wooot torres confirms he's staying at pool and ramires is close to joining us! fantastic news

hmm defense seems to be in a constant lullaby at the moment. probably due to all the reshuffling? it was another howler which gave away a cheap goal. yuri i'm looking at you!! what an awful lofted backpass. what was he thinking.

we looked good in patches but constantly gave the ball away. i think the players who did reasonably well were nico, lamps, ashley and essien. its not the first time i'm saying this but mikel was the most consistent player on the pitch. strong in the tackle, calm in possession and showed a very aggressive attitude in winning back the ball. its looks like he's steeling himself for ramires's arrival. never a good sign when a defensive player is the highlight of a match though.

not quite happy with kakuta's showing, as i felt he was muscled off possession too many times. good to see he learnt his lesson as the match wore on, by quickly finding a pass when being closed down. congrats on winning the golden ball, and hope he gets to start in a different match so its easier to adapt to the pace of the game.

3 defensive lapses, 3 goals. credit to united for punishing every single one of them. i'm singling out terry and ashley here. who would've thought it was our regulars who were going to underperform badly. on the other hand, brana and paulo were first class.

standout performance - studge. time to give nico and kalou a run for their money. loved his direct running and superb ball control. weren't phased by the united defenders at all. should've finished off the bison's defense splitting pass though.

great - brana, paulo, essien.

'okay' - lamps, mikel, hilario, yuri.

could do a whole lot better - kalou, nico, malouda, bruma.

downright disappointing - terry, ashley.

what we could use : some aggression and creativity from ramires, more doses of studgy's pace and dare i say it the creativity of kakuta. was looking forward to seeing him, even on the bench. another pacey attacker maybe? we'll have to wait.

positives : good possession, some fantastic interplay in and around united's penalty box. roll on west brom!

did the first thing that was asked of him, which was to defend well. i'd rather ashley emulate him on the day, instead of marauding forward and exposing us at the back. looked fresher than ashley and terry combined, while having a couple of good crosses into the middle.

hernandez looked pretty good for utd, but i think we have someone better in the form of sturridge. i'd pick danny boy over him any day.

a sudden fascination with brazilians at chelsea i see. too bad bella couldn't be here to be a full time translator.
ichi, don't get us excited about neymar just yet! its still goal.com. although deep down i really really want to believe it.
what alovely controlled header to score against the u.s.a.

nicely weighted pass by ramires for pato's goal too. not a difficult one, but its good to see him really high up the pitch helping in attack. can't wait to see him interchanging positions with the bison. wonder if he had a word with neymar......see what u did ichi!

yepp he'll probably be a father figure to them. come to think of it, for all those 'party-loving' traits allegedly related to brazilians, alex has been one of our most well behaved players. plooky, i see you've signed up for the neymar bandwagon already

not looking too good farid.

hmm if the meeting really took place, i think the most obvious thing chelsea would've 'asked' the boy to do is request for a transfer. that will bring his value down a couple of notches and santos doesn't want that to happen. but remember the boy's dad was annoyed when santos refused to entertain any sort of negotiation with us, so papa neymar might be the only ace up our sleeves now. he's still young, and if his dad already supports a move abroad , it puts santos in a difficult situation to convince their starlet to do otherwise.

but it could also be a whole lot of bollocks, as in the kakuta case. we sign him after some unpleasant exchanges, and in the end it was nothing but a storm in a teacup. or, we drop our interest altogether because its too much of a hassle.

its official!! sealed with a handshake with ron gourlay on our official webby!
welcome the blue kenyon! with a nickname like that, it was always meant to be. hehe

farid, carlo commented that he's a fantastic talent, but didn't exactly deny our interest in him. much like when he was asked about ramires. not too optimistic about this one though. santos seem determined to hold on to him, unlike benfica who readily accepted that ramires wanted to move on. if he starts speaking to the press about a 'dream move' and such ala his brazilian counterpart, then we might have some hope.

late analysis coming in!

much needed win, and i think we rarely got out of second gear for the entire match. still managed to rack up six goals, and that's what pleases me. however paulo was exposed way too many times in that game, and i feel its time for ivanovic to reclaim his second favourite position for the next match. paulo did his best, but i think his age is really beginning to show when he's up against pacey players in successive games.

did anybody else notice most of the time we were at jogging pace? it was a bit annoying to be honest but hey what's important is the 3 points rite? at first i was a bit miffed the youngsters weren't being introduced after we went 3-0 up, but then i remembered the first few games are imperative for the seniors to regain their match fitness. good call by carlo, and u could see he knew what he was doing by giving lampsy and didier some rest.

my favourite goals are lampard's slick build up goal, didier's wall-busting (okay not exactly,lol) freekick and the french connection of louda and nico to round off a fantastic night!

ramires gets number 7 guys! its official

edit : damn. nabeyl beat me to it
krk24, don't worry man carlo has dismissed the luiz rumours. and i don't really like burdisso..i'd rather we stick to our current crop of brana, terry, riccy and bruma.

