22 Apr 2013 21:53:26
Really getting sick and tired of the constant Torres and Mikel bashing. Did they have great games? No. Personally I don't understand why Torres started or played the whole game when he's our only striker eligible for the Europa League. He had a quiet game but really didn't get many opportunities to shoot from let alone score.
And as for Mikel, both him and Ramires are both statistically better defensively than Lampard. And everyone will say statistics mean nothing blah blah blah. But when you want to stop or stiffle a free flowing team like Liverpool you need a player who makes tackles/interceptions which Mikel does more often than Lampard. In my opinion if we'd started with Lampard we'd have had even less possesion and been under the kosh a lot more. So maybe we stick Luiz in midfield? That means playing Terry and Iva at the back which equals no pace and Suarez/Sturridge etc will destroy them with pace.
We started with probably the best team possible (except for Torres/Ba) but the substitutes were woeful and contributed to our demise. Taking off the only players that are able to take the ball out of our own half and relieve any sort of pressure and putting on Yossi, who offered nothing was stupid. It just invited more pressure.
I have no idea where the 6 minutes came from and I understand it's a minimum of 6 minutes but it still bewilders where it came from as time added on at that length only usually comes from lengthy injuries. Having said that our defence switched off for the last 30seconds thinking the ref would have blown the whistle.
Amen, well said.
O come on both have been bellow average since they joined us. Apart from the odd game! It wasn't just against Liverpool! Mikel cost us champions league v juventus. His passing is sloppy his tackleing is terrible, he's slower than my pet dog who's 15, he can't pass, I can hardly win a header against someone 6 inches shorter, he gives away dangerous free kicks constantly. He wouldn't get in at arsenal or spurs so why at Chelsea? At the end of the day our 3 best managers mourinho, ancelotti and hiddink all went with other players above Mikel. Now we our poor in midfield he looks better but when you lose ballack, Essien, deco, the old lamps, Makellele and not have any replaced part from ramires coming in its a joke.
Bearing in mind the wages these players are on switching off before the final whistle is a little bit unprofessional. Play to the whistle don't think it would be good for players to keep checking stopwatches throughout match.
I never said that I thought either of them were good or Chelsea standard did I? Would I want them to play for us in an ideal world? Hell no. But it's not an ideal world and they are who we have. Mikel may be s*** but he still tackles more than Lampard. He's not a better player but better defensively if only slightly.
There's no use in constantly complaining about them playing when we have no-one better to play.
I don't condone or excuse the players for switching off. I was simply stating that they did. And in reality they were truly expecting the referee to have blown the whistle already.