Nibs

I hate the fact he plays for Man Utd but can't help admire him as a footballer. And to be fair to him, the more stick he gets from opposing fans the better he plays - he never goes hiding. So perhaps we should just ignore him?

Shame that's about all we'll remember him for. And, wasn't that a cross?

Spot on with that and that is my worry with Kalou. Sure he is young and hopefully he will improve when it comes to that final ball decision making. But some players never do learn - Gronkjar (it's been a while since he played for us so that spelling is well wrong - but you all know who I mean!!). For me, at the moment, and certainly next season, kalou would still be a back up player, not one who plays every week.

So, so true, I was only thinking about that the other day after the CL defeat. Imagine next season if we have to play that lot again in the CL (I can't quite bear to think about it) but if we beat them, because of the defeats suffered previously, the elation will be that much greater. Same with next time we win the league, we missed out this season, but when we win it next time it will be that much sweeter. Not saying that winning all the time gets boring or that you get complacent (although maybe deep down we do?), but I do agree you have to suffer the defeats and the disappointments to make the wins all that more memorable and enjoyable. I mean, who can forget the 1997 cup win - after all those years of nothing - it made that day so memorable, one I'll never forget. Roll on 2007/2008, although an FA cup triumph before then would be a great end to the season

Great News.

Disappointing match? As Loz says, you must have turned off at half time. That second half display with 10 men made me proud to be a Chelsea fan. They gave everything and what a difference to the last few games. Everyone (except Boula) deserves a high mark.

That's not the point though. I would always advocate keeping a manager to maintain stability and to build on success. But in Wenger & Fergies cases, they have done so with a fair bit of style and got them playing good attacking football. That's my main reservation with Mourinho - the fact that his favoured style of football is not great to watch - okay short term but not long. Has he the ability to change that? If he has fine but if not?

And the mixed responses have just underlined what I thought. There are those that totally worship JM and will always choose to ignore his obvious shortcomings. There are those that have had enough of him and would not be unhappy to see him go. And then there are those like me, totally mixed - that's not sitting on the fence, but appreciating all the good he has done and genuinely loving the bloke on the whole, whilst now being rather disillusioned with him and not knowing if he will ever be capable of getting us to play football I would like to watch week in week out. Thanks Loz for kinda sticking up for me (even though you don't know me - well not intimately anyway ), and I do apologise for bringing this up in a way, when it has been done to death one way or another. But that's just how frustrated I feel at the moment. Youlots, I am in my early 40's and I have supported Chelsea through thick and thin. Okay, since moving to Norfolk a couple of years back, I don't attend as many games as I did, but that has as much to do with now having young kids, a mortgage etc as it does with logistics. But I do still get to games and whether I attend in the flesh or watch on Sky or listen on the radio, I still support them as I always have done and the defeats hurt as much as ever. Not sure why I am explaining myself but your comment "I'd hate to be in the trenches with you" - sorry don't get that. So none of us are ever allowed to be critical of Mourinho, even when he F**ks up? If we had lost to Liverpool the other night but played decent football then I wouldn't even be posting this. Of course I prefer that we win trophies, but in all honesty, if we don't, it won't bother me as it's not the end of the world. I'm not saying I want us to be like Arsenal and play "total football" but be out of all competitions by February / March. But surely it is possible, with the players we now have, to dish up better than we have of late. And when things do go pear shaped as they did the other night, don't take the supporters as mugs- just bloody well admit it and hold your hand up. Oh and Liam, when I put in bold the proper Chelsea supporters, I wasn't meaning to sound like one of those "I'm a real supporter - you're not" types . I just meant any of us who feel for the club like they would a lover and who feel physically sick when they play a game like the other night and then lie awake all night fretting about it as opposed to the JCL's that Geezer (or is it Glory55?) that are often referring to.

But Elliott, is it? Really? You are honestly telling me that if next season we played a large number of games just as we did the other night, that you would be happy with that?

