Closed Southampton 2-1 Chelsea

[Mundaka 243]

Fuck the board. This one is not down to Rafa.

dude it is, with this selection a top 3 is a must.

[The Mak 4,459]

After this shit, the F.A. Cup may as well be the Emirates Cup as far as I’m concerned.

Obviously, this was the more important game, every league game from now is like a final, but it honestly seems like our piece of shit of a manager is deciding to put himself in front of the club. With much more difficult games down the road, including Tottenham and United, the importance of this game was glaring to anyone.

I said it a while ago; all he cares about is trophies on his C.V. It rings in my head the unusual amount of times that man has said the word ‘tropies’, as he calls them, it’s all he wants. If he wins one, he’ll say to his next employer, “Look! Shiny!” and then blame RDM on the league, saying “oh, the damage was already done there.”.

The greedy bastard is actually doing his best to destroy next season as well, and there’s nothing we can do, just watch the horror show. Unbelievable anger right now.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

What type of tactics were we playing with cech, ivanovic, lampard and terry pumping the ball anywhere foward anytime??

[The only place to be 11,313]

In our entire squad, excluding loans, look how many players are in their prime -

Mata (maybe)

Mikel (depending on who you ask)

Ba

Cahill

That's 4 players in their 'prime'.

Now out of those 4 players, how many of them could walk into almost any side in the world? Who is actually a top player?

1. Mata.

That's it.

How this loss comes as a surprise to anyone baffles me. We don't have top players. We have a top player.

This is just a sign of things to come unless someone like Jose comes and fixes shit.

Cech is past his best. As are Terry, Cole (yes I know he wasn't involved today), Lampard, Ivanovic, Torres, Ferreira, Benayoun etc.

As for players yet to reach their best, Luiz is certainly taking his time, Ramires is a yo-yo, Oscar looks like he'll take quite a while, Moses doesn't look to have as high of a ceiling as first thought, Marin is shit, Azpi will be very solid in the near future, and then that's it.

We are a shamble of a team. Full of has-beens and too many 'prospects'.

The only players I consider currently good enough for a team with our aspirations are Cech, Cole, Mata, Hazard, Azpi. That's it. It's fucking sad.

Fuck the board. This one is not down to Rafa.

We're a team in transition. We were sixth in the league last season and we're reaping the consequences of mistakes made 5 years ago.

Regardless of what happens this season, we've got a great future. If that means missing out on the Champions League for one season then so be it, but the long-term plan at this club is sound.

[Jase 43,479]

I think there's logic in resting Mata today if you're trying to win 3 of the 4 matches. We knew we were going to have to rotate at some point and if Mata can only play alternate games then picking him for the United and Sunderland games makes some sense doesn't it?

Mata was apparently ill today, hence why he didn't play. And even if he was available, I would have played him today and next Sunday. League comes first before the two cups but Benitez obviously doesn't bother.

Have some perspective - we've still got a game in hand over Spurs and we've also got them at home.

The game in hand would be better if it was our insurance policy in the sense it allows us to pull further clear of the rest. Not so much of a must-win but now, it has become a must win! Furthermore, that game in hand is Fulham at the Cottage, where we have not done well in recent times and not played well against them. And yes, we've still got Spurs to come but forget them for a moment. The major concern now is Arsenal in 5th. Only 2 points behind and we don't have a game in hand on them. Slip up one more time and they'll overtake us into 4th. They can concentrate solely on the league while we can't. That's the big worry now!

[edetarod 2,155]

our tactics for scoring:

step 1 : pass the ball back to Cech

step 2: watch Cech hoof the ball

step 3: ???

[Ankit 3,176]

Arsenal play West Brom(Away) and Spurs play Everton(Home). Could well be banana skin for both the teams, we play Sunderland(Home). We are 4th with a game in hand. That game being Fulham(Away) which is a must win game now!

[Milan 17,835]

I hoped we would tick the first game of the mad week as won and done. Instead, it's lost and over. Depressing.

We won there in the FA Cup 5-1, 5 fucking 1 and then lost 5 five points to them in the League. God, we lost 5 points to them and 5 points to fucking QPR. 10 points lost to absolute zeros if you compare the squads

[The only place to be 11,313]

I hoped we would tick the first game of the mad week as won and done. Instead, it's lost and over. Depressing.

We won there in the FA Cup 5-1, 5 fucking 1 and then lost 5 five points to them in the League. God, we lost 5 points to them and 5 points to fucking QPR. 10 points lost to absolute zeros if you compare the squads

Three players who started all FOUR of those games??

Bertrand

Ivanovic

Lampard

[bushman 2,043]

No matter how one looks at the schedule. Chelsea are not ready to compete in EL, FA & PL.

