Woeful in the first half.

Matic WTF

FFS Matic!

Pathetic. Can't wait to see the back of some of this lot.

Poor performance but I guess it's a point.
Remy always seems to be injured when his chance comes.
Don't understand why he kept Hazard and Oscar on so long. Both looked knackered.

Terrible game for Chelsea, very fortunate to even get 1 point out of this game. Next up is Crystal Place away and I don't see the blues getting a point from that one.

Yep, poor performance again. We need to clear a few out in the summer. About time Loftus-Cheek and Kennedy get a proper chance.

Rooney getting man of the match says everything that is wrong with "pundity" in todays game.

Man Utd 0 - Chelsea 0

The losses have turned into draws, and that's progress. Costa was a big miss, and as said many times during the close season, the club need another world class striker to cover for when he's suspended or injured which happens a lot. Also to compete for a regular starting place. It's not rocket science. Hernandez is one that could come in, plus another. Remy can't be relied on, and Falcao? Well and truly out.

Mikel did well defensively but the sloppy passing let him down yet again nearer the end of the match. Oscar is OK but too weak to play every game, and Pedro is another player who doesn't look comfortable playing every match.

Mata back, and Luiz, as said already. Kennedy has looked good, and he should be challenging. It's a pity Willian is the main man when the team are on the break. He's a good player, but just doesn't know when to release the ball.

To be fair to Ivanovic, as predicted he was exposed early on but recovered a bit during the second half.

Yep, get a few more points on the board and let's give a few a chance in the league.
There really is no target in the league now aside from moving up the table.
It's all on the CL and FA Cup.

Although Man Utd probably deserved all three points, I thought there were similarities between the teams. Both appeared to be woefully short of confidence and bereft of ideas.
Oscar had one of the worst games I've seen him play, he contributed practically nothing at all. Hazard looked dangerous early on, but faded out completely in the second half.
I wouldn't say anyone was particularly great, but Courtois, Zouma, Azpil and Pedro all had decent games. We really did miss Costa, for all his crazy antics he's still a handful for defenders and the focal point of our attack.

I didn't see many signs of improvement to be honest. Perhaps there was a bit more fight and desire in the team, but that's being generous. Still, it's a point at Old Trafford and we'd have happily taken that most seasons.

What's really alarming is, now we're fitter and not the total shambles we were earlier in the season, we look an incredibly ordinary team of players that's backed up by a poor and paper think squad. Still so negative, one paced and lacking creativity and flair.

Look at Spurs, piling five forwards into the box in injury time and grabbing a winner, while we struggle to get one man in there during games.: We really are getting no more than we deserve and i am now genuinely concerned we might even go down. It's a good job Villa and Sunderland are as piss poor as they are.
How on earth has a club with our resources ended up with such a desperately weak squad of players This has been a steady decline ever since Carlo left.

If i was a top manager i wouldn't even think of taking this job for next season. So much work and money [200 plus million?] is going to be needed to even think about getting back to being a top 6 side, nevermind CL qualification or title challenges. Th next manager is on a hiding to nothing.
No matter what happens, it seems like woeful Mikel will be there until he's 65.

It's not about systems, it's about the balance of the team.
If you have three very attacking, creative, goal scoring midfielders, then it is fine to play two defensive players behind them! What Jose did was play two defensive midfielders and ruin our creativity and goal power by selling Mata laughably playing Lamps as a holding midfielder and ruining Oscar,.
We were left with Hazard to do almost everything.

This does not look like a one season blip to me. I was right about us playing like a mid table team for the second half of last season and that's when we were top of the table and winning the title. Sooner or later luck turns and you'll get the results your performance deserve. We are where we are now are because we deserve to be there on our standard of play. Jeeez, even Stoke City make us look like Wimbledon these days. We are being left behind and look a million miles away from being a top side. Unless there's a massive clearout with a lot of money spent and the right players bought, it could well take several years before we get back to being anywhere near challenging again.

Totally agree, the voice of reason. Be wary of Fulham / Man U fans goading.

The good news is.. Bamford's on his way back, and he can't be any worse than Falcao, and can't be any more injury prone / unreliable than Remy. End of last season, Costa unavailable, and all of a sudden, Remy is unavailable. Drogba might have been a shadow of the player he was, but he saved the day there.

