Closed Stoke 3-2 Chelsea

[The_Flash 1,144]

Should have watched the Rangers today and saved myself forty quid. No surrender, lets keep fighting and get ready for the next one. Away form can only get better!

I was at the Rangers game (season ticket holder) it was not a bad performance, 3-0 but he rain was terrible, it was freezing

[remains of the day 564]

now even Stephen fucking Ireland scores against us

It was embarrassing enough giving Jozy Altidore his first league goal but for heaven's sake, Stephen Ireland?!? The only league goal he ever managed for Villa was against us. He's now scored 3 goals in the league, 2 of which was against us! Wonderful.

If we so much as give Chamakh even a sniff at our goal next weekend.... I might have to fight someone.

[LegenTerry 263]

go home, you're drunk

Sure soccer man

[TrippingStep 336]

Seems like we can't play three games in a row.

I think our big problem is that Terry and Cahill play much too deep wich means too much running to do for our midfielders when we lose the ball.

Against teams that let us have the ball, our central defenders should push a little bit higher, it's not like Stoke had speedy players upfront.

I would also like more one touch passing from the back. Yesterday there was often quite obvious pass for Cahill to play quickly but he was taking 5 touches and letting him a more difficult pass to play.

Against Newcastle and Stoke we lost because we let them too much space between our central defenders and midfield. Too easy for them to have outlets for their attack.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Seems like we can't play three games in a row.

I think our big problem is that Terry and Cahill play much too deep wich means too much running to do for our midfielders when we lose the ball.

Against teams that let us have the ball, our central defenders should push a little bit higher, it's not like Stoke had speedy players upfront.

I would also like more one touch passing from the back. Yesterday there was often quite obvious pass for Cahill to play quickly but he was taking 5 touches and letting him a more difficult pass to play.

Against Newcastle and Stoke we lost because we let them too much space between our central defenders and midfield. Too easy for them to have outlets for their attack.

Yeah, I was saying in the match day thread Luiz would've thrived in this game, the space they afforded our CBs was absolutely criminal.

[Jase 43,479]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x184z6x_reaction-mourinho-on-stoke-defeat_sport

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x184zhr_reaction-schurrle-on-stoke-defeat_sport?from_related=related.page.int.meta2-only.a35368e1ae8520726e0e2aa1455bf4b6138645295

[xnaed 17]

hard to believe that a Jose Mourinho team is leaking easy goals. Good reaction from Schurlle, but the senior players in the team really need to show leadership in a game of this sort. Those altercations of Azpi, Terry (with Shawcross, Walters and others) were unnecessary and stopped our momentum in the last minutes.

[dee25 1,044]

Yesterday there was often quite obvious pass for Cahill to play quickly but he was taking 5 touches and letting him a more difficult pass to play.

I noticed the same thing too. John terry is good at releasing the ball quickly, but Cahill is just so slow. I don't know why he feels like he has to take so many touches before making the simplest of passes.

Or sometimes he'll leave the defensive line and move up the pitch with the ball, but instead of moving the ball quickly he'll literally just stand there with the ball looking around! Eventually he ends up being pressed, he then panics and has to make a pass back to John terry or a hurried long ball. You're putting the team under unnecessary pressure. I know he's trying to help the attack but he either needs to make his decisions quicker or just stay in the defensive line.

[Ollie 4,400]

Waited until today to respond because i was so fucked off. After thinking about it, i've come to the conclusion that these matches happen every season and we will be here many more times but i still believe we'll be top by Jan 1. I've also come to the conclusion that we need Lukaku back and we need to sell Ramires. I admire Rami's work rate but his ball distribution is awful and he's not the level of player we need now imo. We need a Yaya Toure.

I knew at half time that it was gonna go wrong because of the way we dominated the first half and conceded such a horrible goal to go in level. I had hope when Shirley made it 2-2 but they were much more in our faces in the 2nd half and we seemed a bit fragile against it.

The Arsenal away game in a couple of weeks is gonna be the biggest match of the season so far. Arsenal have a really tough next few games for a change. They will drop points very soon so we must now capitalise after yesterdays shocker.

It's not all bad.

[ZOS 580]

gutted hazard, mata, schurlle were great up until our defenders decided to fuck it all up ...

