Closed Galatasaray 1-1 Chelsea

[couris 232]

Completely toothless match by a team that seemed completely out of it.

The only positive I have from this match is Azpili having a great first half and Schurrle doing well with the minutes he was given. Everything else is a big disappointment and while the 1x1 isn't a bad result when you look at the great scheme of things, there's no way we shouldn't have left with a victory by at least three goals. But we never really wanted it, or we never really worked for it. Our inability to complete the final pass and our attackers being completely uninspired was hard to endure.

Which is why I can't be too mad at Mourinho for bringing bloddyMikel - especially to substitute our best attacker... How can you trust a team like this? In all honesty, I just can't and I think he doesn't either. He realized we were a fuckery fest, and decided that 1-1 was better than losing the match. His RM scored 6 on this team last year, so it's not like Mourinho is always conservative and looking for away draws, it's just this Chelsea isn't reliable, end of it. We can play like the top dogs in one match (City for EPL) and then as a second level team in the next. This team lacks consistency and then people think when Mourinho says we aren't ready he's playing mind games. I do hope we win EPL, but if we do, it just shows what a master of a manager we have and how ball-less and inoffensive Arsenal and Liverpool have become - even if EPL is the best league in the world (as I'm heavily implying if we win the title it'll be with a half-decent team, but with a magnificent manager, which proves our point that Mourinho - or someone of his caliber - is what we've missed the most since Carlo left).

City has a new manager just like we do and although they have much better players (in the attack), they also have a busy schedule and not so much depth in some positions, so while they're the favorites, they may suffer from the huge amount of games they're playing (although I suppose they might exit Champions League in the R16).

Now back to us and UCL... in theory a 1x1 away is a very good result, but seeing how unreliable and how bipolar this team is, I'm actually not so sure we'll make through R8. If we show this quality in SB - and let's not fool ourselves, we had some very poor matches at home this season too and scrapped some wins and draws while looking bad - I'm afraid we'll lose. It's not like I bother too much by it, I love UCL, but I'm not obsessed by it... But the danger is because they actually have a decent attack that was completely uninspired today. Gala sucks monkey ball, all of us can testify that after tonight, but they have very decent attackers and if we don't show up again, we'll be trading with our luck - which I don't know if it's that bad. Two less week-games for us could actually help us with the EPL title, and while I don't like to lose and I think we should beat Gala and go into quarters, if we don't it might a blessing in disguise.

What is no blessing is how this team is still very much heartless and powerless from time to time and while that was okay for the first few months, I do wonder if we'll really be that strong comes next season if we don't improve considerably. Our main problem is strikers, and I believe Mourinho gave the directors an ultimatum and we'll get better strikers - or at least one good striker and recalling Lukaku. Matic makes wonders to our midfield (I don't even want to comment on Rami-Lamps tonight), but in matches like today's when Torres was decent and the pivot wasn't good, but didn't compromise , it feels we lack attitude and a winning spirit. I don't know what are the mechanics of changing players into winners, but I hope Mourinho does. He's done it in the past, but we'd never know if he just awoke natural winners, or if he really changed regulars players into winners thirsty blood suckers... I'm yet to figure out what kind of profile of players we have, but some of them don't scream winner attitude for me.

The problem right now is Willian-Oscar-Ramires. 0 offensive output. Stop protecting your brazilians

[Barbara 15,149]

The problem right now is Willian-Oscar-Ramires. 0 offensive output. Stop protecting your brazilians

that's precious, sweetheart, because I'm one of Ramires biggest criticizers in the forum and I get criticized on my dislike for him a lot. I just said I don't know if Willian has the winner spirit in him and I admitted in many posts that Oscar's been poor, what's your point really, lovely?

Come back when you have something useful or substantial to say. *rolls eyes*

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Nothing like a good Minerology exam to calm yourself. Okay, I might have been over the top with my criticism of that second half performance, but I'm worried. How is it that we can't at least dominate possession for a fairly decisive period in the game? I was really disappointed to see Cech hoof the ball long to oblivion time and time again. We constantly put ourselves under pressure. When are we going to learn?

I know we terribly missed Matic's quality in possession through the middle. All Galatasaray had to do was press the three behind the striker (Schurrle, Hazard and Willian) because they knew that both Lampard and Ramires can do fuck all with the ball. They can't retain it, dictate the tempo or spread crisp, accurate passes. But is that an excuse though? They had Melo and Inan......... nuff said, This team NEEDS a top quality CM to partner Matic. It's that simple.

