Rangers 2-0 Chelsea

[DP89]

Chelsea lost 2-0 away at Rangers this afternoon.

Please use this thread for match reaction.

[Sleeping Dave]

Second Half (4-2-3-1):

Hilario

Johnson - Terry - Ricky - Ben Haim

Lampard - Mikel

SWP - Pizarro - Sidwell

Drogba

Poor poor performace. Second half a tad disastrous. A nice performance by Ben Haim, Sidwell and Terry in the first half was followed by very poor performances by these players in the second. Sidwell was back to being useless when played in more "exotic" formations. Felt like we played with the diamond again with Pizarro between the diamond and Drogba. Sidwell could not hold his position on the left at all; he was all over the place. Ben Haim did not look comfortable at LB or RB. Mikel not convincing defensively and Lampard is just being too damn selfish. He had several opportunities to pass to Pizarro/Sinclair etc but opted every single time to take the shoot himself. Useless attempts I might add. Does he think everyone in the team shall play for his benefit ensuring him to score 20 again? He needs to get his act together. FAST.

From approx min 70 (4-3-3):

Johnson - Cole

Drogba - Sinclair

Ben Haim - Terry - Ricky - Cole

Mikel

Lampard - Sidwell

SWP Pizarro Sinclair

Did not help much at all. Both goals came with this formation.

Brøndby IF next in my home city Copenhagen. How embarrassing it would be to loose, unfortunately not feeling extremely unlikely with performances like this. Only a handful of players have looked decent in pre-season; SWP/Malouda/Sinclair/Mikel/Ricky and to some extent Johnson.

The rest has been way below normal standards. I am starting to get a tad worried. I didn't look convincing against Feyenoord either.

[lord percy pwns]

Lampard is just being too damn selfish. He had several opportunities to pass to Pizarro/Sinclair etc but opted every single time to take the shoot himself. Useless attempts I might add. Does he think everyone in the team shall play for his benefit ensuring him to score 20 again? He needs to get his act together. FAST.

To me, this is a pretty key question.

I can't think of many times in which, goals apart, Lampard has impressed me this year. But obviously goals are the overall aim of the sport!

Hypothetically, is everyone playing for him, equalling 20 goals... justified by the 20 goals?

[kooliomix3]

"Sidwell was back to being useless when played in more "exotic" formations."

He was our best player by a country mile I felt, how he "went back" to being useless is beyond me! He's been very impressive in pre-season.

Didn't think it was a disaster either, we had some good chances and good play but we didn't score simple as that. here doesn't need to be a big fuss about this!

[Kun]

Considering a lost, I think we played our best football of the pre-season. Lamps is really getting stuck in just luck didn't go for him. Sidwell he is coming along now. I hope Drogs is gonna be alright, just looks like a niggle but great attacking game and Pizarro is fitting in ok now.

Up the blues (Chelsea Blues).

[Jakalele]

Chelsea lost 2-0 away at Rangers this afternoon.

Please use this thread for match reaction.

Is it only me who is so sick of hearing it's all about fitness the results not important bla bla bla. What's the point of fitness if you can't play 6 yard short passes, if there's no team chemistry or understanding and no skill or really any confidence.

To be honest I think we could do with a bit more pace up front maybe play Kalou behind one the strikers when he comes back. I really hope we do sign Alves though I fear Mourinho may try and make him more defensive minded, as our attacking play all pre-season has frankly been shocking. As mentioned before I think our whole play is overall very slow, one dimensional and predictable. I thought Mourinho promised more attacking free flowing football this season? We need to get forward and create a LOT more chances than we are now. We have one of the best defences in the world what's going on?

I'm not going to single out any particular players as they all have their own faults which most people are already aware of but I really do worry this season though I hope I'll be proved wrong, and I REALLY doubt we will win the CS as we just don't seem close to ready. If we sell Robben I think we can rule out winning the league this year. I know some will point to this only being a pre-season friendly but we look so poor and even though in the game against the blue wings we did look quite good we still lacked the finishing touch and they are quite frankly Sh*te. As a final thought and this frustrates me the most. WHY? when ever a player even comes close to getting tackled or even a player is running towards us do we get scared and play a long ball or pass it back to the defence then play it along the back four then give it back to Cech! The midfield needs to drop deeper and create more options for the player on the ball especially the wingers who always seem very isolated.

MOTM: Hilario?? (Why are we playing him?)

[eyimbafc]

We have definitely not improved much from last season.. We are yet to see the dominating play especially from the wings that won us our back to back titles... We had no movement, neither do we have any swagger... Our midfielders are too static.... Same problem in offense as last season.. Zero Creativity and Zero Penetration... Of all our new signings, Ben Haim looks like the only guy I can trust... Also malouda but he is no Robben... Kenyon better get it to his head that Robben IS NOT FOR SALE..... He is the only guy that provides spark in the offense when fit.... Sheva looks like a baller when compared to Pizzario (who so far looks below average)

Offensively, we are not fluid at all... I think our current crop of players are getting slower by the day... Some say we now have better ball possession, but no one has realised that 50% of our passes takes place amongst the DM and the Back four... We dont do anything with our possesion.. I will rather we go for the jugular at each possesion than passing the ball amongst the defenders without any thing to show for it....

