Closed Chelsea 2-4 Bradford

[DanishBlue 426]

Well, at least we might get a new player now so we can have better options from the bench. A player like Salah is not good enough if we want to win things..

[WNDS 502]

Well, the one truly positive thing that should come from this result is that TV execs/companies everywhere will probably not continue to turn their collective noses up at the prospect of televising our future games against lower-league opposition. Can't say that the club and players don't care about the fans; look how far they have shown themselves as being willing to go to ensure that all future games WILL be available for our viewing pleasure .

[FabHazard 655]

Haven't seen the match, so I obviously can't talk, but there's a reason why Mourinho sticks with the starting XI he does.

Unfortunately our squad has little bite. When you need a match winner - even against a league 2 side - in the last minutes of the match you can't find one within the squad.

The bench players have been awful.

And please, don't tell me they're this bad because they don't play... they practice everyday, they SHOULDN'T lose a 2-0 lead to a league 2 side. They're shit. Mikel, Ramires, Cahill (although this one here is first team material apparently), Salah - all names you heard from the commentators in the goals we've conceded.

It seems like Christensen and Zouma had good matches - which proves even further that this shouldn't be an excuse to crucify Mourinho. Actually Zouma played well in every single match he started for us and they're far and distant apart - meaning he also has little playing time. So let's stop with the excuse that those squad players don't play better because they don't play enough.

I don't blame José for not mixing up much. We have a bunch of chokers in the squad, which is sad. That 2004-06 team won so much because there was bite, players were warriors, they hated losing as much as Jose did (does), but they had spirit. The current squad choked last year and keep having those horrific matches from time to time.

There's been absolutely technical improvement, but it seems to me what we need the most is character improvement. We need players that are stronger mentally, that are tougher, that hate losing, that die in the pitch fighting. we have a few who are quite the opposite of that and I believe that's what kept us from winning last year despite not having a brilliant team and I hope that it won't repeat again this year (this year being brilliant though).

completely agree with this....our second team is full of chokers ..no match winners!!

little bit of pressure they crumble..our 2004-06 side was far better in terms of mentality..our 2012 cl side lack techincal skills but they had belief and that sheer determination got them the CL...we need match winners!!

[We Hate Scouse 10,326]

Ima take a break from this forum for a while while all the detractors and moaners come out in force. I'll be back for the Liverpool game.

But final comment, think logically about this people (might be hard for some of you, I know, but try):

The team wasn't filled with youth, no, but it had 3 players 22 and younger on the pitch and 2 more young players on the bench (unless they're not youth players either now?). This just proves that when you rotate a lot there is always the chance for something badly to go wrong (like today). Think about how many more times this could've happened if Mourinho did what some people suggested and played a genuine "filled with youth" team in the COC or FAC?

Noone who wasn't physically at the game has seen the game and seen what caused this pathetic collapse, and although it's unlikely that Mou is blameless, it's a little early to start flinging shit at him just because we lost when you don't even know if it was his tactics that cost us the game (yet).

In conclusion I suggest that everyone CALM THE FUCK DOWN. This was a woeful result, yes. We should be doing better, yes. But if we come away at the end of this week in the final of the COC and 8pts clear at the top of the league it would still have been a fantastic week for us.

This has just made our next 2 games absolute must wins, for Mourinho's sake.

Why's 22 suddenly the age for youth? If anything it's 21, hence under 21 squads, even that's too old in the modern game to be classed as youth imo.

Zouma is an established player that trains and plays with the first team, he shouldn't be considered a youth player.

Christensen was the only player on the pitch that plays with the youth squad, he is the only youth player. Doesn't take a genius

[lionsden 4,689]

I think the root of the problem isn't Christensen and the youth itself is that this team lacks so much character and spirit that if we don't play with our very best technical and experienced players we look average. Sad, but true imo.

Basically Jose is incapable of utilising his squad to get a good result/performance. Moreover He's the one claiming satisfaction and happiness with the squad, if he realises the sqaud players are crap/not good enough, why isn't he taking action to rectify some of the problem in this transfer window. Perhaps he's delusional enough to think Salah,Schurrle et al are good enough.

[edetarod 2,155]

i thought the Spurs game was just a freak accident, but it was more of a warning for things to come

shite 2015 so far

[nullabletype 987]

I haven't posted on the forum in a very long time. But I just had to pop in to express my utter disgust. Absolutely brutal. No excuses from the squad or José. There is absolutely no scenario where even our worst 11 should be dropping a 2-0 lead at home against League 1 opposition. Pathetic.

[Liquidator 5,176]

Anyone who actually saw the game provide a detailed analysis on the shit storm that was this result?

Was at the game posted a few times in live match thread will try to give more detailed description later but second half they wanted it more and we tried to pass ball in

[dee25 1,044]

I can name at least 4 games since the beginning of December when he was wank. He's hardly been a rock. It's pretty worrying.

I can also name at least 4 games that Cesc have been shit who you routinely defend irregardless of poor performances.

[hamad138 190]

No quadruple?

[cosmicway 1,333]

i thought the Spurs game was just a freak accident, but it was more of a warning for things to come

shite 2015 so far

Against Spurs the defence had a day off.

