Just a couple of long balls to Drogba short of equalizer

[abramovich]

I've had it with Jose and his dumb Bolton tactics. Can the squad worth of a few hundred million pounds play any passing game? Dear God, we made Pool look creative by comparison. What do our players do all day in training: hoof the ball to Drogba and try to guess where knockback is going to end up?

I'm sick and tired of watching us play like a Championship side, sick and tired of Mourinho's nonsense and excuses, sick and tired of losing to goddamn scouse sh*te in cup semifinals. This maybe in the spur of the moment but i wish we would thank Jose for all the great work he's done with the team and move on.

We sacrificed the flair and the beauty for effectiveness and results. Now we've got neither.

[morris]

Agreed.

[g3.7]

in fairness, bolton get it down and play it sometimes, and when they had creative players, they used them!

[Sofa Manager]

Abramo is spot on, however, in ALL fairness...our "creative" players created less then my 2 year old drawings.

[Mike O]

I've had it with Jose and his dumb Bolton tactics. Can the squad worth of a few hundred million pounds play any passing game? Dear God, we made Pool look creative by comparison. What do our players do all day in training: hoof the ball to Drogba and try to guess where knockback is going to end up?

I'm sick and tired of watching us play like a Championship side, sick and tired of Mourinho's nonsense and excuses, sick and tired of losing to goddamn scouse sh*te in cup semifinals. This maybe in the spur of the moment but i wish we would thank Jose for all the great work he's done with the team and move on.

We sacrificed the flair and the beauty for effectiveness and results. Now we've got neither.

I'm on your page pal. I was going to say the same thing alongside the notion that with our style of play tonight, we simply didn't deserve it.

I'm effin furious but also sanguine. We've had some dreadful injury probs, We only play with a 23 man squad (which I still love). And in this last week, the gas just dried up

Greets to all my fellow blues tonight. Remember stockholm, remember 97, remember 5-0 vs the scum in 2000. Nights like tonight make those memories all the more special.

And especially, remember the FA cup 4th round, 1997.

Kepp the blue flag flying high

[Backbiter]

Greets to all my fellow blues tonight. Remember stockholm, remember 97, remember 5-0 vs the scum in 2000. Nights like tonight make those memories all the more special.

And especially, remember the FA cup 4th round, 1997.

Kepp the blue flag flying high

Spot on. The Emirates and Wembley here we come.

[Guest]

It is no possible to play a game like this...We need to clone drogs 'cause he is the only player....

[icecoolguy22]

Its a pain for me to say it, but we deserve what we got tonight.. We went out there to play a goalless draw, after conceding one we were playing for the extra time.. It's only when Robben was on with about 20 minutes to go in extra time there were sings of improvement ( for a few minutes), then we were playing for the penalty. We played 45 minutes of long ball and it achieved nothing, so we played another 45 minjutes of long ball, plus another 30 minutes of long balls, talk about being persistent

In a way this week's pain will do us good in the future( assume Jose will stay on), he will have to come up with something new in terms of tactics and personels next season..

Overall it was a dismal night, losing on penalty didnt reflect how poor we were ..

[Scott]

"I'm effin furious but also sanguine."

Mike O

Now there's a keeper Loz

[g3.7]

what we need to do more of is get the best leftback in the world providing more of the fantastic crosses.

I'm confused about why you spend ?43m on central midfielders only to take them out of the game by playing longballs over them... shades of eriksson tonight.

[Mike O]

"I'm effin furious but also sanguine."

Mike O

Now there's a keeper Loz

Love ya Scotty! What are you up to now? I'm getting very pissed all on my own, having put a very tearful 10 year old lad to bed and having phoned my scouse brother in law to ensure that fisticuffs are off the menu next time we meet.

Now it's either the forums or porn....

How sanguie is that?

Take care pal,

Mike

[The Moos]

"I'm effin furious but also sanguine."

Mike O

Now there's a keeper Loz

Love ya Scotty! What are you up to now? I'm getting very pissed all on my own, having put a very tearful 10 year old lad to bed and having phoned my scouse brother in law to ensure that fisticuffs are off the menu next time we meet.

