Still here saying nothing has changed, as it hasn't.

My views on Torries has not changed in that he is having a decent season.

And my views on Rafa have not changed in that I can not wait for the season to go so he can go back to the UEA and do the commentry for games

Going to be a difficult tie. Basel have shown themselves to be a very decent team.

If Mourhino doesn't return then who will we go for instead?

Torres isnt having that great a season, 20 goals in 54 games isnt the best record. We need our striker to be getting 30+ goals a year, IMO. Hes only scored 7 in the Premier league too... He really has no excuse anymore as he has Mata/Oscar/Hazard feeding him who are fantastic players.

As for Rafa, i think he is slowly winning us over but the question marks still remain about his tactics/substitutions/rotations and im sure they will all come flooding back to the front of chelsea fan's minds as soon as he loses his next game. There is no problem if he is winning every game, but he hasnt been until recently and his record isnt the best. If he gets us top 4 and wins the two cups then he has every right to stay another season, IMO. If he doesnt then he will almost certainly be sacked.

Basel showed they are good team by beating spurs, and i think they also knocked our Man Utd a couple of seasons ago. So we do need to be wary and take those games seriously.. Although i think i would still rather play Basel than have to play Spurs twice in the semi finals.

I'm happy with Basel. Not a team to be taken lightly as shown in the last round, but I think their fallible defence is something we should be able to exploit. Benfica are the team I wanted us to avoid in the semis, they were quite tricky opponents last year in the Champions League - I recall the final few minutes of the 2nd leg being quite nervy even with them down to 10 men before Meireles' goal killed them off.

Good 2-0 win for our youngsters at Anfield in the 1st leg of the FA Youth Cup semi. Tidy finishes from Kiwomya.

Oh it's all still there but there is more an acceptance now that he's there till the end of the season so little in protesting. Better to support.

Not even close. He's been here longer than people realise and is yet to take us on a winning streak. People put his tinkering down to 'the need to rotate' but he's shown in the past that he is incapable of leaving things alone. There's nothing he can do with the remaining games to show that he deserves another season IMO. Any good moments are soon replaced by bad ones under him.


Missed most of it due t a crying baby, but Boga and Kiwomya looked very good from what i saw. Hope to see the whole of the 2nd leg next Friday

Forgot it was on, watching the golf. Will make sure to see the second leg.

I still don't believe Rafa is the right manager for Chelsea. We have a small squad and a lot of games, so right now he has no option other than rotating players. Problem is, that rotation and tinkering would continue next season, necessary or not, it's the Benitez way.

I can't comment on the recent displays byTorres, I always seem to miss his better games. But if his all-round game has improved, that's great.
I obviously don't want him to fail just to prove a point. If he could get back to 75/80% of the player he once was, it would save the club a lot of money.

FFS Norwich

With regards to Rafa I was happy with him coming to Chelsea despite his comments and so far he's done a pretty good job with fairly limited resources - that said it's too early to judge him as things could still go very very wrong.

Looking at the PL fixtures, Spurs have got Man City coming up so hopefully that should be points dropped.

He's lost pace so the old Torres is never coming back - that said he can still contribute and have an impact as he's showing in Europe - there might still be some life left in him.

Chelsea: Cech; Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, David Luiz, Bertrand; Ramires, Mikel; Hazard, Mata, Oscar; Ba. Subs: Turnbull, Terry, Ake, Lampard, Benayoun, Moses, Torres.

Manchester City: Pantilimon; Zabaleta, Kompany, Nastasic, Clichy; Yaya Toure, Barry; Milner, Tevez, Nasri; Aguero. Subs: Hart, Kolo Toure, Lescott, Kolarov, Garcia, Sinclair, Dzeko.

I would have liked to have seen Terry in place of Ivanovic, otherwise the team is as I expected.

Grim viewing so far, man city always play well against us, I'd rather be playing man utd

city are very dirty in this game

F***ing Nasri!

Why does he only show up against us???

he got a lot of luck there

an interesting stat given was that at the moment, chelsea have played 15 games more than city this season.

thats just crazy, no wonder we look a bit leggy

Please level before h/t.

Horrible viewing.

Well, we have to count ourselves lucky to be only trailing 0-1. I don't think we are playing badly, Man City are just on top of their game right now. The difference in strength in midfield is clear, but we knew that already.
I can't see Man City keeping up this pace throughout, we will get a couple of chances, we've just got to take them.

You have your Nasri nightmares, we have our Aguero nightmares!

There is still a chance for you here, I am not ruling you out totally just yet.

At least Aguero actually plays well throughout the season....Nasri vanishes between his appearances against us! I really hate the bastard.

Game over