I'm writing to sky to tell them unless they find some Chelsea pundits for our live games, they can stick their subscription and I will go and buy a chipped sky box.

 

I think that's fair.

If Sky did bag Clarkson watch the change! No substance.

No it was half time.

 

This one?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=womvxF_GYC4

 

He's guilty of repeating himself. I think he has to acknowledge that plenty of other teams do it and United were famous for it (think it was surrounding Rob Styles) but he does have a point that a lot of Jose's teams do it and Jose does focus on influencing the ref, so when the players do it it's easy to make that link.

 

 

We have said this before on here, but given amount of top ex chelsea pros out there, surely one could have been found in sky studio last night? Why are two ex Liverpool talking about us in cl? Can you imagine two ex chelsea for Liverpool tie?! Yeah right...

Not saying cfc didn't deserve criticism last night, most of us are saying worse on here, but it did feel Carragher was bringing his personal bitterness after run ins with cfc into his analysis and was enjoying kicking a dog while it was down

 

Carragher is one of their main guys, Henry is too (and he's French) and Souness has always been very fair to us, but I'd have loved to have seen Ballack, Hoddle or Wilkins on there.

Yeah, rather mystified that so many pundits, media are making out it was just cfc guilty of harassing ref, dirty tactics etc...agree we went ott, but don't ignore PSG...they were dirty fcukers over both legs...Souness ranting about his disgust over cfc and how PSG were a 'proper team', who didn't resort to our lowly methods, was ridiculous and again clearly coming from watching it through red tinted specs

Frankly who cares what Carragher or anyone else says. Every team surrounds referees and carries on. Be interested in his view on the infamous incident with Xabi Alonso where his rolling around and carrying on got Frank sent off in a 50/50 challenge. Be interesting if someone could dig up that footage. I bet Carragher ran 30 yards to get involved.

Why is this business re surrounding refs such an issue now? It's not as if only one team does it.

Edited March 12, 201511 yr by paraphil

This one?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=womvxF_GYC4

 

He's guilty of repeating himself. I think he has to acknowledge that plenty of other teams do it and United were famous for it (think it was surrounding Rob Styles) but he does have a point that a lot of Jose's teams do it and Jose does focus on influencing the ref, so when the players do it it's easy to make that link.

 

 

 

Carragher is one of their main guys, Henry is too (and he's French) and Souness has always been very fair to us, but I'd have loved to have seen Ballack, Hoddle or Wilkins on there.

On Jose, it was clearly more of a tactic in second leg after PSG got away with murder in first leg...but while they made lots of Ibra being wrong decision, and it was, what about all the analysis of ref missing blatant pen and Luiz's elbow on Costa (though he was lucky not to be sent off too)...ref looked to even things up if you ask me...

As for pundits, yep get sky have their main guys, but surely there is room for a ballack, joe Cole, Wilkins, gullit in one of the three seats?

Chelsea players reacted angrily to the incident, surrounding the referee and demanding that Ibrahimovic be sent off. While the likes of Graeme Souness and Jamie Carragher criticised their reactions, Gary Neville believes the Blues players were “shrewd” to look for a red card.

“Listening to the lads at half-time, I’m not as damning about Chelsea reacting because at times it happened during my career when you tried to influence the referee,” the pundit told Sky Sports.

“But for far too many times you’ve seen naive English teams in Europe, that have been done on occasions like that.

“Here, we’ve got a team that is shrewd. People at home might not like it but if the boot was on the other foot we’d be calling PSG shrewd.

“They play the game, that’s what you need to do in European competition over the last 20, 30 years. It’s different trying to gain those advantages.

‘I like the idea that it’s an English team that is shrewd and not the opposition. It comes from Mourinho, he knows how to play the game.”

Mourinho’s side went on to lose on away goals as former Chelsea man David Luiz and fellow defender Thiago Silva cancelled out strikes from Gary Cahill and Eden Hazard.

On Jose, it was clearly more of a tactic in second leg after PSG got away with murder in first leg...but while they made lots of Ibra being wrong decision, and it was, what about all the analysis of ref missing blatant pen and Luiz's elbow on Costa (though he was lucky not to be sent off too)...ref looked to even things up if you ask me...

As for pundits, yep get sky have their main guys, but surely there is room for a ballack, joe Cole, Wilkins, gullit in one of the three seats?

 

I think Ballack works on another network which is a shame because he's a good pundit. Wilkins was always well-regarded so not sure what he's doing now but the reality is that they spend big money on certain people and have to use them. 

 

None of them come close to being the vacuous sh*t-stain that Redknapp is though.

I'm very very disappointed still and this post will sound incredibly harsh but after tonight i think it needs to be said.

