Closed Man City 1-1 Chelsea

[Toli 977]

If we played an open game they would have scored easily - possibly even beating us. You deny teams like city by shutting up the spaces, i.e sitting deep with closed ranks.

We did the right thing and got a good result.

its not about playing an OPEN game. its about playing a COUNTER-ATTACKING game, which we didnt. we just sat deep and did NOTHING. we didnt have one fecking shot in the whole 1st half?! we didnt create anything in the 2nd half neither. only after having one man more we scored the goal- and even that after their corner kick. after scoring we again just sat deep, did nothing and conceded the 1-1. after that city had the chance for the 2nd one, we didnt have a glimpse of chance.

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

[Namika 922]

People are just never happy, when we attack like crazy, score goals and concede they want us to be more compact and that's exactly what happened yesterday and they are still not happy. You have to choose.

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

[thekid9 418]

were you one of those fans, who always rose to their feet to applause torres? chelsea fans at games are scared to be outspoken

I rose too show support to any player who pulls on the chelsea shirt....!

[thekid9 418]

I won't burn his shirt i will sell it to 3000 stupid traitor/mercenary loving fans and make a fortune!

Your location says everything I need to know!

[thekid9 418]

Anyone notice a pattern of the people hating on Lamps....

they do say it's all about "location location location"

[thekid9 418]

and on the same note, I respect people from other countries who actually support the team win draw or lose, and it's player and Legendary players!

not ones who criticise arguably our best player ever.

[Barbara 15,149]

I'll always love Lampard, but I feel like he stabbed me in the heart. If Chelsea lose the league by 2 points he'll be blamed for it. And the last 13 years memory will be wiped out in an instant with fans turning against him.

One shall never score against Chelsea and expect to be received back with open arms. Today, he burned that bridge (no pun intended) forever. I knew he had a point to prove to his new employers, and Pellegrini made him play against his wishes and all but still hurts.

if Chelsea lose the league for two points it means we lost at least another five (as we are three points clear at the top of it). So why are you going to choose to blame those two points and not the other five? Why are those two points lost more meaningful or directly responsible for losing a title than those other five points? And that's supposing Southampton or Aston Villa win it, because if it's Arsenal, then it's six points and for it to be City it has to be seven more lost points. This makes no sense, mate, sorry.

[HarryCFC 23]

Can't believe my favourite player of all-time scored agaunst us - still love him though

Full team review and player ratings on my blog - giving it a read helps a lot

http://blogchelseafc.cf

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

By the way, Hazard played two passes in the build up to the goal that were nothing short of sublime.

The left foot pass across field and then one to set up the goal.

Schurrle v City

Couldn't find a gif of the goal but this is a video on loop so it's kinda like a gif.

[Term-X 7,891]

and on the same note, I respect people from other countries who actually support the team win draw or lose, and it's player and Legendary players!

not ones who criticise arguably our best player ever.

Ah, so that's ok then.. you're fine with our foreign fans, as long as they're saying stuff you agree with.

Where are you from again?, has the bridge moved to Scotland.

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

Just can't hate lamps after all the great things he does for CFC....

Even if he's "wasn't so sad" , or "smiling" or just a "money grabber"...

[Toli 977]

People are just never happy, when we attack like crazy, score goals and concede they want us to be more compact and that's exactly what happened yesterday and they are still not happy. You have to choose.

no you havent. the word is called "balance". you actually CAN attack from times to times while having a compact defense. Like we did last year against City- THIS was a brilliant game, where we were compact and still attacked them.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Okay the match!

The onus was on Man City to get the right result, for that reason Jose clearly decided to sit back and wait for them to commit men forward before hitting them with pace on the counter. I thought it was a brilliant game plan and was very close to being executed to perfection. City had next to no chances to score and weren't as gun-ho going forward as they might have been had we left ourselves a little more open by committing more men to a high press. If you watched the game you would see Matic was the only guy who was pressing in the midfield (on Yaya and Silva) everyone else sat back and played zonally and took away the pockets of space City like to exploit.

For those of you who think we played poor I'd have to question what your definition of poor is. Perhaps a better choice of words would be 'I didn't like the game plan of sitting back and trying to hit them on the counter' because we executed that to near perfection. Every time, particularly in the 1st half when we were poised to hit them with numbers on the counter, City committed what I would call a yellow card offense and were only penalized maybe twice. It was clear from the outset that they weren't gonna allow us to get out with pace and also that we weren't going to show impatience and try to break out with numbers. There were some instances when the first pass to initiate the counter wasn't very good or wayward and as a result we couldn't get out, that aspect of the game was below our standard but everything else was damn near perfect.

I thought the refereeing was poor for both sides. There were more than a few instances where Mangala went right through Costa to get the ball and he wasn't once called for a foul let alone carded. Mike Dean clearly left himself open for criticism with 6 cards in the first half... The wrong precedence was set.

Thought Matic was our MotM and that Mangala was the overall MotM.

City weren't going to go down easily and for those of you complaining about how we sat back after going up 1-0 with City down to 10 men, what were you expecting to happen? They couldn't break us down with 11 and shouldn't have with 10. Had we come out and tried to score more to secure the victory it may have led to them coming down our end and scoring. Not to mention the fact that we were at the end of a tiring game and were in no shape to press since we were on the back foot for 70 mins. Had we tried to score you guys would've been whining about leaving ourselves open instead of defending the lead.

Drogba was being prepared to come in for Costa BEFORE the City goal, he was to come in to help with the defending since his head is a magnet. He wasn't brought in to score the decisive goal and the suggestion of that is ludicrous.

Going into the game anyone who wouldn't have taken a point and called that a good result needs to get their heads checked, however, seeing that we were so close to getting all three and the equalizer is our legend it does smart a bit. In the bigger scheme of things this is a great result so we can't be too disappointed.

[Laylabelle 9,351]

if Chelsea lose the league for two points it means we lost at least another five (as we are three points clear at the top of it). So why are you going to choose to blame those two points and not the other five? Why are those two points lost more meaningful or directly responsible for losing a title than those other five points? And that's supposing Southampton or Aston Villa win it, because if it's Arsenal, then it's six points and for it to be City it has to be seven more lost points. This makes no sense, mate, sorry.

Exactly.If Chelsea loose the league by 2 points surely be down to how we played.Like said on the Lampard thread if it was any other City player who'd scored we wouldnt be blaming them for the draw we'd blame the performance.Which is how it should be.

Arguement doesnt make sense..its September anyway.Doubt we're not gana drop points elsewhere and that wont be down to Frank.Chelsea will loose Chelsea the league not him

[Sidzeret 2,257]

Just can't believe Gary Neville is a Manchester man. He actually is even handed and insightful- not something we normally associate with United people. Best pundit on TV right now.

[Special Juan 27,421]

Just can't believe Gary Neville is a Manchester man. He actually is even handed and insightful- not something we normally associate with United people. Best pundit on TV right now.

Everyone has their own opinions but what Neville does is call it like it is, straight down the middle and without pulling away from the truth. People appreciate that more than jumbled shite you hear from certain pundits around right now.

Too many yes men in football punditry right now, and too many people just quite happy to roll out the same old shit when speaking.

He's a refreshing change to all things connected to analysing football.