Rant Box: Chelsea v. Manchester United

Amazed to see some of the comments here.. Not sure if just glory hunter chelsea fans or legit supporters who are blinded by their own bias against AVB and the team's lackluster results as of the late. Maybe rewatch the match? A great collective performance riddled with a few individual mistakes and mainly tough luck.
In all seriousness though, be those penalties contested calls or not, making up for possible refereeing mistakes in the first half, why does Howard Webb continuously get appointed to referee man untd high profile matches? It is common knowledge around footy enthusiasts that he is likely a man utd supporter and has been known on numerous occasions to alter matches in their favour.. Would be interesting to see stats comparing number of times Webb refereed united matches with other top 4 teams to years when they won the league and haven't: wouldn't be surprised if there is a positive correlation.

Wow, just watched the match. Unbelievable stuff. Two deflection goals. Mata's onedervolley. I can't believe Torres didn't pull the trigger towards the end! Lacking confidence. Frustrating. But more frustrating was our plethora of silly mistakes. Even Mata was needlessly giving the ball away with ill placed passes. All in all, I am glad we didn't lose. We earned a point and we kept ManU from breaking their non-winning streak at the Bridge. Considering we were missing Drogba, Kalou, Mikel, Ramires, Lampard, Terry, and Cole, the majority of which are our spine on the field, I think it was an excellent outcome, the officiating notwithstanding. Yes, I am disappointed that from one aspect we dropped two points, but from this other perspective it is encouraging.

Now that we have seen Cahill in the mix, might I suggest keeping Cahill-Terry in centerback and moving David Luiz either into a holding midfielder or right back position, since he likes to push up?

First of all nice handling of them numpties spewing there mince on a brilliant blog.

Well then the match.. well... God damn that was gutting.
We did close games off like that in the past and will start again hopefully in the near future. We played well should have won but what's the point bitching.
Unlucky a suppose you could call it never the less some promising stuff.

Hopefully we don't look all doom and gloom next match and come springing out the tunnel bright eyed and fluffy tails.

Come on you Blues!

Yeah, I think that's the most worrying thing. Could be the point in which they all come together with a siege mentality or it could break them - and AVB. Hopefully it's the former.

In retrospect, the Chels put up a performance that can beat Napoli. I think AVB did not expect that the Chels can come out the second half putting such a stunning attack.   AVB reacted too slow to MAN U's adjustment. We should have just play counter-mode right after Luiz's header. 

Exactly, as CharlieFineman and Varun Das said, there are lots of things that we can be proud of ...
amazing goal by Mata, amazing assist by Torres. If torres assist like this, I do not even care if he does not score forever .... Bosingwa played very well as LB .. Cahill was amazing ... Luis was solid ... Petr Cech was amazing, awesome saves ...

we do not have Terry, Lampard and Ashly and Drogba ... 7 months ago, I did not even imagine playing without these players ... but today we played against United and played very well ....

i disagree on the torres part... i want him to score... that's the only way he can get into the national team again... spain have too many midfielders, and nando isnt anywhr near them!!!

I do not really care about international teams .. I gave up on international tournaments after world-cup 2002 .... I do not judge strikers by goals, neither goal keepers by clean sheet.
 

even i dont judge strikers by goals, but u got to admit that a striker needs them to get his confidence back... torres hasnt shown confidence in front of the goal and he needs to find the back of the net asap... 

now that i ve calmed down and relaxed, i realise that this was  a pretty good performance by the team... too bad webb called it wrong for man u's 2nd, but still...

all the best to the team for everton, really missed jt and cole today, hope they will be back soon...

now that i have calmed down and taken things into perspective, today wasnt a bad performance...

all i can say is even chelsea's good luck is bad!!!

nevertheless, a good performance by the boys... all the best for the rest of the season!!!

Come on guys, let's put this shit behind us, and look at the positives, eh?

What a goal by Mata to start with? CFC goal of the year?
Cahill looked pretty good on his debut, slotted in seamlessly. 
A point is a point is a point. We're still in top 4. Advantage Chelsea.And one more thing, THURSDAY NIGHT, CHANNEL FIVE, huh!!

and we are still undefeated this year!!!!

