He could be, I agree. We could at least give him a run alongside Mikel or Ramires. I wonder how Luiz himself sees his future though ? He's established his position as CB for Brazil, would be want to play a DM role ?

If that was Luiz he would be getting pelter's for losing his man. He's been our best CB for a while now. He can do a job in midfield but he should be in defence all day long.

From the matches I've seen he seems to relish going forward, his passing is top notch and because he has the power and physical presence of a defender he can really impact games.

For next seaon I'd like to see:

1 killer forward and recall of Lukaku - Torres can be offloaded.

1 Defensive minded midfielder, recall Essien and one more creative type to give our 3 Musketeers a rest from time to time.

2 Class defenders.

Probably come to like 80 million though

Just another heads up, your final v Villa in the Next Gen series, is on Eurosport at 4:30 (so about 15 mins away).

Chelsea Fixtures

April 2013


Europa League - Quarter-Final Chelsea v Rubin Kazan Thu 4 Apr 20:05
Premier League Chelsea v Sunderland Sun 7 Apr 15:00
Europa League - Quarter-Final Rubin Kazan v Chelsea Thu 11 Apr 17:00
Premier League Chelsea P-P Tottenham Postponed - due to FA Cup Sun 14 Apr
FA Cup - Semi-Final Chelsea v Man City Sun 14 Apr 16:00
Premier League Fulham v Chelsea Wed 17 Apr 20:00
Premier League Liverpool v Chelsea Sun 21 Apr 16:00
Europa Semi Thu 25 Apr
Premier League Chelsea v Swansea Sat 27 Apr 15:00
May 2013
Europa League Thu 2 May
Premier League Man Utd v Chelsea Sat 4 May 15:00
poss Chelsea Spurs? 7th May
FA Cup Final 11th May
Premier League Aston Villa v Chelsea Sun 12 May 15:00
Europa League Final Thu 16 May
Premier League Chelsea v Everton Sun 19 May 16:00

Little room for Villa v Chelsea if an FA Cup Final looms

Only saw the second half today and, thankfully, haven't seen any of Saturday's match.

Fantastic finish from Ba and a blinding save from Cech today. He'll never be the best striker in the league, but he's definitely capable of some sublime goals. Some good link-up play from what I saw as well. With better finishing we could have got 4 or 5 today despite not playing that well. Just goes to show what we could do if we had a manager who would play our best team regularly instead of just picking players at random.

So proud to support the only top club to take the FA cup seriously. I'm confident of beating City in the semis, but we'll probably lose every game before and after, such is our form under Rafa......

Surely you cannot play on the 11th and 12th of May?

Think that's as it stands now, If we get to the final of course it will all change and if we don't the league game will stand.

As for todays game, It was a ok performance. Typical of a English game at the moment in that both sides passing at time was something that is more at home in a school yard then involving two teams who are meant to be amongst the best teams in the country.

Two moments of class won the game, The Ba goal and Cech's save.

QPR losing has made it a good day.

So Kazan tonight, hoping we can win comfortably to give us breathing room for Moscow next week. I suspect they may be tougher than we expect

I expect 4-5 changes and an incredibly disjointed performance.

Cech
Azpilicueta Luiz Terry Bertrand
Ramires Lampard
Moses Mata Benayoun
Torres

Turnbull Ivanovic Ferreira Oscar Mikel Hazard Marin

Yossi

2-0 and looking good for a change

That was my reaction too but to be fair, he's been alright so far.

The ref is a joke! We should be 2-0 up.

Pretty decent so far. Shame about the harsh penalty, as we were full value for the 2-0 lead.

Why is Yossi disliked? I'd take him over Marin anyday of the week.

Shame about the penalty, was harsh i thought. Wasnt like JT's hands were raised up in the air or anything. Seemed more ball to hand than hand to ball.

Would like another goal or two if possible, 2-1 is risky if they have an away goal. only need to win 1-0 in moscow and we are out.

Hazard coming on. Hope to see us finish with at least 6 goals between us. That should be enough to wrap the tie up.

Well easy enough, 3-1 should see us through short of a disaster in Moscow.

Nice to have a two goal cushion to take over to Moscow. Rubin aren't anything special so we should be ok as long as we're not complacent.

Why can't Torres play more often like he has in these last two Europa games?

Should be able to wrap the second leg up without risking Hazard and Mata too much before the FA cup semi.

Good performance but I do find it hard to get excited about these games.

I've always liked Benayoun. He's a very intelligent player in my opinion, but more "neat and tidy" than someone who is going to make a great impact on a game.
Good result last night. I only saw the brief highlights so can't really comment on our overall performance.
Sunderland next, a game we must win. Just our luck to be playing them when everyone will be focused on their first game with Di Canio in charge. No doubt they will be out to prove something.

I agree about Benayoun, as a squad player he's fine. Just a shame that he had that injury in his first season, then was loaned out for much of the rest of the time.

I think we should be ok against Sunderland. Having got the two wins in the cup this week I think Rafa will put out a stronger line-up attacking-wise than he did against Southampton. I'm expecting Ba and Hazard to start.

Good result, what's the prognosis on Cahill?

Out for 2 weeks.