Still Mourinho could have made this tactical change: Oscar for Schurrle, with Oscar dropping deep (like he did against Newcastle) to at least give us a strangle-hold of the central midfield. Instead, he went more solid, sensing that Gala were getting stronger and he did Mikel for Schurrle. Didn't work

Surprised this was not mentioned, but when Mancini went from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1, the entire game changed, and our play on the counter was non-existent, a'la Man City FA cup. Our style of play away from home in Europe, and against big teams is to counter-attack. It's worked against Bayern, Schalke and Man City. It didn't against Arsenal, Man United, City FA cup, Tottenham. But its weaknesses were ruthlessly exposed and Jose couldn't counter Mancini. It was similar to Man City, FA cup. We need a plan B. We need to instill into our younger players that counter-attacking football shouldn't be the way we want them to develop in.

When the counter attack doesn't work, we get the shit we saw in the 2nd half. Anyway, 1-1. The West London derby can't come soon enough.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

The problem right now is Willian-Oscar-Ramires. 0 offensive output. Stop protecting your brazilians

TBF, Barbara is hands down one of the fairest and most objective commentators on here. I do agree that those three are a problem though. I'm not to worried about Oscarinho, cos he'll be aight, but Willian and Ramires, i dunno. Many people were quick to praise Willian for his hard-working style, but so far he's only scored 2 goals and 1 assist in 13 starts in the PL. That's not good enough for a 30 million pound player. To think he was only 2 million pounds less expensive than Hazard is a joke.

But we should have seen it coming. Look at his track record. He doesn't score goals. His skill-set is also very predictable in the final third. "Step-over, step-over, do a ground cross and watch it get intercepted.". That's not a 30 million pound player. We've paid that because Spurs were willing to pay that, and initially, we were fearful of the players and team they were building, so we high-jacked it. He's worth no more than 20 million pounds. Even in today's ridiculous market. We would have done well to sign a goal-scoring winger like Greizmann, to make up for the team's lack of goals. But that's too late now.

As for Rami, the less said the better. It's already been over-flogged and we know his limitations. His defensive contribution is even slightly overrated. Just not a top class footballer. Unfortunately, there are a lot of overrated players coming out of Brazil these days.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

CM = Kroos, Gundogan, Fabregas (I can dream. No chance though) or just stick with MvG (still don't know how good he is)

LB = Shaw, Rodriguez from Wolfsburg, Alberto Moreno (preferably the English guy, because of the coefficient)

CF = Diego Costa, Cavani.

Pick anyone from all 3 and this team is as good as any in Europe.

What bothers me the most is the alleged "evolution" in style of play has not been evident this season. Perhaps if we can get a dream pivot of Kroos-Matic, that will completely alter the way we play football.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Savage is usually hopeless, but this is one of his better ones.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26358771

[LAM09 6,556]

CM = Kroos, Gundogan, Fabregas (I can dream. No chance though) or just stick with MvG (still don't know how good he is)

LB = Shaw, Rodriguez from Wolfsburg, Alberto Moreno (preferably the English guy, because of the coefficient)

CF = Diego Costa, Cavani.

Pick anyone from all 3 and this team is as good as any in Europe.

What bothers me the most is the alleged "evolution" in style of play has not been evident this season. Perhaps if we can get a dream pivot of Kroos-Matic, that will completely alter the way we play football.

IMO, if we had Cavani, then we could be unstoppable. We have players that fill voids adequately the majority of the time, but we created too many chances that aren't taken. It seems like every summer we are after a CF, but we never get a top class one. Surely Mourinho will have that part of the team sorted and wrapped up before the WC.

[BloodIsBlue 291]

But we should have seen it coming. Look at his track record. He doesn't score goals. His skill-set is also very predictable in the final third. "Step-over, step-over, do a ground cross and watch it get intercepted.". That's not a 30 million pound player. We've paid that because Spurs were willing to pay that, and initially, we were fearful of the players and team they were building, so we high-jacked it. He's worth no more than 20 million pounds. Even in today's ridiculous market. We would have done well to sign a goal-scoring winger like Greizmann, to make up for the team's lack of goals. But that's too late now.

As for Rami, the less said the better. It's already been over-flogged and we know his limitations. His defensive contribution is even slightly overrated. Just not a top class footballer. Unfortunately, there are a lot of overrated players coming out of Brazil these days.

I have to disagree with both players but more so with Willian. Both are rare types of players that you won't find very easily or available in every transfer window. You can find other players in that position that are amazing but they are very well rounded in the footballing skills set and very athletic. They can perform as top footballers in many different situation and could probably run a marathon everyday. They do commit a lot of passing errors but tonight those were highlighted by an entire team that had bad passing, their mishaps are usually not enough yo through off the whole team. They aren't Welbeck style errors where they psyche themselves out, the errors are brought on by great defending. Willian is a much better chance creator than his 2 assists lead on.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/pitchside-europe/rare-specimen-willian-could-hold-key-chelsea-eurovision-134240532.html

This article gives Willian some praise. I think those are the kinds of Brazilians we have on our team and we are lucky. Sometimes they don't get the personal results we want to see but I'm satisfied with their game and mostly feel things could have been worse without them. Team performances have looked rough lately despite some alright final results, which are the symptoms of a great team carrying too much fatigue (lingering effects from lack of rotation that may not fully go away this season).

