More disappointing than the result was all of the hooligan crap that took place earlier in the day. Disgusting behaviour and if any of them consider themselves fans of Chelsea or football, then they can f**k off back under the rock they crawled from. Personally I think these are just tossers looking for a fight rather than being a fan. Just embarrassing that they associate with this club
Judging not only by his performance today, has anyone else noticed how Matuidi looks basically like a better version of Ramires? He's been one of PSG's most underrated players for a while now
For me, the way to think about it is this... Imagine if PGS's centre-backs were faced with this fella in his prime... Just how far back towards their own goal would they be? That's the issue. Whether he actually scores any goals isn't the point. If you were one of the CB's, (or their manager), would YOU want to leave him alone with only one guy? The amount of room the guy creates, simply by his physical presence and ability to create from nothing, is incalculable. Don't forget, there's a reason why teams usually suffer greatly when they go down to 10 men. We're like that ALL THE TIME!!! TBH, we're relying on Eto'o who had been plying his trade in the Russian league for a couple of years. I mean, no offence to the Russian league and all that but, when was the last one of their THEIR teams was competitive in the CL? Frankly, if we had pretty much ANY of the strikers from the major clubs in Europe, (even ManU have got RVP AND Rooney), we'd be twice the danger we are atm. TBH if we had Welbeck we'd be more dangerous than we are atm... I mean, WELBECK!!! Apart from Eto'o, our strikers make Chicharito look like Pele. I don't know how we've managed to contrive to GET ourselves into this situation but it's bloody depressing
He is one of the better box to box midfielders in Europe. Has more technical ability than someone like Ramires.
Jose on Fernando. I was skeptical about being to able to get rid of Torres this summer but I wouldnt be surprised if he asked to leave (which would be absolutely fine).
It's not even just what Jose says in this interview, it's how he says it. Just look at how much he grimaces at the mention of Torres at 2:30 in the video. Frankly, he looks disgusted.
Wondering if Jose had some faith that he could get the best out of 'nando at the beginning and things just didn't come together.
Ramires was TERRIBLE. He was so careless with the ball as usual, made stupid tackles and unlike his usual self he did not track back well at all. The best thing he did was get a booking so he is out the next leg. The entire second half I was worried he would get a 2nd yellow. Cech today could have done so much better on the second and 3rd goal. The first goal, Luiz and Ramires were lost and should have been in the box to clear the JT header. With Luiz and Ramires as our pivot we are so reliant on Hazard/Oscar to do something. I'm let down by the side today, we should have tied or at the worst loss 2-1. If we have a great match we can win 2-0 or 3-1. With all that said I'm more let down by the club. Recently we have made very good and smart transfers but to not sign a striker in the last 2 years has hurt us dearly. If we had 1 20goal striker this season we would have won the prem IMO, and would have beaten this PSG side today. Matic is a huge signing and in the prem we are much better but our strike options are a JOKE. Look at all the clubs in the top 8 of the CL: Bayern: Manzukic, Mueller Dortmund: Lewadownski Madrid: Benzema, Ronaldo Athletico: Costa, Villa PSG: Cavani, Ibra, Lavezzi United: RVP, Rooney, Barca: Messi, Sanchez, Neymar, Pedro It's a joke when you think of us having ETO, BA, and Torres. WHY spend 30m on Willian and not get a striker??? I like Willian's work rate but I rather have a striker. I know our squad is young and next season we will have a good striker ( at least it seems like it ) but if we had one this season we would have had a great shot at winning the prem and a good chance to make the CL final. Then to top it off we loaned our BEST striker to Everton..
Ramires was hopeless . We have now lost 10 games this season , last time Mourinho was here he lost a total of 21 in a little over 3 years. Im actually surprised how far we are along in the CL and Premier League , seeing as we have easily the worst strikers of any top club in Europe. At this stage Bamford and Lukaku are looking pretty darn good.
Not much to say. A huge disappointment as I thought we are actually better than this performance. Ramires had a terrible game, but I do not think he is a terrible player and he has a place in our squad. It was fine up until the last goal. We only had to score and we were always more than capable of that. Luis own go was never a free kick in the first place. This is our blip. We will march on from here.
