Closed Sunderland 2-1 Chelsea

[Ainsley Harriott 2,732]

Yeah man - those were great days

I'm sick of this 4-2-3-1 formation

PLEASE CAN IT FUCK OFF AND TRY 4-4-2 instead or even 3-5-2

Something - FOR 3 FUCKING YEARS I HAVE BEEN SICK OF THAT DOUBLE FUCKING PIVOT

Hard to play two strikers when you have none lolol

[Yeboii 1,844]

William was brilliant.

Schurle was more interested in proving a point than helping the team.

The Bruyne was really bad, the definition of a killing attack machine.

Essien is a former footballer.

Mourinho keeps paying the price for playing Lampard as a DM.

Cole still needs to find his old form.

Hazard was fuckin awfull. Played for 40 minutes and was useless at best.

Its WilliaN*

[remains of the day 564]

I'm curious as to whether Jose is saying some of these things to purposely lessen the pressure on the players and the club, or whether he really believes it.

Was hoping that someone would raise this point. We've now had a few of these type of losses and each time Jose's response has been the same, "we played fantastic football, very creative, very dynamic but we couldn't finish our chances". I don't buy that for a second and we're kidding ourselves if we think that this is what Jose actually believes. There's no denying that we need a top class striker. I think we all agree on that. However there's also no denying that in the past few seasons we've been unable to protect leads, even 2 goal leads. Last season we gave up a 2 goal lead against southampton at home, we gave up a 2 goal lead against Reading (a team now in a lower division) and for the most part, the same thing has been happening this season. So is the issue truly that we're unable to convert our chances? Or is it that the team is unable to cope when the opponent raises the tempo to the point where they collapse into a shambolic mess?

The worry for me is that the team can't control games and that's a big problem. Of course, Jose is hardly going to come out and say that - instead he'll frame it as a problem of 'profligacy' which sounds a lot more 'fixable.'

[obiwan92 217]

Some players are past their prime.

Some serious investment would be good. But that was definitely not our A side.

[wilander 35]

Should one of Essien or Mikel leave in the next January and buy fit DMC?

[The Skipper 20,593]

Glad I didn't see this game, sounds like it was horrible...

[xPetrCechx 13,565]

[Special Juan 27,602]

Should one of Essien or Mikel leave in the next January and buy fit DMC?

both sooner rather than later, fetch Nathaniel back and buy someone capable for that position.

[Billy. 2,742]

All gutless apart from WIllian.

Arsenal will batter us on Monday if we dont sort it out quick time.

[wilander 35]

both sooner rather than later, fetch Nathaniel back and buy someone capable for that position.

However, both seem not want to leave, as Malouda last year.

[xPetrCechx 13,565]

Shame...

And at 88/119 minutes... disgrace.

[Soul Caliber X 27]

I stayed up from 1 am to watch this and for what? bleh. Willian was the only one who seemed to care, he played really well and ran all game, I think Mikel had one of his better games. What now Mourinho? come on, change it up. This team needs a kick up it's backside.

[Special Juan 27,602]

I stayed up from 1 am to watch this and for what? bleh. Willian was the only one who seemed to care, he played really well and ran all game, I think Mikel had one of his better games. What now Mourinho? come on, change it up. This team needs a kick up it's backside.

Nothing will change until we get a striker who is clinical and we get a midfielder who can dictate a game.

[Soul Caliber X 27]

Nothing will change until we get a striker who is clinical and we get a midfielder who can dictate a game.

Yeah and it's not like this problem just emerged, it's been there for a while now, you'd think that we would have bought a player to fill that gap by now, but no we just keep buying AM's.

[We Hate Scouse 10,291]

Really annoyed me at the end of the 90 minutes, injury time, with about 2 minutes left to play the back 4 passing the ball about and Lampard not running after the ball. Have some fucking urgency it's like they wanted it to go to extra time.

It also annoys me when we pass the ball between our attacking players 30 yards out from the left wing to the right wing and back again doing absolutely nothing with it. Yeah it looks good and gives us higher possession but we're not getting the ball in and scoring there's absolutely no end product from anybody, not just the strikers.

[mac.bo 48]

Ffs Jose stop watching with blue tinted eyes,most of these loses we our playing average,bring Mata back our most creative player and get the best out of him,again we need another world class cm at his peak or two" 23-27" in January.A.Cole;Essien,Lampard,Ba,Eto,,i'd let go at end of season for Cfc loaness/world class replacements,not sure with Kdb&Mikel also

[mac.bo 48]

Really annoyed me at the end of the 90 minutes, injury time, with about 2 minutes left to play the back 4 passing the ball about and Lampard not running after the ball. Have some fucking urgency it's like they wanted it to go to extra time.

It also annoys me when we pass the ball between our attacking players 30 yards out from the left wing to the right wing and back again doing absolutely nothing with it. Yeah it looks good and gives us higher possession but we're not getting the ball in and scoring there's absolutely no end product from anybody, not just the strikers.

All these games dosnt help to kill games when our most creative player Mata either dosnt play or is played out of position ffs Jose check out Mata last year he was up there with Bale ! Imho he does enough without the ball but concentrate what he can do with the ball bustmyballsfc.Bring on the Arseholes&scousers gu gu gu

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Glad I didn't see this game, sounds like it was horrible...

Actually most of this doom and gloom is because of the manner in which we lost: a goal in the 89th minute and another in the 118th. But for the first 80 minutes, the overall team performances was rather good. Yes, we were just terrible in the final third from the start till the final whistle, but the team was recovering the ball excellently. The front four would press Sunderland's defense and force them to the side of the pitch and then Mikel would step in and cut out the hurried pass to midfield or Luiz would win the long ball to the isolated striker. We did that countless times in the first half. Till the 40th minute, Sunderland never had the ball once in our final third and I remember reading the possession at HT was something 80% to 20%! The issue in the first half is that the front four were very sloppy and dire on the ball and missed all the chances despite often outnumbering the Sunderland defense.

In the second half, we started well with Frank forcing and OG with an instinctive run and a great cross from Azpi. After the goal Sunderland crumbled and we had several chances to kill the game off which we are all missed by Eto'o. One of them I started celebrating before he took the shot because I thought there was no way he would miss that, but boy did he prove me wrong. Worse is that he even had Schurrle on his left and could have passed to him to put it in the empty net. After Azpi's injury our attacks started to decrease because we had no width at all. Starting from around the 80th minute, our players felt like the game was already won and our front four just stopped pressing the opposition and we were practically defending 8vs11. Two combined mistakes by Eissien (came on for Azpi at RB) and Cahill and we conceded two goals. Mark kept us alive in the second half of extra time with some excellent saves.

There, now you've watched the match and can join in with all the doom and gloom