Not long before Roman gets bored with the bus parking and does another "mutual consenting"......but seriously as a neutral, no one will really give a sh*t cos its been 5 years without the EPL...question then is what next? At some point the fans and even the players will demand a minimum level of style......what happens then? As fans we all want to win trophies (long term goal) but in the short term we want to watch our team play excellent stuff every week as well...

Should you not be in bed by now? it is school tomorrow, run along it's bedtime, you don't want to be late for teacher tomorrow.

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMA

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chelsea-boss-mourinho-got-united-tactics-spot-if-fans-who-dont-like-it-they-should-follow-1497346

No idea where else to share this photo. 

 

Anyway, the look on JT's face... He can barely contain his happiness and excitement after the win.... "Almost there Ivan... Almost there!"

 

Random point but after reading comments elsewhere someone made a comment about how "the most expensive team won"

 

To which someone pointed at that in fact they lost. 

 

So I thought about the cost of the two teams and our starting XI cost something like £150m and United's was around £215. 

 

If you include the cost of the subs as well our team cost around £210m and United's was roughly £275m. 

How many is that, 3 or 4 decent United fans visiting this thread and being classy after the defeat?

 

Got to be a record for visiting fans, credit to them they are a credit to their club. Lets see if they stay as gracious when United beat us or if they do what that PSG fan did.

 

 

I'm on Redcafe and there are quite a few very good Chelsea fans there too. Goes to show that it's possible for opposition fans to talk about football without it ending up in fights.

My feeling is that many Chelsea fans are being over-defensive.

 

Our performance was always going to attract criticism, we surrendered possession completely, at home, and we were also very lucky.

 

Let's not forget Utd had a gilt-edged chance to take the lead and Falcao should have equalised.

 

Sure, people will say Hazard hit the post, but the truth was we were camped in our own half and hoping for the quick breakaway, and it worked but it could well have gone the other way.

 

If we had lost that game there would have been a lot of criticism on these boards, as there was against PSG. It's one thing to lose, it's another to lose without showing any attacking ambition.

 

We didn't play much football, that's the bottom line. We won and that's fine, there was lots to commend our display, not least the fact we held our nerve when we were the team under pressure, not least our organisation and so on, and our commitment, but our game was based on stopping them rather than playing ourselves.

 

People are rarely going to give you credit in those circumstances, unless you're a minnow.

 

Just be happy with the win.

 

There's no doubt Jose goes into these big games in very pragmatic fashion. By his own admission he worked all week on stopping the threat of Fellaini. Fellaini. Not Messi but Fellaini. I know Utd were the form team and I know Fellaini's been central to that but there's no doubt there's more focus on stopping their best players from playing than there is on allowing our best players to play.

 

We haven't lost this season against the other teams in the top five, and that's an outstanding record, so I'm not knocking Jose, I'm just saying the criticism is inevitable when he adopts the tactics he does in some of these games. It's more about sucking the life out of the game and people want to see a game. Chelsea fans don't care, inevitably, but the criticism from elsewhere is inevitable.

 

We play a direct rival. Jose looks at it. There are three points on offer, to us and to them. Often in these games he decides depriving them of a win is more important than winning ourselves. He knows what he's doing, obviously. He's a brilliant manager. A win's a bonus but the essential thing is stopping the direct rival from winning. They get three points to our none. That's unacceptable to him. He knows these are the key matches. The six-pointers if you like.

 

It's been his undoing in the CL. He's failed in the knock-out stage for the last five seasons, four of those times in the semi-finals. It's becoming an issue. He goes ultra-defensive, where stopping the other team winning is far more important than winning ourselves, against the top sides, his direct rivals if you like.

 

The next stage is showing a bit more ambition, and I hope this is in his thinking.

 

It's important we win this title, for psychological reasons, and it will be a mammoth achievement, but if we do get over the line, we need to take that as an opportunity to grow further.

Reading this on WAGNH put a smile on my face

 

"In a game of fetch, after all, the dog usually has most of the possession, but that doesn’t mean he’s in control."
From Giles Smith's weekly column on Chelsea FC official.