Willian became available - he was always a target for the club - he became available and so we bought him. We need a striker for sure - but there isn't that many great strikers that are currently both young enough and available.
I think it is time for Torres to pack his bags. . .he may as well take the rest of the season off - go on 'gardening leave'. Pitiful - 50 million quid - the biggest flop in our history. I have more respect for Winston Bogarde.
sorted Thanks to all who reported and ignored the trolls. For some reason the CL always brings out some of the biggest morons.
I'm getting a bit fed up with Mourinho on this stuff, not that I disagree with the message. What is the point of communicating like this in a press conference? Why start the game with no striker, trash Torres guy pre-game, then put him on early in the second half and expect something different to happen than has happened all season? Better to admit you made a huge mistake as a manger, take responsibility and hopefully learn from it. I've disliked Torres on our team since the day we signed him, but don't understand what the manager is after here. Is this going to motivate the player? Hell no. I would expect the player to shut down completely given this public humiliation (I think he has already). Is this really (as the media suggests) Mourinho's way of communicating a transfer need to the board and the owner? That's what they said when he started Schuerrle against United with Lukaku and Torres on the bench, and it was parroted again yesterday. Honestly, if that theory is true, its the most depressing explanation for our club. If our manager "communicates" his needs to ownership through his tactical decisions and press conferences, well, I would say the relationship is already broken (again) and we've got much bigger problems than just needing to find a new striker.
Have to agree… Jose isn't how he was when he was here before… seemingly deflects all responsibility onto the team, covers his ass in interviews, everything that works is a stroke of genius, then something goes wrong and we need players or he has a go at the strikers.
Mourinho got his lineup wrong - Luiz shouldn't have started, Mikel should've played alongside Ramires given Mourinho was going for the draw. On the whole, I thought Chelsea were very poor and that there were too many passengers in the side that put in way below par performances. Oscar was poor, Ramires was a red card waiting to happen, Luiz was atrocious ... practically the only players who were good today were Willian, Cahill and Hazard.
As fans, we tend to over-analyze everything. Nothing is ever as good or bad as we make it out to be. In plain terms, we're in a sort of slump. It's only obvious that lack of a proper striker and a creative midfielder would become more apparent towards the end of the season, when other players become more and more exhausted. This is why we've been losing more often, and this is why players are becoming more sloppy. It's all mental from now until May and Jose has not yet fully instilled this winning mentality in all players. A good comparison would be a marathon runner, who keeps running with few heavy rocks in his pocket. Until the race is over, he can't dump those rocks, so as he grows more tired, he begins to stumble and other runners start catching up. The only way to come through now is to be get into the "beast" mentality. Whether Chelsea can do that or not will see soon enough.
The problem with this post is (not the poster mind) Oscar, Ramires, and Willian have been shite since January. Mata wasn't good when we sold him and KDeB never got a chance to play. We are really lacking in form players. As many have mentioned, if Hazard is off, we're fecked. Simple fact there. Schürrle has his moments, and Eto'o does as well, but we were without Eto'o and Schürrle was out of position. Football ebbs and flows. The sky isn't falling. Many might think that it is, but it really isn't. We are far from a finished product. We still have a second leg in this tie, although it's a tough ask at this point. We're second in the league and it's within our grasp although not likely we win the league. Mourinho has been blowing this smoke since day one. He sees in practice every single day what we are. We rely on a 33 year old center back. A 23 year old winger and a midfielder that can't play in Europe. Our best striker is 33 years old. Our 2nd best striker is an enigma who has the emotional fortitude of my 3 year old daughter. We are what we are. A good team that isn't elite. In August of last year I would have taken that and laughed some.
Season starting to slip away. We need that mental toughness and Jose with his comments doesn't help. As frustrated as I am with Torres even I know he plays best with confidence. Tossing him in the ring of fire after watching a midfielder start over him doesn't help.
Jose says we won't win the League- the media claims he is lying When it appears we won't win the League which Jose has been saying- Jose has it all wrong and will be sacked according to the media