Castiel

I watched the Liverpool one and it was pretty entertaining. Shifty penalty and a set piece goal from Spurs, Liverpool just couldn't hit the net. Both of them played hard though, a farcry from our performance.

Can we buy Robben back please!

Life is really sh*t when I'm more entertained watching Tottenham play than us.

Same sh*t different week. Need some serious changes in the summer or our time in the sun could turn out to be a flash in the pan. There is no drive, no consistency, no urgency and frankly, little talent in this squad. Players can't be bothered and Carlo can't fire them up. I've supported him consistently but its hard to make excuses at this point. Same goes for Torres, he couldn't be arsed today and he has everything to prove. Anyone catch that cross in the first half by Cole? He was in a position but didn't even attempt to run at it. Needs to buck up his ideas in the summer or he'll be the most expensive flop in English football history. Our impressive run of wins wasn't all that impressive to be perfectly honest. Wigan was mainly down to their awful, awful defending and GK errors. West Ham - the result didn't reflect the game. We laboured passed some usually easy pickings and were exposed at Old Trafford by a vastly superior side. Yes we forced out wins but it wasn't the massive turnaround we were all hoping for, it was like a bandaid on a bullet wound. I really, really do not want to turn out like Arsenal - the not quite good enough team or worse yet, fall out of the top 4 and into mediocrity again. All we can do now is look forward to next year, but its going to take a serious kick in the arse to restore Chelsea to its 2005+ glory.

Same old dejected performance. Its like a lot of them just don't care any more.

This is the first time I've seen a fit Malouda on the bench. I think I'm shedding a tear.

I imagine thats just part of his job. Managers sit down with the board to discuss how the season went every season, and then discuss how its best to move forward. Whether this becomes his final briefing or not remains to be seen. If his reasons are good enough perhaps he'll be given another shot.

Not a lot they could do with the CL final being played at Wembley as well. I can't even imagine how much work needs to go into preparing these stadiums for matches like that. I think Harry just likes to complain. I refuse to believe its some deliberate insult to football - its a logistical issue, nothing more.

Congrats to City on winning the FA cup.

Lowest points total for title winners since forever. We lost this during our "bad moment", had we been of our usual consistency we would have walked it by at least 10 points. Its our own faults but lets hope next seasons disasters aren't as severe as the latest.

Watching the FA cup, just ignoring the Prem.

Didn't these 2 (Celtic and Rangers) want into the Premier League? Behaving like this, no thanks.

I've said it before, watching Barca without Messi is like watching Arsenal.

On this Abramovich issue, Hutch is right. He has never spoken to the press, and never will. The man is worth around $13.4 billion, do you really think he gives half a sh*t about what the press think? All their supposed quotes are either completely made up or word of mouth, none of it is verifiable. I could turn around and say I heard Roman say Chelsea is giving up football and becoming a cricket team and it'd hold just as much weight as anything the Press has "quoted."

He was a great player. He isn't any more. We don't need more hasbeens at the club.

Because its become clear that Lampard cannot contribute as an automatic starter for every game any more. No doubt he has a place in the squad, a place that should now resemble the roles Giggs and Scholes have in United. Expecting Lampard to do what he's done for us for the rest of his life on a regular basis is just unrealistic and naive. I just don't see any evidence from the people claiming Zhirkov isn't worth using. The few times I've seen him given a chance I think he's done a good job, especially considering he's played out of position and especially considering that everyone believes we need to invest in some wingers. Well we have one, we don't use him and when we do we don't use a formation to accommodate true wingers. Barcelona use the 433 because neither Messi, Pedro or Villa are wingers. We use it because neither Drogba, Anelka, Kalou or Torres are wingers. Slotting a winger into that formation is putting him out of position.

Yep exactly the same thoughts I have on Zhirkov. With Malouda turning in so many terrible performances this season, why Zhirkov hasn't been started over him is just a mystery to me. Someone pointed out one bad game he had against Man United, I don't specifically remember it but even if he did - Malouda has had a LOT more and yet he's beyond reprieve. I don't think its fair to write him off after hardly giving him a chance. Your summary about needing a winger then selling our best one is exactly how I feel. If we sold Malouda (time is now imo) and promoted Zhirkov to start, we'll still need backup for him. But more importantly we need real wingers and we need to deploy them as wingers, not 3 strikers pretending to be wingers which is exactly what we're doing at the moment.

Because Robben and Duff were played as wingers, we no longer use them. Primarily we're using 433 to accommodate Drogba, Malouda, Anelka, Kalou and now Torres. Only Malouda can claim to be a wide player out of that list and he's cutting inside a lot lately too. Back when we had Robben and Duff we played 4231 with the wingers truly out wide hugging the touchline able to hit teams on the break, cross balls in and cut inside from their flank. Now we rely on the fullbacks for any and all wide play. Zhirkov is the only player in the same mould as those two that we have and if you look back at his history in Russia and the performances for us (which I thought he did well) you'll find he is an impressive winger. The 433's weaknesses are starting to show. Its great for Barcelona because they have the talent to make those genius passes, cutting defences open and go in for the kill. They also play much faster than we do, able to pull defenders out of position and capitalise on it quickly. We pass around lethargically and try to beat the front door down and any half good defence can hold it off. It also makes us extremely vulnerable to counter attacks as the masters of it (Man United) proved by cutting us to pieces last weekend.

