Closed Reading 2-2 Chelsea

[chrismada9 1,948]

It's probably easier with 100 russian women everything comes naturally (No pun intended )

:lol:

[Rmpr 8,977]

I think my rants over and i am gonna go watch a film...

See you all tommorrow in the official "Rafa is sacked" thread tommorrow (one can dream).

Good night man!

My rants are over too, going to visit my girl and forget about this fucking mess...

[Funkyflashman 187]

I'm gonna stay here and rant guys. Even if it's to myself.

RAFA OUT

[Hutcho 8,443]

Good night man!

My rants are over too, going to visit my girl and forget about this fucking mess...

Not a bad idea... Have a good evening mate.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

I think my rants over and i am gonna go watch a film...

See you all tommorrow in the official "Rafa is sacked" thread tommorrow (one can dream).

To be replaced (with a nod to The Simpsons) with an inanimate carbon rod who will lead us to an amazing Premier League comeback! "In rod we trust".

[JLC 13]

Incredible, isn't it ? How fucking shit teams like QPR, READING,SOTON just score with EVERY shot on goal against us.

Oscar, even though had a decent game, with some atrocious decision when on goal. Shoots when he should have passed, passes when should have taken a shot.

Mata. what can you say, assist and a superb goal. Torres was good for a change. Ramires and Lamps weren't bad either.

Turnbull is such a fucking joke of a player. Just look at his positioning at the first goal; laughable. Bertrand, again, by far the worst player on the pitch today.

Benitez with the worst fucking subs you'll ever see. What the fuck was that about? On top of all that: 5 MINUTES? For WHAT? There were no serious injuries, and it was damn sure not because of subs.

Should have been 3 minutes at best but still, that's not a reason we should fucking draw after being 2 up.

That's exactly what I said when I was watching the game. 5 minutes makes absolutely no sense.

[manpe 10,861]

The last goal, what were they doing? It seems some already left the pitch.

It looked like half of them were playing for offside and the other half weren't. Complete disorganization and miscommunication.

[Kojo 4,676]

You know what, sometimes you can say the other team deserved it, like Swansea and West Ham for instance, but this is just getting fucking stupid.

Reading didn't deserve a fucking thing, we smashed them, Oscar should've put away two easily.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Yes, because SAF has that option. He made three subs and only one of them was defensive which he could do because Jones is very capable of playing midfield. ManU starts with an incredibly attacking formation so going slightly more defensive is easy. What option did Chelsea have to go more defensive? We started with five defenders in the starting XI.. It was already a very defensive lineup. And it's not like Reading were coming on and Rafa didn't react. Reading had zero decent scoring chances until the 87th minute. We were dominating them. We looked much much more likely to score a third than they did to score at all. I want Rafa gone as much as the next guy, but I get annoyed at the knee-jerk blame stuff. We had 67% of possession, we outshot them 15-5. Did Rafa tell Oscar to keep missing the net? Did he say to his defenders "just stand in a bunch together and don't mark anyone?" At some point, the players have to take responsibility. I don't care who is on the pitch. You don't let a 2-0 lead against Reading with 8 minutes to go. Criticizing substitutions is easy because your alternate reality of substitutions will never exist so will forever be theoretically perfect. I am fine with criticizing Benitez for our lack of organization and even our lack of passion, but the players' have to take most of the blame for our poor performances. (the board gets a lot of it too. The inability to ensure that we have any depth has been disastrous.)

some of our players have gotten complacent because rafa can easily get the blame. Oscar missing point blank chances, just so bad for us. Rafa is still a c*nt though

[Blue Armour 4,289]

I hated the starting XI because I hate Bertrand on the wing, but the team was almost as good as could have been (I would have preferred Benayoun/Marin for Bertrand and Ba is better than Torres but 9 of your best available 11 players is hardly fielding a weak lineup). I prefer Ba to Torres generally, but Torres was excellent he created about three or four very good chances, his movement was very good, and he worked hard. He was responsible for the first goal. Ba and Torres are going to rotate and I'd rather Torres play against weaker sides...and Ba is, I assume, going to start against Newcastle which we need him for. Also, switching formations is not a simple thing. Most teams don't do it during games. Players don't know where they are supposed to be, they don't know their responsibilities, their lanes, their outlets. I can criticize Benitez for doing defender for defender when we are behind and we have attacking players available. (Bringing on Ba on the 82nd minute against Brentford WAS inexcusable IMO.) but we had a defensive formation already.

Although I do have to question the marking on that last play...was it Rafa's zonal marking? I watched it again...just awful, so awful, it's almost impossible to comprehend. We had FIVE players in the middle of the box...who do we put on Le Fondre? Nobody! In fact, on the far side of the net, after our wall of Chelsea players, we have Benayoun and Azpilicueta marking four Reading players. The ball falls to the first of the Reading players and Benayoun and Azpilicueta close, he heads it on and there are THREE unmarked Reading players. In fact, even if Le Fondre forces a save, there are two unmarked Reading players now on the right side and still three on the left so a rebound is probably a goal as well. Players make mistakes, sometimes bad ones. It happens under every manager and to almost every player at some point, but that is one of the worst pieces of team defending I have ever seen from Chelsea and Rafa does need to take some blame for that. So many questions:

1-Why was the opposition's biggest goal threat not being marked at all?