I, like many other of the regular posters on here have very mixed feelings about our special one at the moment. It was not long ago, on one of the other threads, when the rumour was that he was definitely on his way at the end of the season, that I expressed my outrage, and couldn't believe how the club were even considering getting rid of the guy who had brought us so much success and turned us into winners. But just a few weeks on I am not so sure and right now I would love to see a poll conducted on proper Chelsea fans, as to whether they want Mourinho to stay or not. I guess if I had to say right now, I would still want him here next season, but that would be subject to conditions. He has to take a look at himself and some of his comments and admit, that at times, he acts like a complete knob. Okay, we have just lost one of the biggest games in our history and to one of our biggest rivals and no, I certainly did not want to see him happy and joking and wishing Liverpool all the best. I was glad to see him totally shell shocked and hurting. But to then come out with the crap about the best team lost and we were the only team trying to win etc etc, it's just laughable and insults us fans. He came across like a kid on sportsday beaten in the race he expected to win and couldn't quite accept the fact. But even more of a concern to me than Mourinho's lack of dignity is the style (or lack of it) of football. It can be argued that in the games against Newcastle, Bolton and Liverpool the players were tired. But tired or not, is that any excuse for how little football we played? It was both hugely disappointing and painful to watch in that in our biggest game of the season, we resorted to hoofing long ball after long ball. I thought we had a team with some pretty useful ball players in it? People have argued that maybe that was not Mourinho's fault and that the players just resorted to that tactic? No way. It is so easy to get a message to the players during a game, surely after one or two long balls the coach would say ENOUGH, get it down and lets start playing football. No, what we witnessed was how Mourinho wanted us to do it and he must have firmly believe that type of tactic would bring its rewards. As much as I love Mourinho, I love Chelsea more. I am very appreciative of the fact that he has brought us back to back league titles, won two league cups, got us to two CL semi finals and could now possibly add the FA cup to all that. But even after all that, if he cannot provide assurances that we will no longer play this horrible type of football that we have witnessed of late, then sorry, as good as he may have been for us, he'd have to go in my book.

Can't believe people are still putting Frank in their starting lines ups. Are you all that blind to the fact that he has been very poor for some time? (Now watch him start and get a brace!!) I would leave him out, no question and let the likes of Mikel, Diarra, SWP, Joe & robben get decent playing time so they are prepared for the cup final.

Oh **** Off Loz, you ******!! Sorry, welcome back Loz

Well said. He may have been crap last night, just as the rest of the Man Utd team were and just as we were the night before. But over the course of the season Ronaldo has shown he is a great player. Both Kaka and Ronaldo are players I would happily pay to watch every week.

I have and its total f*****g sh*te Good theme tune though.

I miss Maniche!!! Wasn't it him that used to go on& on about how great Carvalho was and we all used to laugh at him. Maybe he had a point after all.

nothing to suggest liverpool fans. This is true. They could have been Evertonians ... or supporters of the greatest team on Merseyeside .... the one and only Tranmere Rovers!!!! Speaking of which, has anyone read Awaydays by Kevin Sampson? which just happens to be about Tranmere fans. Great book that Lofty - I've read all his books now - all bloody great

For me it is not all about trophies and success. It's about playing football the right way and of late, to be frank, the football has been dire.

Liverpool were not great by any stretch, I just think we were a fair bit worse - certainly in terms of creating any sort of goal scoring chance - and lets face it, that's exactly what we needed to do. Score 1 and the tie was as good as in the bag. Gerrard wasn't great but he still covered a lot more ground and more effectively than Lamps. Pennant gave Cole a pretty hard time and I was glad when he went off. But at times we were under a fair bit of pressure and we didn't deal with it as well as Liverpool did. It was not a great advertisement for English football, but you have to say, they deserved to win and I now wish that goal had not been disallowed so we wouldn't have had to suffer the penalties.

