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Blimey. I can't believe you have never seen Drogba play. And Jose kept subbing off Joe Cole until he started to get the defensive side of his role up to the level Mourinho required. And Duff always put in a big shift defensively whenever the opposition had the ball. Robben? You have a valid point there though.

@Mod Can we move this thread to the Tedious Repetitive Rehash section?

Seems to be 4-6 weeks. They'll bring him back.

Wake up, get out of bed. Count. I still have 10 fingers and 10 toes. The world hasn't ended, the dog hasn't pissed on the floor during the night and I haven't wet the bed for that matter. Life is good. A day to look forward to. Check in here. Back to bed.

I dont think they bring loans back if its just a tweak or pull and out for a few weeks, its usually if its more serious.

Is there any way of hosting some of the old CSR stuff on this forum somewhere, it would be great going back to the day Roman was rumored, when he was announced, that first few months of splurging on players etc... I remember being on the CSR when it all kicked of and it was a mental few months,

Looks like a hamstring? I wonder if the club bring him back to Cobham for treatment?

Dont agree with that, hes looking for consistency and understanding and we arent exactly swamped with fixtures, we need to settle partnerships as early as possible, I expect he`ll stick with the majority that started sunday, maybe Estevao and Baco in at most.

100% agree

Best attacker with checks notes zero shots on target and zero accurate crosses. Running fast in a straight line doesn’t mean a good performance. You may be easily fooled by someone looking busy, but watch and understand. Yes his opinion means less, watching the game via YouTube highlights means less than people that go to games and are engrained in the culture. He’s a fan, I can post thousands of tweets of people sh*tting on Neto’s performances. Maybe go and read the Garnacho thread and what I wrote about his performances at the time rather than making things up.

Reports Shankland could be out for upto 3 months, just as he was getting going as well.

I don’t know wether it’s a bit of a small club mentality creeping in or wether it’s just further degradation of the beautiful game by modern ‘tactics’ but this notion that our forwards must also be defenders does irk me somewhat. I think we’d all be in agreement that two of the best Chels sides of ‘recent’ memory would be that early Jose side and the Carlo teams. Now I could be misremembering but I don’t think any of Robben, Drogba, Joey Cole or Duff were particularly lauded for their defensive contributions. The same goes for a Drogba, Anelka, Malouda approach. We took the game to other sides, made them game plan for us not the other way around. Like I touched on our strength is in our attack, we should play to that and for me that involves getting all our best attackers on the pitch at once to give us the best chance. Looking at it this way, would you trust JP, CP, Rogers and Stevie to score more than you would trust Hato, Fofana, Levi, Lacroix & Gusto not to concede?

Looks like our recruitment policy is changing but 4 years of disastrous decisions , ridiculous transfer trading and massive spending ruined our club instead of improving us. We're still nowhere near the club that was sold to this lot.

All true, we did see a lot of the 4-2-3-1 in pre-season and vs Luton, but without Caicedo we would just get overrun in the PL imho. I'm sure we'll see it more once he is back though, and especially when/if we get a partner Xabi trusts alongside him. Even in the 3-4-3, I dont think its the idea to start with Rogers/Palmer every single time, but this early in his tenure you probably dont want to change too much from game to game. I'd expect Estevao to start more games after the international break, no matter what formation we play

Yes, you're right mate, I forgot about those substitutions, obviously made with the CL game in mind , bit depressing to realise how far behind them we are right now.

Seconded. Doddle scored an amazing amount of vital goals from midfield. Goodness knows what he’d be worth in today’s transfer market. Let’s start at say £75 million.

