Closed Arsenal 0-0 Chelsea

[The Skipper 20,593]

If Jose put on another striker and we lost, how many here wouldn't have complained?

2 points off top is better than 5

Ifs and buts... I don't know about you but I expect more from my Chelsea. It's easy to hypothesise those sort of situations and to use them to justify that it was a great result but people are overstating how good the result was in my opinion. Regardless if Mourinho put on a striker or not, we still almost lost the game - if Giroud took his chance and if Azpi wasn't there on the line, it wouldn't have mattered whether Mou threw on an extra defender or not, they still created their best chances when he did. You really can't justify him bringing on another defender considering the fact that Arsenal's two best chances of the game came when he did do that. We were sort of lucky in that Giroud missed and that Azpi read the situation well and cleared off the line. It wasn't like we stopped Arsenal from creating when we threw on more defenders. It could've so easily been another result.

Only one defeat from the top 6 teams isn't bad. If we bring in the right players in Jan we could win the league.

Disagree. The top 6 should also be expanded to the 'top 8' considering Spurs and United are 7th and 8th respectively. If you wanted your statement to be accurate you'd say that we've lost twice to our top 6 opponents considering we also lost to Newcastle who are 6th in the table at the moment.

If we look at our results against the top 8 teams we've played so far:

Arsenal - 1 point

Newcastle - 0 points

City - 3 points

Tottenham - 1 point

Everton - 0 points

United - 1 point

That's 6 points from 6 games... 6 out of 18. That's not impressive at all in my opinion. I know most of them were away games still, but the only reason why we're still in it is because other teams have been pretty inconsistent as well. The league will be won by whichever team is the most consistent from now on. We obviously still have a great opportunity to do so since we're only 2 points off the top of the table but honestly the result isn't as magnificent as people are trying to make it seem - it was merely a decent result in my opinion.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Its not like I have anything anything against Luiz. The English duo seems to do a better job even though they provide very little to the attack with their feet. Luiz does have a sort of play-maker ability even from the center-back position but at the end of the day, he doesn't seem to do well at his job i.e to defend.

Nothing to do with Luiz even, it's just that if we're going to play defensive football with maximum protection in front of our back four then yeah, Terry and Cahill will shine because it suits their game - but we're not trying to play that sort of football regularly, especially against the smaller teams, at least I hope we're not.

[Sidzeret 2,257]

Nothing to do with Luiz even, it's just that if we're going to play defensive football with maximum protection in front of our back four then yeah, Terry and Cahill will shine because it suits their game - but we're not trying to play that sort of football regularly, especially against the smaller teams, at least I hope we're not.

Wondering what Luiz can do wrong when we have that much cover ahead of him. Cahill or Luiz- doesn't make much of a difference in that sort of set-up. On the contrary, Luiz could provide better long balls. and could complement the counter-attacks.

[LeonDavis23 371]

Mata would have scored ....

[Tomo 21,733]

- Why leave our player of the year on the bench all the time, even when we're playing bad?

This argument annoys me.

There is many valid reason's as to why Mata should play, but saying "he's the best player of the last two years" just doesn't wash with me.

Lampard was the best midfielder in the Premier League in 2009/2010, the following year he was below par and many wanted him to see less game time. Likewise with Malouda.

Also i believe if Rafa stayed he would have rotated Mata aswell with the option's we now have, his Liverpool teams always had a balance to it, for that reason alone Schurrle would have probably been Rafa's most used player if he stayed on, with the Mazacar rotating the other two spots.

[Tomo 21,733]

Ifs and buts... I don't know about you but I expect more from my Chelsea. It's easy to hypothesise those sort of situations and to use them to justify that it was a great result but people are overstating how good the result was in my opinion. Regardless if Mourinho put on a striker or not, we still almost lost the game - if Giroud took his chance and if Azpi wasn't there on the line, it wouldn't have mattered whether Mou threw on an extra defender or not, they still created their best chances when he did. You really can't justify him bringing on another defender considering the fact that Arsenal's two best chances of the game came when he did do that. We were sort of lucky in that Giroud missed and that Azpi read the situation well and cleared off the line. It wasn't like we stopped Arsenal from creating when we threw on more defenders. It could've so easily been another result.

Disagree. The top 6 should also be expanded to the 'top 8' considering Spurs and United are 7th and 8th respectively. If you wanted your statement to be accurate you'd say that we've lost twice to our top 6 opponents considering we also lost to Newcastle who are 6th in the table at the moment.