This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Aug 16 2010, 11:32 PM

paiseh i forgot for a moment riccy has left us. sorry bro. guess i miss the crazy portugese already

bruma will be our luiz!

i was almost thinking the same thing. but kalou came to the party allright! and he brought party hats.

i'm just a bit concerned what studgy's thinking right now. guess he'll have to bide his time.

amazing performance. nico already off the mark with two goals. didier showing if u can stop him scoring, u don't actually 'stop' him. mikel with an amazing ball over the top that zidane will be proud of.

crisp passing all around, though we began with a fairly slow tempo before the goal. clean sheet, a bit feisty especially in the first half and i was genuinely worried JT would get a red for his ongoing spat with n'zogbia. the little brat started it though with an awful studs-up stamp on our captain's chest which looked really painful. essien was a bit quiet on the whole, and rightly taken off after a fifity2 challenge with a wigan player had him clutching his foot for awhile. slight limping as he headed for the tunnel after full time, hope its nothing serious. overall a fantastic 2nd game for the chels!

it had all the ingredients of a classic except one..what is it? its called drama. please refer to what happened between our neighbours and the devils for more info, thank you.


This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Aug 23 2010, 12:53 PM

yeah he was pushing it a little, but thankfully after he got his 'payback' which was a robust but fair challenge btw, he calmed down a little.
its quite difficult to imagine all three on the bench at the same time to be honest.

agree about ivanovic though. he looked a little out of sorts. just needs a little more playing time me thinks.
and who would've thought our poor pre-season form would be dismissed entirely within a space of 180 minutes? its as if something just clicked inside the heads of all the lads and they just told themselves "okay, this is the real deal now. no more messing around. let's get this friggin' show on the road!"
and boy has it been one hell of a show as well.

ichi, do we actually need a ramos? a versatile attacker's more like it!

yep! just the kind of start we wanted

carlo did say he'll be involved in the stoke game yes? i'm curious to see what he brings to the table as well. probably alex will be the one doing most of the talking on the pitch when he's nearby

one thing that worries me about mikel is when his regular playing time gets interrupted i recall his form taking a hit. he's at that age where he needs to be playing regularly to realise his full potential and keep on improving. i wonder how soon ramires will start looking like a threat to his position. ever wondered about a middle four of ramires, essien, mikel, and lamps? all interchanging positions and taking turns to attack..it could be awesome, it could also fall flat. immense power in there though

i've been waiting for someone to say that!
as madfag has explained, his defensive prowess is really questionable at times and if he's worth 33m pounds, the boss should be at least worth 40.

walking disaster and was shown to be in last year's UCL final. watched some bayern matches where he was the only defender that looked out of sorts, and often times was an accident just waiting to happen. a player we should steer ABSOLUTELY CLEAR away from. i'd rather gamble on bruma. seriously.

cheers kamaljit. i think in terms of depth chelsea and city are pretty much level. however man for man i believe we have the better players, although they're getting on a bit in the age department. looking forward to our battle this season!

mind loaning us robinho for a season or two?

waarrghhh awesoooomeeee!! its not a new signing...but still awesoooomeeeeee!

quite a big double decker bus parked by stoke. can't really blame them though. and who else but malouda to get the opening goal with a sweet sweet finish. was shocked for awhile when lamps missed the pen. turns out he was carrying an injury and probably shouldn't have taken it. good thing the impending op will only take around 2 weeks for him to recover with an international break nicely sandwiched in between.

who would've thought we'd be happy with an international break aye!

lovely weighted pass by JT to malouda for the goal as well. mikel had an imperious game in the middle, along with the bison who was his usual tough as nails self. nico was outstanding, and his lovely cross planted straight on didier's head should've been put away although the drog made up for it by dispatching the pen. it was the frenchman's intelligent run that forced sorenson to rush out, and i have to admit for a moment it looked like nico wasn't going to get there. well he did, and sorenson didn't have much to complain about. oh and shawcross was lucky not to be sent off for giving away the first pen btw.

low key debut for our new no.7. kalou should've put away that chance after he superbly wriggled through 2 defenders! did the hard part, but couldn't finish. studge looked positive with a shot smashed across goal and anyone gambling in the middle would've gotten a tap in. overall a good performance against a massively disciplined team

ahh not to worry. the BOSS will be back to terrify defenses down that right-hand side! damn i miss those attacking runs and dribbles!

ichi, do u know if kakuta has already recovered from his back injury? the lad should get some minutes i think. surely he needs to maintain at least some of that momentum after winning the golden ball in the under-19 euro championships. although that wasn't possible against stoke had he been on the bench as it was a tight game.

please no.....does anyone else feel we never gave the lad a proper chance? its not official yet, but all signs seem to point to his exit.