Samdwich

"the likes of Juan Mata who hasn't played much football this season" Sorry what? He missed the QPR game and the first hour of Juve... Has played all the other games (though been subbed a few times)

Only one I really have an issue with playing is Ramires; who could have been replaced by Lampard. Mata's only had one full game and a sub appearance vs Juve since coming back so I guess a start here for him is fine, Marin could have started out wide with Piazon in the middle though (I hope this change is made in the second half)

love that Mata is destroying Wolves, but did we really need to deploy him, Ramires and Torres? :D

Also does the fact that Torres is playing mean that we'll see Sturridge against Arsenal?

Very happy that Piazon is starting in a senior game. But no clue how we're going to accommodate all of our incredible attacking midfielders in 3-4 years time :|

They haven't done too badly because of Fergie, but compare Utd with him to Utd without him. There's a huge difference. Yeah, in January selling Hazard for 100m would be fine, but you can't have a truly great team without superstar players, and if we sold one for £100m, we wouldn't be able to reinvest that into a player just as good. We'd make the squad better, but the strength of our first XI would definitely suffer.

No. If I see him on the team sheet, I will be heading down to the library with a baseball bat Would be interesting to see Piazon and Oscar in the same team

It's hard to find the players who make that sort of money, though. If Hazard became an £80m player, he would be irreplaceable, though. See Ronaldo - it was a good sale, but they haven't looked anywhere near as good without him, simple as that. If he becomes that good, we should do our best to hold on to him. If he wants to leave, we should make sure he has a long contract so we get a hefty sum for him.

Excellent post, I find myself agreeing with almost all of it. I agree that the fullbacks need to make better runs, and that with such great technical players, we should be working on rehearsed patterns of play. Juventus’ second goal against us was a rehearsed move from training - one striker dragged a centreback deep, whilst the other ran in behind. Bielsa’s Bilbao last season had a load of rehearsed moves designed to break down opposition, and caused their opponents a lot of problems (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/04/26/athletic-bilbaos-movement-v-sporting/ ). If we worked on things like this, with our great attacking players, I think we could be devastating. I feel that it’s easier to tell the difference between Hazard and the other two than between Oscar and Mata, as I see them as very similar. As you’ve said, Oscar is the best at dropping deep and being a midfield link (something we missed last season and have missed at the start of this one), but from seeing him play a handful of times, he looks absolutely fantastic at playing in the final third, too. Mata is probably better with his final ball, but Oscar is, imo, the best with the clever little flicks which create space in the final third. He’s the most gifted of the three, imo. The problem with them all coming into the middle isn’t the fact that they get in each others’ way, it’s that we lack width. There are a few different ways of solving this: 1. Only play two of them, and have a natural width holder (Moses, maybe Marin) - this way, we’re wasting one of our very talented players. We’re fortunate enough to have 3 of the world’s most promising attacking midfielders (remember, Mata’s only 24) and we should use this to our advantage rather than just benching one. 2. Play one of them deeper, so the band of 3 still contains a width-holder. Natural choice for this is Oscar, but there are obviously doubts over whether he’d be able to play a deeper role, and whether it would be stifling him considering how deadly he has looked in the attacking 1/3. The advantage is that we’re playing all of our hugely talented players. 3. Play all 3 of them and improve the overlapping ability of our fullbacks; Ivan just isn’t good enough on the overlap, and instead of doing it effectively against Stoke was running into the box. Luckily we have Azpilicueta and Cole/Bertrand who are all good attacking fullbacks and, with a little bit of training on when to make their overlapping runs etc, can do it effectively. 4. Play all 3 of them and get at least one to stay wide more often. You just don’t see any of them staying wide with the ball and getting low balls in. Mata and Hazard are both more than capable of beating a man and getting a ball in, so maybe telling them to do so would contribute to more varied play. I’m not sure which one I’d opt for. I think it depends on our midfield; we’ve only seen Mikel-Ramires for one game, and I’d like to see how they bring the ball out of defence against tougher opposition who press them. I suspect RDM still wants to play Oscar deep for his distribution. If they aren’t comfortable doing so, then I’d opt for Oscar there. If we settled with Ramires-Mikel in midfield, I’d go for something in between 3 and 4; getting one or two of them to stay wide more often, but also giving them licence to occasionally come inside and do their thing, whilst getting the fullbacks to overlap all the time.

