Samdwich

As most have said, Oscar. It's one of my favourite goals of all time, everything about it was perfect. 21 year old who has just moved from Brazil making his first start for Chelsea in the Champions League. Up against a Juventus team full of great, experienced players. Mugs off Barzagli, Pirlo and Buffon, 3 world class players, in one fluid motion with an outrageous touch and finish. Ridiculous. His performance that day set the tone for his Chelsea career and, despite his recent poor form, he's getting leeway from the fans as it's obvious what he's capable of. Second is David Luiz. Just love how Ian Wright was saying that it looked like we needed a moment of magic from Mata or Hazard just as Luiz went to thump it. Wow. Third I'm not sure about - normally I'd go for Cahill as it was a fantastic strike, but the deflection really helped it along. Hazard vs Stoke is a contender, as is his goal vs Manure because of how calm he looked as he went for it and the circumstances. Then I think that, for all our lovely play this season, a tippy tappy team goal may deserve to be up there - Mata vs Spurs was sublime movement and passing.

Don't think anyone can buy Reus at the moment. Incredible player, has only spent a year at Dortmund and will only improve. There's no way they're going to let him go and why would he want to leave? They're a bigger club with one of the best stadiums and fanbases in the world and currently have a better team.

Essien's wages are being paid by Madrid so getting rid of him isn't going to change anything

Oscar's is still Chelsea goal of the season for me

Do you watch him regularly? Just seems to me that most on here write him off all the time because he hasn't progressed as we all hoped with his sh*tty loans. The impression I got was that he was doing fairly well at Vitesse. He has, however, come out with some worrying stuff about no longer dreaming of playing for Chelsea etc. so I suspect he will go, but I don't think the situation is unsalvageable.

Luiz. Great to see our CBs taking the game to the opposition, but Luiz stood out for me. The combination was solid and JT was a fantastic leader as always but Luiz drove us on, contributed more to the play and stood out really. Future captain.

I f**king love David Luiz. That is all.

Bumping this because he's been on the receiving end of a lot of stick on here in the past few months with many writing him off as not good enough for us. Since Cole has been injured, Bertrand has really stepped up and barely put a foot wrong. Young fullbacks are often defensively susceptible - think of Cole at 23 - and I've been very impressed with Ryan's defensive ability recently. Against City over the weekend he was fantastic - one incident in particular sticks in my mind where Aguero skipped past Luiz into the box and Bertrand motored in and put himself between Aguero and the ball. Has had a great first half against Fulham so far, too. If he keeps this form up, I think we have our long term replacement for Ash.

Posted this in the Jose thread, think it's relevant to this discussion about Sporting Directors/Directors of Football

I think fsw deserves some credit here as Luiz has shown consistency over the past few months that he hadn't before, and most importantly has improved his decision making

181cm and 68kg? f**king hell he's skinny

That was our style, you're right. But Mourinho is far from a limited manager - he has shown at Madrid that he can get his side playing very attractive passing football. There are a few factors that have changed from his first stint here - notably the owner's desire for us to play in a certain way. The Premiership has also become more open in terms of style of play - when Jose came defence was king, now we see more attacking play and more technical players. And finally, our resources - it would be foolish to try to go back to our old style with the current personnel and Jose is too smart to try to do that. There's more than one way to control games and he'll be able to do so with our squad.

He would have to agree to what the board want him to do with the team regardless of Emenalo's presence though. I don't think the club would be adverse to having a bit more steel in the side, it's obvious we'd like some in midfield - we have Chalobah coming through who is going to be physical though so big, strong players wouldn't be an issue so long as they can play good football (ie. as long as we don't buy De Jong/Van Bommel). If Jose wanted to turn us into a robust, functional side like he did in 2004, I highly doubt the board would agree. His remit back then was just to turn us into winners as quickly as possible, and he identified the most effective way of doing so - basing the team around powerful players gets faster results than technical passing football which takes a while to implement. If he came back, his mission would be different - to win with a commitment to neat possession play. If he didn't want to go in this direction he wouldn't get the job, imo.

Dreamt last night that Jose had agreed to join us in the summer, but said that the fans have to accept that Lamps no longer has it in him and has to leave.