Simple as that, as I already posted it here several times. Those who think Chelsea may win any cup or finish in top four places in PL are clueless.

[didierforever 7,349]

Fuck the board. This one is not down to Rafa.

u r correct. its the players fault that hazard dint start the match along with ramires-mikel pivot which is the only thing we have anywhere near to a good enough mid combo. not starting BA was another one of board's decision while not substituting fot the last 20 minutes was totally the board's decision while it had no affect by FSW. and also very suprisingly the same mata who was deemed fit to play on tuesday for spain, got "ill" and i can bet my ass that he will have a miraculous recovery for the united game, would probably be another one of the board's mishaps.

so all in all i can see what u r saying...

[CHOULO19 24,332]

I couldn't watch the match and after seeing the result, I'm kinda glad about that. I won't read through this thread, I'm sure it's all doom and gloom. Best to forget this game and concentrate on Monday, now.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

First half it was 60:40 in possesion for Soton and we are trying to play possesion football? The only two players that can do that are Mata and Hazard. Asul much Oscar is great talent, I dont understand why we.l bought him in first place? Alternative for Modric in DLP? Yeah right...

I wont go into pivot debate. Lamps is old and less mobile, Mikel needs someone else along (new Dlp, Rambo,...). Oscar is not a starter i this team. He is too weak to handle things required for his position. Moses wtf? His progress ended since he came from afcon. Marin should leave.

Buy DLP ala Moutinho, winger who can cross and add some speed and directness. Buy a striker. Lukakau? He aint gonna push us forward. Its fact. He isnt better than Ba and we know how Ba is doing.

[manpe 10,855]

The selection was fine actually, those kind of players should be winning clubs like Southampton 9 times out of 10. But it's not only down to players, the organization and tactics were shambles. I can't count how many times I buried my face in my palm seeing our midfielders (primarily Lampard) and defenders pumping the ball high and long... to who? We're supposed to be playing possession football, but how can you keep possession by lumping the ball to short and frail players? That is just, aarrgghhhh... It's clear as cloudless sky our midfield needs reinforcements, none of the players are good enough or fit the tactics we're trying to play. Our starters in midfield should ideally be rotational options at best. At about 60th minute in second half, when we were chasing the game, Soton had 60% of possession. This is just, I don't know.

If the team had more imagination, composure, organization and sense of what to do, we could have won comfortably. Any selection we put out should be enough against bloody relegation battlers, even without Mata. But looking at the movement and passing patterns, it's no surprise we're struggling against average sides. You add a bit of complacency and a clueless manager in the mix and you have the perfect recipe for a loss.

EDIT: One more observation. Did you notice how many quick breaks Soton had? A class team would have punished us much more than 2 times.

[didierforever 7,349]

What type of tactics were we playing with cech, ivanovic, lampard and terry pumping the ball anywhere foward anytime??

marin and moses were owned by clyne and shaw, everytime we gave them the ball it was like passing on a wall when the ball simply came back harder and southampton kept countering, plus both our fullbakcs had awful games. oscar played more as a 2nd striker than as a link up guy thus there being no connection whatsoever between our pivot guys and our forwards. the only option was to ping the ball ahead and hope for something to happen or pass on the wing and defend a soton counter. plus the soton pressing dint help us either and we were forced to long balls.

[didierforever 7,349]

now all i hope is that roman fires the bloody useless no-good FSW so that it fucks up his CV, the thing for which he fucked us up today...

please roman do something good... please...

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

It's obvious that Rafa's goals are different than Chelsea's. I used to think there was no point in sacking him, but appointing a manager just to play for the Premier League might make sense. Mata and Hazard need to be rotated like everyone else, but I'm sick of sitting our only two dangerous attacking players in the same game. The entire team was poor. Lampard and Mikel will get a lot of the blame because that's just where people have decided to lay it this year and while they were poor, but our front 4 was even worse than they were. No movement at all, lost possession easily, kept letting defenders catch up to them, and were beaten to almost every ball. Ivanovic and Terry were very at fault for the first goal, but aside from that actually played pretty well. Our fullbacks were also poor.

I've though Moses was looking like a future rotation player for Chelsea so far this year, but I'm not even sure he'll rise to that. He's been our worst fairly regular player by a fair margin this season. Maybe he needs to play regularly to improve, that's not unusual, but it's been a very poor first season with Chelsea.

[edetarod 2,155]

Have some perspective - we've still got a game in hand over Spurs and we've also got them at home.

that game looks like a nailed on defeat for me

they will knock us out of CL with AVB in our own backyard

some things are just written, and this one looks very much like it, you couldn't have set it up any better than this for them