Closed Newcastle 2-0 Chelsea

[Ollie 4,400]

Sorry guys i knew this would happen. We won 6 games in a row, they had a really bad couple of weeks so it was a home banker to me. We'll bounce back though, it will be the start of another great run so it's not all that bad. All runs have to come to an end.

We were awful. We'll be back.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Sometimes I feel I should rename this place OMFG-Overreaction.net.

Posted something along these lines elsewhere, and a more in-depth analyses can be found in my match report, but essentially Mourinho was not tactically raped by Pardew. Pardew utilised some very simple-but-effective tactics (essentially smash-and-grab, as we did against Barcelona in 2011/12) of playing on the counter after soaking up pressure, before committing to the attack and overloading the midfield. Mourinho's team selection was good enough, as far as I'm concerned - that team was good enough to win yesterday. Let down by particular players (Cole, Lampard and Luiz) looking completely out of their depth, and others (Mata, Oscar, Torres, Hazard) simply having an off-day. It happens. We'll smash the Baggies next weekend and we'll put this behind us. Just one of those games, stop trying to over-analyse it.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Forget Mata and his supposed weakness against physical teams, I'm not even sure this team in general can handle physical and direct teams. The minute Newcastle decided to take up that approach in the second half, we couldn't handle it. Like you said, we were then hopelessly losing the 50-50s and mindlessly diving into challenges thinking we can just simply nick the ball but never materialized (almost like how Luiz did with his kamikaze tackle/defending when he first came here). The players were hardly even committed or being strong enough when getting into challenges and tackles. Maybe this is just a one-off bad performance but looking at the game, I dread to think what would happen in our next away game against West Ham, a fixture where we got owned physically last season.

They just dominated us like how teams did to arsenal before.

Its bulshit looking for nice link up passes if we can be easily bullied like that.

Ramires had 1 tackle, lamps had 0, only terry and oscar put up a fight.

What the fuck, this is premier league not laliga. we have to fight for the points and not let 50/50 challenges go away.

This was the difference between madrid against dortmund in the first leg and 2nd leg. They gave lewandoski a friendly match in the first leg, Madrid started winning more tackles in the 2nd leg and won 2-0.

[Kunter 22]

I won´t single out players now, the whole team was not sharp enough.

The positive is that there are at least 9 positions in the the starting 11 for the taking! Let the competition beginn!

[Term-X 7,891]

[CHOULO19 24,332]

OMFG So you are a god as you claim to be!

Not surprising at all. For the whole week, everyone has been going crazy praising us for our last 3 wins. Odds of us winning the PL and CL getting slashed, etc etc. I was expecting this result and this performance.

While Jose has indeed gotten loads of things right this season, his continued insistence of the Lampard-Ramires partnership in midfield is absolutely bewildering. There has been no rotation whatsoever (in meaningful games). Everyone has their opinion on Mikel, but imo Mikel-Ramires provides much more balance and stability. Our pivot is nonexistent in too many of our games. The transition happens directly from defense to attack, bypassing the midfield. We're always looking and waiting for one of our attacking midfielders to start something. Lamps has still qualities to offer but no way should he be a guaranteed starter the way he is atm. He should have started less than half of the games he has. It's ridiculous. Now I'm looking to see whether Jose will play Lamps as a starter throughout the season or will he rotate others in.

Also, my opinion is that while Mata does have obvious deficiencies when compared to Oscar and Hazard in terms of defensive contribution, the other 2 seem to be untouchable even when they're underperforming. I think Hazard has been poor so far this season. By other player's standards, he has been average. But for a player of his potential and talent, it's a shame. Despite this, he is rarely benched or substituted. Same goes for Oscar. He's been class in many games, but when things don't seem to be working out, he can't get into the game at all. His presence is rendered completely useless and doesn't help the team.

I know you're married to Azpi, but will you marry me too?

[Phil Driver 503]

I feel there is this ethos at the club driven by Roman to play Barca football all the time ,this is very gracious and honourable BUT there are certain games at this time of the season in England when it is all about power and grit in our conditions ,the christmas period demands a differnet approach and is maybe why we tend to struggle and lose momentum at this time of year after a good start and then we always finish well , I feel at this time of the season we Jose needs to opt for power and strength rather than tippy tappy stuff .

I am not interested in what a certain player can do for an international team in the summer I want to someone who can handle our conditions in the winter especially away from home and at West Ham we will need to match them for power and running before we can play. Our three midget but very skillful AM's can't play together they are too lightweight and Cahill needs to partner Terry ,we need our winter players out there now ,Schurlle is another who needs to play. This is not the time for tippy tappy stuff ,yesterday was the warning and we should take it .

