Half Term report. Too many old 'uns deteriorating at the same time. Not terrible individually, but having an impact collectively. Today was weird, Whatsit MATA had a rare off day, Merieles couldn't pass to his own men, Lamps must have been on Prozac and Drogba just not up to speed yet at all (excellent goal excluded) Despite this, we were worth at least a point and created enough chances to win. Not even too many suicide attempts by the defence. So improvement ,but must do better. Sturridge is surely the benchmark. Young, talented, vigorous and QUICK !!!! Playing regularly, he now looks the real thing. Should do the same with Josh,and the other top young blokes. Give them a proper go, and some SPEED to the team It's getting close to the time when we have to reduce the number of "on the wane" players from the 4 who seem to be regulars. At least bring on some youngsters at half time and get them involved. Like Sturridge, they will step up. If not, then at least we know what were dealing with. We may not have a young defender as good as Terry was, but someone half as good with real SPEED would be as effective. Oh and David Luiz ?? Holding midfield is definitely worth a look. We do have good players, we can do better, but we need to ring the changes and rotate more youngsters into the starting line
Bertrand, Lalkovic, Romeu, Josh, Sturridge, Mata, Blackman, Luiz, Ramires should all be in the team week in week out. Every one of these players is ready to become a star, and would all be much better options than what we have at the moment. Mata over Malouda, Lalkovic over Torres, Sturridge over anyone, Romeu over Mikel, Josh over Meireles, Bertrand over Ash, Blackman over cech, Luiz over terry and on and on. I seriously feel Luiz has been used as a scapegoat, he had a really good game tonight and vs liverpool, JT is the one making the mistakes and Luiz is the one copping the blame
The truth is that, although it wasn't classic stuff--we put up a good overall performance, throughout the game and deserved more from it! We looked more solid at the back than of late and there were many inspired runs on their goal. It looked for a long while we might be on for a winner. Then we ship one with just seconds on the clock! Rough justice, I say! Somebody up there just doesn't like us!
I totally agree. Had this game happened in the middle of a good run, you'd just chalk it up as bad fortune on the night but as it's happened in the middle of a poor run it's just seen as bad form continuing. This game smacks of the Valencia one to me where we controlled the game pretty well and scored then kinda sat back expecting the 1-0. If we'd have gone for it after going ahead in both games I'm sure we'd have got 4-6 points instead of the 1. To get hit with 2 late winners in 4 days is very harsh and we had another stone wall pen decision turned down again last night. Shame as I thought up until that point ref was exerlent then bottles the biggest decision of the night, as clear cut as they come bearing in mind he was about 5 yards away.
As for what we do next, as I said this time last season, I think sometimes you just have to frshen things up. Terry, Lampard and Drogba have carried us through seasons in the past but have looked poor this year. Form is temporary etc but maybe it's time to try some new ideas, can't be any worse than what we are doing now. Front 3 has to be Mata Sturridge and Torres. Pace and inventions. Maybe play Torres and Sturridge up top and mata in the hole? We still haven't really got natural wingers so maybe stop putting people in those positions just to fill a role? We had wide players last night and I can't remember a single cross getting put in so what is the point? Mereiles isn't getting enough game time for me, he's looked really good when he's played. Likewise Romeu who looks class but seems destined for Carling Cup etc. People keep saying it so why not try Luiz in the holding role as another option. And Josh....our most exiting youngster in a decade and he has barely had a kick. Sat.... Cech Ivan Luiz Terry Cole Romeu Mereiles Josh Sturridge Torres Mata
i agree completely with what your saying BUT ramires instead of josh, and if anything he can come on as a sub. we need a new keeper, cech making to good saves then co*cking up for there winner is unacceptable and needs to be dropped. The only prob with that is we don't have anything better. Where is delac that young Croatian keeper??
Drop Terry for Alex and play Mata behind Torres with malouda on the left, Mata is not utilised to his maximum on the wings....If Cole is still injured stick Luiz at LB and Bosingwa right with Ivan central. The 5 clean sheets we've kept this season have been with Alex on the pitch, it's no co-incidence!
Cech Bosingwa Luiz Terry Cole Romeu Meireles Sturridge Mata Anelka Torres Luiz will only learn if we play him and he had a good game yesterday.