Severe tactical mistakes by AVB. I did not expect us to win the game. Even when we were 1 goal up, I believed United will win it 2-1. but losing 3 goals margin is not acceptable. Chelsea was playing well with 4-2-3-1 but I have no idea why AVB freaked out suddenly and changed the formation to the same shit that made us be in 4th place right now. I lost all my faith in AVB. Keeping Malouda in and changing Daniel sturridge showed AVB is really scared of Malouda's threat of leaving.
Chelsea win nothing with AVB next 3 to 5 years, this guy needs to learn a lot. Fergusen changed the game in United favor with his great subs and we lost 3 goals margin because of AVB ... We are transition? what transition, are we using our young players? Are we changing formation? our style has changed? no it is same shit with different players and different individual skills.
If game had continued for 4 more minutes, we would have lost 3-4 to United at home.
Webb screwed up but we did not lost points because of him, we lost points because of us. so I do not even wannt check to see those incidents were really penalty or not.

very disappointed.

my biggest worry is that we arent using our young players... either avb doesnt have a clue or the batch of 2012 are not good enough... both the cases are scary prospects...

We lost three goals because of AVB? That has to be a typo. Unbelievable.

Learn the game better. I think you are not qualified to even be commenting in the blog let alone write a game report. What a retard...where did you grow up ???

Dude, you're getting banned. In fact, it's already in the process of being confirmed. Just save yourself the embarrassment and trudge back into your cave.

That is what I believe. Do you think changing formation and his subs were correct ?

It was a conservative decision, yes, one that certainly didn't cost us the win. A pair of questionable penalty decisions and a mix-up in defense (Chicarito's goal) did. Even after the change, we still had a handful of excellent chances to win the game, three off the top of my head - Torres, Meireles and then Mata with the FK.

Furthermore, it's not AVB's fault that Romeu kind of fell into a shell once he came on. The kid's been excellent for the most part this season.

your comment seem reasonable to me , so please answer this what were we trying to achieve by introducing Romeu and taking out Daniel Sturridge ?

The decision to play Romeu was almost textbook. To keep the lead, take off a ball-hog attacker and replace him with a defensive distributor, play the game out for the 3 points. The problem lies with Romeu's performance, as he was merely a bystander to the ongoing Manc attacks.  AVB can't be blamed for his playing choking up in the middle of a game. What do you want him to do when they scored again? Take Romeu back off for Lukaku or something? 

Barcelona run the clock down with Keita, Manchester United do it with Scholes, Manchester City did it recently against Fulham with Nigel De Jong. Textbook stuff. 

He was trying to sure us up after a pair of dodgy penalties. Sturridge had faded badly anyway. It was a perfectly reasonable decision at the time.

okay, if you are scared to lose margin, why do not you do it when you are 3-0. not 3-2 at home. 3-0, close the game ; not when it is 3-2 and United is so confident and motivated, our players are scared and lost confidence ... the timing of substitution was horrible ...

thr is a reason why avb is a coach and not u...

and u arent helping ur case... 

Never going to agree bro.

That is okay, I do not want to persuade you lol. It is soccer, everyone has different idea, that is the beauty of the game. I just wanted to share my opinion :)

Cheers.

Atleast AVB has got the spine to give Webb the stick he deserves.
http://www.chelseafc.com/page/... 

Well one bright thing today was Essien's performance..just got me thinking about our midfields of previous years.Whenever we had the ball or the ball was being passed among us I would feel secure that whatever action the individual players would take at that moment would be..
Lampard-solid , Essien -solid , Ballack -solid etc.
Now it feels like -
Romeu - dicey , Ramires - dicey , Meireles -dicey
So Essien's performance was quite a refreshing change.

This is a bit insane considering Ramires, by most competent accounts, has been our player of the season.

But nothing compared to our ex "formation".We used to boss the midfield then.Now our play is more reactionary than anything else.
I guess I need to check the stats on each player.But what I wrote is the gut feel I get while watching us play.

Thank you Ray. Jack is not getting it. Have been telling him all season. He is not a good blogger of football at all. Jack....get the fuck off this site... disgraceful. Don't try to ban me either....

Oh you're getting banned. Don't worry about that.

Try it ...nuthead....

Stop trolling!

Oh man. Where did some of your comments go? Damn.

Bans are on the horizon.

i agree with zach below that you shouldn't ban or delete the comments. it makes you look like the censor. let them be, nobody will take tela's comments seriously anyway.

But I am the moderator, haha. Sorry there's no entertainment, but that guy had to go.

i just wish i could still see all the comments that got them banned! haha i need a good laugh after that second half..

i didn't watch the game but i want to see the highlights, especially why two penalty kicks were given. too bad chelsea didn't win, a victory over united would have been great for the morale of the team.

Read this for some much-needed perspective: 
http://www.weaintgotnohistory....

To the doom and gloom contingent who continue to spit nonsense - shameless, vapid nonsense - about our club time and again after poor results, you can leave this blog with the swiftness.
What would you have said had Webb correctly not awarded the second penalty (and perhaps the first), and we had won the match? 

Your stick is sad and boring.

