Closed Real Madrid 3-1 Chelsea

[Stats 7,059]

I don't understand when people cry out that we need a striker when Lukaku can't get into the game. Obviously right now Rooney is a better player/striker than him however when you have the service Lukaku had yesterday it is always going to be hard. There is no proof to say Rooney would have scored. He would of dropped deep, sprayed a few passes, but looking back at yesterday I think any striker would struggle with the services put forward to them. He got himself into a few decent runs but could not get the ball as much as he wanted to.

When we played Barca at the Nou Camp two seasons ago and drew 2-2, did Drogba do much attacking wise? No, because service to him was not great and Barca dominated the possession. No Suarez or Rooney, or RVP would of miraculously got us goals yesterday. They are not superman. It stars from the midfield because even Rooney would have struggled yesterday.

[TrippingStep 336]

Oh well at least we're not making absurd comparisons in a discussion about football.

Pre-season is primarily about fitness (and yes systems etc). Lampard needs fitness. That's why he started. You're very welcome to disagree with what Jose Mourinho thinks is most important though.

(as for death row there's no evidence to suggest is acts as a deterrent or cuts costs in the penal system - in fact it has been shown to increase costs.....so no I don't understand why people support death row either. I just assume they're morons).

Death row is wrong because Justice can go wrong.

But in itself, it could be not that cruel. Like a bigger anesthesia where you don't wake up.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

First of all I think it was a nice way to get fit for our players, its just a preseason and Jose needed a tough one like this to really know the flaws of our players and team as a whole. I don't think he'll ignore the flaws of our team just because its a friendly.

We played well in the begining of the 2nd half till ivanovic let isco about 5 mins to pic out a cross to ronaldo. When KDB was moved back into the pivot and MvG was taken off, it became a disaster show lol.

But the flaws that we need to work on were too obvious,

1. we looked terrible with possesion. This didn't bother me too much because mata didn't play. He is the god of our possesion play. But what if he doesn't play because of a knock.

2. We were not good enough pressing madrid. We need to put pressure on bigger teams and stop being too respectful, if not for numerous tackles and interceptions from MVG we would have been even more dominated.

3. Hazard was not interested in the first half of the match, I like the spirit he brought in the begining of the 2nd half. But he needs a proper schooling from ramires on how to finish one on ones with the keeper. This is his second one on one miss this preseason.

4. The defence were not good enough, but I blame this on the overall pressing of the ball. Cahill needs to stop backing off players. This is how adebayor scored us last season the same backing off from him, he should watch how MVG and cole tackles the ball from people.

5. Torres has even better runs and link up play than lukaku. I know its just preseason but, which other chances does lukaku have to dispace torres from starting against the first 2 premier league teams.

6. KDB in the pivot was a failed test. Madrid ran over us like a steam roller when he was put there to replace MVG. He should stay higher up the pitch against big teams, we missed his incisive passing because of this.

7. I think peter cech should train on his kicks better, he almost never finds a chelsea player even though we had someone as big as lukaku upfront in there. There were some times he could pass to one of the full backs but once the two CBs are marked, the possesion is lost to madrid.

Positives that we could build on

1. Essiens long passing was impressive, I want essien and MVG/ramires to play the pivot. In the pivot, One strong passer and one box to box tackler is needed to keep the balance between possesion and defending. Two of the same kind is not good enough in a way: if there are two B2B, we would be terrible in possession and if there are two slow passers, we would be too open in the defence.

2. MVG is exactly the kind of tackler I hoped to see but his attacking play is actually limited

All in all, these are a few things noticed from the last match which we can work on

[Barbara 15,149]

Oh well at least we're not making absurd comparisons in a discussion about football.

Pre-season is primarily about fitness (and yes systems etc). Lampard needs fitness. That's why he started. You're very welcome to disagree with what Jose Mourinho thinks is most important though.

(as for death row there's no evidence to suggest is acts as a deterrent or cuts costs in the penal system - in fact it has been shown to increase costs.....so no I don't understand why people support death row either. I just assume they're morons).

it's a question of disagreement then, not of lack of logic. I could understand why some people think or behave in such way or make some decisions, but I can still disagree with their decisions.

I understand why he wants to improve Lampard's physical condition. I don't think it was the best plan of action to use him in the first half instead of the second. It's not like Lamps is our own 'Cristiano Ronaldo' and we have to add minutes to him to recover shape otherwise we might struggle against Hull City. So yeah, I think he could have used him in the second and then again against Roma and we could have tried a 4-3-3 formation that is much more likely to happen during the season than that one.

