IMO, I think Cahill's style of play is very passive. More often than not he chooses to make a 5 yard pass back to Luiz rather than taking the initiative to move the ball forward. If no-one in defence is willing to speed up our ball movement, the ball will be passed back to Cech, a long ball will be launched and we lose posession again. That's why I don't think he can be blamed for roaming forward on Wednesday night (however there are some times when it is completely unecessary and I have pulled up on it in the past). When he plays for Brazil he hardly puts a foot wrong. He does make the occasional foul but overall he keeps it simple and does his job so the potential over Luiz is justified (again my opinion!)

Luiz has performed brilliantly for Brazil as a CB recently, but he does have Dante breathing down his neck for a place so won't want to move to midfield. I think we need more defensive cover from midfield to allow him to flourish, but he is class and I hope he stays with us. Saying that, Cahill is putting in some JT like defensive performances so it would be hard to choose a first team pairing.

Maybe i've got a bit of an old skool view on centre backs but above anything else i want them to be great defensively. If they can contribute in an attacking sense then that's a bonus, but not a substitute for any defensive deficiencies. The problem for me is Luiz has been at the club since Jan 2011 and the issues with his concentration and reading of the game as you say are as apparent now as they were back then. I'd like to see him improve in these areas, but I don't share your optimism. I do think he benefits from playing alongside a top CB in Thiago Silva for Brazil though.

As an outsider here, feel free to tear me apart on this, but I think Chelsea's issues pre-date this season but could have so easily have been resolved.

1. Luiz. Looked better as DM on occasions last season but that's not saying he excelled there either. Should have sold him to a Spanish side where his style fits perfectly and bought a less adventurous, Terry-style defender. It says a lot about how ineffective Mikel is having Luiz do a better job at times. Worth another try, I'd say.

2. Goals. Torres isn't as busted as some seem to think but he's wasted on team that prefers a short passing style. The ball needs to be in front of him. As with Owen, Gerrard was a perfect supply line for Torres but Chelsea invariably go through Oscar/Mata/Hazard etc. rather than seek Torres out directly. As you're probably bored of hearing, Lukaku proved in a lesser side last year that he can score plenty of goals in the Premier League yet Mourinho let him go out on loan again.

3. Back to Mikel. Having artisans like Mata, Oscar, Willian and Hazard is pretty useless if you struggle to get the ball back from the opposition and/or don't have the passing range to find them. Lamps can do the latter but he's less mobile these days and a more capable DM should be alongside him.

So that's three positions down the spine of the team, two of which that some could argue you had solutions for at the start of season in Lukaku and the Cahill/Terry partnership. More critical, though, is DM role - for the club that popularised the position so effectively with Claude Makelele, it's baffling to see Mikel still getting games there.

These days, it's a key position given the way teams like to play (as we found out when Alonso and Mascherano upped anchor and left us). The former could get stuck in and pass while the latter broke things up better than most.

I heavily fancied Chelsea and City to fight it out for the top two this season but both are suffering from managerial upheaval, surprisingly so in Mourinho's case. I can't see why he didn't act more decisively in the summer to correct at least the striker/DM positions. Changing styles is all well and good but even Barcelona work damn hard and have Busquets to do the dirty job (literally!).

United were similar being short of a tackler but Fellaini has helped in that respect and will probably complement Carrick well, despite some United fans looking down their noses at the signing. Surely, it's better to have balance than big names?

Yes, I suppose it's a question of balance. There have been a number of "cavalier" centre backs around for some time now, Lucio, Ramos, Piqué etc.
I can just about live with the odd lapse in concentration, providing the other side of the player's game more than makes up for it. With Luiz, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't.
I find myself blowing my top one minute when he makes some dumb mistake, five minutes later he's doing something that lights up the whole game.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...t-Chelsea.html

Mourinho finally speaking out on Mata......

“Another thing is to adapt to the way we want to play. In this moment, Oscar is my No 10 and, if somebody tells me that Oscar is not Chelsea’s best player since the beginning of the season, I’d have to disagree.” Asked if that suggested that Mata and Oscar could no longer play in the same side – as they frequently did last season under his predecessor Rafael Benítez – Mourinho was unequivocal.

“They can, when he adapts to it. But I’m not ready to play Oscar following full-backs, as he was before, I want to build with Oscar as my No 10. I want the other two players, from the side, to adapt to that reality and learn how to do things they were not ready to do before.”


Oscar is good at tracking back...Mata is not. Mata scores and assists far more than Oscar does. Doesn't make sense to move Mata out wide when he's played a part in such a high percentage of our goals over the past 2 seasons. If we'd bought a quality striker and could now expect them to come from elsewhere then fair enough, but we haven't. He's the one thing abut the team that we can't afford to change, but he's the only thing we are changing

Agreed. To me this simply seems a case of change for change's sake, Mourinho's ego getting the better of him. The statement about trying to improve the club's style of play was bizarre, as he's going the wrong way about that by sidelining Mata.