Now it's either the forums or porn....

How sanguie is that?

Take care pal,

Mike

Oh, I don't give much to your sisters taste in men, Mike

[mad_mac]

Porn, now there is an idea, what better way to cure all that ails you today!

However, back to the main point, I think that our tactics of hoofing it up to drogba are so school boy it is a joke.

the other teams could easily read that this was going to be our effort all day, and they just bloked us out of it...Diabolical. I hate to say this, but we have gone from being in with a chance of teh quad, to in with a chance of only the carling cup, and if we continue to play this long ball, then that will be all we have.

I also fear that, his failure to bring in the CL, and the supposed arguments in teh back room (sheva not even on the bench?) will mean the end of Jose's time at Chelsea

Scott

[The Moos]

Porn, now there is an idea, what better way to cure all that ails you today!

Darn it. I've erased all mine.

Anyone's got pictures of goats lying around?

[superdan]

If anyone asks you how it feels to be a Chelsea supporter right now easy answer.

Just like being an England fan!

World class players who don't quite do enough and lose on penalties.

We should have done better - another tired end to the season - oh well!

On to Arsenal this Sunday - I'll take a 4-0 win to cheer me up!

Tomorrow we'll also be able to speculate at who will be able to beat Liverpool in the final which will be fun too.

[MannyJello]

in a weird sort of way, the fact that we have had so much luck with Drogba might be our ultimate downfall.

if Drogba had been half as effective, we might not have been so eager to employ the long ball tactic, and might have played more free flowing football. however, our team seemed to be designed with that purpose in mind (hence our jettisoning of Duff and Eidur).

the best we have looked in several months was during the first half against Bolton when Drogba was on the sidelines and the players needed to create chances through fluid passes and running up play.

i still remember the first time i realized we were a long ball team. 2005 CL quarter finals vs. Bayern, when it seemed that's all we were doing. coming off the heels of our running Barca out of the Bridge, it was a dramatic contrast.

i love Jose, i love Chelsea, but i think the two might be better off without each other.

[g3.7]

sheva isn't tall enough to be a striker. I think it's time we revisit him... I've enjoyed the "past it" jibes leveleed at sheva because it's just not true. while we were winning it masked the fact the the football was dire (well, for a while it did)... and it hasn't worked all season in truth... drogba still isn't a great passer at the best of times, and today his passing was horrible... but back to sheva, he's not a player who likes the long ball, he spent his career playing for teams that create an angle and slide in short passes to him, that look to play one-twos. a big criticism levelled at the guy has been his speed... the thing is, he's no slower than he was last year or the year before at milan, and he had no problem- was arguably the top man in the business. I noticed just mentioned that his heading was good but has become poor. again, for me, not true. he isn't a huge tall guy like drogba, but create an angle and put in a proper cross (not one of these cashley- long aimless deep ball towards the 18 yard line), and sheva's impeccable movement will see him lose his marker. he is very similar to crespo, albeit weaker- the reason why crespo just about coped with this poor excuse for tactics.

I think all season jose's reputation for tactics has taken a hammering, tonight was confirmation- when his pychology fails to screw with the opposition he can be exposed.

[abramovich]

I don't mean to be ungrateful, i love Jose and not only for the trophies won but for the fact that he has also brought so much more to Chelsea, including a new identity- the winners.

It was never an easy ride,these three years and he did well, for the most part. But for all the money we've spent, Jose couldn't teach his team to play with style.

I'm not againt long ball tactics when they work. I'm not against grinding out results here and there when the going gets hard. But for the love of God, is our squad that short of options that we have to endure that monotonous routine every match of every competition?

Our players are better than our teamplay suggests. You can't tell me that the side that has Robben,Essien,Ballack,Sheva,Mikel,SWP etc can't play dominating attractive stylish kind of football and still win trophies.

This season had so much promise and is turning out to be such a dissapointment with two major trophies out of our reach.

It wasn't the injuries Jose. It was your tactics and style of play.

