So, Community Shield is going to kick off this sunday, got any predictions guys?
This picture, so weird.

I think I have written this in the wrong thread! -_- welcome to my Monday!

@Marcus, I really like how you always assume to know me, but, unfortunately, in reality don't have a clue of what I say. How could there be bitterness when what I just wrote has been what I've been preaching for YEARS. History of football, contrary to what you might think, did not start in the Fall of 2014. If you have the money to buy the necessary players, playing this pragmatic defensive style against big teams is not difficult. In recent times, I remember United playing like that once away against City in 2011-12 season and it backfired because our players were not accustomed to do so. Because when the prestige level of you club rises, so do the expectations. Doing what Mourinho does in certain games is COWARDLY, but your club is perfectly happy doing so because almost all of you lot believe that the end justifies the means. I remember a few months ago when Mayweather defeated Pacquiao by implementing a very negative, defensive tactic, focused solely on getting points and not to entertain or create an spectacle, you were saying the exact opposite. Well, what Mayweather did was perfectly legal within the rules of boxing and actually won "fair and square", to use your own words. But that doesn't mean that we consider him a true champion. Think about what "fair and square" means. The thing is that you change your arguments when it suits who you support. "Several" philosophies is an oxymoron and that is why Chelsea will never reach the heights of a Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, R. Madrid or even an Arsenal. They will always be categorized in the same bracket as a City or a PSG because they are too afraid to forge their own identity and elevate the game to a higher level.

@thegame

I know if I write something , it won't change your mind to even consider to show respect to Chelsea , so pretty much I be waisting my time . However, Just refer to table and stats of 2014 - 2015 . Also check all our records since 2003 .

Also , every manager implements it's philosophy . That is why counter attacking team like Bayern now playing tiki taka passing . Maybe next year they will change their style of football completely .

But let me remind you , because you must have become English League fan recently , otherwise you would surely remember days when Arsenal was called boring club . Do you also remember days when United played boring and defensive ? Real Madrid who completely abandoned their philosophy went back 25% possession to beat Bayern in semi final of CL. So are they all COWARDS ? What was Barcelona philosophy before Cruyff came ? Yeah check that

Italian clubs , Like AC Milan ( 80s ) JUve ( 90s ) and atc , who love or loved playing defensive , are they cowards as well ? We recently started to count possession and stats so suddenly you found your scape goats and written off 150 years of football history ..

If you going to call our club Cowards , try to check your clubs history too because you sound like a Fan if you know what i mean .

Also , Comparing apples and oranges . Boxing fighter with Football club .... Really ? No really mate ?

I am sure Liverpool dominance days people used to talk down on United a lot , but times change now Liverpool are being talked down upon . City , PSG and Chelsea are going to push big clubs . Every year things are only getting better . Ooh you guys just hate it . Well guys get used to it . Careful though, You may become like Liverpool talking none stop about good old glory days in patronizing manner .

@ashwin

Fair . He had a fantastic season . So did few other goalkeepers , Like Costel Pantilimon who probably brought just as many points for his club if not more to save them from relegation . We know Sunderland probably had one of the worst defenders in EPL . United are top team fighting for top 4, so De Gea gets more publicity .

It pisses me off when a mod call the team I support cowards.. Really uncalled for. I certainly enjoy every second of Chelsea playing football. I like how they're equally good in all positions, in difference to for example Man United! I don't agree either that "If you have the money to buy the necessary players, playing this pragmatic defensive style against big teams is not difficult." because it really is. Look how many other teams that have tried implemented this but failed. If so many fans think that the end justifies the means, and it's so easy to win, according to you, why don't more teams do this? For me, I think the defensively game of football is just as beautiful as attacking football. And again..Chelsea scored the second highest amount of goals in the BPL last season so I think it's rather wrong to call it defensively played football. Feels like some people are still kids in that matter; eg. remember when no one wanted to play full back when we were younger and instead every single one wanted to score every single goal?

@KTBFFHSWE: I'm a big fan of Mou, so I want you to understand that before you read rest of my comment. I also want you to know that, I support defensive tactics when you're playing against superior teams or when you need to grind out a win against a strong even opposition, and I have said that several times before on here. That being said, I'm ok with Mou parking the bus against the top teams so that he can win a few points. But what I disapprove, and find cowardly is parking the bus against lesser teams. I will not support that. A team like Chelsea should not have to resolve to parking the bus against the likes of Southamption, Stoke, Crystal Palace..etc. I do not watch every Chelsea game, so I may not have the complete list, but I remember last year Mou parked the bus at home against a couple of lesser teams. He also did the same in quite a few away games against the non top 8 teams as well. I agree with theGame on this. So bottom line is that, I respect Chelsea for parking the bus and beating Bayern and Barcelona. Because, they were superior teams. I, however, do not like what Mou does against the likes of Westham, and other lesser clubs. And I find that very immature, and lack of respect for the game itself. Hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

@ash I do understand what you are saying and I agree with you. There are plenty of times Chelsea could have gone forward instead of closing the game too early. With that being said, I don't like when some people are trying to take away the effort that is put into the Chelsea tactics. It's just as hard, if not harder, to play defensively minded football as attacking football. I totally agree that Mou closes his games too early sometimes against weaker opposition, but that has cost us dearly!!.. At the same time Chelsea won the league while scoring the second highest amount of goals and conceding the second lowest amount of goals..

