Closed PSG 1-1 Chelsea

[Madmax 9,219]

great result, that typical Chelsea fighting spirit was on show again! if we ever lose this fighting spirit that Jose installed into our club in 2004 it will be a very very sad day for me! and its sad when people moan about these types of performances away from home without a fully fit squad aganist a good team and getting a good result, but people want us to play like Barcelona in these types of games, oh wait how did Barca get on in Paris again, please someone remind me???

Has the bar been set so low that expecting a team that cost ~ 200 million £ to be able to string 5 passes together in the opposition half is expecting something Barcelona-esqe?

[simon_me 38]

Reading all that negative comments about Costa, Cahill and Fabregas (which I agree), I think everyone's forgetting that this was a typical Chelsea performance away from home. At Stamford Bridge they'll attack a lot more. Chelsea was far more organised than PSG. The only bad moment was when unmarked Cavani scored a goal, which is a Championship level mistake from Cahill (I'm not sure, but I guess it was him).

Our goal was brilliant, real beauty.

[Styles 9,790]

Are you not entertained

I found this approach waaaaaaaaaay more entertaining when we had shitter players than we do now.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

See, now that's illogical. You're speaking as if we scored an own-goal. PSG had 4 players in the box when Cavani scored, they were pushing for the goal. It was an inch-perfect cross and an excellent header. Terry/Cahill didn't pick the ball up and throw it into our goal.

Ivanovic was out of position and left Rami isolated and Cahill should have been first to the header.

Moments before the goal their defense was in trouble as Hazard ran at them. We got into more dangerous positions at the start of the second half before they scored.

[WNDS 502]

This match simply appeared to confirm a number of things that have become increasingly apparent as the season has progressed:

- Our 'game management' in the 'big games' is poor this season. Every time we open the scoring, we drop back into our own half to defend, invite pressure onto ourselves, and make almost no effort to mount attacks of our own. Pretty much every time we do this we concede. Mourinho MUST attempt to find a different approach that makes better use of the players at his disposal, because the current approach just isn't working.

- We need a dynamic box-to-box style player (with pace and technique) as our 'number 10' (Willian). Fabregas can't press, is too easily bypassed when we're out of possession, and is unable to dictate our play from so high up the pitch. Oscar offsets some of his dynamism with a relative lack of pace and inconsistent short passing/ball control. Willian appears to be the best fit in that position because he can press, he has pace (both to recover position when the press is bypassed and to initiate counter-attacks), and he's technically sound.

- Deploying Ramires in the DM is increasingly ineffective. Mourinho is letting the 'idea of Ramires' obscure the reality. Ramires no longer seems as capable in defense as he used to be (our DM looked flimsy on a number of occasions tonight), and he causes our possession game to suffer massively. We should simply play the Matic-Fabregas pairing whenever possible, and have Willian and Cuadrado use their combination of pace/work-rate/defensive ability to ensure that they are offered sufficient protection.

[dimmas 131]

Mou has been this way for over 10 years and it won't change. When you point it out, you get criticised by his fans. Very strange.

very true, which is sad and worry me.

Mou is very good manager, but cannot deny when playing away and facing good team even just half decent team

he too otften make his own team, play to passive and being inferior side.

Too much sitback and really poor on attack and even worse sometimes what we can do is only sitback and hoof the ball. Pathetic display

[thekid9 418]

That is such a Troll Football way of thinking. Wow.

You do realise it's 17 not 7, right?

You do remember Costa played so little in our CL campagne so far with Drogba and Remy rotating places, right?

You do realise Costa would score many against those teams we had in our group, right?

Buy yeah, sorry, he has to score from the bench! He has to score whenever he moves a muscle in his body on and off the pitch! He has to score when he's asleep! He has to join this forum and score in each thread! What a lazy bastard!

Diego Costa games Appearances in group stage = 5 - goals 0

Drogba appearances in the group stage = 4 - Goals 2

Loic Remy appearances in the group stage = 2 - Goals 1

Your argument is completely invalid.

