been key to everything we do going forward. What we missed was penetration last night which was why the defenders were shooting - Harry would've loved to let them have the ball and set his team up deep. The problem wasn't just us missing Mata, but the deeper players like Lampard and Luiz not offering anything either. Personally I would've liked to have seen Oscar deeper and Mata in his normal position.

I don't know why people are criticizing Benitez for not playing our strongest lineup. We have 4 games in 10 days, this is insane, we needed to rest our team at some point. It really made sense to do it against the worst team in EPL at SB.

Rest the players against Southampton's reserve team in the FA Cup or against Swansea. Send Mata for a few days in Dubai or a health spa in Berkshire for fucks sake.

Don't rest him in the league and don't rest him against QPR.

[didierforever 7,349]

We have 4 games in 10 days, this is insane, we needed to rest our team at some point.

which now mata and hazard WILL have to play because benitez cant afford anymore slip ups. plus with the southampton away game coming in FA cup then any manager would have given mata and hazard a rest together in the FA cup rather than the qpr PL games. its just basic common sense.

[zolayes 14,489]

I don't know why people are criticizing Benitez for not playing our strongest lineup. We have 4 games in 10 days, this is insane, we needed to rest our team at some point. It really made sense to do it against the worst team in EPL at SB.

Having said that, we did have a horrible performance (both from the manager and players) and deserved to lose. More than the tactical mistakes, we were fucking lazy...

My criticism is that Benitez didnt sub Torres when he was having one of his truly awful games

[Stats 7,142]

My criticism is that Benitez didnt sub Torres when he was having one of his truly awful games

I agree he had an awful game but due to no one else being an out and out striker, Torres had to stay on. That will change when Ba joins.

[zolayes 14,489]

I agree he had an awful game but due to no one else being an out and out striker, Torres had to stay on. That will change when Ba joins.

Moses would have been more of a threat than Torres