Remember when...Geoff Hurst's Chelsea were denied final-day promotionOriginally posted on 17 MAY 2020. Official club site. On the day the 2019/20 Premier League season was due to be concluded, we recall final-day drama at Stamford Bridge 40 years ago when a win proved not enough to secure promotion back to the top flight... Before the current pandemic hit football this Sunday would have been the Premier League’s day of reckoning, when the title is settled, and clubs land on the snakes and ladders of the professional game. The last match can also be imbued with finality, as match-going supporters might not see their football friends again for a good few months, and departing players wave their farewells to the crowd. After 19 seasons in the famous royal blue, Ron Harris was about to make the 795th and final appearance before moving to Brentford, and out-of-contract Tommy Langley would move to QPR the same summer. Both players had given everything to the cause while the Blues grappled with financial debt and relegations. Sometimes, though, decision day can be cruel and deceiving, and that was certainly the case on 3 May 1980 when Oldham Athletic were the visitors for the last hurrah of 1979/80. Ron Harris and Micky Droy were among the post-match celebrations but their smiles proved premature There were 28,253 present to see Geoff Hurst’s side thrash the unusually listless Lancastrians 3-0 and end their campaign in third place in Division Two, enough to earn promotion to the top tier after a one-year absence. Some supporters even invaded the pitch at the end to celebrate. That was premature, at best. ‘Two tearaway goals from Clive Walker and a fizzer from Mike Fillery add up to an agonising nine-day wonder for Chelsea,’ was how The People newspaper saw it. The agony they referred too was the wait for other teams to complete their fixtures. Chelsea had played all 42 games, enough (in the days of two points for a win) to equal Birmingham’s final total of 53, albeit with a worse goal difference, and finish two behind leaders Leicester. Clive Walker pictured scoring one of his two goals on the day Excited reactions to events unfolding elsewhere had added to an already carnivalesque atmosphere at the Bridge during the Oldham game. This was a day when the fabled fan-with-the-trannie (a portable transistor radio) had come into his or her own, relaying to terrace neighbours each incident from St Andrew’s, where Birmingham hosted Notts County, and Brisbane Road, where the Foxes faced Orient. A pitch-side phone had also been set up for Hurst’s assistant Bobby Gould so that he could receive updates on the ebbs and flows throughout the match. Leicester scored early and held out to beat the Os 1-0, but dispatches from the second city were far more roller-coaster. Birmingham raced into a 2-0 lead but were pegged back to 2-2, only to take the lead again before the break. There the scoring paused for almost 20 minutes before County equalised again. One late strike for the visitors would have promoted Chelsea outright. Sadly, it never came. Annoyingly Sunderland now stood in fourth place, one point shy of the Blues with a superior goal difference and one game remaining, at home to West Ham on 12 May. Worryingly, though, just two days before their date with the Mackems, the Hammers were due to contest the FA Cup final with Arsenal at Wembley. ‘I’ve always thought well of John Lyall at West Ham,’ Hurst joked. ‘Let’s hope he’s thinking well of me.’ The east enders beat the Gunners to win the cup, and the story goes they were still hungover when they lost 2-0 at Roker Park, consigning Chelsea to another season in Division Two. It would be a further four seasons before the Blues finally returned to the big time.

Cheers. Remember being gutted that we didn’t go straight back up in 1979-80.

Been reported he remains Alonsos first choice option for our midfield and that we are looking at arranging a deal for him to join next summer.

I think having a front 4 is a good shout but it brings its own problems. They would also have to defend which doesn’t suit any of them really. Essentially we’d have 3 mavericks on the pitch at once in Stevie, Palmer and JP and I’ve not been that impressed by Rogers when we are defending either. It would probably allow Reece to play RB every week but Palestra (who I think will make us much better in the current system) isn’t a full back and might struggle for minutes. A solid double pivot would help but that’s not happening at the moment. Alex Scott had we got him would be perfect alongside Caicedo but them’s the breaks I’m afraid. I really rated our transfer window but I can’t help wondering how close we might have pushed Arsenal this season had we got Scott or Wharton. Unless they implode the self entitled pricks will win the league. We definitely have more than enough to finish top 4 and you never know. One of the youngsters, Barco or a fit Lavia playing alongside Caicedo might just have a breakout season. #Hendersonsindiansummer

We're already conceding over 2 goals a game. Stevie needs to knuckle down and be better than one of our front three. If he has the talent this will happen. He may also get into the team through injury. If he wants to play more he would have to join a team with a weaker attack. Is that such a good career move for him? Where would he go? He just needs to work hard and force his way into the team. I think Alonso will play him at some point. He just needs to be patient.

Not sure if this has been covered already or not but our midfield situation might be a lot better if Alonso actually had Reece and Lavia in top condition. I mean much has been said on Mudryk being away from the game for 2 years and needing to be built back up again. Lavia has basically not kicked a ball in 3 years. He needs to be rebuilt as well. Reece had no time off last summer nor this one, got injured at the world cup and is far from his best. The Lavia from Southampton and a sharp reece is good enough against many sides. They are just long ways from it. May take months, if not all season, to get there. And that's if they can stay fit.

That would be a very attacking approach but we would need at least 2 those 4 to track back and help defensively, even against weaker teams.