Closed Werder Bremen 3-0 Chelsea

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

Wow for the meltdown. Easy, people, Belgium players and Mikel are just back for a couple of days, no way they are performing like crazy. Shame on you who judge any of them in this match. They are obviously only 50-65% on fitness level. Agree that the rest generally not playing their best performance, but judging them for this match? No way.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

As for the poor link-up between players, what exactly did you expect? Everyone is joining the training camp at a different point and it's hard to make everything click. Hell, our new signings had a total of a week of training with the team and then we had matches every three days. Drogba and Eden joined just three days ago. Having matches so often means players don't get to train a lot(they are usually given a day off after every match), so it's not surprising that they all look like they're seeing each other for the first time. The understanding and link-up play will come with time.

There's no reason to panic. If anything, I'm glad that this defeat came now rather than later in preseason. Hopefully it will give Jose some food for thought.

[lionsden 4,689]

a positive i find after this game: there is still lot of work to be done !

I hope Jose sees his that way as he's already blaming the referee (s). To him we lost because of some defensive lapses and refereeing decisions and not because we played like dog poo.

[carefreeluke 27]

Matic looks like he could of started the season three weeks ago. Couple of levels above the rest of our players at the moment, not just fitness wise but performance wise as well.

[Tomo 21,681]

Spot on.While result mean little, performance means a lot.

Does it? Marko Marin alone is strong evidence on the contary.

[Shakez 755]

Wow for the meltdown. Easy, people, all Belgium and Brazillian players are just back for a couple of days, no way they are performing like crazy. Shame on you who judge any of them in this match. They are obviously only 50-65% on fitness level. Agree that the rest generally not playing their best performance, but judging Hazard or Oscar for this match? No way.

The Brazillians aren't even back...

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Spot on.While result mean little, performance means a lot. Pre season is the time to test out new and fresh ideas, most teams use it to practise and sharpen their offensive and defensive drills ahead of the new season and even when the results are not favourable, it's comforting to see glimpses of new ideas and progress in terms of style of play from the previous season during pre season. it gives the fans something to look forward to. for e.g even If man utd had lost 3-0 to Madrid last night I'm sure their fans would have taken great positives from their scintillating performance overall with the way they controlled the game and created multiple clear cut chances.

Spot on. Exactly what I wanted to say

[LAB 1,030]

Painful to watch, but i am actually very happy we chose this kind of opposition. The point here is to give minutes to every player and have a good intense training and that has just happened today. Scoreline means nothing.

Onto some conclusions:

Our defence looks a bit shaky atm, but i am not worried since a) there's still time to stabilize (new LB and all) and b)theoretically, we will not need it to be that sharp and that hard working like last season's second period because we will be more balanced as a team (better up front and better midfield).

Ake has impressed me the most this pre-season. I think he should be our real second choice LB and Azpi should stay RB if Luis gets injured or something. No more Ivanovic please. He can rotate with Cahill/JT.

Costa is brilliant. He may be proved to be the most important one of our signings this season imo. Bigger than Fab.

I want Fab at no8 position. Not that i don't like him as no 10, but i want that control from deep that he can offer. Hopefully Oscar is coming back all guns blazing.

Matic will be 200% better this season.

[Henrique 9,133]

Didn't watched the game, to be honest this pre-season was doomed. With Oscar, William, Schurle, Hazard and Ramires out on vacation for the most part of the pre-season, that really hard to implement new ideas, or to to create any kind of chemistry.

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

This was PRE SEASON for Bremen as well!!!

How many players of theirs have participated the World Cup and how many of ours? Go figure.

[MichaelDance 552]

If the club actually goes into the season with Drogba and Torres as cover for Costa, they'd be making such a HUGE mistake.

The way the board is persisting with Torres - they need to be careful because every time he's on the pitch he drags down the performances of the other players just by his sheer desperation to prove himself. It's not fair to the manager, it's not fair to the players and it's not even fair to Torres because he's being relied on to perform at a level that he's incapable of. Why continue with something that isn't working and that hasn't worked for the past three years? It's counter productive...

Torres should be on the bench for if a player get injured.

[bigfan 67]

I hope Jose sees his that way as he's already blaming the referee (s). To him we lost because of some defensive lapses and refereeing decisions and not because we played like dog poo.

I hope so...blaming referees is just distracting from the real reasons..yes maybe the referee made couple of mistakes...but we have been making mistakes during most of the game..and we didn't prove we are strong enough to deserve a win regardless of refereeing

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,742]

Painful to watch, but i am actually very happy we chose this kind of opposition. The point here is to give minutes to every player and have a good intense training and that has just happened today. Scoreline means nothing.

Onto some conclusions:

Our defence looks a bit shaky atm, but i am not worried since a) there's still time to stabilize (new LB and all) and b)theoretically, we will not need it to be that sharp and that hard working like last season's second period because we will be more balanced as a team (better up front and better midfield).

Ake has impressed me the most this pre-season. I think he should be our real second choice LB and Azpi should stay RB if Luis gets injured or something. No more Ivanovic please. He can rotate with Cahill/JT.

Costa is brilliant. He may be proved to be the most important one of our signings this season imo. Bigger than Fab.

I want Fab at no8 position. Not that i don't like him as no 10, but i want that control from deep that he can offer. Hopefully Oscar is coming back all guns blazing.

Matic will be 200% better this season.

The big danger is that he has absolutely NO pace. If he is in the pivot then he will have to have high energy speedsters next to him at all time because if he gives the ball away in the middle he does not have the pace to win it back.

[didierforever 7,349]

poor performance. infact a "nothing" performance. but have to say that the manner of the defeat was very like the ones we are accustomed to.

1-0 down to a penalty (or a lucky goal).

could have been

1-1 but instead our great striker who never gets any service misses a clear cut chance, and we concede another to be 2-0.

struggle to break an organised defence and yada yada yada.

too familiar a script to be ignored and simply put under the "its a pre-season game so who cares" category.

[Stingray 9,441]

do people with the sarcasm realize that you're not funny, just annoying?

Not really no, we lack the mental module for thats kill

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

The Brazillians aren't even back...

Lol, I didn't watch the game, I swear I read Oscar name on the first page. I blame The only place to be sarcastic post on the first page for this

[Shakez 755]

The big danger is that he has absolutely NO pace. If he is in the pivot then he will have to have high energy speedsters next to him at all time because if he gives the ball away in the middle he does not have the pace to win it back.

My thoughts exactly, think he is more suited to play in a 4-3-3.

[Chelsea? 892]

Ewww