[Stats 6,987]

Happy with the score draw away from home, definitely. Got the advantage but Galatasaray are firmly in the tie. We should have finished them in the first half. What annoys me though is that Gala's strong points is clearly in attack and they are more error prone in defence. Mourinho going on the defensive was quite disappointing as there is nothing to suggest that if we went and attacked we would not have scored. A lot of people assume that because we are at home for the next game we will win but they still have dangerous players who can harm us.

Real are on a different level to us right now but when they attacked Gala relentlessly you could see how Gala could not cope. They simply got torn apart. Gala made that one sub then the whole momentum of the match shifted.

Like other people I am happy with the score draw but can also understand the people who are frustrated with the more conservative approach second half. Just seemed like there was no real attempt to win the game and from what I remember Eto'o played all his minutes out wide and even when Oscar came on he was installed as a false no.9 in other words and Gala are a decent team but inferior to us so letting them do all the attacking basically signalled our intent that we are happy with the draw because we got the second leg at home and they need to score. I would feel more comfortable if we won 2-1 for instance then you would know Gala need to score 2 at the Bridge to stand any chance of going through.

Yes we got better results than Arsenal and City but what we got to take into consideration is that they played two teams who are world class and we played a much inferior opponent. To summarise the score draw at their home looks good but Gala are no way out of it. Just frustrated that for one we did not finish them first half and secondly with the more negative approach second half as there was a lack of urgency to attack and now the only advantage technically is knowing that they have to score at the Bridge but that is its own self is a dangerous game to play.

[communicate 2,703]

Our defence did suck in the first half as I dont have an idea why Semih(ginger looking guy) wasnt on our 11 straight away. He is an impressive defender, the best of ours. You wasted such chances like Willian's poor attempt which Muslera head-saved away. Although we improved our game in the 2nd half, its not likely for us to win if our defence keeps making these kind of mistakes in Bridge. Still, I was satisfied with the way game turned out. It feels ballsy to make a team like Chelsea scared. After all it was an enjoyable one for our side. I suggest you having fun too instead of getting this upset; chill a litlle.

BTW what do you think about our players' performances especially Muslera, Telles, Melo(yes he s a dick),sneijder and selçuk?

To be honest I don't think Chelsea is scared, I was not even scared at all.

I was scared when we played against bayern in UCL final, that was what you called one sided game.

Possession does not matter, what matter is can you create good chances.

I thought Mancini was crazy playing high defensive line, in fact I think if our forwards played better (they were horrendous), we should be up by 3 inside 30 minutes.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Torres was probably our best player after Azp, as soon as he was substituted we became toothless. Hopefully he becomes our starting striker from now till end of the season.

[communicate 2,703]

only reason we didnt score more goal is that because you parked a bus at your penalty area but you cant play like that at your own playing ground can you? cause if you do, it would be find very disgraceful even by chelsea supporters, so you gonna have to play like the way this game meant to be played

I highly suggest you watch our game against bayern or barca under RDM to understand what park the bus means.

[Strike 6,969]

I'm confident Chelsea will go through. At home, we're very strong. Won't be defensive and that will cause Gala serious problems.

[TrippingStep 336]

Completely toothless match by a team that seemed completely out of it.

The only positive I have from this match is Azpili having a great first half and Schurrle doing well with the minutes he was given. Everything else is a big disappointment and while the 1x1 isn't a bad result when you look at the great scheme of things, there's no way we shouldn't have left with a victory by at least three goals. But we never really wanted it, or we never really worked for it. Our inability to complete the final pass and our attackers being completely uninspired was hard to endure.

Which is why I can't be too mad at Mourinho for bringing bloddyMikel - especially to substitute our best attacker... How can you trust a team like this? In all honesty, I just can't and I think he doesn't either. He realized we were a fuckery fest, and decided that 1-1 was better than losing the match. His RM scored 6 on this team last year, so it's not like Mourinho is always conservative and looking for away draws, it's just this Chelsea isn't reliable, end of it. We can play like the top dogs in one match (City for EPL) and then as a second level team in the next. This team lacks consistency and then people think when Mourinho says we aren't ready he's playing mind games. I do hope we win EPL, but if we do, it just shows what a master of a manager we have and how ball-less and inoffensive Arsenal and Liverpool have become - even if EPL is the best league in the world (as I'm heavily implying if we win the title it'll be with a half-decent team, but with a magnificent manager, which proves our point that Mourinho - or someone of his caliber - is what we've missed the most since Carlo left).

