Samdwich

I love Robbie as much as the next Chelsea fan but this is rather hyperbolic. It's been obvious for a long time that the way to defend against Barca is stay narrow and sit deep. It's hardly a secret that they aren't the best at getting the ball into the box from wide areas. It was not an uncommon tactic; Hiddink did it in 2009 (and was the first to do so, extremely effectively), Mourinho did it in 2010 and plenty of others have tried since. I wouldn't say that it was risky or a gamble really, there's no other sensible way to play against Barcelona in that situation. Certainly not tactical brilliance imo.

I don't disagree that he isn't good enough to lead our line, I just think that his performance today, apart from the missed chances, was decent for a striker in the top half of the PL. You're right that he got the ball on the flank fairly regularly, but he wasn't just drifting to the flank and hiding from the middle as he used to so it doesn't bother me. A few times he got it out wide when the ball was overcooked, and with Ramires and Hazard as the wide players (neither of whom keeps the width) he ended up recovering it. I'm just pleased that he actually used the ball well when he got it - he actually looked threatening to defenders with it at his feet and passed it instead of running straight into an opposition player with the ball at his feet, or misplaced a 3-4 yard pass as he was doing in the not so distant past.

Not at all; I'm not saying that he's world class, or even top 4 quality (a few pages ago I compared him unfavourably to most other strikers in the EPL), but his performance today was much better than his performances against Leeds, Monterrey, Corinthians and the 10 games before that with the exception of Nordsjaellund and Sunderland. He missed a few chances, one of which was offside anyway and another was a great tackle but his general play other than that was pretty good. A top drawer striker would have scored one of those chances (made a better run/beaten Distin, stayed onside for Hazard's flick or taken a good touch for the Luiz ball) but his general play was fairly good.

I think he was pretty decent today; he had a couple of chances he should have done better with but again kept the ball better, made fewer sh*t decisions and looked generally more lively than usual.

I think Ramires on the right is a good move by FSW to help Azpilicueta deal with the Baines/Pienaar combo

I think he's helped by the fact that he's (usually) had a fantastic defence in front of him. A clean sheet isn't just the keeper's work so I don't think number of clean sheets directly represents a keeper's quality. He's a fantastic keeper, but the head injury did set him back. Without it I think he may well have surpassed Schmeichel

Going looking for the ball is what was wrong with his play, imo. Benitez has clearly told him to do it less often and concentrate on making the correct runs. He was making them and today it wasn't his fault that his runs didn't get picked out; Norwich were solid defensively and we (as a unit) weren't great going forward.

Luiz was fantastic in the first half but faded in the second. But Mata was good throughout (though he was nowhere near his peak).

Not much to say imo; didn't do anything special but wasn't sh*t - much, much better than he was against leeds for example.

thought he was ok today; didn't have many chances but his movement was better than it had been up until a few games ago. He also didn't lose it every time he touched it, which he was doing not long ago. Had some decent interplay with Mata/Hazard towards the end too.

"There's only Juan Mata" surely?

boiled my piss that the commentators (and a lot of the media/other idiots in general) seem to think that we'll be chanting Benitez's name soon just because he's getting us wins. f**k off.

He was clearly broken when we bought him but that's literally the most absurd "trend" you've shown there. He had a great first season, didn't match it in his second, improved on it in his third (so no "trend" so far), and then scored 9 in half a season, meaning that he was on course for roughly 20? Only trend you can take from those 4 seasons is that he scores ~20 goals per season but had a monster season first time around?

Really? (this next sentence sounds like I'm realllly bashing Torres but I'm not) What do you see in Torres that beats Adebayor/Benteke, who hold the ball up, have an aerial presence and are decent at keeping the ball? Or Fletcher who was finishing every single chance that fell to him at the start of the season, or Michu who is more of an aerial threat and has been finishing like a monster? Each to their own I guess - I'm not in the "I've always hated Torres" camp, I still want him to score and do well, I just gave up hope at some point in October. I genuinely had a think about other strikers today and I can honestly say that I'd take almost any first choice PL striker over him at the moment.

Agreed that it's different, but all of those CFs have shown better movement and touch than him this season. On that list, hands down/no question I'd take: City & Utd's forwards, Adebayor, Long/Odemwingie, Suarez, Berbatov, Ba/Cisse, Benteke, Michu, Fletcher, Giroud/Podolski. Interested to see how many of those you agree with.

I was in the middle of making the following point to a friend when he scored: How many first choice PL strikers would you swap for Torres, realistically? I'd take Le Fondre, Cisse/Zamora (yes even if they play for the scum), Di Santo/Kone, Fletcher, Lambert, Ba/Cisse, Benteke/Bent, Berbatov, Suarez, Cole/Carroll (yes), Michu, Crouch, Holt/Morison, Long/Odemwingie (+ Lukaku), Jelavic, Giroud/Walcott/Podolski, Adebayor/Defoe... Honestly, how many of these players would you not swap for Torres, with the movement and touch he's shown over the past few games?

What a f**king ball.

Would take a pretty monumental effort for him to score an own goal off the bench. Would have liked Ake to come on for Bertrand instead of Cole. Hoping Piazon gets a run out and Mata is rested in the next few mins.

Seems like it is a lucky charm. I've not been wearing it lately, must be why we've been losing easy games!

Moses has been alright Snap. I posted something like this in the "Fans opportunity to be heard" thread but you've just summed it up perfectly. Get the c**t out. Honestly would rather we had JT as player manager.... I f**king love Mata. Went and put my Mata shirt on at half time, must be a lucky charm :)

Another thing: I heard Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter's names being chanted earlier, but couldn't make out the rest of the chants (if there was even anything to them), anyone know what they were?

Also Brown should have a f**king yellow by now at least.

f**k off Benitez. Really hope the "you're getting sacked in the morning" chants are true. I don't blame Luiz for the goal, Benitez has clearly told him to get forward and play balls to Torres. Torres just makes me sad all the time :( Enjoying Lamps' long shots, we've missed those. At least I get to see JFH.

The statement still says that they don't want black players, but they try to justify it as "it's how our team has always been represented" and tried to draw parallels to Bilbao who only use Basque players (though they've played black Basque players so they're clearly different) Jonathan Wilson wrote a fantastic article on it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/dec/19/zenit-st-petersburg-open-letter f**king lol at "politically correct brainwashing".

I'm not turning it into a Torres discussion, but the only way to gauge his play infront of our 3 players whose play he supposedly stifles is to compare him to our only other striker. Fair enough, I forgot about the Newcastle goal, but realistically Sturridge only had 30 minutes (+ the league cup game vs Utd) and looked to be combining very well with the attacking midfielders, particularly Mata. Torres has had hours and hours so he's obviously shown more quality link-up. Again, not bashing Torres here, just saying that with even vaguely similar playing time, Sturridge would have linked up with our other attackers much better. As for missing "sitters" - he missed a 1 on 1 because Myhill made an incredible save, and then missed a good chance right at the end. If this was being done consistently then yeah that might be something to hold against him, but every striker misses chances and it's ridiculous how much our fans were slating Sturridge's finishing after that game considering other top strikers in the league also make similar mistakes (and I'm not even going to mention his direct competition here because you're gonna tell me it's Torres bashing) That happened once or twice, lets not exaggerate. He was poor in that game, but it was his first start of the season. Many fans got this "Sturridge is selfish" idea ingrained in their minds last season and have been holding it against him since. Firstly, he's been much less selfish this season, and secondly a striker needs to be selfish. I had high hopes for Studge, and honestly hoped that he'd usurp Torres this season, and we'd have him and Lukaku as our two CFs next season. Shame.