Socrates

Takes us to go 2 down before we bother to show some attacking intent.

Not sure where we go from here. Jose can only drag two players off. It's not going to be enough.

Well losing to PSG last year meant we could concentrate our small squad on winning the league. Not sure what the benefit of going out early this year would be. Other than allowing us to focus on staying up. They won't fancy playing us though. They only just got through on away goals.

Nice to watch a Chelsea game without wanting to smash in the TV screen. Decent performance. Solid at the back and threatening on the break. Costa not back to his best but movement better if his touch was a little off. Good to have Courtois back too.

I'd like to see us start with a striker. Courtois Ivanovic Cahill Zouma Azpi Matic Ramires Fabregas Willian Hazard Costa

Klopp anyone? The grass is always greener...

Well we've tightened up defensively. Now we can't score. Not sure playing without a recognised striker helps the cause. If Costa is out of form then we have Remy. If Jose is complaining that we don't have a forward who can play in the box, then he ought to look at Remy's time at Newcastle. Including when he played against us. He's also scored enough for us, in his limited time here, to suggest he is not a complete dud. So why is he treated like one? It's not as if we have any other options. If Costa is playing out wide and not enough in the box, then who told him he was the new Thierry Henry? What are the players doing in training? We used to have Lampard and Drogba as our main scorers with others chipping in. Last year we had Costa in the first half of the season and Hazard in the second. This season they've managed a couple between them. Therein lies our problem.

Looks like Michael Emenalo is going to spend the whole of January not signing Griezmann... http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/06/antoine-griezmann-is-chelseas-top-january-transfer-target-report-5547036/?

I think we ought to steer clear of Brazilians unless Neymar becomes available.

Someone voted for Oscar. Is his mum on this forum?

Don't know how much Jose had to do with not strengthening the squad over the Summer. Seems to me he wasn't happy with the way the Board went about its transfer business - and with good reason as it turns out.

Not sure starting without a striker really helped our cause. But bringing on Costa didn't change much either. It doesn't look like Jose has got any more tricks up his sleeve. Chucking on Traore and Remy at the end was a pretty futile gesture. Why not start with them instead? Just to try something different. Especially now that Jose has conceded that a top four place is beyond us.

Dawdled on the ball too often when in a crossing position. Then manages to miss the forwards when he finally decides to cross. Then hits a shot nearer the corner flag than the goal. Other than that, he had a good game.

Another lame display. Not sure we didn't make a mistake in not agreeing to include Oscar as part of any proposed Pogba deal last summer. He’s contributed nothing of note this season. If anything he's gone backwards as a player.

Was going to go for Courtois until he messed up that corner.

Jose has to take responsibility for that. Poor team selection. Then he allowed things to fester when we were clearly going nowhere. Bad luck to get caught like we did. But if you create nothing then you lay yourselves open to a suckerpunch.

Well this playing without a striker lark isn't making us look more like scoring. Courtois has kept us in it.

Alex Texeira... http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-transfer-news-blues-told-alex-teixeira-will-cost-at-least-30m-in-january-a3118466.html Antoine Griezmann... http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/620892/Chelsea-transfer-new-Antoine-Griezmann-Atletico-Madrid

Team worked really hard for that 1-0. But should've been more comfortable. Opposition penalty area was a no-go zone for us most of the game. No player in a blue shirt to be seen. Hazard was outstanding. Willian not far behind and Matic had one of his better games. Terry made a crucial block first half and didn't put a foot wrong.. Nervous last 15 mins. But we hung on despite Ramires' best efforts to give the ball away.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/17/should-chelsea-sack-michael-emenalo-over-the-clubs-failed-transfer-policy-5496882/#ixzz3rxAfkx00

Saido Berahino... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/12002046/Chelsea-transfer-news-West-Broms-20m-Saido-Berahino-added-to-Stamford-Bridge-transfer-targets.html

