Closed Stoke 3-2 Chelsea

[didierforever 7,349]

once again, free flowing football is not equal to good football and wins. chances come and go, and we had to pay for all those missed oppurtunities. on the other hand, we made one mistake and stoke made us pay. some very poor football from the defenders especially in the first half, and probably the first time and jose's subs worked against him than for him.

cech - for me cech cost us the game. stoke were beyond poor and dint have a sniff but that hopeless, horrendous decision to come for the ball and then get caught in the no man's land gave them exactly what they wanted. its not the 1st time this season that cech has screwed up. a look in for schwarzer. 3/10

azpi - very poor. got owned by walters. every time stoke attacked down the left flank, it seemed they would score. probably one of his worst performances. 4/10

JT - was probably the only defender who could say, "i dint screw up". even though even he let stoke players turn him inside out a couple of times. definitely needs a rest. 7/10

GC - had a brilliant first half and then everything went downhill. crouch was his man in the corners. could have and should have done better for the 1st and 2nd goal. 5/10

iva - let assaidi go inside him very easily. crossing was poor and was almost a brake to our free flowing football whenever the ball went on the right wing and touched his feet. tried to create something by going inside muniesa but simply ended up losing the ball. 6/10

rambo - should have scored atleast one, could have scored 3. poor finishing and another player who looked fatigued at the end of the match. need a rest. kdb in the pivot against bucuresti. 6/10

mikel - was quite good today. dint let stoke have a sniff for 42 minutes. broke endless attacks and even did his share in the attack. was very suprised when he came off. poor decision by mou. 8/10

schurrle - the only positive of today. from the 1st minute it looked like he would score. workrate was out-of-the-world. if only his shot hitting the bar had gone in. 9/10

mata - brilliant link-up play. central to some phenomenal football. its not suprising that we have played some smooth football when he is on the pitch. but somehow we tend to concede more too. 8/10

hazard- was not involved in the goals but had a good match. his final delivery could have been better a couple of times. and why he dint take a shot another couple of times is beyond me. 8/10

torres - should have scored. those 2 hazard thru balls may have a little late in coming but anyone of rooney, rvp, aguero, negredo would have scored. his instinct if finished. 6/10

subs -

BA - very uninfluential. could not pose a real threat to the stoke goal. 5/10

lamps - was decent when he came on. linked up well with mata and hazard to create half chances but sadly we could not take any. 7/10

etoo- abysmall. what a poor decision to take him on and take schurrle off. jose got it hopelessly wrong. 2/10

in the end, it was the fair result. if u dont take your chances at this level of football, u will end up miserable. well played to STOKE, though!!!

[bushman 2,043]

Today´s performance was fine especially in the 1st half. Those clear chances, must be converted & everything is fine. How many goals Ramires should have scored today ? I´d say, at least two. The team is coming on just fine, but Ramires, Eto´o Torres must convert otherwise the other team comes down every 5 minutes & Cech let an easy goal in, like today.

[robsblubot 3,595]

This was NOT a strange game! It was very similar to the last one.

Keeping the football, having ball possession doesn't make you "play beautiful" football - there is nothing beautiful about the way Spain play to me. What possession really gives you is yet another way to defend! Your opponent cannot hurt you without the football. We've not been able to keep the football for a number of reasons and Mourinho's line up and tactics are also to blame.

TorontoChelsea, good points, but I disagree on dribbling: Brazil have won 5 WC and do very well in the WC for many years using dribbling as their main weapon. Actually in every time Brazil won the world cup, they had an "unstoppable" player in the starting XI. There is certainly more to it, and you still need to produce the finishing after a successful dribble. However, beating a man when things are tight can be massive.

Back to reality though, Mourinho is being disingenuous as usual when speaking of the goals we did not score. A good reporter who did not mind having his head bitten off, would have asked, "how many goals do Chelsea need to score to win a match?" After such question Jose would surely storm out though.

[remains of the day 564]

I know people are disappointed and rightly so. But my two cents? This loss isn't going to decide the title, there's still so many more games to be played and so many more twists and turns that will inevitably happen. So everyone, chill. Secondly even if we don't win the league, I won't be losing much sleep. The team is in bad shape, as in their struggling with the most basic things. It's been like that for a while now and I don't even feel it's something you can attribute to one or two players or even something that can immediately be solved by throwing more money at the problem. I think the priority right now should be to stick with the manager and allow him enough time to instill a structure, implement a system and get his ideas across to these players. This will probably be Jose's hardest job because his predecessors have taken the short cut and while that approach has brought in trophies in the short term however it's not sustainable and has left the team in kind of a mess. If by the end of the season we don't win the league but have managed to re-build a strong team structure while still remaining in touching distance from the top then I'll be thrilled, because at least then there's progress and a good foundation to build upon for next season.

[robsblubot 3,595]

once again, free flowing football is not equal to good football and wins. chances come and go, and we had to pay for all those missed oppurtunities. on the other hand, we made one mistake and stoke made us pay. some very poor football from the defenders especially in the first half, and probably the first time and jose's subs worked against him than for him.

cech - for me cech cost us the game. stoke were beyond poor and dint have a sniff but that hopeless, horrendous decision to come for the ball and then get caught in the no man's land gave them exactly what they wanted. its not the 1st time this season that cech has screwed up. a look in for schwarzer. 3/10

azpi - very poor. got owned by walters. every time stoke attacked down the left flank, it seemed they would score. probably one of his worst performances. 4/10

JT - was probably the only defender who could say, "i dint screw up". even though even he let stoke players turn him inside out a couple of times. definitely needs a rest. 7/10