It doesn't make sense to me either. I can see Mourinho's problem, Hazard, Oscar and Mata are all natural inside-fowards as we used to call them. But of the three, Oscar is more suited to playing in a deeper role, as a creative wing-half in old money.
I'm surprised Jose has not reverted to his old 4-3-3, Hazard, Eto'o and Mata up front, interchanging and fluid. A midfield with Oscar on the left, Ramires on the right, both capable defenders but offering much more besides. Then someone to play the holding role in the middle..that's anyone's guess at present.
We would have plenty of options to come off the bench, so I'm not saying that line up should be set in stone. I'm just going by past performance and taking a gamble on Eto'o.
It wouldn't be perfect by any means, but we didn't buy the top class striker and defensive midfielder we needed, so we have to make do.

I don't think i could ever turn against Mourinho but if there is one thing that is going to gradually piss me off it is this continued treatment of Mata (especially if we aren't winning,as well as playing poor football).

What is this "I want to build with Oscar as my No 10" bullshit. Apart from Mata easily being our best player the last couple of seasons, contributing many goals and assists, the guy is still only 25! Why aren't you building the team around him, especially if you want to improve our style. If anything Oscar should be Mata's understudy for that position.

I feel the same way too. Mata has single-handedly won us games last season. Just of the top of my head, the game against Norwich away always strikes me. We were utter shit throughout the match, but one little brilliant moment from our magician gave us the win. Mata makes the players around him better so why the hell isn't he our focal point? Right now, Mata is far superior to Oscar in an attacking sense. Yes, defensively he isn't very good but that's something that can be worked on. Look at how much Hazard has improved in that department. If Mata isn't getting regular games soon then I wouldn't blame him for leaving us. What more does he have to do to prove to Mou that he's a world class CAM?

In fairness, Mata may not be fully match fit. He didn't look too sharp when he came on the other night. Now whether that's fitness or the fact that he's thoroughly fed up with the way he's been treated, we don't know.
That still doesn't explain Mourinho's bizarre statement posted above though. Sometimes I think he likes to say things just to wind everyone up.

That's true. It's always hard to come back to full fitness once you've missed out on pre-season. Maybe Jose is giving Mata some tough love just like how he did to Joe Cole? But the problem is, I just don't like seeing Mata on the wings. He's much more effective centrally, not to mention he doesn't have the pace of Hazard. I just hope there's nothing going on behind the scenes and the comments made are there to make Mata work harder and fight for his place (however by looking at his stats over the past 2 seasons he's more than deserved his no.1 position at CAM).

Edit: Europe's Top 5 Playmakers 2008-2013
[LIST=1][*]Mesut Ozil - 72 assists[*]Lionel Messi - 68 assists[*]Xavi - 56 assists[*]Cesc Fabregas - 55 assists[*]Juan Mata - 54 assists[*]Dani Alves- 51 assists[*]Franck Ribery- 51 assists[*]Cristiano Ronaldo - 47 assists[*]Antonio Cassano - 46 assists[*]Eden Hazard - 46 assists[/LIST]
Chances Created (including assists) 2008-2013[LIST=1][*]Mesut Ozil - 492[*]Juan Mata - 429[*]Xavi - 424[*]Nene- 403[*]Francesco Totti - 398[*]Mathieu Valbuena - 396[*]Frank Lampard- 390[*]David Silva - 383[*]Diego - 382[*]Leighton Baines - 378[/LIST]

No Mata in the 18 man sqaud for today, just what is up with that??

Oh, look who's scored for Everton

Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, JT (c), Cole; Ramires, Mikel; Schurrle, Oscar, Hazard; Eto’o

Schwarzer, Azpilicueta, Essien, Lampard, De Bruyne, Willian, Torres

Stockdale; Riether, Hangeland, Amorebieta, Richardson; Duff, Sidwell, Parker, Kačaniklić; Kasami; Bent

Meanwhile at Chelsea none of our strikers have scored in the PL yet.

No injury, Mourinho just stating he's not good enough to get into the 18.

If I was Mata, if this continues, I'd be looking forward to January

And that is a farce.

He is dead wrong there, Mata is perhaps second only to Ozil, in terms of players of his ilk.

It is a long while until then!

This cannot be doing his World Cup chances any good, as surely Spain can't continue to pick him if he is not playing??!

No Mata? Schurrle instead of De Bruyne? Mikel? FFS!

Surely Essien is worth a try ahead of Obi??

At least Mourinho has said he was unhappy with Luiz against Basle.....

Hazard was awful against Basle too but he still gets picked today. Anyway...come on Chelsea a comfortable win please!

Why does Ashley Cole, have "A.Cole" on the back of his shirt? Is it just a hangover from when there was him and Joe, so he needed the "A."?

Roman looks as bored as I am.


Imagine how many more assists he would have if we'd had a proper striker in the past 2 seasons.......