And the death row comment was the first thing that crossed my head (I didn't say it was the equivalent, just gave another example of understanding reasoning, but still disagreeing with it). It could be a person's cheating, it could a club like City thinking that buying everyone else and their mother is how football is made or how Florentino Peréz thinks that he proves how big Real Madrid is by spending millions every summer and buying what some consider the biggest names on football for the next years, too bad I didn't think someone would take a comparison behind a reasoning and bring the futile discussion of whether or not death row is good or not. So sorry for having not thought of better examples to show how someone can understand reasonings and still disagree with them. Now I took the time to reflect on what more basic things, are they better comparisons for you or should I put a little bit more of effort there?

Or we could talk about the real issue here, which is my opinion on the match. You let me know

[Milan 17,859]

Excellent pass, excellent first touch...but the finish. Still something to work on.

[bushman 2,043]

as I said in one of my first posts here, I don't think we need more than a good striker and a CB backup. It's not about signing new players, but giving time to Mourinho to work with those ones. We may even overcome the lack of those two additional players if they don't come as long as give the team and Mou time ro work.

We could bring whoever we wanted, in defence, DM, AM, and strikers, it doesn't mean the team would automatically change and start doing well what they've been collectively doing bad. There are plenty of individual issues (such as the space Cahill concedes while marking, Cech, defenders, and DM's raffling the long balls that are inaccurate and desperate, the way our promising and talented AM are positioned on the pitch and making their roles clear, etc...). So it's a few technical issues on some players and a lot of tactical issues collectively. Hiring an entire new team wouldn't solve if there isn't time for them to work.

As I posted previously, adding certain players could only help the team. To add a striker Rooney in this case what will it solve if there is no one to pass him deliver the ball to him ? Wasn´t Lukaku waiting for one decent pass last night ? Nothing came about.

Have I ever said hiring an entire new team ? No, I have not. Certainly, a creative midfielder could help. One that does not just kick the ball to nowhere land, as seen last night.

[Christacinto 137]

Well my opinion on this match is:

even the best striker in the world wouldn't have won us that game, the long balls going forward is a shit way to play, not effective and yeah, wich striker on this planet would you think could've handled himself against 4 of madrid's defense? don't see rooney for example make his way through that. the squad had other problems that first half other than not having a world class striker. I see all the fuzz about a better striker would solve all the problems, well we can have the best in the world out there and we still wouldn't have won that first half.

second half we started well, started playing our own game, nice few passes, less respect for the opposition and we had our second one coming until we got that asshole head in a good one in our own goal.

after that third goal it was over for me, feed fell off.

Can't say if that good start was because of the input of de bruyne and moses or the half time pep talk, certainly was not for torres to take credit for that.

it's a friendly, and if you look at what friendlies are for, this game was perfect imo.

it's strange to see how the result of a friendly turns out to be something that looks like a crisis here in these forums.

When the season starts and we crush hull city, we'll see it's just some fine tuning and the quality in the squad is well enough to start winning against a top opposition.

Completely agree on that. I just rewatched the game (yes, I'm slacking horribly at work today but couldn't care less) and the runs that Lukaku made in the opening 15 minutes

were really good imo. The problem was no one ever gave him the ball in the openings that were there. On a contrary, sloppy defensive triangular passing was opted.

I feel his animo went down after those non-reciprocated runs at the start, and his attitude became much more languid as the half passed on.

So yea, he had very few good touches but then again, he had very few touches. No way you can judge him on yesterday's performance, really.

Apart from the fact that this drop in energy after the 20 minutes shouldn't have happened, he did ok.

[Barbara 15,149]

Oh well at least we're not making absurd comparisons in a discussion about football.

Pre-season is primarily about fitness (and yes systems etc). Lampard needs fitness. That's why he started. You're very welcome to disagree with what Jose Mourinho thinks is most important though.

(as for death row there's no evidence to suggest is acts as a deterrent or cuts costs in the penal system - in fact it has been shown to increase costs.....so no I don't understand why people support death row either. I just assume they're morons).

I guess I know where the confusion came from... I never meant to say it's common sense to approve or disapprove death row. Sorry if that's what my bad punctuation led you to believe. Just to clarify I don't think it's common sense to approve or disapprove death taken by men I agree with euthanasia and with do-not-resuscitate decisions, disagree with death row, and agree with some abortion cases, and disagree with other. I guess the problem was the punctuation or the lack of better explanation. The common sense part I meant is disagreeing about something I understand the reasoning. Everyone can do that, and it lacks no logic.

