Closed Man United 1-1 Chelsea

[Cosmin 2,484]

Man Of The Match: Sam Allardyce

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

We were very close to losing that match against City. Against a 10 man City. There's a fine line between opening up and sitting back....

City is a very good team. Very tough game. Very tough ground to play in. What were you expecting?

[Sheva. 5,373]

I wanted Mikel on at HT so I have nothing to complain about on that front - we needed more stability in mid imo, and he was the only option.

But it was a bad move to not bring on Schurrle earlier, we did fuck all on the counter when they pushed everyone up.

Anyway Hazard-Oscar-Willian continues to be my most hated trio. We can get away with it with Costa, but their lack of top attacking quality (obviously the 2 Brazilians) is a problem with a player like Drogba up there.

At least they can defend though!!

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

The positives I can take from the game:

(1) We open up the gap between ourselves and Man City to SIX points, which is a pleasant cushion.

(2) We had a more positive approach away from home to a big team. We could have had more control of our game and more decisiveness in attack if Fabregas turned up but he didn't. We needed his control from deep lying positions. He also didn't make himself available to either of our centre-backs.

(3) Drogba is still the man for the big occasion. He's not the player that he once was but he's still a physical marvel. Held up the ball well and scored a fantastic, trademark Drogba header.

(4) Filipe Luis had a brilliant performance and should be our starting left-back from now on, no questions asked.

(5) Thibaut is ours to keep for a decade and more.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Willian is just not good enough at this level, he will be good enough for a team of Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs aspirations just not a champions league chasing team like Chelsea, Madrid, Bayern, and Barcelona

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Jose: "Now we have less room for our mistakes...and the referees'!"

[Eidur the Spider 4,515]

Ian Abrahams (Moose) @BroadcastMoose · 59 mins59 minutes ago

Utd fans on Twitter acting like they've beaten Chelsea - only got a draw and still 10 points behind the leaders

[Laylabelle 9,535]

It's November.Ish.mistakes will be made long way to go.tough fixture out the way at least

[calculatingInfinity 1,472]

Wow. Really starting to question whether many in here know football.

Parked the bus? José getting it wrong? We totally dominated them and controlled the game for a huge portion of that second half. We're playing in one of then most difficult places to play AND combating awful refereeing and we were seconds away from taking the 3 points.

Should've had a pen and Didier should've scored that chance on the edge of the box on the Oscar pullback. We protected our goal brilliantly and calmly soaked up their late pressure. Perfectly played until the free kick.

As José just said in his post match, it was a great away performance. We had a 36 year old striker leading the line who has barely trained and our 2 best players in Hazard and Fábregas were quiet.

One of the few sensible posts in here, thank you.

[Term-X 7,891]

Why the fuck is this forum not in performance mode?? FFS

[Billy. 2,742]

End of the day Jose needs to stop making us sit back so soon when we go up, our defence is not as water tight as it used to be

[Chelsea Buzz 487]

The late yellow on Ivanovic was rubbish. I am still looking for contact. Suppose there was a "blink of an eye" clinking of boots, but c'mon, yellow? Really? This no no doubt led to rebound goal for RVP.

Frustrating not to get the three points, but looking at the nine games as a whole, already played road matches at City and United, 6 points clear of City with a home match with them in the second half helps tremendously. In the "way to early to look ahead" look ahead to the remaining fixtures, City has most of the top 5 clubs on the road and Chelsea typically has them at home, not counting Southampton and West Ham at top 5 clubs yet obviously.

7-2-0 after 9. Four points clear of Southampton, six of City, seven of West Ham, nine of Arsenal and Liverpool and ten of ManU. What's not to like?

Ending of today's match was just painful, BUT moving right along. Let's get Costa back and our red card causalities back and keep on marching to the title!!

Come on you Chelsea!! :blue scalf: :blue scalf:

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

Matic only having 9 votes really shows how under-appreaciated the role of a DM is. You can't play that role much better than he did today.

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

This isn't a point gained either. Just like the City game wasn't a point gained. No idea why people keep saying that. City were down to 10 men while United are in horrid form and were there for the taking.

Exactly. This season we are head and shoulders above the rest that is why we should have easily won those 2 games against the manc scum. Also with the relatively poor performance we had, it should have been enough. The only reason we did lose those 4 points in the last minute is because of our inability to close matches down against a opposition that is really fighting. WE conceded an unnecessary equalizer vs Schalke, late vs Palace and many more completely unnecessary goals, many of those late. So far this does not matter. We will probably still win the league unless an extreme loss of form or a massive injury crisis cost us, but in the CL this will not be good enough. We can not go to BAyern or Real and perform the way we did in Manchester so far. Not clinical enough in attack and not consequent enough in defense. But the season is still young and Mou should finally get that we can't secure a result that way and work on it.

[Chelsea Buzz 487]

Wow. Really starting to question whether many in here know football.

Parked the bus? José getting it wrong? We totally dominated them and controlled the game for a huge portion of that second half. We're playing in one of then most difficult places to play AND combating awful refereeing and we were seconds away from taking the 3 points.

Should've had a pen and Didier should've scored that chance on the edge of the box on the Oscar pullback. We protected our goal brilliantly and calmly soaked up their late pressure. Perfectly played until the free kick.

As José just said in his post match, it was a great away performance. We had a 36 year old striker leading the line who has barely trained and our 2 best players in Hazard and Fábregas were quiet.

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

[xPetrCechx 13,571]

STOP TO SUB ON MIKEL IN THE 60th MINUTE~

STOP WITH THIS SHIT DEFENCE TACTIC. GO FOR THE SECOND!!!!

* BTW- Di maria's dive like:

[The Chels 2,502]

City is a very good team. Very tough game. Very tough ground to play in. What were you expecting?

They're not that much better than us, if at all. Against 10 men we should absolutely be dominating the game and killing it off rather than sitting back.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Not the worst result, obviously the circumstances of how they got the goal is a bit shit but a point is a point and they play Man City next week so they could go and beat City, who knows.

[robdog 2,084]

Also, well done to Didier for his 350th appearance and 159th goal. That's a record of a goal roughly every two games, or a goal per 1.76 starts.

+1 mate

we should recognize Greatness when we see it

[Beepu 1,714]

Time will tell if getting Mourinho back was the right choice. But worrying signs so far. This team is too talented to sit back against a pub quality team. Maybe this attitude would be good in the Champions League but here it's just two points lost in two big games.

What?!

6 points better off than last season's champion and still unbeaten. Clearly we were better under the great Rafa.

I get that Mourinho chances of success are not 100% but it's pretty dang high and I can't think of anyone else I want in charge.