blizeH

Think it's pretty obvious that the Freud/Bacon purchases were an investment, yes they were incredibly expensive (especially since, IMO, they look like crap) but the value of them should continue to increase at a silly rate. Anyhow. Football. I find it interesting on here that there's a massive divide between people who are either placing the blame solely with the manager and want him sacked, or solely with the players and want certain individuals dropped to the reserves for causing unrest (with absolutely no evidence that this has happened may I add) and a huge clearout in the summer. Meh. I think it's a bit of both - the squad definitely needs a refresh, and if certain players are causing unrest then I wouldn't hesitate to ship them out in the summer. But you can't argue that the manager is looking out of his depth. I hope he turns it around, and believe he can, but looking at our recent results (and the fact that even the games we've won were massively unconvincing) tells me that the players are massively under-performing, or that we're using the wrong system/tactics, and either way the manager plays a huge role in both of those.

Chelsea are currently 17th in the form table: http://www.footymad.net/football-form-tables/ What's most worrying is that all of those 5 games were winnable, and even the game that wasn't we managed to get ourselves 3 goals head only to blow it.

I wish people would f**k off saying that about Bosingwa, that's 3 people now I've seen implying he was faking injury. Seriously: f**k. Off.

Cech Kept us in it with some great early saves, but completely lost the plot for their third goal. 6 Ivanovic No where near as solid or dependable as he usually is. Still, never stopped trying. 5 Cahill Could have got out quicker for two of the goals, still adapting I guess. 5 Luiz Unfair to place blame solely with him. Cech gave him no option to knock it back, no shout to clear it, and Cole lost his man. 6 Cole Great goal line clearance and generally looked good, but didn't track back for the third goal. 6 Ramires Not his usual self, not even close. Constantly gave the ball away, created a great chance from nothing which he unfortunately wasted. 4 Miereles Very wasteful, and looked completely out of his depth in the holding midfield role against real quality. Should not have been put in that position. 3 Malouda A decent performance, didn't do a lot wrong, but fairly uninspiring stuff. 6 Mata Again showed his quality and took the goal well. Can't help but shake the feeling he's still not as effective for us as he could be though. 7 Sturridge Frustrating, wasteful and stroppy. Yet still has some real quality. His decision making, selfishness and willingness to drop to the floor and stay there needs to change. 5 Drogba Ineffective. But unfortunately Torres didn't leave the manager with much option. Was barely involved in the game, especially in the second half. 5

I'm becoming more and more dejected watching this team, I admire him for trying something different last night, but we keep seeing the same mistakes - Miereles has been woeful, Malouda's form has also been poor yet they played at the expense of Lampard and Essien. Also to play without a defensive midfielder when we have Romeu, Essien and even Mikel who can do that role is unacceptable, it made us very vulnerable at the back. Our defense has been incredibly shaky. We have some real quality there (80 minutes with Ivanovic, Luiz, Cahill and Cole) and goalkeeper who was once regarded as the best in the world, yet I have never known us to look so frail as we do now. Going forward also we have massive problems. We're not creating enough chances and our forwards are not taking them even when they do arise. Our finishing has been terrible, but similarly we seem to be almost going the Arsenal route of trying to have all of the possession, how often do our players have a go from outside of the box now? The kind of range that Lavezzi scored from last night? Someone posted our results since the City game yesterday and it made for depressing reading, I think it was 4 wins in 20, and only one of those (4-0 vs Wolves) was anywhere near convincing. I have faith that AVB can get us through this, but something has to change. And fast.

Seems like he suffered from the new contract curse last night, I love the guy, but damn he was shocking. How many times did he just run straight into traffic and quickly lose the ball?

You know, at 0-1 I was actually really rather confident. Still not used to this often rather frail looking Chelsea :( I beleive AVB tried to prove a point today. Changed it up, took some risks and hoped for a result that would silence his critics, but it really backfired. I admire the guys courage and think a change was good, but leaving Essien and Lampard out in particular was a huge mistake. It's going to be very tough to progress now, especially without JT, but I still believe. KTBFFH!