City has a new manager just like we do and although they have much better players (in the attack), they also have a busy schedule and not so much depth in some positions, so while they're the favorites, they may suffer from the huge amount of games they're playing (although I suppose they might exit Champions League in the R16).

Now back to us and UCL... in theory a 1x1 away is a very good result, but seeing how unreliable and how bipolar this team is, I'm actually not so sure we'll make through R8. If we show this quality in SB - and let's not fool ourselves, we had some very poor matches at home this season too and scrapped some wins and draws while looking bad - I'm afraid we'll lose. It's not like I bother too much by it, I love UCL, but I'm not obsessed by it... But the danger is because they actually have a decent attack that was completely uninspired today. Gala sucks monkey ball, all of us can testify that after tonight, but they have very decent attackers and if we don't show up again, we'll be trading with our luck - which I don't know if it's that bad. Two less week-games for us could actually help us with the EPL title, and while I don't like to lose and I think we should beat Gala and go into quarters, if we don't it might a blessing in disguise.

What is no blessing is how this team is still very much heartless and powerless from time to time and while that was okay for the first few months, I do wonder if we'll really be that strong comes next season if we don't improve considerably. Our main problem is strikers, and I believe Mourinho gave the directors an ultimatum and we'll get better strikers - or at least one good striker and recalling Lukaku. Matic makes wonders to our midfield (I don't even want to comment on Rami-Lamps tonight), but in matches like today's when Torres was decent and the pivot wasn't good, but didn't compromise , it feels we lack attitude and a winning spirit. I don't know what are the mechanics of changing players into winners, but I hope Mourinho does. He's done it in the past, but we'd never know if he just awoke natural winners, or if he really changed regulars players into winners thirsty blood suckers... I'm yet to figure out what kind of profile of players we have, but some of them don't scream winner attitude for me.

The team seems already very tired, like the team was at the end of Di Matteo reign, just that we are more defensive.

The big problem we have is that we can't beat average teams without having to fight hard as our passing game and offensive moves are rubbish.

Last year there was some lacklustre performance but when we were pushing, we were often creating much more chances in 45 minutes than in two matches this year.

[TrippingStep 336]

I totally respect your point mate, but this is always relative. Barca's performance is soooooooooo boring yet very effective, and the fans don't care as long as they win. Real Madrid had more of a "dynamic", "enthusiastic" performances in the best years but they weren't effective and guess what the fan's were not happy. When a club is categorized as " World Class" the expectations are high. Much higher than the means by which they achieve it. Another point would be the type of players you have and the system implemented by the manager. Mourinho is a guy who is very successful and innovative in his approaches. Yeah sometimes he gets it wrong but apparently from his record in many clubs he got it right A LOT. Again what entertains people is different, but from my humble experience, when you get that win no body really talks about the way you played. Everyone celebrates and every one is happy. Wouldn't matter if you parked the bus and had 1 shot at the target and 30% possession or if you were all offensive with 20 shots on target and 70% ball possession. People only Really start deeply analyzing the game ( sometimes to a really exaggerated extent) when you lose or fail to achieve your targets. You think Italians really cared about their boring defensive style when they won the world cup? You as a Turk, did you really care when you advanced above group stages in the world cup? I really doubt. However you are entitled to whatever makes you happy. Again it is just my opinion on the matter

For me Barca performance under Guardiola for the most part was not boring. The way they were keeping the ball, creating space by quick passing and movements, this football is what I always imagined when you talk about great team.

[Cosmin 2,484]

Yes, you did, when you called it decent football and everything else is pathetic. I find decent football whatever approach brings my team a good result.

Of course you can have whatever opinion about what the team should be playing like, but if you don't support and cheer the team on after a good result, then you're not really doing your job as a supporter.

I said that a fan can ask things from his team, like decent football. I think if I, for example, ask my team to play decent football, it is pretty clear that the concept of "decent" that I'm talking about is MY concept.

Anyway, there's also the posibility that you think that what Chelsea have been playing lately is decent football. Specially against WBA or City in the FA Cup. In that case, I don't know what to say. Probably my standards and expectations are way too high.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Jose actually said in his interview that Torres and Schurrle were the best attackers but he had to take both off because Torres was exhausted and Schurrle had a yellow card.

That explains a lot. I was so dumbfounded when it was shurrle off and not willian

[DoubleO 192]

First 20 minutes were an attractive football from us, the rest of the game was more or less boring. Gala made a lot of easy mistakes in midfield which gave us opportunities to counter-attack. Shame we only got one goal, because we had plenty of good chances to score more. Defensively we were OK, even though we conceded a goal from a corner-kick, which doesn't happen very often. Still, the result is OK and we have the advantage to go through. Going to be an interesting CL-evening at the Bridge once again!