Wondering if it's worth a punt on the game.

i have fond memories of the time when George Graham (*cough*) took over and I was wandering down the high street and decided that it was almost inevitable we'd win the league cup.

Got 10/1 in Ladbrokes and 15/1 in William Hill and had a tenner on each

Got to be worth a punt.

Well the odds for us winning are ..

Paddy Power - 4/1
William Hill - 9/2
Coral - 9/2
Betfred - 4/1

Chelsea are ..

Paddy Power - 7/10
William Hill - 7/10
Coral - 8/13
Betfred - 7/10

So Chelsea are pretty heavy favourites. It's actually possible to bet on the outcome without losing if it's not a draw at 90 minutes, but my luck doesn't work like that

Unfortunately, the game isn't being shown live here in Brazil so I'll have to wait until 8pm local time when a complete rerun of the game is scheduled. Of course, by that time I will know the result and if we've been spanked I probably won't watch it anyway as it will just put me in an even worse mood.

I actually hate being pessimistic about our chances but our yoyo form doesn't encourage me to be 100% positive. If it goes against us I will convince myself it means the start of a revolution within the club to weed out players who are not meeting our expectations and replacing them with players who will. Hopefully, some of those players will come from within our own ranks eg Pritchard, Winks, Onomah etc and hopefully our new scouting system will unearth some overlooked gems. Fingers crossed.

Had few beers last night and put a fiver at 22/1 for Spurs to win both halves. This morning I realised they have to win both halves not be winning at the end of each half. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

quite disappointed to see Dembele on the bench while Mason and Townsend both start

Team is in, can't quite do it on my phone but Lloris in goal which is a surprise as it was widely expected Vorm would retain his place.

Lamela on the bench as well which is probably wise.

I think Vorm should feel hard done to. The only other selection I might have argued for is Dembele instead of Chadli. I've no faith in Townsend but even less in Lamela.

I think Townsend will come good on the Wembley pitch.

It's a shame for Vorm but I think lloris is the better choice for a big game.

Here's hoping for a nice bit of silverware today! Come on you Spurs!!!!!!!!

Here's wishing and hoping and Kane got his scoring boots on .

Really need to get the ball to Kane .. not happening at the moment

Ugh .. it would have to be him ..

Kane needs to do his bit too though, rather than just wanting to be the hero. 2 or 3 times now we've gotten ourselves into decent position in their half, and rather than make a proper run to either take defenders away from the man on the ball or give him an option to play him in, he's staying too close because he wants the ball himself.

Time to put some fresh hay in his box and settle Chadli down for the night. Dembele or Lamela have to be better than him. Or even Bring on Davies and play Rose on the left.

Otherwise, we've done alright but as usual without much of a final ball or enough people in scoring positions. And our long range shooting has been woeful.

Someone is trying to tell me that Zouma handled before the goal. Any takers?

Walker is a concern as well as he's been ok so far.

We don't need to panic just yet though - their goal was their first shot on target so we must have been doing something right. Need to step it up though and be better.

Oh well ..

I know some who follow this thread are big fans of some of this squad but really, come on. From what I've been reading over the last 2 hours it sounds like only Bentaleb showed any desire and mettle in the game. It's obvious Chelsea were actually quite poor today and were there for the taking but once again it seems most of our players decided to have an off day in terms of raising their personal games to the required level. Hopefully, for many of them their days of wearing our shirt are now numbered and they will be shipped out in the summer to teams that have lower standards and expectations than ourselves.

You can blame today on bad luck or Mourinho's mind games if you want but the story of our regular poor performances is a matter of fact and all of those facts point back to us simply not having enough players with the required mental strength and ability to consistently perform at the level it takes to win things. Roll on the summer clear out.

A bad day, bearing in mind other results, in a very bad week. 4th place will be very hard now.

I wouldn't read Pochettino's comments then if I were you. He claims we fought hard and showed character. I disagree. Mason and Bentaleb did, to be fair, do just that but the rest of the team just didn't really turn up today.

Mourinho obviously set Chelsea up in such a way that it stopped Eriksen and, subsequently, Kane playing, which worked perfectly, so without those two, what else did we really have ?.

I'll certainly give the side a degree of credit though because Chelsea's first shot on goal wasn't until the 45th minute and it went in on a deflection, so it wasn't as if they particularly dominated in the 1st half.

Once the 2nd goal went in, the writing was really on the wall though.

I would have ideally liked Poch to try something drastic tactically to try and get something out of the game, but then as the game on New Years Day proved, all we need is the players to be fired up and up for the game.

It's disappointing but not massively surprising, considering it also came so soon after the midweek loss to Fiorentina.

I just suffer from this sense that any important game in which Townsend starts is unlikley to end well.

I don't understand Dembele being on the bench if Mason/Bentelab are starting. I do understand you need a selection/tactical surprise to unbalance Mourinho because he is just so thorough but those three are pretty well the best unit we have. A gamble then, I guess. I suppose it worked for 44 minutes.

Disappointment, but at least we weren't murdered tactically by someone who is pretty much a genius in preparation for these big games.

Yeah I think if we're going to extract any positive from the game, no matter how tenuous, it's probably the fact that they didn't return the favour from New Years Day.

As far as Dembele goes, he probably should have started on form alone, because he's had a few good weeks in that position, but I personally don't think he's the answer to the number 10 role.

A number 10 needs to move the ball around a lot quicker and Dembele does tend to like one or two more touches than you really need. Eriksen is much more effective in that role, but since Mourinho's tactics stopped him today, it didn't happen - makes you wonder if tiredness played a part as well ?

tbh, I just think Mourinho nailed him. Frustrated him to distraction.

I don't think it was anything to do with mentality. A notable thing about this squad is that they have much more of a "never give up" attitude than many previous squads. I think they showed this yesterday.

The key factor is that overall Chelsea has a better squad than we do and on the majority of occasions this will give them the edge. Most of yesterdays Chelsea team would get into our team but not vice versa. Chelsea also have more experienced players.

We had by far the majority of possession yesterday but Chelsea were content to sit back and absorb our attacks (we're not exactly great at breaking teams down anyway) and then spring forward when the opportunity arose. We looked ok and tried hard but ultimately couldn't make any headway against a more talented and experienced team.

The fact is we have a decent squad and manager within the scope of what the club can afford. As do Chelsea. It's just that they can afford more quality than us and over time and in most individual matches this will be the difference.

That's not saying we cannot incrementally improve the squad in specific area but the idea that we can carry out a total clear out and replacement to dramatically improve the squad is more than fanciful. I'll always want us to be better than we are but logically we are more or less where we should expect to be.

I didn't think we played too badly. We matched Chelsea and were better on occasions for spells. Sounds familiar, but with them sitting back using a typical Mourhino tactic, we just couldn't break them down and get on the score sheet.