Really big test for AVB now. This game is winnable...

For what it's worth I'd much rather see Bertrand at LB than Bosingwa, but to his credit, Bosingwa was actually quite good when he filled in there recently.

I'll post it here too then, since it matches what we were originally told, not the contradictions above. From the hotel they're staying at: Looks like 'Studge' is playing down the middle for this one! Interesting....

From the hotel they're staying at: Looks like 'Studge' is playing down the middle for this one! Interesting....

Apologies for that, but honestly you could probably have switched out any number of words to describe how I felt reading your post. And honestly, calling Luiz useless? He's constantly developing into a fantastic player. He's always had all of the right physical attributes and the technical ability to be world class, and with each game his positioning is improving, his decision making is improving, his reading of the game is improving. I love him and it's good to see most other fans do too. It's also interesting you mention that Drogba was the only player that gave a damn, what, really? Cahill and Luiz looked good and well up for it, and Bran ran his f**king socks off as he always does, bombing forward to setup an attack and bombing back to ensure we weren't short at the back. Drogba by contrast, yes, looked very up for it, and it was refreshing (actually, it put a big smile on my face) to see Drogba come on at half time and tear around the pitch like a crazy man, but he ultimately had little impact. He had what, 6 touches of the ball? Again it was good to see, but to say he was the only player who gave a toss is pretty shocking.

Don't say sh*t like that unless you want to get banned.

Christ, when you see it like that... not looking good for Torres huh? And agreed about that Shevchenko goal vs Tottenham, just incredible. Worth £30m for that alone for me :D

To be fair, Spurs don't have too many truly unlikeable players, especially when compared to other teams (in particular Liverpool, ugh) - but their fans seem to be absolute c**ts for the most part. So someone who's never been to a game before probably wouldn't mind them so much. It's stupid but I find my girlfriend's take on this quite interesting, new to football, only been to a couple of games, and doesn't mind Tottenham or Everton. She absolutely f**king hates Liverpool (Suarez, Carragher, Gerrard, Bellamy, Spearing, Agger, Skrtel, Kenny etc etc) and Arsenal too. Like I said, based on their players/managers that probably sounds about right to me.

80 minutes of this, then Kalou comes on, forgets his orders, runs into the centre circle to retrieve the ball, dribbles past every single one of Napoli's players with ease, then blasts a shot towards goal that ends up leaving the stadium

The problem is, between those passes will be the same lack of awareness, the same lack of urgency, the same absent-mindedness that has caused us so much trouble whenever he's played this season. Sad to say, I don't think any game is perfect for Mikel with the way he's playing right now.

It's sad, but I agree with the above - AVB has absolutely no choice but to start with Drogba in this game. I kept believing. I kept faith. Torres is just too good a player to suddenly lose it like that, and there was a decent period where he was playing very well, even though the goals weren't coming to him. He was working hard, creating for the team and generally being one of our better players going forward, but now even that seems to have been lost in the past few games. I'm gutted to be honest. The way it is now, I'd almost prefer to see Sturridge playing in the middle than I would Torres. Hell, I'd even be willing to give Kalou/Lukaku a chance right now playing in the middle. Maybe I'm deluded but I still believe Torres will get another chance with us and he will shine. He's too classy to be finished at 26/27. But for now, we need to put our faith into other players....

Dalglish looks scarily like Gary Glitter at times.

Make that 3 own goals (not a Bridcutt hattrick though thankfully!). Feel so bad for Brighton, they look incredibly out of their depth, even against an unspectacular Liverpool side

Why are the Brighton fans applauding and boo'ing Gerrard? According to the commentator it's because he's about to be England's new captain. How the f**k is proven assault somehow swept under the carpet, yet our players get consistently booed? I despair with humanity. I really do.

Sorry, but we have absolutely no excuse not to get into the semis, really nice draw.

Well in that case then, hopefully we can loan him back for a season or two :)

Christ you have a bad memory.

Courtois is doing incredibly well. Kalas and Bruma too