 

I just can't believe how often we are getting the basics wrong at the moment. We are really grinding things out right now and we have to start putting in some good performances because it's only a matter of time before we drop crucial points in the league.

 

For me, the attacking play breaking up as often as it is is down to Willian, Ramires and Oscar. The 3 Brazilians quite simply are playing absolute sh*t on a consistent basis.

 

Nearly every counter attack, or even a regular attack, the same thing happens. Matic or one of the defenders will break up play, they will play the ball to Fabregas then Fabregas will get the attack really going with a good a pass. If he then passes to Hazard, he will do his stuff and play a decent pass to Willian, Ramires or Oscar. This is when it all goes wrong. If it goes to Willian, he will run on the right hand side with the ball, completely stop, pretend that he is going to take the full back on and then play it back 5 yards, or he will just play a poor pass, attack over. If it goes to Ramires, he will either over run it with an awful touch or play an awful pass foward that goes to the opposition, another attack wasted. If it goes to Oscar, he will do well at first, but then as he approaches the goal he will completely mess up his touch or he get's the pass wrong and the opposition win the ball back, and another attack goes to waste. They also rarely have a shot at goal either, the defenders shoot more than these 3 do.

 

It's just the same thing happening time and time again. Basically, if Fabregas or Hazard ends up giving it to one of the 3 Brazilian midfielders when we are looking for the final piece of play, the attack more often than not completely breaks down. These 3 for me are the main reason our goals have dried up lately and why we lose the ball so much in midfield. It may seem harsh to blame it on those 3 but we are seeing them give the ball away time and time again. Oscar has his moments, but it's always in the early stages of the season, and from then on we get the odd decent performance now and again. The other 2 though are quite simply not good enough, they never have been. Willian has been offering very little going forward every since he joined us and Ramires seems to have lost anything that was ever good about him since his injury.

 

Tonight, it was worse than ever from all 3 of them. All 3 of them did nothing right throughout the entire game and i personally think that enough is enough now and we need an upgrade on all 3 of them if we are ever going to challenge for the Champions League again. We will never compete with the very top sides if these 3 are going to keep playing like this.

 

Good post.

 

Sadly Oscar is proving me right, he is simply not doing enough for the side, we need him at these crucial moments and he is still yet to put in a good performance since the Swansea game in early January. That's just not good enough, he did the same last season when we desperately needed him. He doesn't have as much impact as he should have.

 

Going to sleep last night was really hard honestly, I just felt really bad about the game, shocked more than anything, didn't expect that from us. It's hard to get over a performance what is that embarrassing really.

Chelsea players reacted angrily to the incident, surrounding the referee and demanding that Ibrahimovic be sent off. While the likes of Graeme Souness and Jamie Carragher criticised their reactions, Gary Neville believes the Blues players were “shrewd” to look for a red card.

“Listening to the lads at half-time, I’m not as damning about Chelsea reacting because at times it happened during my career when you tried to influence the referee,” the pundit told Sky Sports.

“But for far too many times you’ve seen naive English teams in Europe, that have been done on occasions like that.

“Here, we’ve got a team that is shrewd. People at home might not like it but if the boot was on the other foot we’d be calling PSG shrewd.

“They play the game, that’s what you need to do in European competition over the last 20, 30 years. It’s different trying to gain those advantages.

‘I like the idea that it’s an English team that is shrewd and not the opposition. It comes from Mourinho, he knows how to play the game.”

Mourinho’s side went on to lose on away goals as former Chelsea man David Luiz and fellow defender Thiago Silva cancelled out strikes from Gary Cahill and Eden Hazard.

Think Neville knows he couldn't exactly criticise chelsea given his much publicised knack of doing it himself as a player!..,but I always like the way he makes his points...always comes across as being balance, thinking before he speaks...doesn't take easy option of following the crowd...and unlike most pundits that judge us, he has won sh*t loads at highest level and knows as good as his Utd team were, they needed nasty streak too to succeed...so easy to paint us enemies of football this am after Ibra's babies quote etc and ignore behaviour of other team...

What pundits should be talking about is what's wrong with cfc team in terms of quality, being knocked out by 10 men, not supposed use of 'dark arts'.

Why is this business re surrounding refs such an issue now? It's not as if only one team does it.

Rooney was constantly in the ref's ear recently and that passed with no comment.

Don't take offence, but that's a really, really strange point to make. I don't think a single person was missing Mikel.

 

There was only one Defensive Midfielder we were missing last night and it's the one who went off 2 minutes before they scored.

