Closed Chelsea 1-0 Steaua Bucharest

[pgleo 90]

Went out of CL last year despite having scored most goals in grp stage by a team. Qualified this year with least no. of goals conceded by a team in grp stage. All positives. Expected a better performance though. Sometimes just wanna see us destroying a struggling team. Would be good for the team and the fans but I guess it ain't happening anytime soon. Ah well another clean sheet for Schwarzer !

[wiefisoichiro 12]

Cannot complain to the match. I am happy with this results and we get the first in the group stage. If we got second, *speechless*

[YouNameIt 1,511]

We need a proper striker.

[Starman60 1,343]

Yes, we won, yes we had a clean sheet, yes we topped the group. but we only seem to be firing on three cylinders. A solid win but not a great performance. We really need to kick on from here. Still need a striker......roll on January

[The_Flash 1,144]

A pretty slow and weak performances however once AGAIN it showed our horrendous lack of striking ability.

I was delighted to see Cole and Luiz playing, was brilliant.

Ah well onwards...

It was a win and we are top of the group.

[JamesGodfrey 87]

piss poor performance, felt sorry for the fans who payed to watch that, but we got the 3 points which was the main thing.

i'd rather we never got the russian team for the sake of the air miles the players have to do.

I would love to see king didier return home but olympiakos would be the kindest result.

ktbffh

[thekid9 418]

i would have been very annoyed had i paid to go to that one! horrendous display and we will get slaughtered if we play like that against bigger teams! BA was awful.

[oxfordblues 299]

just got home from the most boring game i have been to.in all my years of going to chelsea this game just didn`t get started,the crowd was restless and unsettled.

[bababoom 4,478]

Our midfield was god awful at times, Lampard and Mikel both constantly struggle to pass FORWARD. I had to laugh when our Midfield and defence was playing keep ball and than suddenly Oscar ran back, received the ball and showed both Mikel and Lampard how to pass forward.

Tonight the Lampard lovers cant slate Mikel for being too conservative when Lampard was the exact same.

[Laylabelle 9,403]

just got home from the most boring game i have been to.in all my years of going to chelsea this game just didn`t get started,the crowd was restless and unsettled.

You know its bad when the linesmen exercising get the crowd going.Even the away fans were less jumpy then usual

[Blue Warrior 109]

Lets play crap and keep grinding out results. Would love to swap an attacking midfielder for a striker of note.

[Hutcho 8,443]

Top!

[zolayes 14,489]

We need a proper striker.

atm our best option must be Schurrle or bring back Bamford ( joking about him ....................I think )

[DJames 729]

Who said top of the table boring match but again top of the table we in! Bring on the draw! Sucky performance for local supporters though

[bluesman2610 1,362]

Since this was probably the last time I saw KDB play in a CFC-shirt I made him my MOM. Yes it was ME!!

While I still could (wanted to have done it at least once)

I actually thought he was pretty good for not getting much game time.. that ball to Hazard was delicious

[Alan Partridge 1,124]

Our midfield was god awful at times, Lampard and Mikel both constantly struggle to pass FORWARD. I had to laugh when our Midfield and defence was playing keep ball and than suddenly Oscar ran back, received the ball and showed both Mikel and Lampard how to pass forward.

Tonight the Lampard lovers cant slate Mikel for being too conservative when Lampard was the exact same.

Yeah, Cole loves a sideways/backwards pass too.

Although he misplaced a few, Luiz was always looking to make a forward pass.

I personally would still have him in the midfield for some matches. Mikel can only break up play and Lampard is a pedestrian when playing deep.

[Barbara 15,149]

I think there are two sides of the coin... or two ways to see the glass and there isn't a right or wrong way. There are positives and negatives and both should be addressed imo.

