BigIzz

Lampard for me

I don't think we were dreadful. Obviously didn't play close to our best but West Ham played very well. I thought Ballack played pretty well actually. I'd say Lampard was our best player, along with Ivanovich. I thought the center backs did fairly well. Cech played his best game in the last little while. Zirkov and Sturridge were promising. Our game fell apart with the attack and we have to be able to put more then one past West Ham. Cole had a Deco-like performance. A few cute moments with the ball but really not too much for the opposition to worry about. Kalou seemed more useless then usual, which is quite an achievement. We don't have a prototypical player for the tip of the diamond (Aguero?) and seriously lack a third striker. If Anelka were to have played this match, I bet we win.

They just ordered the teams back onto the pitch and Lampard is going to have to retake the penalty again...

Chelsea-Inter will be interesting to say the least. This is the team I had least liked for them to draw along with Milan if not for their talent on the pitch but for the off field distractions. This should be a good measuring stick though - everyone remember what Barca did to Inter a few weeks ago? They are the best team in Italy but certainly can be beaten, although you'd have to think Jose gets them ready for this one big time.

Let's not forget the impact of the looming transfer ban. Suppose it is upheld and transfers are prohibited until summer 2011, the one area where Chelsea lack any sort of quality depth is goalkeeper. While they may be capable backups, I don't think many have faith in Hilario or Turnbull to lead the squad to victory in England or Europe. That said, Chelsea management are going to have to make a decision about Cech now. Is this recent poor form only just poor form? Or is this an actual decline? If they choose to stick with Cech and Cech alone, he may be the goalkeeper for the next 18 months. A decision needs to be made if Cech is the 18 month answer or the squad would be better served with brining in another keeper along side Cech or brining in another keeper to replace him. I'm not speculating as to what the correct answer is, I'm merely suggesting that while such a change would typically not be made mid-season, it may be necessitated because of the current circumstances.

I'd tend to agree it is a certainty as well but I'm not sure if it is because of the managers absolute confidence in him or the fear of creating a huge controversy if he were to sit, even if it was only for a match to clear his head/give him a break.

Personal feelings about the issue aside, does everyone think it's a certainty that Cech will start?

I personally don't think you should boo an athlete if they fail, only if they aren't giving a full effort. Sports are a zero sum game: sometimes you don't succeed and the guy on the other side does. He's a professional getting paid a ton of money too. You cannot expect victory, only a complete effort. And I don't think you can say anyone on Chelsea was dogging it. That said, I was pretty disappointed after the match.

Had to pick Drogba. Honorable mention to Carvalho, I don't recall him being at fault for any of the goals and thought he played well but can't pick a defender when we give up three.

I suppose a pessimist would point out that we're winless in our last four matches and conceded 10 goals. The optimist would point out that despite our terrible form all that has really happened is we lost two points off our lead and were bounced out of the league cup (a competition that wasn't much of a priority). Villa bailed us out today but we should be padding our lead big time right now with United's huge injury list. The defensive lapses are cause for concern because at least for the last three matches it is the same players basically that had such a stellar defensive record for the first part of the season. Things have just gotten very very sloppy all of a sudden for some reason. That and we still can't defend a set piece to save our lives. Is that attributed to poor coaching? It is hard to complain about the attack. While parts of the squad don't look great, we scored 3 times against Blackburn, once against CIty (but easily could have had two or three), twice against APOEL (with 21? shots) and 3 times against Everton. This sort of production should be a recipe for winning football on this squad but lately it hasn't been. While Deco, Lampard, Ballack etc have not been awe inspiring they really are not the reason for this recent skid.

I prefer Hilario but I can't imagine either of the two every playing a significant role for the club, barring an injury of course. I doubt very much they would willingly turn over the keys to either of them and would sign a top level keeper should the need arise.

I'm a little late to the party because the match wasn't broadcast until 1 AM Wednesday morning here in the states and that is a pretty inconvenient time. I managed to avoid the result and watched this morning. I thought we played pretty well and were very unlucky to draw that match. Consider we had two disallowed for offside and the second APOEL goal came because of a sloppy giveaway, we should have won this match easily. That isn't how things are breaking at the moment, however. I thought APOEL played very well defensively. We had 21 shots but not very many good scoring chances. I don't know if we were unable to break them down, impatient, affected by the weather but we seemed content to shoot from long range a lot, I want to see more of Kakuta. He gave the ball away a couple of times but he certainly adds a dimension as an attacking midfielder that Deco does not. He is very confident on the ball and always feels like a danger to create something. I thought Zhirkov was impressive in an attacking role. Lampard looked the best that he has since returning from injury. He seemed determined to score for a stretch there in the second half. Our defense has gotten surprisingly sloppy and I can't help but wonder if Turnbull should get a little blame for one of the goals. Neither were really his fault but it would have been great if he could have kept one out. It's not like he did a whole lot on the positive end. I'm pissed we drew this match. Oh well, on to Saturday...