[The Brit]

i find some of the criticism incredible...yes we didn't cut liverpool apart and we did play too many long balls to drogba, but some of the comments are so ott...talk about hitting a team when they're down...we have lessons to learn for sure, but we haven't become as bad as people make out...are you saying Liverpool a better team after the way they played this season and over the two legs...don't let the disappointment of defeat cloud your judgement

[Pauly]

1) our first half was absolutely shocking- you could have thrown together 11 players from different parts of the world and prepared them on the day to play with more of a strategy than we had in the first half.

2) after half time we dominated them, passes the ball on the ground especially with mikel and kept control of it- on the contrast they got very excited and stopped playing in the tactical way they'd been instructed to in the first half.

3) if benitez played chelsea every week they would win the league. tactics are so easy for him against us.

4) could have used robben and SWP about 40 minutes earlier

5) bridge.

[g3.7]

of all the forward thinking players, lampard, mikel, ballack, swp, kalou,shevchenko, joe cole and robben and drogba, we only play to the latter's strengths, despite the fact that it results in us getting maybe on 30% of what we could get from all the others. he's had a great season, drogba, but he is nowhere near that good that he should takes priorityat the expense of all the others (which is effectively what jose said in his press conference).

[g3.7]

p.s. brit I don't think this is all to do with tonight, I feel it is a culmination of months and months of poor football.

[yuliastar]

I agree with G4. Only Drogba can truly thrive with our style of play. Others would benefit from some more attractive, and in this case it would also be more effective, football. Something for Jose to consider for next season, assuming he is still here. As big of a disappointment as today is, this ugly football letting us down is not a one-time occurence.Its been happening for too long, and with our team we can go better. We should be doing better.

I feel shell-shocked, but at the same time I feel like I should have seen it coming.

Let's hope we learn from this now.

[SydneyChelsea]

And let's be honest, who thought Drogba was effective last night?

The reality is even he isn't at his best when we play the long-ball game and it has proven to be the case all season. He is far, far more effective running onto shorter passes where he can use his strength and speed to manhandle any fullback in the world.

I don't need to say much more except that i've already posted my thoughts on our style weeks ago, they've proven to be correct again because far from it being my genius it's that we're bloody predictable.

It isn't about sacrificing Drogba for the team. One of our best games ever was the 4-0 win at the Bridge over Newcastle, in which we only started playing fluently when Drogba came on. Obviously the in-crowd are just hanging out to beat up on Drogba- it's not as if Shevchenko would've improved a whole lot on Kalou last night.

My belief is that it is down to attitude. We have a very negative and cynical attitude.

[Backbiter]

The ITV commentators made a telling point about Ashley Cole last night, comparing his hoofing of long balls to Drogs with the short give-and-go style he played for years at Arsenal. They were dead right. He's not a great passer of the ball, or a great crosser, or a great defender (so why the hell did we buy him and why is he first choice) and he doesn't go past people particularly well (could he have set up SWP's goal at WHU?).

The long ball game played right into their hands. They are damn good at defending aerial balls, and even if Drogs won flick ons noone was playing off him. He held the ball up well but they were really tight on him and he couldn't braek away. Not his fault at all, but our tactics - especially our persistence with them when we they weren't working - were woeful, and as has been said, they were a painful replica of two years ago.

Liverpool did edge it last night, in terms of chances and effective tactics, but we should have buried them in the first half at SB when we played well and created plenty. We're on a seriously bad run of blowing huge games (v L'pool in the last three seasons, plus Monaco, Newcastle, Bolton), and every time we've just not played well at all.

This is all part and parcel of supporting Chels - it's always been like this, and this run just proves that you cannot buy success. We've had a great season and - who knows - funny things could still happen to Manure, but we're on a collosal downer right now. The players, fans, coaches, owners, everyone. Anyone remember Leeds in 1970? Blew the league to Everton, got beaten by Celtic in the EC semis, and lost the FAC after a replay. Eerily it seems history is repeating itself.

Has any other side lost 3 EC/ CL semis in 4 four years?