Chelsea (H) Post Match

[Kenneth]

Plenty of teams have failed to come up with an answer to Mourinho's patented 9 - 0 - 1 formation in the past, and I'd imagine plenty more will fail in the future. No shame in that.

They create a solid wall infront of their box so you cant get through the middle, so you can either go down the wings (we have neither the wingers or the stickers suitable for this) or you can take long shots (as some have said, that's one area we can improve on next season).

I suppose you can sit back and wait for them to eventually push out a bit, but I can't see Mourinho doing that unless they absolutely have to win - and so you'll end up with a 0-0 borefest. In hindsight, we probably should have done this, but thats just not Rodgers mindset, and not one the team will have been coached to do either.

Its disappointing, but thats football - you can't win them all.

We're still in it - City need to win all three remaining games, and they're plenty capable of a ****up. If they win it, it will have been with a 5-game winning streak, and you would have to hold your hands up and say they were the more consistent team over the season. As long as we win our remaining two games, we'll still have a reasonable chance of winning the title - all the pressure is on City now.

Nope, we'll whine about the terrible offside decision against sterling.

[destinydude]

Plenty of teams have failed to come up with an answer to Mourinho's patented 9 - 0 - 1 formation in the past, and I'd imagine plenty more will fail in the future. No shame in that.

They create a solid wall infront of their box so you cant get through the middle, so you can either go down the wings (we have neither the wingers or the stickers suitable for this) or you can take long shots (as some have said, that's one area we can improve on next season).

I know a tactic that can partly undo hose's 9-0-1. It involves playing physical & taller CBs as strikers. Keep hitting crosses so that the CB out powers and out jumps and gets on the end.

We can play a 3-4-2-1 with 3 CBs and the rest 7 can scatter around the attacking half with the '1' being your CB. It works sometimes.

[cannotmakeit]

I know a tactic that can partly undo hose's 9-0-1. It involves playing physical & taller CBs as strikers. Keep hitting crosses so that the CB out powers and out jumps and gets on the end.

We can play a 3-4-2-1 with 3 CBs and the rest 7 can scatter around the attacking half with the '1' being your CB. It works sometimes.

[destinydude]

Even Andy C works but he won't be happy to sit on the bench just for a starting spot for 2 games against Chelsea

[Buzzo]

I think one thing is we lacked options from the bench.

Sturridge (particularly a fit Sturridge) would have made a difference, but as it was he was just thrown into heavy traffic and could not really make a difference. Aspas – less said the better, but as the game wore on there was an inevitability to the result – and that was the success of Chelseas tactics, they were happy to let us have the ball. It was not pretty, it was definitely risky, but on this occasion it worked for them. When you look at the

One thing I did notice was Chelsea worked hard to match our intensity in the opening 10 minutes, which worked for them. We certainly were not close to blowing them away. I cannot stand the man and though it certainly wasn’t a masterclass from Mourinho, it was a comprehensive defensive display, and if the boot we achieved a 2 nil win playing the same way yesterday, I doubt too many of us would be complaining.

We feel injustice in that we were in such good form it was hard to see where the defeat was coming from. We had one hand on the title, and it has slipped. We thought we had won it and now we have doubt. However City are not invincible and the pressure firmly shifts to them – let’s see how they deal with it. I think there are some surprises left could Everton provide one of them. Even a draw for City next week and we are firmly back in the game!

Its certainly more exciting than a scramble for the Europa League. Exciting times ahead for sure.

[DKdan]

It kind of is when after the game you apparently have the grand plan that would have solved everything. But before the game your only worry seemed to be would Victor Moses tell the Chelsea management stuff about us, nothing about tactics.

Thank you for picking out a part of the post and mentioning my comments on Moses. I take it you really WERE surprised by Chelseas tactic then!

[Chris]

I think one thing is we lacked options from the bench.