 

Well he's never been the most popular player in our squad - in 2010/11, when Malouda was comfortably our best attacking player (and top scorer come to think of it), there were constant calls for him to be dropped and even sold. I don't think popular opinion is really a very good indicator of what the best approach to most things, particularly in football.

 

Mikel's job isn't glamorous in a midfield whose job is primarily to deny space to the opposition midfield, but we would be undeniably less porous in the middle than we would with Fabregas in a two-man central midfield. I'm not necessarily suggesting we drop Fabregas entirely but there isn't a great amount of point having both him, Oscar and Hazard in the side (and clearly we need the latter) when our gameplan is clearly built around defensive structure.

Parking the bus is playing to Mikel's strengths; his defensive positioning when we are deep in our own half is absolutely brilliant, for all his faults when we are trying to play more expansively this is something he can do basically as well as any other defensive mid.

 

Defending deep is something we used to be astonishingly good at (i.e. when Mikel was in the team), even against vastly superior opponents. However this season we have bizarrely struggled to do so effectively, even against opponents who aren't close to the same calibre as Bayern and Barca of 2012 and Liverpool last year, and even with a manager whose defensive acumen is as good as any other around. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to suggest that we miss the man who was key to our seemingly jeopardised defensive strategy.

Rooney was constantly in the ref's ear recently and that passed with no comment.

 

He always, always has. I think crowding the referee is a more or less universal sin and it's silly to pinpoint one player (but probably necessary to point it out in general), but Rooney has taken it to ridiculous new levels, even before he was appointed England captain.

1. you need to defend a  1 goal lead. for 9 minutes in your most important game of the season, against 10 men would you expect to win?

2. you are going to play against 10 men for 90mins would you expect to win? 

 

I think if you gave the following scenarios to any fan the would be yes.;

i think that was one of the most cowardly performances I've ever seen. there is a big difference between seeing out a result (hard work, ball control, game management, takes large skill) and trying to sit back and win the game by default(little skill, reliance on luck, no game management, backing off, no pressure, walking pace, hoping opposition don't score before the ref blows his whistle). This game was similar to the Man U and City game but much worse. Because A) they had 10 men for 90+ mins B) we knew a draw was not a point won but a tie lost (except 0-0) C) we were at home and D) we were bitten once with the luiz goal and did not learn our lesson when we were 2-1 up in ET leading to the silva goal.

Well he's never been the most popular player in our squad - in 2010/11, when Malouda was comfortably our best attacking player (and top scorer come to think of it), there were constant calls for him to be dropped and even sold. I don't think popular opinion is really a very good indicator of what the best approach to most things, particularly in football.

 

Mikel's job isn't glamorous in a midfield whose job is primarily to deny space to the opposition midfield, but we would be undeniably less porous in the middle than we would with Fabregas in a two-man central midfield. I'm not necessarily suggesting we drop Fabregas entirely but there isn't a great amount of point having both him, Oscar and Hazard in the side (and clearly we need the latter) when our gameplan is clearly built around defensive structure.

Parking the bus is playing to Mikel's strengths; his defensive positioning when we are deep in our own half is absolutely brilliant, for all his faults when we are trying to play more expansively this is something he can do basically as well as any other defensive mid.

 

Defending deep is something we used to be astonishingly good at (i.e. when Mikel was in the team), even against vastly superior opponents. However this season we have bizarrely struggled to do so effectively, even against opponents who aren't close to the same calibre as Bayern and Barca of 2012 and Liverpool last year, and even with a manager whose defensive acumen is as good as any other around. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to suggest that we miss the man who was key to our seemingly jeopardised defensive strategy.

 

Alternatively we could've stuck Zouma in there and basically got the same result.

 

As it is we lost when Matic went off. Mikel being on the pitch wouldn't have mattered a jot. He wasn't a factor in the game in my opinion when we had more than enough of the ball against 10 men but simply couldn't create anything. 

 

Like I said, I just find it a very strange point to bring up.

Alternatively we could've stuck Zouma in there and basically got the same result.

As it is we lost when Matic went off. Mikel being on the pitch wouldn't have mattered a jot. He wasn't a factor in the game in my opinion when we had more than enough of the ball against 10 men but simply couldn't create anything.

Like I said, I just find it a very strange point to bring up.

We lost due to errors in set plays.

Mikel isnt known for his clearances in the box, would be different if we lost in open play.

When grinding out a result Mikel is at his best as with time on the ball he's as negative as you can be. He'd have been useful last night in that respect but I doubt the result would have been any different since it was set plays that done us.

Can't say I have been that impressed with PSG's lack of dignity in victory (on top of dirty fouls both legs)...lots of digs at Chelsea's expense, can't remember cfc giving it the big un when we best them last year...we were just happy to go through and focus on task ahead, rather than lauding it over our defeated opponents...