2- Why where the closest players to him not someone like Cahill and Ivanovic but rather Azpilicueta and Benayoun?

3-Who was supposed to be marking which player because I have no idea even watching the clip repeatedly.

4-What the fuck??? .

It sure looked like it was zonal marking...which I quite frankly hate. Its useful to setup counter attacks, but to me its nothing but a massive gamble. We used it under AVB as well and it bombed...

With regards to Bertrand, I don't see why he couldn't play Ba in his position. Its not as if Ba is naive when it comes to tactics, and for sure he'll have better chemistry with Torres than Ryan.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

It sure looked like it was zonal marking...which I quite frankly hate. Its useful to setup counter attacks, but to me its nothing but a massive gamble. We used it under AVB as well and it bombed...

With regards to Bertrand, I don't see why he couldn't play Ba in his position. Its not as if Ba is naive when it comes to tactics, and for sure he'll have better chemistry with Torres than Ryan.

Ba played on the wing with Newcastle so he can. The problem I have with that is that what if we were 0-0 or down 1-0 in the 60th minute (or, for Rafa, the 80th). Who do we bring on for extra offense? It's like the reverse of the problem we had today where we started with Bertrand on the wing so couldn't really get more defensive. And yeah, I think it was zonal marking except it looked like they'd all had one two minute practice to learn it. What complete mess.

[francozola 2,040]

I'm fucking sick of waking up at 4am on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning and then having to go back to bed at 6 feeling completely depressed and then dragging myself out of bed a short while later for work/school. This is the 5th time it's happened in a row, after QPR, Swansea, Southampton, Swansea again and Reading yesterday. I wouldn't give a fuck if they were unlucky results or something. But to watch some of these muppets put in zero effort and that twat of a manager making useless decisions after another is just.. tiring tbh. It's a JOKE and WE'RE the joke: having to watch this debacle get worse and worse every week.

Can't imagine how those who spend their wages to go watch the games (especially the away ones) feel.

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

Chelsea's motto this year: "The key is to find new ways to fuck up ESPECIALLY with 2 goal leads."

i swear this is like the 6th 2-0 we've ended up losing/drawing in the end.

[coolhead23 1,146]

So Mr Roman,

What do u get when u employ Mr Rafa?

.A big fat Spainsh waiter

What do u get when u keep chopping managers?

- Directionless, demotivated, headless chicken team....

Time for u to put on your thinking hat or rather remove it .....

[nachikethas 1,149]

missed the match..

those were days which i consider really sad and frustated irespective of the outcome but now it seems ok.

had a great chance to catch up with city but we botteled it.only thing that goes on our way is that tottenham and arsenal are dropping points also.hope that wont stop because us getting maximum points in a game seems not practical.

[bluephoenix 1,126]

i had an interview today right about in the 80th minute of the match ... i thought we would surely bag the 3 points ... bang after the interview i see that reading scored 2 goals in quick succession !

OMG how stupid are we ? can't get wins at SB, can't preserve a 2 goal lead ... Roman this is just about the time where you jump in and use your veto power to get what you want!

[didierforever 7,349]

there was a time when i looked forward to a chelsea match... i wanted
nothing more than to see chelsea play... it used to be the highlight of
my week... i would fight with my parents, my friends, my girlfriend,
any and evey1 to just leave me alone to watch the boys in blue. mostly
because i knew it would be worth it. watching DD, ballack, essien, makelele,
JT, lamps fight it out and slug it out. no matter what u knew u would
get a 100% from these players. u would get fight, u would see
character... but now NOTHING... ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING... we got a
team with absolutely no character. we refuse to learn from our mistakes
(what no. of 2-0 leads have we dropped). i remember the 2010-11 season
when, i think, we dint drop even drop points when we went ahead and now
this.

plus we have a manager who could not tell the difference between the skills of messi/ronaldo and a
bloody buffalo... 4-2-3-1 is probably the only thing he was ever thought
and he thinks if he changes that formantion then the team would
automatically lose. his substitutions are PATHETIC... i mean bert for
cole against swanseas, azpi for iva against brentford, ba for torres... I
KNEW THAT JT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT FUCKING ON... my grandmother
could have done that sub and she knows nothin about football...

this
club has right now lost its identity... last night i could hardly
believe that it was my chelsea that was playing... something immense has
to be done and i know exactly where to start...

KICK THAT FUCKING FAT SPANISH WAITER OUT...

[BleedsBlue 1,549]

Not going to rant here because most of us share the same opinions.Just would like to credit Reading's fighting spirit and congratulate them for their comeback.Hope they don't get relegated this season,fun team to watch.