If we look at our results against the top 8 teams we've played so far:

Arsenal - 1 point

Newcastle - 0 points

City - 3 points

Tottenham - 1 point

Everton - 0 points

United - 1 point

That's 6 points from 6 games... 6 out of 18. That's not impressive at all in my opinion. I know most of them were away games still, but the only reason why we're still in it is because other teams have been pretty inconsistent as well. The league will be won by whichever team is the most consistent from now on. We obviously still have a great opportunity to do so since we're only 2 points off the top of the table but honestly the result isn't as magnificent as people are trying to make it seem - it was merely a decent result in my opinion.

If most of those games were at home you would be right. While we should have done better the general rule is to beat the home teams and get what you can away. So far we have played one big team at home, and won.

[guddy69 174]

http://woolwich1886.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/arsenal-0-0-chelsea-mourinho-you-stingy.html?m=1


All our players values hsve just gone up according to this. .

[WilliamTaylor 0]

Football Stats and Tactics has a Chelsea-focused tactical analysis on the draw against Arsenal.
Here is the link: http://www.footballstatsandtactics.com/2013/12/arsenal-0-0-chelsea-chelseas-midfield.html

Enjoy!

[manco 38]

This argument annoys me.

There is many valid reason's as to why Mata should play, but saying "he's the best player of the last two years" just doesn't wash with me.

Lampard was the best midfielder in the Premier League in 2009/2010, the following year he was below par and many wanted him to see less game time. Likewise with Malouda.

Also i believe if Rafa stayed he would have rotated Mata aswell with the option's we now have, his Liverpool teams always had a balance to it, for that reason alone Schurrle would have probably been Rafa's most used player if he stayed on, with the Mazacar rotating the other two spots.

Lamps and Malouda were in bad form. Mata was dropped with no reason.

[the Blues 11 19]

This was by far our best defensive performance of the season and yet there are people complaining that we didn't do enough. Our defense has been flat out awful for 2+ months and then we go away to Arse and give them nothing and yet many are not happy. Terry was a beast and Azpi put in a great shift. I would like to see more attacking but the side has nobody to punch the onion bag with any regularity, therefore we almost have to play more defensively.

We need a goal scoring striker and another center back for me. Azpi needs to be in the starting XI because his play has earned it.

[Owizzy 19]

Please. Can some one tell Ramires that football is not all about energy and charging without direction? Ramires' game lacks co-ordination and direction all he has going for him is his energy reserve. I wonder how Mourinho is gonna make an "Essien-like (when he was in form)" player out of Ramires.

We are still lacking the cohesiveness upfront; clearly the frontline have not chosen a tune that they all agree on. One is singing reggae while another is singing Opera.

I think Something drastic has to be done before we lose out from all races.

Or maybe we should decide on the David Luiz as an attacking midfielder option. It just might yield results.

Merry xmas all

[Owizzy 19]

Please. Can some one tell Ramires that football is not all about energy and charging without direction? Ramires' game lacks co-ordination and direction all he has going for him is his energy reserve. I wonder how Mourinho is gonna make an "Essien-like (when he was in form)" player out of Ramires.

We are still lacking the cohesiveness upfront; clearly the frontline have not chosen a tune that they all agree on. One is singing reggae while another is singing Opera.

I think Something drastic has to be done before we lose out from all races.

Or maybe we should decide on the David Luiz as an attacking midfielder option. It just might yield results.

Merry xmas all

[Ollie 4,400]

I was genuinely happy about the result but more happy with the way we stopped a team like Arsenal from playing. 4-3-3 is back, i love you Jose. It was a pretty easy game which we controlled and we created more than they did. And all this against Arsenal away. I don't think we'll win it this year i'll be honest but we will be there. In a couple of years we'll be complete.

[Barbara 15,149]

If most of those games were at home you would be right. While we should have done better the general rule is to beat the home teams and get what you can away. So far we have played one big team at home, and won.

The more I read the more I'm convinced even people who say they don't have much expectations about this team they do. Some say they don't expect results, titles and the end product right now, but they want us to win everything. They simply want us to win against the best 6 sides away and home as if it were that easy...