I would have still told you that it was UNDESERVED !! As simple as that really. Jack you have to understand that we are not worried about the goals but the PERFORMANCE of the whole team. The laziness, lack of commitment, carelessness..etc that most of the players display is annoying. I would rather see the team lose with passion than look like headless chickens all over the pitch. I think you owe us an apology for conjuring up pile of excuse for such a low level of performance throughout the season. 

Man utd was not any better at all. They were as clueless as our team. What a load of crap the league has become. The level of football from both teams was way  bellow expectations but atleast man utd players were committed. Just look at the way that malouda and meireless were losing the ball....lazy...

and yes i take pride with the defeats we suffered against united and qpr this season, but this match ? it was a farce.

I don't owe you a fucking thing pal.

There were any number of quality individual performances and the first 65 minutes overall were promising. If you don't like what I have to say, jog the fuck on. In fact, that seems to be what I recommended a few minutes ago.

What a crap blogger you are ...I don't think you know what you are writing about...learn some FOOTBALL man....disgraceful !!

You're embarrassing yourself.

Weren't you the bum criticizing Ramires earlier in the season? Makes sense.

why don't you fuck off

I really am getting the feel that a top 4 finish is not so sure this year...that would be a disaster.

While fourth is certainly not secure, if we play like we did today for the rest of the season - at least the opening 65 or so minutes - we should be fine.

good you realised it now.

Honestly this result hurts today (and likely will for a while) but we as fans must realize that patientce with this team is going to be essential. Even with three points from this game we were not going to win the league, so let us look toward the future. Our focus should on maintaining our top 4 position as well as moving onward in both the Champions League and the FA cup. Keep the faith you Blues.

Sturridge just not the same after his injury. I mean, the single-minded approach is there, just not the goals. Webb did no favours to us nor his reputation today, but he is too easy of a target. Couldn't believe we were 3-0 up to be honest, seemed like a dream on the balance of things.

Agree that Malouda should have come off for Romeu. Or well, in retrospect Romeu should not have come on, but there you go.

On a side note, I thought Bane and Cahill were pretty decent today.

Going to be a battle for that UCL spot...

Rooney "man of the match"? Get outta here, Fox Soccer. Manchester United defended like ass most of the game, waited for their 12th man Mr. Luck to show up, and finally decided to play for the last 20 minutes. Tell us again, Martin Tyler, about how good Rooney balls taste. 
Gary Cahill had a wonderful debut, I thought. From his perspective, anyway. I don't see any one of those goals as his fault, and if you had 4 Garys at the back you'd have a clean sheet and the 3 points. 

Agreed. Thought Cahill looked comfortable in the mix. A good partnership with Luiz is in the cards.

But I'm still fucking sick over the result - even if I would've taken a draw prior to the match.

Yep...Cahill really played a really good match...and let off a good shot at the end there.  Very solid.  If only Torres could've converted...but I really think he didn't want another shto to go wide, so he tried to make sure...and took a little too long.  Brilliant cross to Mata though...

On the Torres' shot, Ivan headed an assist to Torres, shouldn't we play Lukaku for that kind of play? Shouldn't we play Lukaku more?

Why didn't Torres take that shot right off the ball coming down? Oh, man. 

We pay the price for the inexperience of Sturridge and Luiz. They two just
temporarily blood shot for two seconds. 

The only one I didn't get is the Sturridge on Romeu sub. Romeu on for Malouda, AND we'd still keep the 4231, with Mereiles just behind Torres. One hell of a game.

I think he was becoming angry with Sturridge's selfishness. And then there was the lack of tracking back - and the fact that when he actually did track he conceded a penalty, albeit soft. 

Forgive me for trying to make sense of a senseless result. I'm still fuming.

I agree (again...) Sturridge looked very self centered on a few occaisions...

Hear, hear. Still, pretty promising I say. I have all the patience in the world for all of our players, bar Malouda. He and Torres don't get on well, clear as a day. Whether it's because AVB started playing Mata from day one, and Flo's trying to get back at him, or any other reason, I don't know.

We can blame Sturridge all we want, he's leaving x percent good chances all to himself, but that's just the way he is, and I bet sooner or later he'll realize that the team comes first. He's young and still developing. AND goal-wise he's one of our key players at the moment. 
Malouda though, I'd bench him again, but we don't really have that many options to choose from. 

