You are clearly not a Chelsea fan if you give any credence at all to what that half-wit Manchester "journalist" has to say. As a piece of "sport's writing" it would be laughable if it wasn't printed in a fairly respected newspaper..The Manchester Evening News.
It's written more in the fashion of some boring, biased, drunk leaning on the corner of some scruffy bar.
Just take one sentence.."Milner was a warrior, giving the brutal Branislav Ivanovic problems all game". Was there any need for the word "brutal" from a serious, so-called journalist ? The guy is a joke.

Since we got 22m for a squad player it's not so bad. For me he just adds something different at the moment. We should not be looking to add to the first team at this point anyway, it's more adding some freshness

If the stories about how bad Brana's foot was there is only one "warrior"

I don't know too much about him, but a lot of big clubs showed an interest after the World Cup. He's very quick, can take players on, and seems to have an eye for a goal. But he's also prepared to put a stint in defensively having played as a wing-back. Seems like a bit of a cross between Willian and Ramires ?
If there's more end product than we seem to be getting from Willian, then I guess his position will be threatened. But unlike others, I've always considered Willian contributes a lot to the team..apart from goals that is.

Added nothing to us sadly.

Never ever going to be a first team player and deserves a chance to do so somewhere else

That's because Willian does contributes a hell of a lot to the team

Oh hello. One average game after so many great ones and Dixon comes out the woodwork to join in. You are so clearly not a Chelsea fan, so obvious.
You may of got away with it had you posted when playing well but not now.

His current (former) manager commented on his defensive work (dirty words for some fans) and that's something very important

Indeed. People seem to forget that having players like Willian (or Ramires, Oscar) allows other players more licence to get foward and express themselves. Fabregas is a great reader of the game and his passing is sublime, but he's no defender. Ivanovic loves to get foward and we want him to continue doing that. But it does need someone prepared to track back and give him cover. I think Willian has been a little harshly treated by some fans, he gets through a hell of lot of work down the right.

I liked Schurrle, he had a great attitude. But I don't think he was a very good fit for us in the current system. In a 4-3-3 or a 4-4-2 we might have seen him at his best. Caudrado appears to be more of a Mourinho "type" of player. Should suit a high pressing game, and will hopefully seamlessly slot into our midfield when required.
Or as Dixon will probably say..another Mourinho workhorse who just runs all day.

I don't know if you watched it? but the other night on MOTD2 they talked about stats spoiling the game. To a large extent i agree with that! - Passes completed. Possession. Miles run etc- meaningless crap!
However, there are some stats for certain posistions that do matter!
Goals - Torres vs Costa.
Goals and goals created + chances created - Fabregas and Hazzard are doing their job. Willian continues to fall way, way short. Can anyone explain to me what he's actually any good at, apart from strolling round the pitch for 90 mins?
Oscar shows some wonderful touches, but they are too sporadic for a team chasing the big trophies.

Yes he spent 90 minutes strolling around the pitch.

I would explain his job but really cannot be bothered to do so when it seems most of your info comes from either MOTD or Talkshite or some other media outlet

And we are not chasing the big trophies, we have little chance of winning the League, less of winning the Champions League and out of the biggest trophy in the history of football

Thank you Pat Nevin! http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest...ome-juan-.html

Squad management, rotation, call it what you will. It's vital in the modern game, especially if you're going for a treble (imo).

This is the kind of post which made me decide to take a break from the forum.
Along with that, I have been very busy and also had some family matters to deal with.

Not a fan eh?
I was one of those who stuck by the club during the really dark days when we were down to crowds of 10,000. When some away games were made all ticket with none being sold at Chelsea in order to keep our scum fans away.
Travelling a 200 mile round journey for mid week games and getting home for a couple of hours sleep before i got up for work.

So, according to you guys on here, i'm not a Chelsea fan because I don't like Jose and don't rate Willian, Ramirez or Oscar.

OK, I think we should leave it at that.

5 points clear and have little chance of winning the league.
Little chance of winning the CL when we won it when we were no where near the team we have now.

But according to you players like Oscar and Willian are not good enough for teams chasing the big trophies yet we are chasing them and they have been a big reason

Schurrle good player, proved it at the World Cup never given a game.

Problem Chelsea have right now is the squad is too small and not enough strikers. They can get away with it this season given Man United won't win the title but some serious cash needs spent in the summer.