GC - had a brilliant first half and then everything went downhill. crouch was his man in the corners. could have and should have done better for the 1st and 2nd goal. 5/10

iva - let assaidi go inside him very easily. crossing was poor and was almost a brake to our free flowing football whenever the ball went on the right wing and touched his feet. tried to create something by going inside muniesa but simply ended up losing the ball. 6/10

rambo - should have scored atleast one, could have scored 3. poor finishing and another player who looked fatigued at the end of the match. need a rest. kdb in the pivot against bucuresti. 6/10

mikel - was quite good today. dint let stoke have a sniff for 42 minutes. broke endless attacks and even did his share in the attack. was very suprised when he came off. poor decision by mou. 8/10

schurrle - the only positive of today. from the 1st minute it looked like he would score. workrate was out-of-the-world. if only his shot hitting the bar had gone in. 9/10

mata - brilliant link-up play. central to some phenomenal football. its not suprising that we have played some smooth football when he is on the pitch. but somehow we tend to concede more too. 8/10

hazard- was not involved in the goals but had a good match. his final delivery could have been better a couple of times. and why he dint take a shot another couple of times is beyond me. 8/10

torres - should have scored. those 2 hazard thru balls may have a little late in coming but anyone of rooney, rvp, aguero, negredo would have scored. his instinct if finished. 6/10

subs -

BA - very uninfluential. could not pose a real threat to the stoke goal. 5/10

lamps - was decent when he came on. linked up well with mata and hazard to create half chances but sadly we could not take any. 7/10

etoo- abysmall. what a poor decision to take him on and take schurrle off. jose got it hopelessly wrong. 2/10

in the end, it was the fair result. if u dont take your chances at this level of football, u will end up miserable. well played to STOKE, though!!!

Agree with almost everything just unsure about Mikel. I also though he was good, but then when under pressure he kinda of vanished. I wanted him to become more assertive as we lost control of the match, but he wasn't. Still not a bad performance.

[Roquila 1,335]

The truth is: Arsenal will win the league this season. Lets accept the fact that this is a "transition" season (another one)...

Ye, the 5th transition season in a row?

[Mouri_Matic 560]

Ye, the 5th transition season in a row?

Ever since that 09-10 title? lol. This is not transition, it is just pure shit season partly down to the shit transfer management. When you have a guy pretending to be a football player, a dude with a dodgy knee who can't run to save his life and a former world class player who just came out of retirement in Russia then you are in trouble.

Now the only way to justify this is by signing a top class striker.

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

Today´s performance was fine especially in the 1st half. Those clear chances, must be converted & everything is fine. How many goals Ramires should have scored today ? I´d say, at least two. The team is coming on just fine, but Ramires, Eto´o Torres must convert otherwise the other team comes down every 5 minutes & Cech let an easy goal in, like today.

It's not fine, especially the 1st half.

We set ourselves up a land mine after how we trolling around in the 1st half. No desire to score more goals whatsoever.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

This league is anyone's currently. We just need to beat Palace and Arsenal and see where we are at come January time. I really thought we could get a 100% december too.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Ever since that 09-10 title? lol. This is not transition, it is just pure shit season partly down to the shit transfer management. When you have a guy pretending to be a football player, a dude with a dodgy knee who can't run to save his life and a former world class player who just came out of retirement in Russia then you are in trouble.

Now the only way to justify this is by signing a top class striker.

Yeah because not scoring goals is our problem at the moment right...

[Beirut_Blues 306]

We WILL regret this.

Lets just hope we dont...

Other teams will have their downs as well...hopefully.

[Hutcho 8,443]

And some can't be blinded by tinted glasses.

Well thats fine. You can have your "Everything is terrible and mourinho sucks " attitude and i can have my optimistic attidude.

[standup 28]

We're not going to win anything with the strikers we have and the defence is too vulnerable at set pieces. Torres after his injury has gone back to his woeful early form and Ba and Eto'o aren't up to it. Too casual in first half when we were in control. The title is there for the taking but sadly I don't think it will be us. We can't seem to put a run together. Just hope the Goons don't win it. Anyone but them!!!

[Laylabelle 9,434]

Hard to have a decent transition season when we keep chopping Managers...today was just a disaster..Weds could've been the same

Need to sort everything out at the moment tough run coming up and Arsenal so far dont look like a team capable of dropping points

[The Skipper 20,593]

We're not going to win anything with the strikers we have and the defence is too vulnerable at set pieces.

I really wish people would stop saying this.

We scored 9 goals in the last 3 games - granted not many of them by our strikers but the main problem we are having right now is our defence being too vulnerable.

I agree having a top class striker would definitely help the situation but we should not be conceding 3 goals against teams like Sunderland and Stoke, sorry. That's the main problem right now.

[bluephoenix 1,126]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1nMvXSLChQ

[bushman 2,043]

It's not fine, especially the 1st half.

We set ourselves up a land mine after how we trolling around in the 1st half. No desire to score more goals whatsoever.

No desire to score more goals...? Dah ?

Selfish, stupid decisions by Ramires were made. Had he passed the ball to clearly freed player, 2-3 zip for Chelsea, the game is over.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

I agree having a top class striker would definitely help the situation but we should not be conceding 3 goals against teams like Sunderland and Stoke, sorry. That's the main problem right now.

It was very strange both on Wednesday and today. If you look at their goals: first is a blunder by Cech, what is he doing there I really can't tell, its a lack of concentration.

Second one, there is a clear faul by Walters on Dave (who underperformed today but people will still blame Ivanovic probably), after that they have an extra man upfront and its just a wonderful left-footed finish from Ireland. Third one, Eto'o losses the ball (like he did with every single touch today), counter-attack and Assaidi is one on one and scores a beauty that really is difficult to defend against.