Christensen to Luiz, to Kennedy, to Mata, .. to Bamford, .. goaaaaaal!!

We can not continue with Ivanovic at rb.

Bamford, another Harry Kane? We'll never know unless he gets some quality minutes on the pitch.

JT applauds the fans: http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest...ans-a-lot.html

It's time to get behind the team, the change in direction and get winning matches and trophies again.

Gus has steadied the ship, and we need to kick on from here. All hands on deck lads!

Yet last season, with practically the same team, we won the PL title with games to spare ? Not to mention a minor cup competition as well. Just goes to show what a genius Mourinho must have been.

We are paying the price of not building on our success. Part of the blame for that must lie with Mourinho. The summer transfer window was a shambles apart from getting a replacement keeper and bringing in Pedro, who appears to be a quality squad player.
As champions, with Jose as manager (and like him or not, he has a big reputation) we were in a strong position to attract top players. Fast foward to this summer, and we're (at best) likely to be a mid-table club, and who will end up as our manager is anyone's guess. We wiil still have the money, but attracting the right players is not going to be easy.



.

Have you been on the Christmas port again old chap ? Watch a movie, have a snooze, all this time off is obviously not doing you any good.

Since you have never seen Bamford play how would you know how good he is or is not?


I hope he is not another Harry Kane I am hoping he will be a top player

The Chuckle Brothers are back I see. One sets the other up, unless of course they are the same person.
Only a week ago the shackles were off according to them and now they aren't.
They just can't make their minds up.

However much he has drunk he still won't talk about Ake, the boy who banged one in against Liverpool

Now you're just being dishonest.

You know full well we went out and bought Mata, Oscar, Hazard and Luiz, to change the way were going to play football from that point on. A style that was going to be built on players with high technical ability that were suited to play attacking, attractive football.
Changes of managers didn't help but Rafa WAS starting to get things right. Yes, there was plenty of work still to be done and more new players needed [obviously a striker and defensive midfielders to start with] but the way forward was very clear!
I knew Jose would come in and tear it all up for a very short term gain and that is exactly what happened! Thanks to Jose, we are now in the biggest mess we've been in since we last got relegated and some poor bugger is going to have to come in and do a heck of a job to sort it out.

You accused me of talking like a 'glory hunter' only a few weeks ago.
Funny, because if anyone is a 'Glory Hunter' it's the ones who worship saint Jose.
They are the ones who are prepared to settle for win at all costs football. They are the ones who only think about winning the next match at any price and never looking beyond that.
I was one who was happy for us to continue with Claudio even though we never won anything under him. I could see what he was building so i was more than happy with our progress. Don1 is the one who says it was right to sack him because he failed to win the title or CL in his first season under Roman.
I was happy for us to take some backward steps to start going forward with real progress under Rafa.
Oh, and i've never, ever said or thought we are entitled to win anything!

Once again you are talking about things that are only relevant to your "likes and dislikes" and they are not important.

He was getting things right in the unimportant aspects to the club but with regards to winning titles he was not (and IMO never will in this league or any top league)

Those players was bought in for a reason and it was clear it was not working, It was clear we was going down the route of style over substance. We needed to get back to basics. These players might have "high technical ability" but they lack the mental edge that you need to be a serial winner. Our recruitment policy ignored the most important thing when looking to be a team that wins or at least comes close to winning titles and that's a mental edge

Where we are now has very little due to last season (if anything) its more due to the many poor decision's made over the last few seasons having to many of a certain type of player etc, Poor managerial choices etc etc. This has been on the cards since the season we won the Champions League (like when Liverpool won it, It wallpapered over the cracks).

No-one here worships Mourinho, what a silly thing to say. Some people just happen to rate him as a manager, and for the most part appreciate the job he's done over his two spells at the club. You don't? Fine it's your opinion, although you do have to question any fan that is as quite as derisive and dismissive as you are about someone who's won as many trophies for the club as he has.



I've asked you this question before but didn't get a response so i'll try again: if all of the above is true, then why did you want Di Matteo sacked? Why shouldn't he have been allowed to try and build something? Rafa showed no more signs of building anything that we hadn't seen in the first few months of the season under Di Matteo.