• eto'o was mistake of the game,
• torres and ba are incompetent
• we still have an inferior quality in the midfield compared to most of the top 10 teams in the league... watched the manure vs new castle game where tiote, cisoco and cabaye run the show... I guess, I've forgotten what it felt like to have Ballack, a young Lampard, a fit Essien behind Drogba and Nico

let's hope everton will do us a favor tomorrow, up the chels :blue scalf:

[zolayes 14,489]

two players we have never been able to replace Carvalho and Ballack ,,my worry is Drogba will be the third

[Billy. 2,739]

I keep sticking up for Cech because all he has done for us, but he keeps making mistakes this season. i think next season we need to use Courtois because i also fear that we will lose him down the line if we do not start playing him.

[Tomo 21,681]

Didn't we try to sign Jores Okore? Was that just because he's young talent and another one to send on loan or were we actually looking for a CB? Knowing us, the latter.

Could do with someone like Vertonghen or Chiriches. Good, cheap CBs.

Vertonghen is probably the most over-rated CB i have ever seen in my life. The amount of times he gets caught on the wrong side of a striker is shocking, like against Villa when he had to resort to pulling a players short's down.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Waited until today to respond because i was so fucked off. After thinking about it, i've come to the conclusion that these matches happen every season and we will be here many more times but i still believe we'll be top by Jan 1. I've also come to the conclusion that we need Lukaku back and we need to sell Ramires. I admire Rami's work rate but his ball distribution is awful and he's not the level of player we need now imo. We need a Yaya Toure.

I knew at half time that it was gonna go wrong because of the way we dominated the first half and conceded such a horrible goal to go in level. I had hope when Shirley made it 2-2 but they were much more in our faces in the 2nd half and we seemed a bit fragile against it.

The Arsenal away game in a couple of weeks is gonna be the biggest match of the season so far. Arsenal have a really tough next few games for a change. They will drop points very soon so we must now capitalise after yesterdays shocker.

It's not all bad.

I noticed this too about ramires. He has great tackling, insane stamina, speed and 1 on 1 finishing. He is our best cm.

But his disadvantages makes him a far cry from people's best CM. He cant pass, too inconsistent at it, and he is too tiny to help us aerially.

Because he is our best CM, we cant even go out and buy small playmakers like verrati, modric or cabaye or pirlo to play beside him because it will render our pivot too physically weak.

But he is still our best CM because of his tackling rate.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Vertonghen is probably the most over-rated CB i have ever seen in my life. The amount of times he gets caught on the wrong side of a striker is shocking, like against Villa when he had to resort to pulling a players short's down.

Well according to the ref he's allowed to that!

[yuvala 2,167]

I noticed this too about ramires. He has great tackling, insane stamina, speed and 1 on 1 finishing. He is our best cm.

But his disadvantages makes him a far cry from people's best CM. He cant pass, too inconsistent at it, and he is too tiny to help us aerially.

Because he is our best CM, we cant even go out and buy small playmakers like verrati, modric or cabaye or pirlo to play beside him because it will render our pivot too physically weak.

But he is still our best CM because of his tackling rate.

Well he's not perfect, but he is very good. Put a world class Pirlo esque passer paired with him and we have a great pivot.

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

Waited until today to respond because i was so fucked off. After thinking about it, i've come to the conclusion that these matches happen every season and we will be here many more times but i still believe we'll be top by Jan 1. I've also come to the conclusion that we need Lukaku back and we need to sell Ramires. I admire Rami's work rate but his ball distribution is awful and he's not the level of player we need now imo. We need a Yaya Toure.

I knew at half time that it was gonna go wrong because of the way we dominated the first half and conceded such a horrible goal to go in level. I had hope when Shirley made it 2-2 but they were much more in our faces in the 2nd half and we seemed a bit fragile against it.

The Arsenal away game in a couple of weeks is gonna be the biggest match of the season so far. Arsenal have a really tough next few games for a change. They will drop points very soon so we must now capitalise after yesterdays shocker.

It's not all bad.

I also convince myself this is just those stupid gutted defeats which top teams are bound to take few times in a long season. I rather take it now than when we get into a white heat to challenge for the title.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Well he's not perfect, but he is very good. Put a world class Pirlo esque passer paired with him and we have a great pivot.

Thats another problem, because of ramires small size, mourinho will never buy a small CM like pirlo. It becomes too weak aerially, but if ramires had vidal's size or ballacks size, it will be easy.