[kellzfresh 7,226]

[bushman 2,043]

What a beautiful Christmas tree I see above.

I would add bombastic Hazard on top as the shining star for Chelsea.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

well you agree to the fact that the best football still has to be brought, yet you disagree when I say something is still missing.

proof again that alot of comments here are read with only half a brain.

There's a difference between saying 'we haven't played our best football' and 'but in general, I haven't been satisfied with most of our games so far''

It doesn't take a master of linguistics to see that.

[The_Flash 1,144]

I think we have shown moments of genuis, and moments of WTF like yesterday. Hopefully we can bounce back from this shock defeat that is key. Look at both Arsenal and City we beat them, they beat other teams. We need to bounce back strong and really push on...to...victory

[The_Flash 1,144]

Your minion is great, love the fish

[remains of the day 564]

I think we have shown moments of genuis, and moments of WTF like yesterday. Hopefully we can bounce back from this shock defeat that is key. Look at both Arsenal and City we beat them, they beat other teams. We need to bounce back strong and really push on...to...victory

Absolutely. We didn't win the league last week when we beat Man City and we didn't lose it this week either. On to the next.

[Phil Driver 503]

Quote

"Of course I am worried," he said at his press conference. "This season we have played five matches away – all difficult places to go – but we only have one victory and two defeats from those games so of course that concerns me.

"We were lacking everything – it was a really bad performance from us. We were not even thinking aggressively.

"We had the space to play the ball forward and between the lines behind Yohan Cabaye and Cheikh Tiote. We could have hurt the opponent and all we were doing is playing the ball from side to side – always horizontal, never vertical. We were slow and not sharp enough to attack spaces.

"In previous years the same performances have happened - Chelsea have been successful in cups but not in the Premier League.

"They have been finishing 15 to 20 points behind and one year they qualified for Champions League because they won it but finished outside the top four. Last year in December they were not in the title race."

Mourinho likened his side’s first-half performance to a friendly match, and says he will take some time to analyse what went wrong before looking ahead to future matches.

He continued: "The result is a consequence of one team not being there. When that is the case, they normally lose – so that is my explanation for the result.

"I think the first half was very easy to play – lots of space, no real pressure from the opposition. But we were not aggressive with the ball and often lost it straight away. We were not pressing. We were too soft, not aggressive nor intense enough. We gave them 45 minutes of a friendly.

"We deserved to lose. Maybe they did not deserve to win but we definitely deserved to lose."

The Portuguese boss admitted before the game he had been finding it tough to pick a team given the strength of squad at his disposal and was asked afterwards if he felt he made the right choices at St James' Park.

Mourinho joked: "I made eleven mistakes. I should have picked the other eleven rather than this one! That is the feeling I have when my team has played so badly.

"Of course I am exaggerating and some players had some normal or good performances but my feeling after a defeat is that I made eleven wrong choices. Before I think about how we will react I have to try to understand why we performed this way in this match."

Jose Mourinho .

[OneMoSalah 8,619]

I feel there is this ethos at the club driven by Roman to play Barca football all the time ,this is very gracious and honourable BUT there are certain games at this time of the season in England when it is all about power and grit in our conditions ,the christmas period demands a differnet approach and is maybe why we tend to struggle and lose momentum at this time of year after a good start and then we always finish well , I feel at this time of the season we Jose needs to opt for power and strength rather than tippy tappy stuff .

I am not interested in what a certain player can do for an international team in the summer I want to someone who can handle our conditions in the winter especially away from home and at West Ham we will need to match them for power and running before we can play. Our three midget but very skillful AM's can't play together they are too lightweight and Cahill needs to partner Terry ,we need our winter players out there now ,Schurlle is another who needs to play. This is not the time for tippy tappy stuff ,yesterday was the warning and we should take it .

You forgot to mention how bad Lampard and Ramires were mate, they gave the ball away a lot yesterday. Torres didn't look too hungry either, well nobody did but still. Eto'o and Willian made more an impact than anyone that started and they play maybe 25-30 minutes.

[chelseafc9010 224]

Oscar was a fucking disgrace.

[Stingray 9,441]

I should rename this place OMFG-Overreaction.net

Lol. It would open opportunities :-) But the loss of Blue would be too hurtful, mate ....;

The gifs would be crazy though !! :-)

[The Skipper 20,593]

So we are now the worst team with the worst players according to some?

People need to relax, this stuff always happens in football. Remember, the PL is a marathon, not a sprint.