Eggy McMuffin

The first part is wrong for me... Bruma has shown he isn't ready yet, Kakuta was very poor himself, so should have expected to be subbed. Van Aanholt hasn't impressed in every appearance, he has lacked defensively in most. Who says he's third choice, too? Ashley hasn't been injured for us to find out. He hasn't mentioned McEachran playing as many as he has, which is an incredible improvement on recent seasons for us. Borini hasn't looked quite there yet, give the guy time. I don't know about Matic's transfer being a favour, either. The second part fails to take into account wages. Van Der Vaart wouldn't be willing to join on anywhere near what Benayoun came in for, and Oezil would want even more than that, probably doubling Benayoun's wages. Ramires is a completely different player to both of them, so the comparison there is a bit strange in my view. Ramires was brought in to be a box to box type, almost as a backup for Essien in my view. The rest of the article seems to be just saying how unsettled Guardiola must be, which is weird for me. People keep saying about how Carlo is 'clearly angry about Abramovich's actions'... I don't think they realise that he was managing AC Milan for Silvio Burlosconi... do you not think he can deal with Abramovich?

We were coping well with without him but we had a backup to him at the time, in Benayoun. Two players who perform the same role for us, and they're out at the same time... that's always going to be difficult to deal with. If we would have kept Ballack we wouldn't have signed Benayoun, and they've both had injuries this season as you've said... we'd be in no better position.

I'm basically Jamie Carragher on the pitch... I'm not particularly good, in fact many think I'm that bad that I'm better in goal than on pitch... I'm slow, but have a great recovering challenge which makes me look a lot better than I am. I'm a bit of a c**t with the old tap at the ankles and nobody likes playing against me. Luckily I'm less of a c**t when I stop playing, though.... no wonder I can't get a team together, they just don't want to be up against me in training

Maybe brilliant is a bit strong, but toward the end of last season he was very good, and it could be said one of our better players. I went with brilliant because these c**ts saying that he should never be allowed to play for us again need balancing out, so I have to be a little over the top.

He's a confidence player and I am getting sick of typing pretty much this exact same thing on here, time after time. When he's low on confidence like he and indeed the entire team are, he doesn't play well, but then when he is confident he's brilliant. He has improved, there is no doubting that, but at the moment he's low on confidence and just can't show it. At the end of last season and the beginning of this one, he was top draw, because he had that confidence. It's a problem of his, but it's one which will get better as he mature mentally, something which happens far later in a player's career.

I guess I should explain my reasoning for this. Recently, we've lacked confidence and desire. Confidence can only come from winning, and/or playing well, there is no way to just create it out of nowhere, but desire can be created. Next weekend we're facing our biggest rivals, Terry is back, Essien is back. That is desire in the making, right there. No one will want to beat sp*rs more than JT, and with him back in the side, he will be shouting at the team every f**king training session this week to give them all that same desire. It's the sort of thing which becomes infectious, it spreads around a side when you have a man like JT focusing on it all week. There is no f**king greater incentive, than JT threatening to kick the sh*t out of you.... well... maybe he won't get that far, but you get the picture. Carlo will be replaying the first half to the team, over and over, and over, and over again. Everton are a tough side to break down, and we could have been two or three goals clear by half time. The chances we created in the second half were nothing to sniff at either, we just lost concentration and started to panic at the back. Midweek we have a game against Marseille where the pressure is off, the panic just won't be there, and we'll have that win to give us the confidence back. We may see one or two youngsters involved in that game, but hopefully not too many as our first team still need that confidence a win will undoubtedly give them. Tottenham will come at us next week, and we will catch them on the break, again and again and again. Their main threats are VdV, who'll be trying to pick up space in a midfield which will include Mikel, Essien and hopefully Ramires, and their other threat comes from Bale, who has pace and a good cross, which Bosingwa is most suited to defending with his own pace. I think our side is perfectly set up to deal with Tottenham, and when the papers get fully stuck into us tomorrow, which they no doubt will do, trying to stick the knife in, the odds will be ridiculous, Tottenham may even be classed as favourites for it. With good odds like that, I will gladly put some good money on it.