There's a lot of talk about Emenalo here, and generally a lot of negativity about him on the forums. Why do people dislike the Director of Football model so much? I suppose it's because we like the idea of having a manager in for the long term and moulding the team in his image - prime example of this is rednose. Directors of Football are seen to get in the way and meddle here. What I think people fail to take account of, however, is that rednose is the exception rather than the rule. How often do you get managers who stick around for that long, and how often do we at Chelsea let them have more than a few months to impose themselves? What if we let every manager take the team in his direction and then let the next one do what they wanted to? See what's happened at Villa - a few seasons ago they were challenging for CL, let the managers have autonomy, have changed them a few times and are now scrapping for survival. Now compare to Swansea, who have rapidly risen through the league system over the past decade with various managers, and have had continuity in their playing style and transfers with Huw Jenkins playing the Director of Football role. As for Emenalo himself - since he's been here our signings have been great and all seemingly fit into one "plan" - Courtois, Lukaku, De Bruyne, Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Piazon, Romeu. It's also not like the manager's input is completely ignored - Cahill was clearly the doing of AVB, Meireles was brought in with his input too and he was seemingly involved in the signings of Mata and Romeu too. Similarly, Oscar has spoken about being contacted by RDM. As such, it sounds like Emenalo's role is a collaborative one where the manager is very much consulted and involved in the process - yes, some signings are made without the manager's input (notably KDB) but they've been young players with great potential so I'm not against it. The big, big, big, big, BIG mistake was sacking RDM and appointing Benitez. Not sure how much input he had into the sacking of RDM, but FSW was appointed on Emenalo's recommendation, supposedly, and he needs to learn from this ridiculous fiasco. Huge mistake that it is, I'm willing to forgive him as he's been pretty good otherwise, imo. Anyway, back to Jose - if he were to be brought in as manager, he'd have to agree with the direction the club wants to move in - regardless of director of football. Therefore, the signings they make collaboratively will be ones moving in that direction. Any signings made without Jose's consent will be youngsters for the future, so the Shevchenko fiasco won't be repeated. Also bear in mind that he is currently working with Zidane as sporting director at Madrid, he would have to work under Leonardo (who is quite vocal) at PSG and Txiki at City. I can't see Emenalo being that huge an issue for him, tbh.

We brought in Ramires to replace Ballack, Deco and Belletti, that's where our midfield failings started.

sure is blue tinted in here.

Alonso plays next to Khedira, who isn't a DM and is very similar to Ramires in that he's a combative, energetic box-to-box player. Chalobah coming through would also be a perfect DM to sit with a less defensively responsible playmaker than Alonso (who is pretty good defensively). Or have him as the holder in a 4-3-3. I'm interested to see what Romeu/Ramires would be like as a combo too - maybe not enough physicality there.

Mata played very well when coming inside off the wing earlier this season. Oscar as the furthest forward of the midfield trio with Hazard and Mata on the wings would work I reckon. I don't think Mikel had a poor game at all, he was decent imo. Outmuscled Toure a few times and was more positive in his play (hit balls over the top for Ba quite regularly).

Plan for second half: give it to Mata. Need to involve him a little more.

Anyone but him (or Toure) and they wouldn't have had that chance, did very well to shrug off Ramires. Poor first 20 mins but we got back into it, looks like we've been told to loft balls over the top for Ba as both Mikel and Mata have tried it a few times. On that note, it's nice to see Mikel being more positive with his play - not always coming off but he's trying more ambitious passes. Toure and Kompany resorting to kicking the sh*t out of Mata (and now Hazard) again, Foy has been too lenient with them. Bertrand has given a very good account of himself.

I've refused to spend any money on Chelsea whilst he's been around, I honestly don't know what I'd have to do if he's kept on next season. Support spuds? Stop watching football all together?

It's not even about Mikel really, it's about the quality of f**king posts. Go to the actual Mikel thread and you'll see me agreeing with criticisms of Mikel and actually discussing him. Point is, SFL's posts over the past few pages are woeful, do not contribute anything to any discussion and are, quite frankly, embarrassing.

Jesus christ. Nobody has compared Mikel to Alonso. Nobody compared Mikel to present day Fabregas either. The fact that you and Mazacar feel the need to talk sh*t like this in some sort of misguided attempt to prove a point is f**king sad, not just for yourselves but for the quality of these forums as a whole. The mods are clearly far more tolerant of idiocy than I because if I had the power I'd have banned you and anyone of similar stupidity a long time ago.

You do know that Xabi Alonso and Xavi are different people, right? And nobody said anything about the players in their prime you f**king clown. Right now, Alonso is much better than Lampard at the role they both play - in the 2 of a 4-2-3-1 next to an energetic box to box midfielder.