What a horrible horrible horrible game !
Webb fucked us up real good there.
Some observations:
1.Torres has got to go to some sort of Rehab facility.Or better sell him in the summer.Its totally mental with him.Earlier Torres would have scored 10 times out of 10 in that situation. We are really paying the price dragging him around.Yeah he provided a cross but that aint his job!His job is to score.Even a half decent striker would have atleast made the keeper work.
2.Meireles is made of paper.Has anyone ever seen Meireles tackle ever? He just runs around gives short passes and back passes and to skip around him is the job a 5 year old can do.He was better when he played for Liverpool.What has happened to him!
3. Sturridge - can someone please make him understand that in football sometimes you need to pass the ball to the better positioned player!
4.Romeu - He didnt seem that so today.

Agree with some of what you say, but thought Meireles had a pretty good game to be honest, particularly over the opening 60 or so minutes. Sturridge, meanwhile, is an odd case.

Have you taken into account Raul's horrible setpieces?

As opposed to everyone else's horrible set pieces? Not even Mata is delivering a good corner these days.

well..after a long time..I sorely missed Lamps tonight.

we should be relegated to the english championship. clue-less, base-less that all sums it up for us. The coach, the players, the refree.... webb jinxx again played for united. cannot believe that asshole motherfucker officiated the world cup final. i feel like abusing each and every player and this nincompoop AVB. I'm really frustrated. Send SOS to jose. Sack this coach and these awful players.
im sorry if im hurting anyone's sentiments here

Go the fuck away with this nonsense. Now.

oh yeah ! you stay gloated in this state of mediocrity!

i'm sorry again, you may delete the post. wrote it in a fist of an anger

"we should be relegated to the english championship. clue-less, base-less that all sums it up for us. The coach, the players, the refree."

Absurd commentary. Just go away. You want to be a plastic supporter? Go get a City shirt.

oh yea! well i dont want to get into that plastic fan/ post roman era chelsea fan argument with you, because it's of no use to me to prove anything to you. You may assume whatever and keep on pontificating which ever way suits you the most. We have taken every defeat/ draw with our chins up and defending our club at every point but this performance ?? well? what the fuck was that. Anyway never expected a win against united in this game but to give away a three point lead ?? And that too by a Club of this stature. I understand webb fucked it up but this performance?? no creativity, no skills..only plain football?
I understand i made such an overstatement which i shouldn't have and i'm really sorry for that.

we suck.

Uh, no we don't.

We suck big time...get this through your nift skull....what team loses a three goal lead in such a mediocre way ??? get a grip man..

Spouting rubbish I see. I guess the Chelsea team that managed to take a 3-0 lead sucks. Sure. Right. Spot on.

Some of you really are fucking dense. Expecting us to win every fucking game and when we don't, we blow. If you feel that way, go support someone else.

mate, i dont expect us to win every game... but giving up a 3 goal lead at this level is bad football, no matter what the opposition... scoring 3 goals against man u isnt a big deal, even blackburn can do that. football is a lot more than scoring goals...

maybe i can give avb some concession that jt and cole were not thr...

It was not a deserved lead. I think everybody here knows it but you. That was why it was so easy for them to lose the lead as well. They didnt work for it in the first place. It is very obvious to see unless one is as naive as you are.

I mean, I thought you were off-kilter before but you've really lost it. I doubt you're even a Chelsea supporter.

jack, stop giving these supporter types arguments all over again. we know that it'S  a passe. talk some sense . 

If you guys actually had some sense, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

if we all had the same viewpoint, thr wouldnt be any discussion in the first place... 

what i want is my team to put in their 100% in every game... that just hasnt happened this season...
 
we played poorly, accept it. 

on the plus side, we are still undefeated this yr!!!

exactly my point.

What? What? My word these people are out of it.

there are no words to describe how i am feeling........just wow....fuck this shit.

If you had asked me before the match, I would have taken a draw. But like this? Feels like two points lost.

De Gea...unbelievable save. Mata cannot hit that any fucking better. fuck this game. 

Fuck this. Just fuck it.

How much longer is AVB going to stand there and pretend that David Luiz has a whiff of what's called defensive instinct.

I actually thought David Luiz played really well today...

it isnt fair to put the blame on one player... we, as a team have been making mistakes at critical junctions throughout this season... 

no matter how much i hate man u, SAF manages to instill the kind of mental strength needed to win titles in his team, season after season...

i still have faith in avb... but that doesnt matter, its Ra's faith that matters

How much longer are people going to heap blame on a mostly blameless David Luiz?

the goal was not just luiz fault, it was the entire defense, it started with a horrible double team, than essien didn't follow scholes

This is embarrassing.

you could feel this shit coming.

Romeu looks like he hasn't played football before. Come on

how do we keep getting howard webb for these big games. fucking RIDICULOUS. he's blind as a fucking bat and a bigger United fan than Gary fucking Neville. how you award two straight penalties to let a team come completely back into the game is beyond me. the first one, probably a penalty. the second one, absolutely fucking not. what a joke.