hoho fulham giving us a little helping hand.benitez should break the news in the dressng room,to emphasise how important it is to grab all 3 points!

Will never forget that marvelous lob. Especially since our strikers / midfielders rarely beat keepers with such audacious attempts.
So jose has dropped the biggest hint yet? Pretty sure it won’t be inter. Porto is in there with a hint of a shout, but I doubt he’d want to return to Portugal so soon. Which leaves..only us. Now after seeing how we’ve distinctly lacked fight and focus for huge parts of this season, it’s hard to deny that he’s the best candidate to whip us into shape.

After observing a fair number of madrid’s games this season, I’ve noticed they’re actually quite capable of playing good football and although it’s not exactly barca, Swansea or arsenal, it does the job and quite capable of ripping the opposition to shreds. Roman will just have to put his tiki-taka pipedream on hold. Our youngsters won’t have much hope, but the work jose has done with callejon, varane and morata offers the remote chance of the leopard slightly ‘altering’ it’s spots. Not holding my breath. He’ll love lukaku, but that’s about it me thinks.

I have a feeling roman’s set it up. The prospect of us maintaining our pressing game with a solid tactical / defensive awareness, combined with fantastic interplay (the mazacar trio’s strengths will always shine through) is certainly mouthwatering.

No smoke without fire as they say.

how well has benzema done this season for madrid though..if i'm not mistaken he went slightly off the boil this year? kind of similar to ba, so i prefer higuain.


"We need to have patience. A team can't be built just like that. It's normal for it to take a while: new people with new ideas, from elsewhere. It's not easy. But it's a question of time. And for now? For now we have a month and a half left, a Champions League place to chase and the chance to win two cups. That's a nice challenge."

- Azpilicueta interview with the Guardian.

matured ol' chap this azpi. pretty decent wingback as well. wonder why marseille let him go!

i know everyone's itching to watch the southampton game..so get an early dose of the blues tonight bros!

chelsea vs arsenal in the semifinal of the nextgen series at 10pm on foxsports hd!don't miss it guys

yeep we're one nil down..dang.fox sports and fox sports hd dude

oops double post. dang..we're struggling to find any kind of rhytm

This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Mar 29 2013, 10:50 PM

feruz..fuh.talk about awareness and reaction time!

arrghh astro technical fault!feed totally lost..sigh

3-1 now?fantastic!

haha the young ones doing it the hard way..or should i say the chelsea way!

boga, feruz, ruben, swift and baker, we're blessed with so much young talent. feruz reminds me of a shorter version of eto'o. if jose takes over, i hope he at least considers them.

i clearly remember what he said about scott sinclair, the season before he was sacked he said this boy is going to be in the first team next year. a few months after that, sinclair picked up a horrible injury and the special one was let go. how quickly things can turn around in life aye.

i hate the rumours about KDB being included for the schurrle deal. not worth losing kevin for a sub-striker at best.

okay i know the idea has been thrown about a few times, but is anyone else just about ready to throw in the towel in our cup competitions?

based on my observation, rafa is just too stubborn to change his ways and the more we progress in the europa and FA cup, be prepared for more 6/7 changes in personnel between matches. initially i was trying to accept the idea, but clearly this squad is just not good enough to cope with constant chopping and changing. whether its a question of mentality or talent is another matter, but if we remain in those cups i mentioned, i believe we'll be out of the top four, maybe with even a couple of games to spare.

the impact of missing out on a CL spot cannot be taken lightly, as this will have a domino effect in terms of our managerial appointment where jose will obviously say 'thanks but no thanks,' while other top managers will also see our position and steer clear away from the much publicised 'poisoned chalice.' apart from that i fear some of our top players (even those on loan) will begin to bemoan our absence from europe's premier competition, and court interest from other big teams. mata and oscar i'm relatively confident about, as the former has already got his hands on the trophy, and the latter isn't quite a superstar yet. but our other golden boy hazard? don't be shocked if he responds to interest from united and city. the futures of lukaku and kdb will also be thrown into doubt, u can bet on that, and the media will also lend a 'helping hand' to make damn sure of it.

at the moment rafa is concentrating a lot on trying to secure trophies and enhance his CV but can you really blame the man? he's been out in managerial wilderness for what..two years? it's the best chance he's got to increase his stock and improve his reputation, which means securing silverware. why should he be worried about what happens to the future of cfc? heck he shouldn't as he knows he'll definitely be moved on. that's what makes this season's managerial fiasco so potentially damaging. at least robbie had strong emotional connections to the club which will fuel his sense of responsibility with regards to what happens 'next,' and obviously this doesn't apply to benitez. i honestly hope heads will roll after this campaign ends, especially the board members who advised roman on this particular appointment.

top four is still our do or die priority. if that means exiting all the other competitions and 'forcing' a full strength (or at the very least well rested) squad on benitez to slog it out with spurs, arsenal and everton, so be it. put in a good shift against utd today to ensure the fans get their money's worth and i'll be perfectly content with that. can't believe i'm saying this, but i don't mind if our fa cup adventure ends this evening. sigh.

exactly. rafa has no obligation (although the board strongly disagree) to 'ensure' we finish in the CL places. an 'fa cup / europa league winner' with chelsea always sounds more glamorous than 'securing a top four finish,' so if that's secretly (or openly depending on how u look at it) his target, that's no fault of his.