Hardly quiet. The whole world knew we were after Pogba and Stones from the start. Stones as a long term successor to Terry and Pogba as the box-to-box midfielder we haven't had since Lampard. To argue that Stones and Pogba were attempted panic buys while Djilibodgi wasn't is a pretty strange argument. We offered 40m for Stones apparently and 70m for Pogba. Their clubs didn't want to sell or possibly in Pogba's case the player didn't want to leave. Are you saying there were no other alternatives worth considering? Because my main criticism is we put all our eggs in one basket. And left the manager with a weakened squad. Then how come we have an ageing defence, a struggling midfield and an ineffective forward line? You don’t think any of these areas needed strengthening? I suggest results prove that we should've strengthened to give the manager alternatives, the players motivation and the squad a sense of progress. Instead we've gone backwards and the best we can hope for now is a top half finish. And it's only November. Not even Jose would take all the credit for last season's success. It's no secret that Jose asked for top quality reinforcements over the summer as he probably felt that we were unlikely to repeat last season's success with the same squad. It's no coincidence we were looking to reinforce in key areas. Unfortunately the Board couldn't get the main Pogba or Stones' deals done. They also messed up the replacements for outgoing players. Falcao in for Drogba was a mistake. Rahman doesn't look better than Luis. Or even Bertrand for that matter. Djilibodgi hasn't got a look in. Neither has Traore. Kenedy has been deployed as a left back and Pedro is wondering what he's let himself in for. Meanwhile we're relying once more on Hazard and Costa to do everything. It's a complete balls up. Jose hasn't helped himself at times both on an off the pitch. But he's not been a happy bunny since pre-season and it's pretty obvious why.

So we spent an entire window pursuing ‘impossible’ transfer targets and you think this is acceptable? And if we didn't need strengthening, as you claim, why on earth were we pursuing Stones and Pogba? For a laugh? To waste everyone's time? Clearly the squad needed strengthening in key areas but the Board screwed up. It didn't get its main targets and had no real back up solutions. We were left with Djilibodji, Kenedy and Rahman who the manager doesn't trust or think is ready. Pedro is the only signing getting significant game time and his impact has been limited. The argument that we won the league with these players last season is irrelevant. We won the league with the same manager last season but that hasn't stopped some demanding we sack the manager. Things have moved on. And we haven't. If anything we've gone backwards while other teams have strengthened. There's a reason we're getting beaten by the likes of Stoke, West Ham and Crystal Palace. And it's not all down to bad luck and lousy refereeing. There's an argument that we won the league last season in spite of the team's limitations and that was down to Mourinho's astute but brutal management of a small squad. But that took its toll and we haven't been able to repeat it this year. Mourinho knew this was the situation but was let down ultimately by the Board and now we are paying the price.

No, it's not short term. It's a drop in form for various reasons. Just as Hazard has lost form, but you don't mention him as a short term signing.You bracketed the signings of Matic, Fabregas, Costa and Pedro with the decisions to bring back Eto'o and Drogba. These are different things. The squad needed freshening up, competition for places and serious strengthening over the summer. For whatever reason the Board messed up. We got a bit of tinkering around the edges which has proved a serious miscalculation. This is why Emenalo's role at the club is being questioned.

It's true we made a decent profit on players like Luiz, De Bruyne, Mata and Lukaku (though not Salah, Cuadrado and Marin.) But we are now trying to replace the players we made a profit on as the net effect has been to weaken the squad. Last summer, realising the holes in our squad we tried to sign Pogba, unrealistically as it turned out, and made a mess of the Stones deal - and ended up with none of our main targets. We had no back up plan other than signing Djilibodgi as a cheap backstop. Who the manager has pointedly refused to play. Plus we signed Falcao despite all evidence that this was going to be a terrible move. So the net effect of all our transfer (mis) dealings has been the manager got none of his targets and we ended up with the weakest squad in the Abramovich area with the results to follow. So overall we're not better off, the team's performance has imploded, we're likely going to miss out on Champions League football next season and are probably going to have to spend our way out of the mess we find ourselves in as the much vaunted academy players are just not good enough. If a private company had gotten itself into this predicament: a collapse in performance, revenues and prospects, you can be sure that the Board would take responsibility. But seeing as Abramovich is not going to sack himself then Emenalo as the ‘sporting director’ is rightly in the firing line. And there's a simple reason why we signed Michael Hector. It's because we can make a small profit on him by selling him on even though he's probably not good enough to ever play for Chelsea. That's where we are now.