Positive

- best defense in UCL

- top of the group

- escaped the more challenging sides in 1/8s

- a clean sheet

- a clean sheet against a crappy side attack - which is progress when we conceded three goals to each of the two worst scoring sides in EPL

Negative

- our pivot still sucks

- our strikers still suck (the goals Ba missed today and how he never ceases to find himself offside drives me crazier than Fernando missing the obvious sitter)

- we still have no pattern

- we have no effective CAM atm

We have two wingers playing very well (I just read a very harsh post on André - I mean, I didn't read it because I couldn't get past the first two lines. WTF? He was LIVELY in a second half we looked like a team of zombies!!!!), but none of the guys who can play CAM (Oscar, Mata and Willian) are particularly shining at the moment. Willian was my MOTM and two weeks ago I was saying my AM would be him + 2, but we can't forget (and he reminded me that in the EPL match and today too) he's in transition from Russia to English football, so he will oscillate and he's had. The flair, the class, the objectiveness and vision are all there, but sometimes he fails in execution (he had great passes today, such as the through ball he passed to Ba - who missed it, ofc, but he still missed a few passes that weren't that difficult). So while I think the 30M will pay off with time even if we're overcrowded in the position (imo he is better than de Bruyne - as he should, for he's older and more experienced - and I think once he hits form and completely adapts here, he's also more incisive than Oscar and faster than Mata, offering something completely different to them, which gives us more options depending on the opposition, and he's class), I think he'll fluctuate especially because his adaptation process is detracted by the amount of matches he plays. Hazard and Oscar had considerable quick adaptations because they'd played a lot last season, it sort of forces the process to speed up). Oscar is a couple of steps down from his start of the season and Mata is still very far from the creative player he was two seasons and his stats show that. They aren't awfully bad, but they aren't at the same level as Eden or André...

David Luiz is a breath of fresh air. Yes, he'll make mistakes. But it's refreshing to see a CB anticipating balls, literally throwing himself into balls like he did today whereas other defenders (not only Cahill) would rather wait, watch, and hopefully guess the opponent's move and block the shot/pass instead of taking a risk to attack the opponent. I know some people don't like the style (or Luiz), but I do and I think he's had a very good match, even if he wasn't that much tested by Steaua, still he was there doing his thing and it made me happy.

Oscar didn't impress at all. Ba is still terrible. Schwarzer wasn't tested, but I'm happy he had his UCL debut. A pivot with Mikel and Lamps can be hurtful to watch, but Rami needed a rest and if there was a match where a Mikel + Lamps pivot with all limitations the combination of the two brings wouldn't jeopardize the result was today, so I can live with that. Hazard continues to play very well and so does André imo. Cole wasn't missed at all, I'd rather have a confused and out-of-place Azpili over current-Cole every day of the week, although I wish Bertrand actually had a chance (against weaker sides) and Azpili had a chance to play on his original position. Ivan still can't cross for life, but that header should have gone in.

So I'm happy with the outcome, but not with the means we've reached that. But still, I guess we've been lucky with UCL since the start (the group itself, losing to Basel, but seeing Basel going to Europa League instead - and therefore preventing to get them again down the road, now a considerable easier team in 1/8 when a lot of good sides qualified, finishing first, etc), so maybe despite our struggles we may go deeper than I've expected because at least in UCL luck seems to be working our way and I believe that while we aren't favorites to win it, we can knock out any opposition - even Bayern, Barça and RM - because that's the thing about UCL knock-out stage, the unexpected can happen. ManCity and Arsenal - who are in good moments - can draw one of the big three aforementioned and who knows, they can knock them out too. City did win - with a mixed team - against Bayern. So I hope things keep working our way even when we haven't been delivering well enough to earn them. Also I think it's very realistic to expect us to be performing better two months from now when UCL resumes. It's natural for this team to progress and I hope it does.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Well... wasn't expecting it to be a cake walk when I saw the lineup. Oscar, Luiz, Willian and Cole haven't played for various reasons and Mikel and Lampard in the pivot was always gonna mean slow build up.

The combination of Cole, Terry, Mikel, Ivanovic, Lampard make slow boring football; none of them move the ball quickly enough for us to make incisions in the defense. Today was a perfect example of why we should experiment with one of our attacking players in the pivot...DeBruyne or Oscar for me, perhaps Willian. We just don't have the types of players who think the game fast and can control/dictate a tempo