bleed_blue

Dire dire performance. Ashley Cole did not turn up tonight and that has happened quite a few times the past 2 seasons. Frank Lampard seems to be playing for the record only. His greed in front of the goal meant we were not further ahead by half time. Cahill was poor and how he let Lambert beat him to the ball for the first goal is baffling. Oscar should not be playing on the wing and Mata had one of those OFF nights.

your bitterness increases with every passing day. I cant wait for Mikel to come back and then for FSW to sit him on the bench. That meltdown will be something special.

It would be unfair to judge marin and piazon situations with the same eye. My understanding of the Marin transfer is that in April when we signed him, we were unsure of whether we would get Hazard. So getting a winger/AM made sense at that point. Luckily for us, the champions league result tipped the bidding scales in our favor and we were able to get Hazard. Add to that, the late acquisition of Oscar meant we were crowded in the AM department and hence Marin has found playing time hard to come by. Everyone would agree that ability and skill wise, Marin is a notch below the others and hence the pecking order.

You are losing it in style here, one must say

relax guys dont bother with g3.7. Just read his comments in the "Mikel - every bit as promising a talent as Fabregas" and you will realize he knows ZILCH about football.

Yeah I struggle handling dimwits like you

"wasteful in possession". Technically, that is one thing you cant accuse Luiz of. Losing possession YES but not wasting possession. A high proportion of his passes start good moves for us and obviously there are risks involved in such a strategy. He played a lovely ball over their defense which Mata couldn't control or it would have been a goal. The Ramires shot also happened on a move started by Luiz with a through ball. That is because we were a goal down in the home leg and we had to get more adventurous. But, NO you can keep concentrating on the occasional misplaced pass. Are you having a breakdown? You are saying that the wonderful lofted pass he played to Mata (whose poor control let him down) was poor decision making? You are saying that the through ball to Oscar who then passed to Mata who passed to Ramires and Ramires's poor shot let us down was poor decision making? Atleast think before you start writing obituaries for a player.

Oscar creates nothing?? OK I am done here. goodbye

Go to the thread "Oscar signs" First two posts are "Who is he?" As far as Michu is concerned, he had one good season. At Rayo Vallecano he scored 15 in 37 games last year but he had never crossed 10 goals in a season before that. It was a gamble that Swansea could have taken but not chelsea. When you are challenging for top honours, you are a risk for players like Michu as he wont be assured of similar playing time that he will get at a Swansea. Transfer Market is more complex than just comparing the transfer fees and goals scored. Not to forget, the benefit of hindsight.

If you think Fellaini can make Yaya Toure like runs, then you dont know a single thing about Fellaini's game. Oscar was stuck out on wing y'day and was hardly involved but he did have a couple of very good touches. His backheel set up Mata for a shot which Mata should have scored. His lovely passing on the edge of the box with Mata (or Hazard) led to Ramires being set up for another good chance which was sadly spurned again. I wonder if after Chelsea-Barca game, Barca supporters started calling their players sh*t. Swansea had come with a plan to defend and they got a lucky break with the goal and after that shored up even further.

Not very excited about Fellaini tbh. At Everton he gets away with a lot of cards and fouls. Given our luck with the refrees, that wont continue at Chelsea. He will have to either tone down the aggressive bits in his game or will be sitting out a lot due to suspensions. At ManU he would be a monster though. His strength coupled with backing from refrees. I have a similar belief about Vidic as well. He is so highly rated only because he plays at ManU and gets away with a lot of fouls and niggles.

This "negativity towards Sturridge" that people bring up so often, I think it arises in response to ridiculous statements like "Chelsea treated him badly, he should be here, he is the best striker" etc.

@g3.7 rofl at that. No wonder you still say things like " mikel is the only midfield player, including mata, that should be guaranteed to start" That is never say die attitude mate

At least Joe Cole has injuries to blame for unrealized talent. No saving face for Mikel. Just a poor poor player

#facepalm material this thread is. He doesnt even run on the football field. Naval Ships have shorter turning radius.

This torres and board bashing is getting ridiculous. If you look at Drogba's performances in Premier League last season, they were nothing to write home about. About 5-6 goals in the entire season. It was the right decision to let him go. Does anyone of you know how much wage is Lampard demanding in the new contract? If he is demanding 100k+, can you cite any other player at any club getting those wages at his age?? Do you think Lampard has it in him to start every week and deliver the same level of performance he has been doing for the last 10 odd years?

With respect to offering Frank Lampard a new deal, I think one important thing is he still harbours hopes of representing England at 2014 world cup. For that he needs to be playing every week which Chelsea cant promise him at the moment. If you look around, United kept Neville, Scholes and Giggs even in their late 30s but they had quit international football long time before that (Scholes at 30, Neville at 32, giggs at 33). They were happy playing fewer games which may not be the case with Frank.