Yeah both Chelsea games have hit that home badly unfortunately, away we had to start a team exhausted from the xmas period and with Allen and Henderson playing half fit. Brad Smith coming on as a sub etc. Then yesterday we only had Sturridge, who was only on the bench as he was nowhere near fit enough to be playing anyway. Defo need two more quality attackers, for me thats more important than fixing any defensive faults or whatever. We've coped remarkably this season considering but defo need to get to a stage where we can sit Suarez on the bench for a game or have plenty of cover for Sturridge's next injury.

[Roboklopp]

Yeah both Chelsea games have hit that home badly unfortunately, away we had to start a team exhausted from the xmas period and with Allen and Henderson playing half fit. Brad Smith coming on as a sub etc. Then yesterday we only had Sturridge, who was only on the bench as he was nowhere near fit enough to be playing anyway. Defo need two more quality attackers, for me thats more important than fixing any defensive faults or whatever. We've coped remarkably this season considering but defo need to get to a stage where we can sit Suarez on the bench for a game or have plenty of cover for Sturridge's next injury.

It doesn't help that Lucas clearly isnt the player he was pre-injury.

[McDermotX]

[DKdan]

Knowing what they were going to do, and actually overcoming it, are two different things. Man City couldn't, A. Madrid couldn't, and now we couldn't. However, as I just said above, was our game plan really so bad? They never looked like scoring in the first half, and it was them who needed to win after all. Once they had a lead to defend we were in serious trouble, but prior to that only one team looked like they had any likelyhood of scoring and that was us.

When Gerrard slipped our CBs were on line with him at the halfway line. If Lampard had slipped, would Suarez have had a clear run?

That City and Atletico couldn't should have taught us not to go down that route.

You state yourself that they were the ones in need of the win. Thats why I thought we should have been more patient in our approach.

You have to be more causious against as a Mourinho team as they are specialists in punishing mistakes, and there is no worse team to play against when they are one goal up.

I have more faith in Rodgers than I have ever had in a manager and I'm sure he has learned from this already. But I thought he was a bit naive and too romantic about what to do. Fortune favours the bold - but not against Mourinho's anti-football. And having worked for him I would have thought that he had learned it already.

[Pablo]

You have to wonder what Skrtel has to do to earn a 10 really!

[el matador]

we all knew what mourinho was going to do yesterday and it wasnt a big surprise to us that chelsea used all the dirty tactics in the book to waste time, slow the game down and frustrate the crowd.

we saw yesterday why we're not ready to be champions yet. when chelsea parked the bus with their deep lying defence, we couldnt open them up - towards the end we looked devoid of ideas. Yet for me there's no shame in that because better teams than ours will struggle to open up the best defensive team in europe.

But the match showed us that we are really struggling to put together a competitive squad to equal the others. Flanagan for all his defensive excellence isnt what you need when going forward. chelsea were happy to concede space on the left knowing that flanagan couldnt hurt them. We had no proper replacement for sturridge who when he did come on looked so far off the pace - he wasnt ready at all to play but that he came on before a fully fit aspas says everything. When aspas came on we wish he hadnt.

Lucas replaced henderson in the middle and he looked way off the pace too. We just didnt have any decent replacements for these lads who are crucial to our game. Henderson missing was massive because neither lucas nor allen are a threat from midfield so it made chelseas job of defending their goal much easier. Focus on stopping suarez and sterling and keep an eye on the rest.

the league isnt lost yet we need to improve the squad massively this summer in quality and depth to compete again for top four next season.

thats why i would sell suarez this summer if a decent offer comes in.

[Alex]

the league isnt lost yet we need to improve the squad massively this summer in quality and depth to compete again for top four next season.
thats why i would sell suarez this summer if a decent offer comes in.

You cant improve your squad if you sell the leagues best player. We will be worse without him.

[Kenneth]

Dropped a bombshell at the end

[Red_Polo]

When Gerrard slipped our CBs were on line with him at the halfway line. If Lampard had slipped, would Suarez have had a clear run?

Bizarre analogy to make given the hugely different roles they play. The players were in the positions they were supposed to be in. The mistake was the slip, not the lack of positioning set up to cover it!