I thought David Luiz was quite sensible in his interview afterwards. We didn't play well, and caught Shakhtar on a night when they were at their best. They were on top from start to finish and we were flattered by the score, they could easily have had 4 or 5.
No need for panic, Shakhtar on that form would have given any team problems. Our defensive pivotal pairing in midfield is still a worry, but that's no surprise. I don't think Lampard going off made a lot of difference.
We can still qualify, Juventus are top of Serie A, but I'm not so sure that means as much as it used to years ago. Back to the Premiership, and I'm betting on a Chelsea win on Sunday..2-1.

I said ages ago that our midfield is lightweight and would be ripped apart by any quality that hits form, and that was shown tonigjht just as it was in the Super Cup.
To me, so far this looks like a team of flat track bullies. Fine against average teams that give them time and space to play their pretty, fancy-dan stuff, but can they do it against real quality?
Sunday is a massive game for Chelsea and will go a long way in deciding which way the season will go for them.

Pleased to hear he is doing so well - aside from tonight's red card. Wouldn't mind seeing Piazon join him there when the window opens.


Shaktar away was always going to be the toughest game. Shame we couldn't even put in a decent performance, but we're still likely to qualify. 4 points from the games against those 2 will be enough IMO

United concede 2 again...

Why, what jokes does he tell?

That's probably a bit unkind. We have beaten both Arsenal and Spurs, away from home.
But over the summer, Chelsea just concentrated on looking for creative playmakers, players who could hold the ball. They are doing their job, even tonight Hazard, Oscar and Mata played fairly well.
Unfortunately, we only have Ramires ( who works hard, but doesn't look comfortable in a central role) an ageing Lampard (who is not really a holding player anyway) and Mikel (who is inconsistent and too slow). Romeu was going to be the answer, people were raving about him not long ago..now appears to be out of favour, I don't know why ?

Romeu would be mad not to look for a move in January. Far too good to go unused game-after-game, especially when Mikel is the one keeping him out.

Buck your ideas up or the dreaded Europa league beckons.!

I am not sure if people underestimated Shaktar or not, but they have a ridiculous record at home, don't think they have lost at home for a year. I would have taken a draw in a heartbeat before the match.

As it was, 2-1 flattered us, they played extremely well and we were poor, no complaints at all. Big help seeing Juve draw.

The way Utd and us can, at times leak goals, I think Sunday will probably end 6-5 or something!

You are right there - its going to be a cracker. The team that attacks the most will win, as both teams have a weak midfield and a leaky defence.

Well if Mikel keeps playing like he is, he deserves to be starting every match.

I dont know if you watched the game against spurs last weekend, but Mikel gave the ball away to the opposition so many times.

He was awful in the 2nd half.

One of the big issues for me was that we just did not look like scoring. Torres was woefully off the pace. I would of brought on Sturridge much earlier.

I think we all watched the game vs Spurs last week and he was one of our best players after Mata and Cech. Last night he was again up there with Cech as our MOTM.

Are you actually saying that Mikel did not repeatedly give the ball straight back to spurs on saturday?

Well I certainly can't remember any balls he lost which enabled Spurs to counter attack. Feel free to correct me on that though. Every DM in the world loses the ball sometimes but at least give him credit for the things he does well. He's become much more stronger on the ball, passes forward (hooray!) and is capable of playing quick one touch football. Only thing he needs to improve on is his long range crosses. If he can master that, he'll be a fantastic DM for us.

I agree he could be fantastic, and in spells he has been a very good player. He 'has all the tools' and has improved from his first season (where he was garbage).

However, in spells, he gave the ball repeatedly away to the spurs players on satuday at the start of the second half, which allowed then to come straight back at us.

Im still not convinced he is the answer for us.

I can't remember Mikel giving the ball away that much either. But fo me that's not the problem.
He has a lot going for him, he can shield the ball and get out of tight situations as well as anyone I've seen. He also rarely lunges into the tackle or go to ground, which is important for someone in his position.
That's where the good stuff ends though. Mikel is very slow, always has been, and being slow he should never venture too far foward. Also, for someone in his position he doesn't read the game as well as he should. He often appears to be chasing shadows when the game has passed him by, you never saw that with the likes of Makelele or Ballack.
To be fair to him, in the past he would have had more help. Makelele re-wrote the text book on that position, but he did have the benefit of Essien as a power house ball winner alongside. When Essien moved back into that role, we had Ballack to share the work.
If he just sticks to patrolling the area in front of the back four, and we could bring in a powerful midfield ball winner to replace Essien, that might solve the problem. But we were saying that all last season.

Ps..why not try Luiz in a midfield role ? It's probably too late now for that experiment, but I would have loved to see how it worked out.

I always play luiz in holding mid when i play fifa!

We have cahill and terry as center halves, why not give it a go?

I would have taken the draw as well.

Juve don't worry me in the slightest. We were sloppy to let them back in it at the Bridge, but I'd back us to do the job properly next time.

indeed

but let us not forget we have overhauled our team in a major way - lost one of the best players in our history, and changed the whole ethos from a power game to a lightweight tippy-tappy showcase.

Its going to take more than 8 games to settle down, so im happy with the season so far.

Luiz in midfield would be good.....like a less powerful Essien. If we're moving players out of position I think I'd rather move Ivanovic to CB and stick Cahill upfront - Torres was ******* dreadful last night

He has a good record against United though. I expect he'll start, but with any luck we'll see a first start for Sturridge in the cup game.

I like Torres, i thought he would come good this season - and he did have a reasonable start.

It is annoying as he clearly has talent, but nothing is running for him. He should have buried spurs at the weekend but didnt. We have no choice but to stick with him, but playing sturridge in the cup games is a good idea to see how he will do.

It would be too good to have Falcao up front though, and Lukaku off the bench or when playing Stoke/ Liverpool.

Oh, yes, got to be happy with the results so far this season, and that they are playing a more attractive style of football.
Added to that, the age of the team has been turned around in no time at all from one of the oldest to one of the youngest.

I said at the start of the season that i'd be happy with a top four finish with no silverware, and i still think that way way now.
Anything better will be a bonus!

I still like Torres. I don't expect strikers to score in every game, but I do expect them to shoot when there are no better options, and he keeps ballsing that up. I don't understand why he, almost always, takes the extra touch to cut inside? He can adapt for the lost pace, but he cant be useful to the best of his ability until he starts taking the shot like he used to. He's slowing the game down too much too often. Thinking he has no competition isn't good, so Sturridge must play and take his chances.


Top 4 finish with no silverware? Considering the state of Liverpool and Arsenal, Tottenham getting used to AVB, and United and City stumbling through games, I'd be pretty mad if we don't make a serious challenge this season. It's not about us being that good, we know what our shortcomings are, but more about taking advantage of other teams being bad.

At the start of the season i would have accepted 4th. But looking at the state of the opposition and their weak underbelly, i see no reason not to go for it.

If we had a scoring striker we could even win it!