Socrates

Or his sidekick Socrates...

Where's Papy Djilibodgi when you need him?

Reports I read are that Zouma suffered a ‘rupture’ of his ACL. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/feb/08/chelsea-kurt-zouma-injury-knee-six-months

Sinking in as the worse possible news. If we were planning on letting Terry leave because he was no longer good enough, and Cahill was starting to look past his best, well now we've gone and lost Zouma for god knows how long, with doubts if he'll ever be back to his best. That just leaves the American kid (and possibly Ivanovic - actually scratch that). I think we might just need to recall all our loanee centre backs as we're going to need a few next season.

As bad as we feared. Terrible news for him. Such a promising player and one of the positives in a depressing season. Not good for the club either as we've not managed to get too many youngsters become a fixture of the side. So it's back to Cahill and Terry. Shouldn't be as bad as it sounds. But our lack of pace at the back hasn't been helped by a lack of pace in midfield. Such a downer all round.

What I don't get is that Jose was more than capable of grinding out results to accumulate points. He did it second half of last season to steer us to the league. If this is all the Board wanted, to avoid relegation and to have us tread water for the rest of the season, then sacking Jose was an unnecessary move. All Hiddink's appointment has managed to do is show up the squad's limitations. All that's left is for him to guide us to mid-table mediocrity - a task we would have likely achieved with Jose anyway. Did the Board really think that Jose, once fourth spot was impossible, couldn't steer us to safety? It looked to me that we were losing games under Jose because we were trying to make up for a bad start and were taking risks. Water under the bridge, so to speak, but Hiddink's appointment was never going to unleash some suppressed potential in the squad. In fact, Hiddink is not doing much different far as I can see. He's even managed to out-Jose the man himself. Hiddink is not playing the youngsters or changing the formation. He's not giving RLC or Kenedy games, he's still playing the same right backs, he's even brought back Mikel! If it was Jose playing such uninspiring football and grinding out draws he'd be getting crucified!

Problem is that the Board might see this as a matter of pride and will throw logic out the window to prove that they won't be dictated to by fans, the media or players. Our Board like to create the impression that they are masterminds with a clear vision of the club's future direction. In reality they are making it up as they go along.

That's good to hear. I thought we were trying to cut our losses with him by sending him out on loan with a view to an eventual sale.

Hope it's not like the Van Ginkel injury. He's never looked the same player since. Problem is that Zouma was/is our best defender and he was getting better. There's a reason he was keeping Cahill out of the side. The thought of Cahill and Terry as our centre back pairing will only play into the hands of our opponents I'm afraid.

Weird challenge. Looks like he was planning to head it, then changes his mind at the last second, goes to clear it with his left foot, then is all out of position when he lands. Hope it's not as bad as it looks. We've got a couple of options before we have to play the American kid though.

Brilliantly cool finish from Diego there.

Wilian has been bloody awful today.

Set up to hang on for 95 mins. So far it's all going to plan.

I blame the Chelsea Bored. They should all resign.

Don't all laugh... ‘Pato is in his preseason’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3433579/Chelsea-loan-striker-Alexandre-Pato-special-pre-season-training-plan-Guus-Hiddink-admits-not-ready-play.html

Allegri for me. Has done great at Juventus. We need to get away from Abramovich's obsession with this lightweight tika-taka nonsense in the Premier League. Watching Juventus it's a pleasure to see defenders who know how to defend. Left backs who play with their left foot. And midfielders who know how to tackle and pass. It's not rocket science.

I've had more fun at the dentist. Is Hiddink's remit not to lose at any cost? Mikel, Matic and Oscar were fighting amongst themselves to be most useless player on the pitch. Don't know how much more of this I can take.

How Matic survived 70 mins is beyond me. Truly one of the most inept displays I've seen this season.

Matic is beyond woeful.

I think Hiddink is waiting for us to go a goal behind before bringing on Hazard.

The is my concern too. It probably explains why Guardiola was not remotely tempted to come here. Can you imagine the humiliation of going from Barcelona and Bayern Munich to serving under those footballing geniuses Abramovich and Emenalo? It likely explains why we won’t get Simeone either. Any one of credibility is not going to want to be subservient on transfer policy to the current Chelsea Board and its dodgy recruitment policy. We can't compete on price for the best players so what's left is to compete on quality and potential. Unfortunately, we’re getting more wrong than right recently. As long as Abramovich, Emenalo and the Board are taking the crucial decisions over the head of the manager we are likely only going to get short term managers who will be little more than figureheads. Maybe that's all the club wants deep down.

Yes it is down to Abramovich. He needs to take responsibility for overseeing the club's decline this season and for us failing to qualify for the Champions League next season which will impact our future revenue and player recruitment. If he screws up the next managerial appointment and fails to invest in the squad properly, then we will be looking at a slow spiral of decline. This is the weakest Chelsea squad in Abramovich's time here. The failure to manage the transition from the Cech, Terry, Lampard, Drogba era was always going to be hard. I thought they'd do a much better job than they have. It was all well and good going for Pogba and Stones to recreate a new spine for the side. When we failed to sign those two players our strategy was to hope we might sign them next season. Fat chance. That is not a plan B. It's just having no plan at all. Now that Guardiola has buggered off to City; and Stones and Pogba are a pipe dream, I really hope that we have a vision for the club going forwards. I just doubt it - and after the sacking of Mourinho I have less faith that the Board are capable of devising any long term direction.

Some fair points here. As for us, it might turn out a blessing in disguise. Sometimes it's looked to me as if we were hoping to lure Guardiola to Stamford Bridge by trying to buy players in what we thought was the Barcelona mould. There have been times this season when we've just looked lightweight and we've been steamrollered by average sides. We're not playing in the Spanish league. We're playing in England. The Board need to remind themselves of that simple fact. We're not Barcelona and in trying to imitate them we've lost our way and any identity that we had. Personally I miss the powerful, relentless Chelsea of the first Mourinho era. That was a distinct identity that we jettisoned under orders it seems from Abramovich to play pretty football. If losing Guardiola to City ends that delusion of the owner, then I'm glad. More than anything we need to take the future footballing direction of the club out of Abramovich’s naive hands and put in place a proper footballing Board and technical director who know what they're doing.

Is it just me who thought he actually played quite well against an admittedly poor MK Dons side? Thought he had some decent touches, held on to the ball well at times and played a great assist for the second Oscar goal. Not a MOM performance but a good game for him to get a run out, some confidence back and for the manager to assess him. Harder tests will come for him but not a bad reintroduction into the first team.

^^^ Yes, but of our benevolent dictator Roman Abramovich.