Closed Chelsea 1-1 Schalke

[couris 232]

No Costa, no goals. Very worrying. Willian and Oscar are useless except running and tackling.

[Ljpaddock 187]

best thing about this game is that no injuries were picked up for man city

[zolayes 14,489]

Away goals?

only count in knock out stages

[Azpinator 2,325]

Is it just me or does Ivanovic seem to be caught out of position for every terrible goal we've conceded this season so far ?

THANK YOU.

It's getting really annoying, I love the beast to death but he just seems to not give a fuck about tracking back or staying in his position more often.

[Shakez 755]

Tbh, people are overeacting way too much. José got his tactics wrong but hey, it's early in the season and now we know Drogba is our 3rd option striker.

The thing José got wrong was probably starting Ramires instead of Oscar, Ramires wasn't bad but this is not the type of match suited to his strenghts. I guess Mourinho wanted to test the formation we most likely will play against City but was wrong in playing it against Schalke. They where happy to let us come to them, and hardly pressed us. Oscar would've been a better option from the start, using him as a sub was wasteful because he's hardly an impact sub. The only real negative (besides Drogba) was the way Huntelaar got his goal, our defence need a cracker up their arse, unacceptable!

Anyway on to City! They lost btw against Bayern.

[Dion 2,476]

Fabregas' performance today:

Created chances

Scored a goal that should not have stood (not his fault that the ref allowed it)

Missed a sitter

Gave away the ball cheaply in the build up to the Schalke goal

By his standards, not good enough...he isn't the reason we lost the game but this should serve as a timely wake-up call for him and the team...

Let us not even discuss Drogba's inclusion ahead of Remy..

It was a good chance and you expect a player of Cesc's caliber to bury it more often than not, but still not a sitter.

[HD3D 1,038]

Jose has to take the blame for this result. Starting Drogba in such an important game was a no-no from the get-go.

- Play your strongest 11 against Schalke, be blamed for using your strongest 11 against a weak team, not taking into consideration City on weekend.

- Don't play your strongest 11, be blamed for not doing it on such an important game.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Fabregas' performance today:

Created chances

Scored a goal that should not have stood (not his fault that the ref allowed it)

Missed a sitter

Gave away the ball cheaply in the build up to the Schalke goal

By his standards, not good enough...he isn't the reason we lost the game but this should serve as a timely wake-up call for him and the team...

In the eyes of some, Fabregas had a good game even though he was pretty poor. Maybe because he's knew or maybe because he's been playing very well prior to this, but he wasn't good enough today, unfortunately.

[borriske 330]

Don't really agree with those that are saying Hazard had a good game throughout. He had a brilliant first 30 minutes, but faded after that with bad passes and finishing, although he came to life again in the last 10 minutes. For example he made 5 succesful dribbles in the first half, 0 in the second. Overall passing accuracy 79% (whoscored).

[Jase 43,479]

Finish off chances like in previous games and this game could've ended 4-1 (or 5-2, you pick).

Perhaps so but you can't deny that was an average performance, especially when we failed to control the game and still looking suspect defensively.

[zolayes 14,489]

- Play your strongest 11 against Schalke, be blamed for using your strongest 11 against a weak team, not taking into consideration City on weekend.

- Don't play your strongest 11, be blamed for not doing it on such an important game.

THE blame is for not taking Drog OFF at HT ,,, anyone else would have been

[Bir_CFC 3,455]

only count in knock out stages

Incorrect. Group stages tie breaker is away goals head to head.

[Shakez 755]

No Costa, no goals. Very worrying. Willian and Oscar are useless except running and tackling.

Can't be of much use when the striker doesn't convert the chances they create...

[nono 791]

This game also shows why Schurrle is so crucial for us and why in my opinion he should start. He is the only one really who can finish off a chance apart from Costa. In teams that sit back, it is absolutely necessary to play him. For teams that tend to attack we may be playing Ramires instead, but if on Sunday's game Ramires starts then I'd wonder back to today and why Schurrle didn't start because he surely wasn't being rested.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Think we were unlucky and Schalke had one of odd great defensive displays where they kept everything somehow, apart from Cesc goal.

Only negative was starting Drogba and then playing him after half time. The legend is nowhere near fitness that is required for such games, too old. Oh and defence needs to be sorted out. We are fucking slow, it will hurt us against big teams...

We fought hard in the end. but it was realy strong defence by Schalke, and us being unlucky. Need to bounce back vs City.

P.S. @Jason, so much for that big win yeah, think I owe you that beer...

[Azpinator 2,325]

No Costa, no goals. Very worrying. Willian and Oscar are useless except running and tackling.

Costa actually played, you know.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

It's like last season all over again. We can afford to take chances because it's such a poor group.

Fabregas and Luis were both outstanding. Hazard should have won the game.

[The Skipper 20,593]

"We should be able to rotate 4 or 5 players and still beat Schalke" remember those idiotic comments. They could have beat us tonight.

You can't be serious. They didn't nearly beat us at all. If we stuck away our chances it could've easily been 3 or 4-0. It's not like we played bad today, we actually created plenty of chances. Had we still kept the same team and had Remy up front from the start instead of Drogba it would've been a comfortable result.

You've got to be kidding if you think that team we put out there wasn't strong enough to beat this Schalke team.