The making fun of americans was a group of England (or Chelsea?) players which included Lampard, but not Terry. He parked in a disabled spot though, god forbid.

I want to win this. World Champions :D

I think too much is being made of the 3-5 last season. It was 3-3 and the tie was delicately poised until JT slipped and allowed them a goal. We were forced to push on and they scored another because we threw so many men forward for the equaliser. Also RVP hardly ran riot, one of his goals was capitalising on a slip, and another was a counter-attack tap in after Walcott’s hard work.

Yeah this is correct, balance of probabilities or preponderance of evidence, whatever you wanna call it. Interested about that rule, though if their charge is "bringing the game into disrepute" they might get around that because they are not necessarily accusing him of being racist. But surely if JT's being charged with this, based on the evidence of what Ferdinand was saying to him on the pitch, he should be charged with it too?

BBC says we had 51% against Stoke

Worried about them as they bossed City at the Etihad today. I think if RDM plays his favoured lineup (Lamps-Mikel holding, Ramires and Bertrand as defensive wingers) we'll lose. We have enough quality in the team to go out and force teams to play our way and impose ourselves rather than having to be reactive. Arsenal will be more open than Stoke so I'd see if the Oscar-Mata-Hazard trio works for at least the first half.

Another reason to love him, he's been helping Oscar to settle: "I take him every day to my house because he has no family over here. I know how hard it is when you don't speak the language. If you go to a restaurant for example and you don't know what food you're ordering it's difficult. I try to show Oscar and help Chelsea too." What a hero. Got me thinking; Ramires must have felt quite isolated when he moved over here, he'd only have been able to communicate with Paulo and Bossy, how much did this influence our decision to buy Luiz in january?

Pretty ordinary? They've just gone to the Eithad and been the better side for 90 minutes. And with our outlay on creative players, I don't think we should be looking to sit back and frustrate any team other than Barca. Gervinho... Great movement, link-up play and dribbling at times, but absolutely 0 end product. What the f**k is wrong with him. And why did Wenger keep him on for 90 mins? Surely he should have just moved Podolski to the left and taken Gervinho off for Walcott instead?

seeing AVB later, ie. him coming back

How are City ahead here? I've said in other threads that I'm actually scared of Arsenal's midfield and we can see why. Ramsay in particular has been excellent (you expect it of Arteta and Cazorla, but Ramsay was sh*t last season). I guess that's how it's supposed to be with them, though - doesn't feel right when Arsenal's midfield isn't good. Gervinho has been hit and miss - has had a few excellent bits of play, but fluffed two excellent opportunities. Donkey.

although I guess I might be dreaming in hoping that he puts it with his medals haha

serious, I wouldn't come in here and be a prick about something you've put effort into just because I disagreed with your opinions

There wasn't really much of a point; was just musing on our midfield duo as it's the key area we need to get right for us to beat top teams imo. Bringing Lampard on was the right choice, but I was just wondering about whether we'd have been better at closing out a game with Mikel in the middle rather than Lampard in general.

opta give stats too, but I think you've gotta subscribe or something

Consistently. Ie. in order for a player to be a good passer, they need to consistently record over 80% pass completion, for him to be good at making eye of the needle passes, he's gotta make at least half of them, to have a deft touch he needs to control 90% of balls he gets very well, etc. Don't get me wrong Gem, I laud your enthusiasm for the player, and the fact that he does show many of the attributes you listed on occasion makes me feel that he's definitely got the potential to be the most frightening CM in the world, but you were being a little hyperbolic over it. I personally decided not to take you up on it initially, but I just don't like the way that new posters are treated by certain established members of the forums (we've got some odd circlejerking going on on these forums) and feel that his point was valid, but he got derided by a group of established posters.

http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2012/9/23/3375860/chelsea-vs-stoke-match-analysis The end suggests that, while the midfield due were able to win the ball back well, they weren't able to control the game, slow down the tempo etc. I've only seen the highlights so can't really comment, but by the time we needed to slow down the tempo and control it, Lamps was on instead of Mikel. Dare I say it may have been easier to do so with Mikel, because the slowing down of tempo is what a lot of us tend to get on his back for? Just food for thought here.