I am really dissapointed.. Our best preseason game so far is the 2nd half of the game vs. Club america.... I thought I will see more of that, but we have flattered to deceive so far...

Sorry boyz but brace yourself.. At this rate IT IS GOING TO BE A LONG AND FRUSTRATING SEASON......

Our Defense is the only positive so far this preseason...

[gbola/toto]

I have always said it. I do not fault Sheva for his undesirable display. Lampard is the cause. Sheva strives as a striker from the chances created by phenomenal midfielders like Kaka, Rui Costa...e.t.c. Lampard is no 1/10th the player kaka and Rui are/were. Lampard does only one thing for the team - shoot!!! if Jose had the teams best interest at heart, Lampard will be let go. He has been horrible and I cannot understand how Jose can justufy picking Lampard on form?? I can't. Jose is simply telling lies, because if he picked his team on merit, Lampard will not be a starter. 130,000 a week? what a rubbish!! chelsea will be ignorant to give him that money. he can go to Barca... opps!! Barca said he was not good enough!

[Jakalele]

Considering a lost, I think we played our best football of the pre-season. Lamps is really getting stuck in just luck didn't go for him. Sidwell he is coming along now. I hope Drogs is gonna be alright, just looks like a niggle but great attacking game and Pizarro is fitting in ok now.

Up the blues (Chelsea Blues).

What planet are you on?!

[mercury]

Should be a good wake-up call. There is still no evidence that our attacking play has improved at all, from last season. This time, even with wingers.

When was the last time we conceded 2 goals in about 3 minutes under Jose's regime? This game after thinking it would become more promising in the second half turned into an embarrassment in the second at the death.

I have to agree with ifan and it's starting to concern me, whilst there were some positives (Ashley Cole came on and did very well, Diarra was good in the first half, Steve Sidwell seems to be settling in okay generally) but our link up play, pace on the ball and final penetration are very poor for a team of our supposed creative quality.

Rangers played very directly and the first goal was a great shot - what we should have been doing more of instead of passing it around slowly and with little offensive threat in the midfield. Rangers are not a better side than us but they deserved the win. The second goal was a deflected shot actually, nothing the goalie could do.

Drogba looked uninterested and a bit off today, in fact it's a bit of a worry, Sheva was his usual anonymous self, Sincliar at least brought some speed and pace to the game with his running but is a little naive with his play which is understandable. Frank woke up a little later in the second half but was generally selfish in his play, he needs to buck up his ideas. We could have stayed on that pitch for 10 hours and not scored.

Offensively Rangers offered some threat but they were not remarkable but what most concern Jose is that we really hardly threatened their goal aside from a ping pong match for a few seconds and the odd shot here and there.

I think this has certainly given something for Jose to think about but I'm not sure if it's going to be that enlightening. We do a lot of passing in the midfield but lack the directness of Man Utd who use the likes of Rooney and Ronaldo to create something and score. No matter what formation we seem to use in midfield or upfront with Drogba/Pizarro/Sheva it makes no difference.

The signs were there in early pre-season that we have had trouble scoring as almost all our goals have been from bad defensive errors. And Drogba has yet to get up to speed for me.

I know that everyone keeps saying this is pre-season and it doesn't matter but if I was Jose I would not be that happy with the team's performance today, we can't score, never look really like scoring and defensively at times were were carved open but bad finishing and a poorer quality of player kept goal out.

Mikel also made a few bad missed passes today, SWP was reasonably lively and his crosses were good but again zero result. Joe Cole is very quiet, if we don't see some improvement in our goal scoring and general creative play by Brondby I think we are in for a long and difficult season and I don't relish playing Man Utd in the charity shield right now, Rooney, Ronaldo and Nani are scoring for fun and their defence is settled and solid.

Rangers were not that wonderful but they were direct and that directness paid off - I understand that we keep chopping and changing our formation and some of our players were not available today but upon this showing we need all the help we can get. We don't look a settled side, Jose doesn't seem sure who to play where, he keeps swapping players around in defence and midfield but our play does not improve.

I knew I shouldn't have gloated over that Liverpool loss yesterday.

Jose has a long way to go to convince the media and fans that we are entering a new era of Chelsea attacking football on this showing and they'll make fun of this result tomorrow because without playing that fantastically well Rangers ended up comfortably beating us.

And one thing that does not suit Jose is walking away a loser from any match, this had to hurt because aside from a the odd positive note I saw nothing today that leads me to believe we will be able to regain our title from Man Utd.