Yeah, it definitely didn't work, there's no denying that, but I think the decision had a sound enough basis, it just went the wrong way. What's that famous adage, 'it's better to be lucky than good'? Carlo is very good, but it seems this season we just don't have the luck.

Yes, in fact I'm going to be placing a wager with my local bookies. I'm going to wait 'till tomorrow when the papers are in full force about today's result, too.

Yeah, I think that may have been that we were under the kosh a bit, though and he was just dropping back because he was feeling like he needed to cover. Of course this is just speculation, here, but I'm trying to think of what makes sense in the given situation, because Carlo, the man who led us to a double last season is clearly not an idiot, so there must have been a reason for it.

I thought it was to rest Anelka, and with Ramires going into midfield, Malouda moving up top. That was my interpretation, anyway.

I hope you don't mind me answering this one. Kalou's problem always has been, and always will be confidence. The end of last season everyone was saying he'd turned a corner and was brilliant, and he was, but it was all confidence. With our recent slump in form, his confidence has gone, and that's why he dallied on the ball with those chances. He clearly didn't feel set, and right in taking the shots early, which a confident and in form player always would. When he's good, he's great, when he's not, he's very much not. He can still beat players like no one else in our squad, but his finishing needs confidence.

I would wager a very large sum of money that we won't line up like that. Although, I would like us to play a 5-3-4 formation, I feel there may well be rules against fielding 13 players. I have a feeling you went on the BBC site and copied the 'last league match line up', and forgetting that Bosingwa and Sturridge both came on as substitutes.

Part of me just died.

I had Crespo leave me on a Bosman, so I decided to take out my vengeance on him by fining him repeatedly, putting him in the u-18s (so he wouldn't get games), and give him a non existent training schedule so his stats plummeted... he had all 1s by the time he left (except for finishing I think), hated me, and I've never rated him in real life since... purely because of it. :blush:

There's a difference between grasping something and doing it well... You're right, we should have a plan B, but why should it be a 4-4-2? It's a formation which doesn't suit the players the club has at their disposal, not least because we have wingers rather than wide midfielders, and, that it leaves a side weak centrally, which we even managed to be in a 4-5-1... I don't think a switch to 4-4-2 would in any way help the team. I'm not sure that Welbeck played up front, he did push forwards, you're right, but he was doing so in a wide position, which is more the domain of a fullback to deal with in my view, and the central midfielders should be on hand to cover on the inside of that, which is roughly what happened on that side, with Zhirkov tracking back (when Malouda should have been) (which left the central areas exposed). I'd dispute that it's a matter of comfort, when it comes to the youngsters. I wouldn't be surprised if Ferreira was playing centrally in training, considering that he knew Alex was out, and an injury to Ivan or Terry would have left (and did leave) him with a problem. I'm thinking that the youngsters simply aren't ready mentally and are needing time with the first team, to mature, before they can be used on a regular basis. Something which I don't think can be easily accounted for prior to the season starting. Like I said at the end, I expected this season to be one of transition, and I'm sticking to that. Perhaps we should play a system where there are three central midfielders... oh hang on... Zhirkov and Ramires were leaving him on his own, which they shouldn't do, and that made his job pretty much impossible.... You may well be right on that, but surely that's a good reason to play someone with experience, who is less likely to get flustered when under pressure? Carlo is the right man for the job and for good reason, which is why I'm inclined to defend his decisions, even when it looks bad in the post mortem.

Replace that with 'on his own'.

