At least there are signs Rafa's zonal marking is having an impact already. Three Chelsea players marking the goal line, none of them marking the goal scorer...
Moses isn't a starter, but by no means a bad player, and since no one has mentioned it, that was by a long long way the worst game I have seen Mata play. I reckon Rafa should have just accepted Azpi had a bad Monterry game and kept him on at RB and kept Luiz in midfield. But fair enough, Azpi was torn to shreds last game.
Thanks f*ck for that, I don't think I could have handled listening to the "we know what we are song" about a million times per match but changed to champions of the world.
me too wept after seeing him in the centre.. thanks Lamps - true legend, now leave Pat Nevin on BBC says 'Lampard was the best player today!?', this guy is getting paid for this opinion - seriously?? Rambo was best except for that goal line fcuk up..
David Luiz was the standout player, he is beginning to win me over. He has a dozen mistakes in him but he's the only character we had on that pitch today. Lampard doesn't deserve a new contract, Mikel should have started. Corinthians were excellent and proof that in terms of technical ability, the South Americans are still miles ahead of the Europeans (bar Spain and Germany).
I'm surprisingly gutted... I didn't think I would be when the lads set off for Japan as I didn't really care about it! But I am gutted. Torres... how can you miss that on the money you are on ffs. I don't even know why Cahill was sent off as haven't seen a replay. And the BBC commentators saying we took 100 to Japan when we took 1000. Get your facts right Mark Bright you karnt. Leeds on Wednesday will be very tough and I am quite worried about it...
I'm not as gutted as I would have been. My interest in it faded when RDM was sacked and Benitez was appointed. Whether you rate RDM or not he should have been the man to lead that team out and he'd have started our best XI which would have given us a better chance. Oscar must be devastated not to have started. Before Benitez came in he was 2nd only to Mata. Mata has been class in the PL, but not cut the mustard in the CL and Oscar vice versa to an extent.
Can't really blame Benitez. It's not like the line up was risky, the team was just playing like gash.
corinithians played like a team at the end of their season that wanted it badly, chelsea played like a team that has a cup game the day after they get home. As has been said their keeper played a blinder and chelsea's finishing was woefull, on another day they could of scored 2 or 3. It just was not to be and you can not begrudge corinithians the victory, it seemed to mean a lot more to the team and their fans.
the side that struggle to beat ahly of egypt 1-0 (who are without a league since a year) are best side in world !!! sure they are not best side in the world
Oscar is slamming Benitez for not picking him, Piazon is slamming the team for lack of desire. Good on them.
That goalkeeper was like bleedin Superman! There were plenty of goalworthy shots for us and I said at the end of the fisrt half to the Mrs , there's no way we're going to get a ball past him today--they've won it!
That was just awful from us. I am disgusted at how Fata lost the trophy which Di Matteo earned the right to at least play in and attempt to win. An opportunity which was stolen from him. The fat man fucked up again. Luiz looked great playing for us in that deep midfield role against Monterrey. What does fatso do? Drop him back into defence. He shouldn't have started Lampard. The guy is returning from injury and isn't match fit, this match was a final (the Club World Cup at that which takes an incredible amount of effort and luck to get to) and the South Americans were desperate to win so how can he possibly start in a match of such intensity? Mikel was the much smarter option, especially as he is banned from our midweek game. And his final substitution - a right-back for a right-back...why? In what way will that help us? At first I thought he was going to take Lampard off, push Luiz into the midfield role he should have started him in, put Ivanovic into central defence and have Azpilicueta take his spot. Defending for their goal was horrific. A succession of mistakes, but the worst was the last line of defence. Three players on the line...here's an idea how about viewing yourself as a footballer instead of an obstacle and challenge for the fucking ball? Luiz mainly to blame for that one. That's what annoys me about him playing there, his mistakes are so much more costly. And then we have Torres...eurgh. I'm very close to my tipping point with him. We've been starting him, we've been leaving him on for the whole game and doing so in successive matches. We've built the team around him and put him up front on his own as he prefers to play and switched our style to suit him. We've bought a whole second line of attack to support him in Hazard, Oscar and Mata along with backup players in Moses and Marin. As fans we have given him so much time, patience and above all support. Yet he has missed chance after chance after chance and instead of making up for it with his play he instead moans sulks and acts as though the whole world is against him. He should have buried that late chance he had to equalise today and had no excuse at being offside with his disallowed goal, albeit managing a good finish. The Club World Cup isn't the most prestigious trophy out there and it's more of a bonus for winning the Champions League than anything else, but I still wanted to win it especially as we have never won it before. We won't have the chance to again either unless we win the Champions League in the future which I'm not even going to bother contemplating that at this moment. Very disappointed with the whole team today. They let us down.
However much I'd like to blame Rafa for everything, I think his decisions were logical and only with hindsight do they seem bad. Azpi was dreadful against Monterry, so Ivan into RB and Luiz to CB seemed sensible. Sadly, Ivanovic was absolutely woeful going forward and his lack of pace let him get caught. He should really never play RB again, and I pray we don't loan Wallace next season. Cahill is looking more and more second rate the more I see him. Getting more error prone. Shame really because he's a great goal threat and does seem to have passion. He also got sold really badly for his red card. Lampard in the midfield seem logical. Lead from the middle and he helped win us the CL. Sadly Torres couldn't capitalise on his great long range distribution, and his lack of pace wasn't really made up for by including Ramires. Speaking of Ramires, the 4-2-3-1 is not his formation. He can't play in it. Get back to a 4-3-3 or don't play Ramires. Mikel wasn't included because him and Lampard would be suicidal. Mata had the worst game I've ever seen him play, and Moses yet again proving that his place really should be on the bench as he doenst defend enough as well as losimg confidence, but I didn't expect either to be that bad. Don't need to start on Fernando.
Yeah only thing I can fault Rafa for today was the starting 11. Lamps isn't ready for a full 90, match fitness is rock bottom. Ivan had an absolute shocker today and his sub was completely justified. Bad day at the office but I do have a terrible feeling about Wednesday, according to BBC our lads get back Tuesday afternoon from Japan to then play in Leeds 24 hours later. We're ****ed.