Regardless of our position in the group or weak opposition I'm really not too keen on the squad losing three consecutive matches. So while we need to rest some players for sure I'd sure look to secure a victory here as well.

I don't think people are panicking, rather just identifying some weaknesses and discussing ways to improve or fix them. If they did grind out the result yesterday, it would have been the stuff of champions. Unfortunately Chelsea gave away at least one point yesterday. If they continue to do that there won't be any championship on the horizon.

You're right, his first two subs were perfect. When I first saw he was brining on Belletti and Mikel it didn't seem to make a ton of sense but then when I saw how he applied the changes it had a great effect. However I too would have brought on Malouda earlier (and probably for Lampard at the point I would have done it). Sad to say there wasn't much on the bench yesterday that could help add some offensive firepower when we needed it.

It's obvious to me that our midfield is at its best when Essien is free from being at the base of the diamond. Otherwise he doesn't really influence the match the way he can and the other midfielders are rather flat. I wonder what would happen if we swapped Ballack and Essien and played Ballack as a holding midfielder?

Looking at the replay of the Tevez freekick I think that is Cech didn't make that false move the shot would have been hit pretty much straight at him and it would have been a pretty easy save. Who knows though - maybe he thought that he had Tevez's mindset pegged and thought he knew where he was going with the shot? Maybe he lacks confidence in his ability to stop a shot and feels the need to cheat or guess?

Ivanovic, who is becoming one of my favorites on the squad with each match

That is true...guess I'm letting my frustration get the better of me

Pretty terrible effort from Chelsea, although amazingly a win wouldn't had been that far fetched if Lampard and Drogba could have converted their chances at the end. Lampard simply cannot miss a penalty in that spot. A great team makes the most of its opportunity and pulls a point out there despite being thoroughly outplayed. Where did the wonderfully organized defense that we saw six days ago against Arsenal go? Today we were disorganized and out of sorts pretty much all match. Our midfield was non-existent for most of the match and our passing was awful. Deco is useless. He had a couple of good touches but hasn't added much. Perhaps we need to sign someone to play at the tip of the diamond in January. Our midfield works best when Mikel plays the holding role and Essien is given more freedom. Not to say Mikel isn't without his faults - I wonder if we would ever see Ballack and Essien swap assignments? Not an excuse but the referee was pretty poor today. Some of those yellow cards were pretty weak (what exactly did Ivanovic do to get his yellow?) and he missed the hand ball on the first Man City goal.

Lack of a quality backup striker is a real problem. Now with Kalou's injury there isn't anyone around to even pretend to be a quality backup. Hope Anelka and Drogba can stay fit today and hope we can get out to an early lead.

I think the draw was pretty fair. The only group that is lopsided is Brazil's. If you switched Portugal with Switzerland I think the setup would be almost perfect. Most of my interest is Group C - bring on England. Slovenia worries me though, historically the United States has done well against the big teams but struggled against the second tier European squads (2002 beat Portugal but lost to Poland, 2006 drew Italy but lost to Czech Republic)

Kakuta seems to be pretty strong mentally and able to deal with adversity so hopefully this won't effect him in a negative way. Although I didn't see the match so my opinion is pretty meaningless, the frustrating thing for me is that Chelsea seem so close to having advanced, A different personnel move here or there may have been enough to see us through. It would almost be better if we fielded a second choice side that got it's ass kicked rather then one that fell on the last penalty.

Sounds like a thoroughly entertaining match, too bad none of us can see it

I don't think "men against boys" is that far off. Certainly not in such a way that would suggest Arsenal are totally outclassed and over matched - clearly that is not the case. They were, however, unable to match up with Chelsea physically in many areas. Arsenal simply do not have the size, strength and pace that Chelsea do. Take, for example, when Traore ran into Drogba in the penalty area and bounced five yards off him as Drogba carried on with possession. This reminded me of a grown man tossing a young child aside. Arsenal lacked the physical presence to deal with Drogba, Essien, Terry and Ivanovic and that, along with a very well organized defense, is why Chelsea were victorious. Chelsea may not always play pretty football. The last two big Premier League matches demonstrate that. Man U is much more well equipped for the physical struggle with Chelsea than Arsenal are and this has been evidenced over the past few weeks. A lot of the heavy lifting has been done. Now it is a matter of staying consistent and staying on top form against lesser opposition.