[The Chels 2,502]

you claim Ivanovic drops in to the box to help clear out crosses, yet, tonight, it was Azpi who was doing that more often.... look, they had Cavani and Ibra, who was winning every single aerial battle against JT, in the box most of the time. The only way we could avoid conceding was by shutting the flanks down and blocking their crosses. I love bane as much as the next guy here, but he just isn't doing much in that regard all season

I agree that Ivanovic is a defensive liability but it is clearly a tactical decision from Jose for our FBs to drop into the box when the opposition have the ball on the flanks. It means we have more men to defend the incoming cross but it also means that our wingers are often isolated 1v1 (or 2v1) against their players and so we have virtually no chance of stopping the cross. Doubling up on the opponent and preventing the cross from coming in (and thus preventing the attack) with the midfield players dropping into the box instead is surely the most logical solution but Jose seems to think otherwise and we were made to pay for that.

[DYC. 7,542]

Has the bar been set so low that expecting a team that cost ~ 200 million £ to be able to string 5 passes together in the opposition half is expecting something Barcelona-esqe?

Yes.

[Styles 9,790]

Ivanovic was out of position and left Rami isolated and Cahill should have been first to the header.

Moments before the goal their defense was in trouble as Hazard ran at them. We got into more dangerous positions at the start of the second half before they scored.

Yeah, because PSG started committing more bodies forward and pushing. Once they did that we broke down as usual i.e. Ivanovic out of position, players isolated, Cahill missing headers etc. Contrary to popular belief we're not very good at defending. Any 'control' we had was because PSG didn't put pressure on us, in my opinion. Once they did all that was left was for Courtois to make save after save.

[nadavTKL 1,787]

Those performances are getting really boring and even slightly frustrating. When we'll progress from this kind of performances away from home?

We'll go through PSG, but against Real, Atletico, Barca and Bayern it will be very hard to win the competition if we cant play better.

[Muzchap 8,966]

Diego Costa games Appearances in group stage = 5 - goals 0

Drogba appearances in the group stage = 4 - Goals 2

Loic Remy appearances in the group stage = 2 - Goals 1

Your argument is completely invalid.

Dude seriously - Costa's been missing for 3 games, it's called Match sharpness - remember Aguero against us he looked shit. You just have to play them and get them up and running

Costa was rested for most of CL qualifiers - to save his hamstring.

He's a goal scorer and is doing well - just chill

[Barbara 15,149]

They did this because they play a high line.

What people don't (want to) understand is that it is impossible to control a game with only 6 players (3 midfielders, 2 wingers and the center forward) and no overlap from your full backs.

Chelsea can't play a high line with Terry, Cahill and Ivanovic. Jose might be a defensive minded coach, but not a suicidal one.

which is why if you're going to play Fabregas at #10, you have to play Luís in the LB. Simple as that.

Cesc is easily marked out of these games - Luiz did it very well today imo - but it also helps him to find more space for his magic passes if we drag players to our wings. We just CAN'T do that with Azpili in the team. Sorry, he has a lot of defensive qualities, but he's really null in the attack with the eventual good cameo there.

Also Willian was visibly tired - I didn't think I'd see this day, but even he didn't have the usual energy.

So if he wants to start Cesc as #10 because he's more creative than our alternatives (Oscar, Willian), just make sure to also add width to the team, otherwise we're easily nullified as we were.

We didn't have ANY attack in this match and it showed when our goal came from a play orchestrated by three out of our four defenders in the match.

I think we controlled well the game until we made another stupid defensive mistake. It's their turf, Courtois saved us, but I even expected more bite from PSG, so I won't count those headers as something unexpected, or completely avoidable. It's normal stuff from a team playing the first leg of an UCL round of 16 at home. Still I didn't feel we'd concede (although with this defense I ALWAYS feel insecure about conceding stupid goals). So we were in control to win the match, but when he saw Blanc's approach to the match he could have instructed at least one of our AMs to show up more in the attack. He didn't. Then he played Fabregas - who is still coming from injury and no Luís, we were the terrible attacking show. I said early in the first half that if we didn't show some bite we'd end up the match with no shot on goal. I wasn't that off mark if you ask me.

That's completely giving up on attack and NO TEAM should ever do that unless there's a huge disparity in the quality between both teams. That wasn't the case. We're becoming more and more pragmatic in those matches and while I defend it in a few instances, today was completely unnecessary.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Yeah, because PSG started committing more bodies forward and pushing. Once they did that we broke down as usual i.e. Ivanovic out of position, players isolated, Cahill missing headers etc. Contrary to popular belief we're not very good at defending. Any 'control' we had was because PSG didn't put pressure on us, in my opinion. Once they did all that was left was for Courtois to make save after save.

Well, that's subjective and you have every right to interpret it that way.