okay that wasn't a vintage performance, but could've easily been two or three nil if we were more decisive in utd's penalty box. ramires had a wonderful game imo, and he's my man of the match. tirelessly covering the pitch, and i think he's realised if he just stays CALM in possession, his touch will be naturally astute, and those brazilian quick feet will eventually take over. mata was unusually selfish, its as if he was on a personal vendetta to beat de gea. didn't work out for him, but that ball over the top for ba to dispatch was stunning. the senegalese produced a finish to leave the keeper rooted to the spot, and the connection he made was perfect. in real-time it looked like a bit of a miskick, but when you watch the replays it was an example of amazing technique and timing.

hazard and oscar didn't have their best display, but still managed keep things reasonably fluid in the final third. that miss from eden though, was really-really uncharacteristic. fully expected him to beat de gea with a slide-rule finish.
mikel did his job well, that good attempt on goal which was deflected out for a corner, probably his standout attacking moment.

when bertrand came on i was genuinely worried. but ryan did extremely well keeping that left side secure with some well timed interceptions and tackles. he's got a great leap on him as well, winning some good aerial battles! i felt azpi held back a little with the rampaging runs, but his flank was also marshaled expertly. iva and luiz were allright, but some lapse marking late in the game could've cost us. it was a good time for van persie to have some 'torres moments' especially the mistimed strike that flew over the bar from 7 yards out. not forgetting cech with an unbelievable save, just when he looked a bit shaky in the first 45. linesmen did chicarito a huge favour by keeping his flag down, i thought that offside call wasn't too hard to make. amazing save, nonetheless.

well its all good fun to smash utd's double hopes into smithereens, but if we continue to falter in the league this win will be utterly pointless. now if rafa can repeat his 6 / 7 changes in the europa league so we get a 'good' result, then field today's strongest 11 at the weekend, i'll be ecstatic. (somehow i just doubt that'll happen )

this weekend's match vs sunderland is one of our biggest matches this season. make no mistake about it.

note: read some comments on vital chelsea about moses being the new kalou..*shudder* hope they're wrong. oh and don't forget the nextgen final vs aston villa at midnight! it's live on astro.

fuh talk about being waaaaaay below par and scoring a couple of lucky goals. justice done i'd say, after that obscene challenge on ba which should've been a straight sending off. almost knee high, studs up and coming from the side at full speed. sigh. hope it's nothing serious.

luiz is MOTM, and i'm struggling to see anyone challenging him for the award except maybe for betrand and nando. continuing his good form from the europa, and oscar doing his best to fluff the wonderful assist. spuds dropped a couple of points, and this was a must win game. three on the spin now, we need to continue in the same vein!

lovely pass from lamps,cool finish from zorres!!

get terry off please.has completely lost his sense of positioning in the middle.nowhere to be seen on both goals.

world class dive!5/5..fantastic officiating as well..such decisiveness

probably one of the worst tackles / attempts to injure an opponent i've seen from a player, by sergio aguero. that was shocking but as usual the FA will brush it off. and that shirt-tugging on torres..may as well play rugby. still, the lads put up a good fight towards the end and finally we can get a bit more rest in between games to concentrate on clinching top four. everyone looked tired except bertrand,iva, torres and cech to be honest. i still feel mata should've equalised for us though. the boys were just not in it today. in a weird way i'm glad we didn't take it to extra time and risk more injuries. a victory in normal time would've been the ideal scenario but city were the better team for the best part of an hour. ba's goal was an absolute beauty but it came from a simple long ball into their box. we should've done more of that once torres entered the fray and we got the equaliser. too much dilly dallying in and around the box by mazacar and their keeper wasn't really tested. oh well. we had a good run.

super attacking frank in the middle and leave rami all alone to defend? errr..i think that's too risky mate. but we could've used some of his attempts from outside the box today. too much tiki-taka and slow build-up around their penalty area. indecisive, and easily snuffed out. yep mata looks like he's about to collapse at times, but he made some good interceptions towards the end. i think the impact of releasing meireles and loaning essien is really starting to hurt us now. an awful lack of hindsight from the board and its costing us big time. we seem to be stumbling and crawling to the finish line, and we've just fallen flat at our first hurdle at this stage of the season. our next two hurdles are the europa and CL spot.

as expected, aguero escapes from any sort of punishment whatsoever. this is what i love about the FA. hazard pushed a ball against the midriff of some ballboy, they scream blue murder and he gets a 3 game ban. all over the league we see players trying to break each other's legs with knee high challenges, and they don't bat an eyelid. that kick in the face from coloccini which left ba with a broken nose, that two footed knee-high challenge from behind against him again, at sunderland which miraculously didn't cause any serious damage, now a two footed lunge lunge on luiz while he's on the ground, all getting the 'seal of approval' from the best FA in the footballing world. they're probably waiting for someone to have both legs broken, paraylsed from the waist down or something, before taking any sort of action. even then they'll probably take 2 months to 'review the incident' and wait from some random senior citizen to make a police report. gotta love the english FA. gotta love them to bits.

great attitude from luiz,this is why he's captain material.

eh nobody thanking everton yet??i'm shocked!!

Sigh.All teams seem to have every right to put in elbows,two footed lunges,etc against us without being sent off these days.benteke should've been red carded.

Hello Europa league ?