To think the window started with talk of getting Messi. Last year it was Rooney..

Maybe people have been harsh in saying your not a "fan" but your lack of ability to see past this obsession about "entertaining" random's and what the idiots in the media think of us rather then what is actually going on at Chelsea you can see why some people might say that

The Messi talk was the normal rubbish the media like to trot out when they cannot be bothered to do any work. Rooney there was a small chance of getting but not much of one.

Utd will challenge next year but still at least two seasons from having a real chance of winning it.

It don't matter how much of a good player he was or how many games he got he was never going to work at Chelsea as his strengths don't match the way we we are playing or will play going forward.

Yes we need to spend some cash but not a massive amount, we need to continue the way we are going now in raising money from selling players and put the money made towards to buying the type of players who do fit into the system, be that striker midfielder or defender.

The days of doing a City and spending a fortune have got to be put behind us. Also City and Utd can outbid us and getting into a bidding war with them is a waste of time.

It's now time to buy sensibly and bring some of the very talented youth though players like Zouma

It's not the idea of resting players that I'm against, that does become necessary occasionally. I just don't believe in rotation as a "policy". Benitez and Ranieri were very fond of rotation, with players almost "taking it in turns" to play. But I don't think it worked for the benefit of their teams at the time.
I agree, ideally it would be fantastic to be in a situation where you can seemlessly make half a dozen changes to the team and simply continue to play at the same level, but in reality it seldom works

In most areas we have the quality to switch things around when form or injury demands it. Zouma has been a success, I didn't think he would be ready until next season I must confess. Along with Luis, it allows us to shuffle things around at the back if required, we seem to be reasinably covered in that area.
As I keep saying, I don't think we've got a replacement for Matic. We would probably have to hope that Ramires and Mikel together could do his job if he goes missing. That's something we're going to have to fix in the summer.
With the arrival of Caudrado for Schurrle we are about the same with our attacking midfield options. I count Fabregas as an attacking midfield player, so we are still almost spoilt for choice in that department.
Up front is a problem, we are definitely weaker without Costa. Remy is ok as a stop-gap measure and Didier does all we can expect of him at 36. But we do need another genuine threat up front to relieve (or even play alongside) Costa.

"Our squad too small"? bet all but Man C/Man U fans are having a chuckle at that.

Same as others here, myself included - I regularly made those 200 mile round trips too back then. The difference being that some of us can take satisfaction from where we are now as opposed to where we were back then. Whereas you just sound like you're on a continual downer. It's nothing to do with Mourinho and Willian etc, because you've long been like that.

You're right about Matic. He's becoming as important to Chelsea as Toure is for Man city. Mikel and Ramires can work, although for me Mikel is too static and maybe the club will look to buy cover there.

The problem with minimal rotation or squad utilisation is that squad players start to lack motivation. If Remy has a great game and is on form but then automatically gets dropped when another striker is fit, he starts to look elsewhere, and then the squad gets depleted. Imo, every position on the pitch should have competition and if a player coming in plays well enough, he keeps his place. Zouma is a very good example, although admittedly it would be very hard to pick Remy ahead of a fit Costa.

Cuadrado is ideal competition for Willian, and is a similar player. He misses chances quite a lot, but can cause the opposition a lot of problems with his pace and trickery, and his work rate is very good. If he can quickly link up well with the other forwards, he could make a big difference.

Imo, if the squad is managed well, Chelsea have a decent chance of a treble this year. It's early days, but a chance is a chance.

Its just a massive coincidence then that Chelsea have played some fantastic football this season and you have been nowhere to be seen yet they play one defensive game and suddenly you are back sticking the boot in. Strange
Most of us are long term Chelsea fans who have seen the bad times which mean most of us massively appreciate the good times we have now yet you don't. Strange
Most Chelsea fans have a massive dislike for Rafa and very little time for Liverpool yet you were amongst them last year agreeing with them how great he was. Strange.
This season the team has probably played the best attacking football we have seen since Roman arrived yet you don't appreciate it and want the manager out. Strange.

Do you see why I would question your credentials?

It was great knocking out Liverpool last week wasn't it ?

Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry (c), Azpilicueta; Ramires, Matic; Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Drogba

SUBS: Cech, Zouma, Ake, Mikel, Loftus-Cheek, Cuadrado, Remy

The yellow card for Ramires has to be the single worst decision of the season.

The ref is not fit for purpose.