Right, I think I'll try and put across why I think Carlo was right, and was doing the best anyone would be able to do in his position. In the interview which was posted up earlier in the thread, Carlo said that he played Ferreira instead of Bruma because of how well Ferreira had been playing in training. That's something we can't see, so to us it may well seem like a strange move, but if he's been brilliant in training, surely that was the right thing to do? Ferreira in my view, wasn't the reason we lost, though. If our midfield would have been a first choice one, or even close to first choice, he wouldn't have even broken a sweat. In fact with Sunderland playing just one up top, it was perfectly reasonable to have him in defence, as really all he needed to do was mop up after Ivan. I would even go as far to say that Ferreira did reasonably well... the goals we conceded were from Sunderland getting at the defence and even top defenders struggle with those situations. People have been moaning about the squad depth, but I don't think that was a major mistake... a miscalculation in some sense, maybe. If Ramires would have settled within the first couple of weeks, would our midfield look out of place? I can see exactly why it was initially thought that Ramires would settle quickly, and it's because of how he played in Portugal, full of running and power, which is exactly what you need to make it in the Premiership. Unfortunately, play which seems powerful in Portugal isn't quite there in England, so it's taking him time. Time we could normally have afforded him as well, if it weren't for Essien and Lampard both being out injured at the same time. By the looks of it, we may have to wait until next season to see the best of what Ramires has to offer, which is disappointing for many of us, but it is something we have to live with, and something which has affected most of our signings in some way (Drogba, Malouda, Alex took a while to settle in too). It has caused many here to write him off completely which in my view is wrong, and patience is required. With Ramires not quite settled, and with Essien and Lampard out, who would be next in line to take the two midfield spots ahead of Mikel? Benayoun. With him injured as well, we simply have to play Ramires, despite him not being settled yet. We also have to play Zhirkov woefully out of position to get even close to a recognisable formation out. Zhirkov isn't a central midfielder, he's just not built for it, or even used to it, yet. However, there isn't much else we can do with the injuries we have there. Malouda would be just as out of position as Zhirkov, and is far more effective on the wing anyway, so why change a position which is working. McEachran isn't ready yet, and rushing him in, could put too much pressure on him, and even stunt his development. Kakuta would be out of position in my view, too. He's more of a winger, or a tip of the diamond player, and he wouldn't have the freedom to play his natural game if he was moved to a central midfield role. We simply don't have any other real options. Michael Woods would have the same problems as McEachran, in that he's not ready and it could affect his long term development, and let's be honest, isn't as good as McEachran. Chalobah is still at school, and would be overrun, and again asking too much of him, too soon could affect his development. I don't think anything Carlo did was wrong, we just need time. Time for both the youngsters to be able to handle the pressure of the games, and for Ramires to settle to English football. Last season, this was excepted to be a transitional season. Or at least I expected it to be one. I was expecting this to be a season where we begin to give our youngsters games, and we deal with the departure of so many of our players. I was never expecting us to be two points clear at the top, I was secretly hoping, of course, but it wasn't an expectation, because I knew how big a change the club had made in letting Ballack, Deco, Belletti, Cole and Carvalho go. The fact that we are two points clear though, is a testament to the quality of player we have, and the management and coaching staff, too. To blame the coaching staff and condemn them for us being two points clear at the top of the league, when we have our three first choice centre mids out injured, our two first choice centre backs out injured, and our best striker playing on with malaria is just.... odd. Just think about that... Tea Bar - Changing shape isn't as easy as just moving the players to a different part of the pitch. Training usually revolves around shape, and where every player should be on the pitch, both when you're defending and when you're attacking. So if Carlo was to say, 'right 4-4-2 today, lads'. It would require every player to move in a different way, both defensively and when they're attacking. It would create a disjointed side, and simply wouldn't work. The players would need a couple of weeks to practice it, before being able to get it right, at least.

Mikel for me, he at least showed urgency to do something, and try and make something happen. I can't wait for Essien and Lampard to come back into the midfield.

I just tried it in my Firefox test environment and it didn't work either... Mod, you have clearly broken the internets.

I use Comodo.

I guess the rest of us will have to kill off a few more brain cells to see it then! :P

A bad workman always blames his tools.

I believe the 11 injured first team players might explain that one...

I believe we'd be allowed to keep the name Chelsea FC, but only with full approval of the CPO. I'm not 100% on that one, though.

Working in an office.