I don't pretend to know anything about this situation but it all sounds ridiculous to me. Ireland has a combined international rugby team so whats the big deal?

He'd still be forced to maintain his position further out wide in that formation. No doubt he can come in but it severely limits him if he's not a comfortable wide player. The same applies to Torres and Drogba, neither can play wide effectively. Barcelona are wasting David Villa by playing him wide in a 433 in favour of Messi in the middle. We've seen how effective Villa is in the middle or alone up front or even in a 442 with Spain, but put him wide and now they're considering selling him. With the strikers we have its either got to be a formation with traditional wingers (not strikers playing wide) with a lone point man or a partnership if Sturridge and Torres can make it work. Otherwise we'll have to use frequent striker rotation which isn't a bad idea either. I do fear for the 442 formation though because only Man United manage to make it work, and even they don't stick to it religiously. The other problem I can foresee is if we put Torres alone up front like he prefers with support from Wingers and a Playmaker, and he starts scoring for fun again, he's chosen ahead of the others every time with Danny being backup. Would he settle for that after moving to Bolton for regular football?

If we had kept his best mate Robben he could have tapped him up for us!

Not a good idea to sell Zhirkov imo, he's the best left winger we have but Malouda has been chosen over him for some strange reason. I've said already, he played against Bolton, took a head injury involving a lot of blood and played through it and winning MoTM despite it last season. Thats the sort of player we should be using, he's got ability and drive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Xi8hdtwRE&feature=related

I contribute on some rival forums for various reasons and when they discuss Chelsea a common theme among them all is they knew we wouldn't hack it this season even before it started. The reason being our squad was too thin. It was a bad idea to gut the squad last summer and hope for the youth to step up during injury to the starting eleven. They tried to rectify this mistake in January with some new signings which did help matters but it was too little too late. Too many of our core players were injured for too long and Wilkins being fired added to the drama. However Carlo isn't without blame. Bluebeards comments about him choosing Malouda and Lampard/Essien over Zhirkov and Josh are very valid points in my opinion, and had he created a more competitive mentality within the squad for your position perhaps the players wouldn't have been so poor for so long. Just look at how Drogba stepped it up when Torres threatened his starting position. Imagine if Malouda had Zhirkov starting over him and Lampard/Essien had to yield to Josh. That is something Carlo could have done to improve squad rotation and kick some of the misfiring players in the ass. I'm still willing to give him another season. One great season and one poor season so far. He managed to pull the poor season back into something descent for a while and just fell short. His subs during the Man United game showed he can act when the going gets tough, all 3 of them improved us and dropping Luiz took some stones.

Can Sturridge actually play on the wings? If he can thats great, only one signing required. But we don't need to force another striker out wide because we've been doing that with Anelka and Kalou and it isn't really effective. I put Ramires deeper in my imaginary lineup because he's like an engine in midfield. He tracks back and drives forward a lot like the old Essien in many ways, and in a 4231 the second deep midfielder is free to come forward on the break provided the other is holding, which Luiz should always be doing. Its not a ridged formation if played correctly which makes it so difficult to deal with.

It just occurred to me that we have a quality left winger in Zhirkov. He's extremely fast, can shoot, cross and tracks back excellently. Remember his game vs Bolton last season when he took that horrible blow to the head and continued playing with blood running down his neck? Why isn't this guy starting over Malouda? I understand he's had injury problems but I believe thats over now, he should be given a shot at first choice imo. Say next season we got a quality right wing and a playmaker. In this example following from my earlier suggestions my choices being Sanchez and Sneijder purely because I feel they have the most to offer us and we go back to Jose's 4-2-3-1 with Robben and Duff shredding teams up on the break. ------------ Cech ------------ Ivan - Alex - Terry - Cole ------ Ramires - Luiz ------ Sanchez - Sneijder - Zhirkov ----------- Torres ----------- The defensive advantages of this are apparent as we saw under Jose but whats attracting me is the potential to completely revitalise our mode of attack. In stead of slow break down of defences through the centre which has become so predictable and increasingly easier for teams to thwart we'd have multiple avenues of attack. The wings on the break with blistering pace able to make crosses or even break away goals. The playmaker could feed either wing or the striker or make long ranged shots; the avenue of attack is much harder to mark and predict. I also feel its worth experimenting with Luiz in Makelele's old role. He likes to impose himself and make hard challenges. Clearly this isn't acceptable in central defence as it costs penalties and any mistakes could mean you're down a goal. What Luiz is good at is ball recovery, passing and positioning. Granted his positioning is sometimes flawed in central defence, but he intercepts a LOT of passes when he goes forward. More importantly he'd be freer to be himself and make those hard challenges to disrupt opposition midfields without the risk of penalties. Anyway thats how I'd do it. Not ripping the team to pieces and starting over, only requiring 2 signing (ones I've chosen are just preferred examples) and it'd freshen us up a bit.