Given how unbalanced and how many deficiencies we do have in some areas I'm happily satisfied with our position at the table and overall results. There's a lot of improvement to be done in the team's football and Mourinho has made a few assessment mistakes imo and I hope he finally acknowledges we need better strikers and more quality in the midfield, but it still surprises me how impatient people really are despite everything. I can't for the life of me complain about a point away at arsenal bc that one point can make a difference in such a close league... why risk losing one point given our recent record of messing up in the end lately? How many in the top 6 beat arsenal at Emirates? How many even beat any top 6 teams away?

It's all ifs bc no one knows what would have happened if he kept hazard for example. Why are people so sure we would have scored in 20 minutes when we didn't in 70?

How are they keeping it realistic if they don't properly give the team time and have no patience? We aren't the end product yet, so there's no reason for Mourinho to take risks with a team that proved if anything it isn't reliable yet. I'll take that one point and Mourinho's supposedly coward approach, if that's how they call it.

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[The Skipper 20,593]

If most of those games were at home you would be right. While we should have done better the general rule is to beat the home teams and get what you can away. So far we have played one big team at home, and won.

We'll see at the end of the season, but I really think a few more points were up for grabs here and we failed in that aspect. I'm not saying I expect us to win those games in general but the response was more towards us being impressive in top 6/top 8 games when that is not true at all. We've been average.

[The Skipper 20,593]

The more I read the more I'm convinced even people who say they don't have much expectations about this team they do. Some say they don't expect results, titles and the end product right now, but they want us to win everything. They simply want us to win against the best 6 sides away and home as if it were that easy...

Given how unbalanced and how many deficiencies we do have in some areas I'm happily satisfied with our position at the table and overall results. There's a lot of improvement to be done in the team's football and Mourinho has made a few assessment mistakes imo and I hope he finally acknowledges we need better strikers and more quality in the midfield, but it still surprises me how impatient people really are despite everything. I can't for the life of me complain about a point away at arsenal bc that one point can make a difference in such a close league... why risk losing one point given our recent record of messing up in the end lately? How many in the top 6 beat arsenal at Emirates? How many even beat any top 6 teams away?

It's all ifs bc no one knows what would have happened if he kept hazard for example. Why are people so sure we would have scored in 20 minutes when we didn't in 70?

How are they keeping it realistic if they don't properly give the team time and have no patience? We aren't the end product yet, so there's no reason for Mourinho to take risks with a team that proved if anything it isn't reliable yet. I'll take that one point and Mourinho's supposedly coward approach, if that's how they call it.

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Yeah, we aren't the end product yet, I obviously understand that completely, and I understand that it takes a season or two for a project to really come to fruition. I have the patience for that. Heck, I can even wait 3 seasons for that as long as things are moving on in the right direction; but my main gripe is that it's been half a season now and it still looks like we don't have the foundations in place for what we are trying to do (in regards to our playing style) and it's not looking too promising so far. It doesn't look like we are trying to build an identity yet - it just looks like we're trying to grind out games for now, mis-utilising the players we have at disposal (the players we have and the supposed identity we're trying to build require a more universalism approach than specialist approach in my opinion, and I've seen a lot more of the former). Yeah, we're missing a few players here and there but that still doesn't really excuse it.

And no, I am not 'not happy' that we 'only' got a point at the Emirates, it's just people are overstating how amazing of a result it is IMO. I didn't expect us to go out guns blazing against the Gunners at all, I really liked Mourinho's (initial) approach to the game considering our recent performances and in that sense it was a decent result but it wasn't superb or amazing. Superb or amazing would've been beating them.

[Rmpr 8,977]

Should have gone for the win!

[Strike 7,250]

It's all ifs bc no one knows what would have happened if he kept hazard for example. Why are people so sure we would have scored in 20 minutes when we didn't in 70?

How are they keeping it realistic if they don't properly give the team time and have no patience? We aren't the end product yet, so there's no reason for Mourinho to take risks with a team that proved if anything it isn't reliable yet. I'll take that one point and Mourinho's supposedly coward approach, if that's how they call it.

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Ofcourse we don't know but it doesn't justify the decision to take him off! And I doubt anyone was saying Mourinho should take risks away at Arsenal but the substitutes did not have any impact. Hazard and Willian both off meant that the attack was disjointed for the last few minutes. Don't mean that he should have thrown on a striker and gone gung-ho for it. A point at Arsenal is good obviously and the performance was also fine but I didn't agree with Jose's subs in the game.