In that match we should have secured the draw first, because Tottenham were not useless at all at home.

Today I don't know what happened.

[Viper22 2,418]

You are the one blaming here mate, liking stupid posts like that one and making silly excuses. You try to justify the fact you liked a stupid post, and I care more about stupidity than about a FA Cup result. thats why Im here.

I would reply properly, if you had only bothered to reply to what I actually said in my post or had actually tried to make any sense whatsoever. Like I said above, i'm off, bye!

[Laylabelle 9,535]

Deserved.Chelsea were completely shite and surprised got 2.journey home feels long

[Barbara 15,149]

Why do people keep using this as an excuse? There was ONE youth player on the pitch. Fucksake hahahahaha

as I answered to someone else, I don't think the problem is the youth players themselves is how frail this team is that you need to have the best players every single match for them to scrap a result. Christensen - from what I can say - hasn't influenced the match negatively (or positively - I reckon it was a neutral match, which is a positive imo), but the lack of our 'best players' certainly has. For one player from the bench or the youth to play, one of the starting XI has to make room for them. When our bench is filled with crappy players (doesn't matter if they're really crappy or have been crappy because they were injured, ill, and whatnot) you have to stick with the same starting XI because you expose some deficiencies you have in the starting XI with players that aren't at their best. Salah seems to have had a nightmare, Mikel compromised, Cahill compromised (although this is routine), Cech compromised (saw a few tweets about people saying their first goal should have been stopped) - so the fact that Christensen himself didn't doesn't change the fact that there's a reason why even someone as mediocre attacking as Willian has a captive starting position.

I'm still convinced we need to improve the character of our starting XI to really be competitive and for God's sake, our defense needs reinforcement as well as our pivot, because if Matic has a bad match or doesn't play, we don't have replacement. Cahill is a walking liability, Iva has the craziest matches there, Willian doesn't offer anything in the attack and Oscar doesn't show up consistently. Add that to lack of winning spirit and it's clear to me why Hazard hasn't signed a contract extension yet. He came here to win titles, but it seems like winning titles isn't much of this group's specialty and I can't measure how much falls on Mourinho's shoulders and how much doesn't. I haven't approved many of his choices, but it's becoming clearer and clearer to me why he sticks with the same team always and forever.

[MichaelDance 552]

Not even a good thing.

With them teams out what a chance we would of had.

True mate, but thankfully not the first premier league cub out. Suppose we've still got more cups to win.

[xPetrCechx 13,571]

[lionsden 4,689]

And make no mistake about it, we deserved to lose against Liverpool and should have lost. That would have been 2 losses in a row. This is either a strategic and cynically delibrate move by Jose or a worrying trend.

[chrismada9 1,948]

It's beyond ridiculous how we fall apart in these situations.

When we lose now, it's not through the other team stealing a goal or anything. We get torn apart, a collapse of basic traits of defending and attacking. When these players lose their bottle, they really fucking lose it. No professionalism, no saving face, no effort.

Disgraceful and embarrassing. José wants to talk about lack of fans support? How about looking at lack of player support for our fans turning up to these games.

In all fairness, a result like this does not bode well with home games we have coming up.. Liverpool in the League Cup 2nd leg.. Man City in the league.

I know we won 2-0 at home against Newcastle a few weeks ago, but the first half of that game, we looked a shadow of our former selves, and we let Newcastle simply piss all over us. It could have EASILY been a different result then had Newcastle scored, thus we could have soiled under the pressure.

I think a result such as this has been coming for a while, and, If anything, it will shake us up.. but an even more positive thing about this loss, is that now we have enough time to focus on other important competitions, such as the League and Champions League.

City will REALLY want to beat us at the Bridge next weeekend, and if we carry on playing at home the way we have been, they could easily get that wish...

...I don't even want to imagine Lampard scoring for City at the Bridge! It was bad enough he did so at the Etihad!

[Stats 7,142]

Yes this loss is very poor from the team, but it seems people are a bit too mad.. we're 5 points clear in the top of the league, could be 8 next week, we're having a great season, the reaction from such a random loos, a once in 10 years loss, shouldnt be so agressive.

Some people here are so freaking spoil. You cant win all the time.

The FA Cup is a trophy a lot of us love. Losing to Bradford is not acceptable. Of course people are going to be angry and that is understandable. A random loss? Yes and we are out of the cup due to losing to a L1 team at our own ground. If you are not too disappointed that is you but I am bloody annoyed about it. Especially considering the second best team in England went out as well.

[robsblubot 3,595]

Salah might have been poor, but the game was 2x1 when subbed off. More importantly, at the same time, Mikel came off for Fabregas.

We had one youngster on the pitch today; one who has already played with the senior team a few times before.

I personally think a number a our reserves aren't good enough to be chelsea players - yes I'm against the majority on Remy here. Drogba has played way too much for the type of signing he was to begin with.

Ramires is probably still very unfit for any level of competition - just been so long.

This is the reason Mourinho does not rotate. Of course the blame is also his, because he signs the players, senior team, reserves (prospects or not), and youth.

Just to clarify: this was not surprising to me.