[The only place to be 11,313]

it's a question of disagreement then, not of lack of logic. I could understand why some people think or behave in such way or make some decisions, but I can still disagree with their decisions.

I understand why he wants to improve Lampard's physical condition. I don't think it was the best plan of action to use him in the first half instead of the second. It's not like Lamps is our own 'Cristiano Ronaldo' and we have to add minutes to him to recover shape otherwise we might struggle against Hull City. So yeah, I think he could have used him in the second and then again against Roma and we could have tried a 4-3-3 formation that is much more likely to happen during the season than that one.

Lamps isn't our Ronaldo, but he is a member of the squad and I'd rather have one more player available against Hull then a victory against Real Madrid in pre-season. If the result was all that mattered then we could've parked the bus like we did against Barca and played negatively, but this was about getting minutes on the pitch and finding out about how the team reacts against different opposition.

We got knocked on our arse last night...and that's sometimes the best thing that can happen to a team. I'd take this type of lesson over an 8-1 win against Malaysia's best every day of the week. It's been a good pre-season.

[Stingray 9,441]

Plz .... no death row, bioethical stuff in here .... even to serve an argument.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Stingray

[Special Juan 27,439]

I'll just go and start the 'Jose sacked' thread

[bouletje 82]

That was a real pain to watch yesterday the long balls that were not even near a target once. Was a good test on the stamina of our back line tho first half no longer than 2 minutes without pressure...

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

it's a question of disagreement then, not of lack of logic. I could understand why some people think or behave in such way or make some decisions, but I can still disagree with their decisions.

I understand why he wants to improve Lampard's physical condition. I don't think it was the best plan of action to use him in the first half instead of the second. It's not like Lamps is our own 'Cristiano Ronaldo' and we have to add minutes to him to recover shape otherwise we might struggle against Hull City. So yeah, I think he could have used him in the second and then again against Roma and we could have tried a 4-3-3 formation that is much more likely to happen during the season than that one.

I agree with @the only place to be above who says that getting players fit is far more important than results in pre-season (not even debatable IMO) but I also want to say that we didn't lose because we played Lampard. He struggled early, but we didn't concede because of him and he was actually responsible for 3 very good chances (the pass to Lukaku, the penalty shout, and the shot he had saved.). De Bruyne and Moses had a really good first 10 minutes of the second half, but after that were completely useless. Why would they have done any better? In other words, 1) we would have lost even with another player starting 2) it doesn't matter.

[Barbara 15,149]

As I posted previously, adding certain players could only help the team. To add a striker Rooney in this case what will it solve if there is no one to pass him deliver the ball to him ? Wasn´t Lukaku waiting for one decent pass last night ? Nothing came about.

Have I ever said hiring an entire new team ? No, I have not. Certainly, a creative midfielder could help. One that does not just kick the ball to nowhere land, as seen last night.

the hiring an entire team was a figure of speech to illustrate that even we bring more players (1, 2, 3, 11) we may solve some problems, but there will still have others. I didn't plan to imply you meant we needed a new team. I think the problems are more about maturing this team and sharpening it rather than for example bringing a creative mf as you suggested

I think what we need is time and two adjustments. Like who for example?

Because I think we're good in the creative MF... it's the function they perform on the pitch and the zone they play that might take away some of their creativity.

[edetarod 2,155]

are our defenders aware of the fact that you're allowed to take the ball from players BEFORE they reach our penalty box?

[Drogzola 283]

When we actually decided to pass the ball and move off the ball we looked good. It just didn't happen often enough. MVG was great in defense and struggled a bit going forward.

[bushman 2,043]

the hiring an entire team was a figure of speech to illustrate that even we bring more players (1, 2, 3, 11) we may solve some problems, but there will still have others. I didn't plan to imply you meant we needed a new team. I think the problems are more about maturing this team and sharpening it rather than for example bringing a creative mf as you suggested

I think what we need is time and two adjustments. Like who for example?

Because I think we're good in the creative MF... it's the function they perform on the pitch and the zone they play that might take away some of their creativity.

Well, I hope you are correct to say maturing the team, but I doubt it. Wait & see.

I just thought, after seeing them last night, such an erratic passing, Real played with them at will for the first 15-20 minutes. I honestly don´t understand what Jose was trying last night. Poor Frankie, looked like a school boy out there. He had no business to start the game, I feel. Wasn´t ready, fitness wise.

[Milan 17,859]

Before the game -

José - 'We will try some new things, different combinations'

Including Lampard in the line up. It's just a friendly, against a top team but result is the last thing that matters.