But what is unquestionably objective is that we got a positive result. For all the criticism, we keep getting more positive results than all of the other teams in England and even in Europe. Even in the so called "big games" we are yet to lose. Can't all be luck, we must be doing something right.

[Muzchap 8,966]

which is why if you're going to play Fabregas at #10, you have to play Luís in the LB. Simple as that.

Cesc is easily marked out of these games - Luiz did it very well today imo - but it also helps him to find more space for his magic passes if we drag players to our wings. We just CAN'T do that with Azpili in the team. Sorry, he has a lot of defensive qualities, but he's really null in the attack with the eventual good cameo there.

Also Willian was visibly tired - I didn't think I'd see this day, but even he didn't have the usual energy.

So if he wants to start Cesc as #10 because he's more creative than our alternatives (Oscar, Willian), just make sure to also add width to the team, otherwise we're easily nullified as we were.

We didn't have ANY attack in this match and it showed when our goal came from a play orchestrated by three our of our four defenders in the match.

I think we controlled well the game until we made another stupid defensive mistake. It's their turf, Courtois saved us, but I even expected more bite from PSG, so I won't count those headers as something unexpected, or completely avoidable. It's normal stuff from a team playing the first leg of an UCL round of 16 at home. Still I didn't feel we'd concede (although with this defense I ALWAYS feel insecure about conceding stupid goals). So we were in control to win the match, but when he saw Blanc's approach to the match he could have instructed at least one of our AMs to show up more in the attack. He didn't. Then he played Fabregas - who is still coming from injury and no Luís, we were the terrible attacking show. I said early in the first half that if we didn't show some bite we'd end up the match with no shot on goal. I wasn't that off mark if you ask me.

That's completely giving up on attack and NO TEAM should ever do that unless there's a huge disparity in the quality between both teams. That wasn't the case. We're becoming more and more pragmatic in those matches and while I defend it in a few instances, today was completely unnecessary.

He cannot go another season without winning and its fucking with his mind. He's reverting to safety instead of attack. To be fair our team is shaky under pressure - but we have to learn to deal with that.

I think losing our passing tempo and movement from the start of the season has hurt us most - we're too static, which goes back to the point above - not conceding or conceding few goals is now our sole aim, with the hope Hazard creates - we've regressed back to last season - again because of the lack of trophy! We need to beat the Spuds - grab some silverware and hopefull things will change and fast

[Madmax 9,219]

Diego Costa games Appearances in group stage = 5 - goals 0

Drogba appearances in the group stage = 4 - Goals 2

Loic Remy appearances in the group stage = 2 - Goals 1

Your argument is completely invalid.

No you're right, we should recall the guy featured in your avatar and username.

[MichaelDance 552]

Some people are forgetting we are away and at away games a draw is good enough for us as long as we don't loose. We are much more positive at home because we know our pitch and we have that sparkle which gets other teams scared, and end up making mistakes and we win. (We've had a few bad days by not rotating but when we do we end up making our own mistakes... Bradford for example).

A draw or a win away is better than loosing... Trash them time at home.

[Azpinator 2,325]

Diego Costa games Appearances in group stage = 5 - goals 0

Drogba appearances in the group stage = 4 - Goals 2

Loic Remy appearances in the group stage = 2 - Goals 1

Your argument is completely invalid.

OMG what a FLOP! SELL HIM!

I don't think he played 90 minutes in any of those. It's better to judge by minutes played than appearances

And even if I'm wrong. We came out on top of the group, and he would have scored at least 2 against Maribor at the Bridge. We're seeking the trophy for the club. Unless the top scorer means more to you.

But to say he's not an improvement from the 3 we had last year? That argument is laughable since he's one of the reasons we're 7 points clear in the league. And still, the best time to discuss that is at the end if the season, not now.

[MichaelDance 552]

No you're right, we should recall the guy featured in your avatar and username.

If we did do that because of that member we might as-well give PSG the win at home... better to loose now than end up in shame because Torres just can't score to save his life.

[supporter 3,088]

Cavani's goal was totally unstoppable. That goal has changed EVERYTHING. In that scenario, playing away in the Champions League with PSG turned towards us, it would have been imprudent to have raised another kind of match.

See the "BIG" Bayern, they have drawn away against Shakhtar, horrible result compared with ours.

Calm down everyone. I also would have preferred to win clearly, but Champions League is always difficult. We are alive and is now the PSG who have to be concerned.

Quiet, calm. We have struck first and at The Bridge we are infallible.

Regards to ALL.