Chelsea Thread 2013/14 (continued)

[BigOscar]

He set up the goal today. He is doing fine and their inability to break down teams has little to do with him. Hard to say Chelsea struggled to 'break down' Swansea today either. Salah and Etoo had a couple of great chances each. They started the game with their two most creative players missing too. Matic is good at his job and will only get better given time.

Are you saying that a central midfielder should not be responsible for creating goalscoring chances?

Chelsea struggled to breakdown a team that were down to 10 men after 10 minutes of the game. Matic then proceeded to fire one square pass after the other, and slowing down the pace of Chelsea’s attacks. I’d expect more from a player that cost £20m.

One dimensional midfielders who are only able to play in a defensive manner are, thankfully, fading out of the game. The better teams cannot carry players with such limited ability in an important part of the pitch. They may have a place at some clubs but only those clubs that play boring, pragmatic football.

Are you Tim Sherwood?

 

[Manc in London]

He's been absolutely fantastic for them and turned their season around.

In what games?

didn't watch the game today, so can't comment on that, but he has 4 assists in his 11 games this year for them, which for a holding midfielder is phenominal.

Stats over an 11 game period are hardly meaningful.

here is not a better holding midfielder in world football at the moment than Matic

Unbelieveable.

 

[BigOscar]

He's been absolutely fantastic for them and turned their season around.

In what games?

didn't watch the game today, so can't comment on that, but he has 4 assists in his 11 games this year for them, which for a holding midfielder is phenominal.

Stats over an 11 game period are hardly meaningful.

here is not a better holding midfielder in world football at the moment than Matic

Unbelieveable.

Stoke, Arsenal, Spurs, Fulham, us and pretty much every other game hes played for them.

Stats over 11 games are meaningless, but you watching one game and deciding he passed is sideways too much makes him useless and holding midfielders in general to be a waste of space. Excellent, good to know.

I think you'll find you are very much alone in your belief that he is a hinderance to the Chelsea team, I think youll struggle to find any Chelsea fans who don't think he is already one of their most important players.

 

[Manc in London]

Stoke, Arsenal, Spurs, Fulham, us and pretty much every other game hes played for them.

With the exception of us, you referred to teams with poor midfields.

In the first game against us, he was trying to do a one marking job on Yaya. Yaya could have scored a hattrick. In no instance was the reason Yaya not scoring down to Matic.

Stats over 11 games are meaningless, but you watching one game and deciding he passed is sideways too much makes him useless and holding midfielders in general to be a waste of space. Excellent, good to know.

I have watched him play on numerous occasions. I don't knee jerk. But then neither am I a fanboy type or someone who believes everything SKY tells them.

I think you'll find you are very much alone in your belief that he is a hinderance to the Chelsea team, I think youll struggle to find any Chelsea fans who don't think he is already one of their most important players.

Interesting. I am based in London and know a few Chelsea fans. Some of them do not see the point in him at all. BUt then you must be based in Surrey or SW London as you appear to know the views of Chelsea fans.

He offers no more than Javi Garcia yet you think he is the best in the world.

Better in a holding position than Bender? Godogan? Khedira? Gustavo? Busquets? Alonson? Schweinsteiger? De Rossi? Fernandinho? I could go on. Is he even better than Sandro, Schneiderlin and Barry?

I am simply making the point that I believe he is a limited footballer and not the incredible talent SKY make him out to be. He may turn out to be good but at the moment he does not deserve anywhere near that level of praise.

 

[BigOscar]

Given that I've probably watched him play about 50 times for Benfica, without Sky telling me what to think about him, I can safely say that I'm not just going along with what Sky tells me. He offers far more than Javi Garcia and is actually an incredibly talented all round midfield player, who can run at players, make incisive passes and score goals. He is not remotely limited.

 

[Manc in London]

Given that I've probably watched him play about 50 times for Benfica, without Sky telling me what to think about him, I can safely say that I'm not just going along with what Sky tells me. He offers far more than Javi Garcia and is actually an incredibly talented all round midfield player, who can run at players, make incisive passes and score goals. He is not remotely limited.

That explains it, you are a fanboy. Waste of time debating the issue.

 

[Gabriel]

Chelsea will line up against Liverpool in the same way as they did at the Etihad.

Don't remember....a bunch of DMs, right? Hard to play against and can be physically demanding on opposition. Unlike many other managers, Chelsea will do it unapologetically which helps them in one off games.

Assuming he has them all to call upon, he'll probably deploy Matic, Ramires, and Luiz in the middle and push his full backs up on the counter. They'll probably sit on the 18 yard line as well and reduce the space for Liverpool to run into.

 

[mikeblue12]

Matic has basically replaced Mikel and so far has been a massive step up in quality. There aren't many Chelsea fans that aren't happy with him so far. I'm not quite sure how much the guy who doesn't rate him has watched of him as his opinion definitely seems to be in the minority? He's a far better player than Garcia, who let's be honest hasn't been all that great so far in England.

 

[supercrystal7]

Chelsea will line up against Liverpool in the same way as they did at the Etihad.

Don't remember....a bunch of DMs, right? Hard to play against and can be physically demanding on opposition. Unlike many other managers, Chelsea will do it unapologetically which helps them in one off games.

Assuming he has them all to call upon, he'll probably deploy Matic, Ramires, and Luiz in the middle and push his full backs up on the counter. They'll probably sit on the 18 yard line as well and reduce the space for Liverpool to run into.

For the first 30 minutes or so they will. For the life of me I don't understand why City did not sit back for the first half an hour or so. Eventually Liverpool would tire and the quality of City would tell (as it did).

Mourinho will probably need to win this game so I expect Hazard and Willian will start out wide with Oscar coming on if they need to win. The bigger question is who starts upfront. I think it will be Ba or Torres, because of their physical presence.

 

[ForzaMancini]

Apologies if already posted, from BBC Sport. Nice gesture from Chelsea.

Chelsea subsidise Champions League tickets at Atletico Madrid

Chelsea have reduced prices for away fans travelling to Atletico Madrid for the Champions League semi-final by £20 a ticket.
The Blues want to "thank travelling supporters for the fantastic backing they have given to the team over the course of the whole season".
The Stamford Bridge club have been allocated 3,071 tickets for the first leg in Madrid on 22 April.
Prices for the match now range between £38 and £79.50.
Champions League winners in 2012, Chelsea reached the last four by beating Paris St-Germain on away goals after beating the French side 2-0 in London on 8 April.