Unfortunately, not as sh*te as most of our players

Really don't know what to post. I sat there last night to about 12.00am just feeling totally numb. Haven't felt like this since that day back in '88 when I was sat in the members enclosure and saw us relegated to the old Div 2. NUMB. Like BJD, having slept on it (I did eventually get to sleep after re running the game through my mind time and time again), I too feel angry. Rafa has done Jose yet again in a big game and we seem not to have learnt anything from previous mistakes. For Jose to come out and say the best team loss, well personally I am lost for words. How were we the best team? What exactly did we create? Liverpool were little better but they did hit the bar, force Cech to make saves and have a goal disallowed that we would all be up in arms about if it had been our goal. Again, how many chances did we create? We kept hearing about how this game was our biggest, most important game for years and yet we again go out with a whimper. And perhaps that is why Roman has been thinking about a possible change of coach and change of direction? All the time we are picking up 3 points week in week out and collecting a trophy or two, the style of football can get overlooked, but start losing playing that type of football and you start to think "Hang on a minute......................" As for individual players last night, I think most of them went missing when it really mattered. Please no-one compare Lamps to Gerrard ever again because Lamps has been woeful for some time now and bar tucking his penalty away his contribution last night was little. We seem to be in the same position now with Mourinho & Lamps and Erikson and Beckham for England where no matter how badly he is playing, he won't be dropped and that is not on. As a huge Joe Cole fan I was disappointed that he never really got going. He could have been such a threat and although some of his work was good, he was never in an area where Liverpool were threatened. Kalou looked totally out of his depth last night and should have come off during the 90 minutes. Why leave it so late to bring on Robben & SWP when we needed a goal and others were clearly not in the game? I thought Maka and Mikel both had fairly decent games, but in areas where Liverpool were more than happy for them to have the ball. The one time we threatened, was when Essien drove forward with the ball and SWP put in a cross for Drogba. Have to say Drogba battled well but Carragher was immense for them and totally outplayed him. And sorry to see DD back to the antics again. Pitiful. Today has been unbearable at work and this is gonna hurt for some weeks to come. I am sure most of our players hurt as well but then they do have between ?50k and ?120k a week to help soften the blow. Oh and Happy Birthday Tim. What a Bummer.

I agree with Glory55. The Leeds game was always one to look forward to. It was up there with Liverpool, Man Utd, Spurs, Arsenal & West Ham in terms of atmosphere and fan rivalry. Yes, on one hand it's fun to see them get relegated but I would rather have a premiership with the likes of Leeds than the Wigans and Watfords. Poor old Ken Bates. He probably thought that he could repeat history - what with us on the brink of relegation to the old third division when John Neal turned things around. I bet that really grates with a lot of Leeds fans - the Chelsea connection that they now have taking their beloved team down. Loved Wisey when he was hear but I would never want him here in a coaching / managing role.

Sheva was certainly involved a lot more than we have been used to during that first half. But that said, he still looked too slow and dare I say clumsy at times with some of his control (or lack of it). It was good to see him getting into dangerous positions but he still looks anything but a ?30m top striker. I think Mourinho took him off Saturday and brought on Drogba because he knew we would be under more aerial threat in the second half and Drogba was put on to counter that. Sadly, Essien lost his man (again) and the rest is history. It was a big mistake signing Sheva in the first place. There are a lot of rumours linking us with Berbatov at present. With him and DD up front next season that would improve us hugely.

So hope you're right. Whether Carvo plays or we end up going with Boula, we HAVE to have a go at Liverpool. Put them on the back foot and let them worry about the likes of Drogba, Joe Cole & Essien. We must not sit back - even more so if Carvo doesn't play, and chance a repeat of what happened there in the League this season.

7 games away from the greatest seaon ever know in football history !!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew someone would come back with that as soon as I typed it!!! Sure there is pressure, but the players should be able to handle that without the need for Jose's comments that is supposedly taking the pressure of the players. I could understand if the team or individual players were playing sh**e and after JM came out with something to deflect the criticism, but what we've been discussing here is just plain daft.

I think this "taking the heat off the players" is nonsense though. Maybe he was once upon a time - but what heat have the players got to take off at present? At times, he just can't help himself. I love the bloke, but he does have a habit of opening his mouth and putting his foot firmly in it. If that had been Red Nose, Raffa or Wenger spouting that bollox, we would all be saying "what a knob" and rightly so. So it pains me when are very own special one makes a knob of himself when there really is no need to.