Summed up by Thiago silva here, who is moaning about Jose showing lack of respect cos he said he wanted to play PSG in last 16, missing point that he was merely talking about ease of travel, rather than ease of game

'It wasn't revenge, but they really lacked respect for us, particularly Mourinho, because he said he wanted to play PSG because it was close and that it was easy for their supporters to travel there,' the Brazil international is cited as saying by RMC.

'But I don't think our display was because of that, it was because of last year.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2991322/Thiago-Silva-Chelsea-boss-Jose-Mourinho-lacked-respect-PSG.html#ixzz3UAVtkaDy

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The over reactions on here are astounding, calm down folks, it was a bad performance, it happens

 

We were thoroughly outplayed in both legs, against PSG (all due respect but they arent a top tier team) who were a man down for the large majority of the game. We had absolutely no ideas in attack. Our goals came from a dodgy corner and a very stupid penalty. Our attack has been turgid for months now.

 

No manager worth his salt will react to it with a 'bad performance, it happens'. Its a loser mentality.

every chelsea defeat deserves an inquest, it's the high standards we set ourselves...but even more so in cl and under such disappointing circumstances....we weren't unlucky, this wasn't barca 2009, this was up there with Bradford for worst performance of the season

We were thoroughly outplayed in both legs, against PSG (all due respect but they arent a top tier team) who were a man down for the large majority of the game. We had absolutely no ideas in attack. Our goals came from a dodgy corner and a very stupid penalty. Our attack has been turgid for months now.

 

No manager worth his salt will react to it with a 'bad performance, it happens'. Its a loser mentality.

there is definitely something wrong with our set up. these are some example of big games where we were 1-0 up and ended up  drawing: City away 1-1, Man U away 1-1, City Home 1-1, Pool away (cup) 1-1, Psg away 1-1, Psg home 1-1 (90mins), Psg home 1-1(et).

Edited March 12, 201511 yr by boom

Luiz went down massively in my estimations last night.

The half-hearted apology to the fans after he'd just celebrated like he'd won the World Cup was insulting.

Alternatively we could've stuck Zouma in there and basically got the same result.

 

As it is we lost when Matic went off. Mikel being on the pitch wouldn't have mattered a jot. He wasn't a factor in the game in my opinion when we had more than enough of the ball against 10 men but simply couldn't create anything. 

 

Like I said, I just find it a very strange point to bring up.

 

That isn't true considering we conceded within two minutes of Zouma coming on. Zouma is clearly a quality player but he is quite obviously not a natural midfielder and his passing isn't anywhere near the standard of Mikel's. Mikel's passing isn't necessarily the most attack-minded (although this season it has been moreso than in the past) but he will make sure we keep the ball, keep the ball moving and allow his teammates to get into decent positions, even if it does mean gradually breaking down the opposition. I don't know why you'd expect him to be a factor in a game he was out injured for, but at the same time I think it is entirely valid to suggest that we miss him.

 

Even if you don't particularly rate him (and clearly you don't) it is undeniable that we could have used an actual centre mid on the bench with Ramires playing wide and Aké not trusted for this calibre of match.

 

We lost due to errors in set plays.

Mikel isnt known for his clearances in the box, would be different if we lost in open play.

When grinding out a result Mikel is at his best as with time on the ball he's as negative as you can be. He'd have been useful last night in that respect but I doubt the result would have been any different since it was set plays that done us.

 

On the contrary, Mikel is important (not on the level of Terry or Ivanovic but still) at defending set pieces (less so at attacking set pieces although under Mourinho he has generally been in and around the box for free kicks and corners). Defending set pieces is as much about positioning as it is about heading ability, height or athleticism, something Mikel has proven time and again that he is remarkably good at.

Luiz went down massively in my estimations last night.

The half-hearted apology to the fans after he'd just celebrated like he'd won the World Cup was insulting.

 

That's just his celebration, there was nothing special about it as far as luiz celebrations go. Guys emotional ofc he was gonna celebrate and I wouldn't begrudge their fans a luiz celebration either. Loved it every time he wheeled off after scoring for us.

We were thoroughly outplayed in both legs, against PSG (all due respect but they arent a top tier team) who were a man down for the large majority of the game. We had absolutely no ideas in attack. Our goals came from a dodgy corner and a very stupid penalty. Our attack has been turgid for months now.

No manager worth his salt will react to it with a 'bad performance, it happens'. Its a loser mentality.

It's football it happens, it won't be the last time either.

Jose has used that expression many times when talking about bad performances. He's not a loser is he?

Edited March 12, 201511 yr by Bobbywoodhogan