As they say, stats can be used to present whatever belief you want to spread. That article does not take into consideration the relative positions of players on the field. Out of all the players compared in that article, Mikel probably plays the deepest. If you are playing 80% of the game with only the keeper behind you, no wonder you dont have the higest %age of back passes. Mikel slows down our game considerably and as a result when the teams park the bus, we struggle to score. A player like Mikel is only useful when you want to play 10/11 men behind the ball and defend deep.

Mikel looked fine vs Bayern n Barca because we were playing 11 men behind the ball. Do you think the team can use that game strategy over the long term? Will it fetch success? The truth is he is far limited a player to be starting in a team that regularly challenges for top honours. He does not provide a solid base to our defense. That myth is perpetuated because he is usually close to our defenders. But that is due to his limited mobility and no desire to cover the pitch. The few times he does go forward and we are caught on the break, he will be the last chelsea player to get back into position ( See a clip of Arturo Vidal's goal in our away match vs Juve, Mikel is slowly ambling back as Vidal comletes his celebration).

Reg. xenophobia. You were accusing me of being xenophobic towards Mikel when I compared him to other players. If I dont even share a country with them, how can you bring xenophobia into it??? See the logical connections or your Mikel love in has blinded you?? If JT gets a new contract, it is because of his service, performances and ability. Do you think Mikel's performances deserve a 5 year deal??? Ask around, majority would say NO. reg. examples: 1. So Mikel was not playing Chicarito onside on that goal? YES or NO 2. He was marking Willian on both the goals that we conceded at SB vs Shakhtar? YES or NO 3. He didnt give away the ball and stood stationary for 5-10 seconds after that as Juve scored at SB? YES or NO ofcourse you can avoid these questions with another general statement like "I am afraid that there are too many hypocrisies and misinterpretations in them for me to deem it worth actually explaining".

@g3.7 First of all, I am not even English/European. So, you can drop that xenophobia theory of yours. The discussion was going on about how Mikel was not required in our midfield. You negated that response by writing that is how people thought about Makelele. How am I quoting you out of context then? It would help having a holding midfielder if he would be willing to put in a shift. Time and again this season, Mikel has been found short in these attributes this season. Some examples: 1. vs. Shakhtar at home: both the goals were scored by Willian, their AM who should have been marked by our DM (Mikel). He was nowhere close to him. Yes, the cross came from left but the least your wingback expects is the central attackers be covered. 2. vs Juve: I dont need to tell you again about the second Juve goal at Bridge. That one goal proved the death nail in our CL dream this season 3. vs ManU Cocup: When Luiz lost the ball upfield, Mikel played chicarito onside. A disciplined DM would have moved up in line with Cahill but Mikel, the lazy bum he is, played Chicarito onside. I can go on and on. Mikel in midfield has been nothing short of tragic this season.

How deluded are you? Comparing Mikel to Makelele?? Makelele was a ball winner, an active player who would willingly cover the entire pitch, put tackles, blocks and give cover to defense. Mikel has none of those qualities. Where was Mikel when Athletico, Juventus, Shakhtar were having a free run through our central defenders ? The only reason he is at the club now is because of his nigerian connection with Emanalo and I think his new contract provides ample evidence of that.

Did you watch him in the game vs ManU (CoCup). Time and again he would ignore players in a better position and take 20-25 yard shots at goal.

Not sure if serious. Do you think If torres had not come to Chelsea, we would still be having Anelka and Drogba in our ranks. Anelka left when his contract had 6 months to go while Drogba left after his contract expired. Anelka is 33 now and Drogba is 34. They would not have been given new deals irrespective of Torres being here or not. I am no fan of Torres but blaming him here is wrong. As far as Sturridge is concerned, we have all seen his problems. He is too selfish to play in front of 3 AM formation that we seem to trust nowadays. Somebody made a very good comment about his move to Liverpool, "Suarez and Sturridge would each need a ball to themselves". Sturridge has his attributes but he cannot be the number one striker at a top 4 side. People who say that Sturridge has been overlooked have obviously just taken a secondary glance over the season and have not been following the club closely. We started the season with Fernando Torres as the first striker and then Sturridge got injured. When he came back from injury, he was slowly being integrated to the team and the few times we could have started him, they were all big games and it would have been dangerous to start an all together new formation in important matches ( never mind robbie went on to do the same v Juve). After a 20 min cameo when he got into good spaces as a CF, he got injured again before the next game.

any team with Mikel in it is not starting XI but starting X. Liability he is