@Marcus: How many of those saves that Pantilimon were quality saves? I remember most of Pantilimon's saves were against the bottom 6 clubs or so....and one Man City game...

@ashwin

Now you are deceiving yourself and others .

Against Crystal palace both matches we had 60 - 70 % poss , with both matches total of shots close to 24 .

Southampton both matches we had 60 % in both matches with about 29 shots .

Only in stoke city we had 50% in away match and 60% home , with total shots in both matches 25 .

Against Bayern we had 43% of course shots comparison we fell badly , with 6 shots to 21 , but if you really watched that match you would see we had just as good of chances to finish match early .

EPL 2014-2015 We had average possession 56% and avg 14 shots per game . Is that bad ? We had 71% of our goals come from open play . We played much less from counter attacking than in 2013-2014 campaign when we made two passes and goals . Teams that park bus often score from counter attack , we played more possessional football .

You all guys are honestly just keep throwing baseless accusations just for the heck of it . Just to mess with us every year it is something else . Why ? You are just like Media but worse because at least Media knows what they are talking about .

You keep showing hatred towards our club but can't properly back it up . If you can't back something up and throwing provocative false labels on to others than i consider those members as Trolls . I don't believe you are one @ashwin , but don't act like one .

Jesus Christ, Mourinho and his supporters are all alike. No wonder Jose is such a perfect fit for Chelsea.

@Dynastian Very mature and open-minded statement.

@Marcus,
Do you know the term false equivalence? Why are you comparing Chelsea of today with teams of the past who did not have nearly the same resources as Mourinho's team does and/or did not deploy park-the-bus in systematic, more frequent ways. Mourinho's park the bust tactics, some of which were deployed at Inter, are absolutely atrocious and give true, understandable defensive football a BAD NAME. When you go to PSG away and concede 26 shots total, 14 of which were on target, is that really your defense being effective or are you just getting lucky and desperate, and are too much of a stubborn COWARD to take the opponent head on?

Do you seriously think that we don't know boxing and football are two different sports? Or was that just another way to completely ignore the analogy and concept behind my comparison?

You're right about one thing though. It is a complete waste of my time to try and justify myself to Chelsea fans on FR because many of you, unfortunately, are cut from the same cloth and don't think as individuals but rather as cliques. This has confirmed my suspicion that there are three types of football fans: Those who dislike Mourinho. Those who really dislike Mourinho. And Chelsea supporters. @D, there is some truth to what you wrote, but I think the opposite is true: Mourinho is the one who changed Chelsea fans into becoming abrasive like him and displaying similar feelings of victimhood. He himself never changed.

Can't wait till we beat the crap out of United ;) Tired of having FF mods bashing on every single Chelsea fan on here. You're entitles to your opinion but don't take your opinions for granted. Other people may have different opinions of the same. That's it for me.

"Mourinho is the one who changed Chelsea fans into becoming abrasive like him and displaying similar feelings of victimhood."

^this. and i feel very sad about it because in EPL i actually support Chelsea.

@KTBFFHSWE
"Tired of having FF mods bashing on every single Chelsea fan on here. You're entitles to your opinion but don't take your opinions for granted."

it is wrong to stick the "Mods" appellative to your fellas in this actual context. we all need to always keep in mind that the "Mods" are human beings. as you said, they do have an opinion and they're entitled to it. Mods can express their opinions just like you guys, they can make jokes and deliver banters, just like you. because all that can be done plenty, still without breaking the forum etiquette.

but thing is, that different opinions sometimes are taken, by certain users, as disrespectful provocations. and that's where our problem lies here. we could get to the point where i set my threshold so low, that if someone tells me "i don't like AC Milan" i am going to do a tragedy about it, complaining about how disrespectful the statement was and blablabla. in most of the cases it's all about the threshold, and some people are setting their bars too low.

@Netsten

Alright, I'll admit it. That was rude and rash of me. But surely you understand why I said that. Not all Chelsea supporters are like Mourinho. But a large percentage of them sure as hell are (at least from my perspective).

@Marcus: I can keep possession the entire 90 mins of the game, and say I had 100% possession, and played attacking football. Stats can be very misleading. Example, take the Everton game in the opening weeks last year. Chelsea won it I think 5-3 or 6-3, but I vividly remember Everton dominating the entire game. Those open play goals that you speak off are fine. But remember counters are also considered open play goals, and teams that counter a lot depend on defending well, and finding a break. How many of those were of counters?

The Southamption game that you say have 29 shots over 2 games? You clearly forget to mention that you had only 7 shots in the first game. Southamption had like 9-10 shots. What do you say of that?

Remember how Bradford dominated Chelsea at home?

What about Hazard having to rescue Chelsea against Westham?

And remember how Chelsea failed to attack against an inspired Hull team?

I'm not going to attack you with comments like "deceiving yourself and others", that's not my type. Bottom line is Marcus, I can go on with the list. I did not even include how Chelsea did not want to attack against Man City in both the games, even when Zabalette was sent off in one, and you had like 20 mins remaining in that game including added time. How you parked the bus against United (after 60 mins) in both the games. I'm not even going to talk about Liverpool games or those against PSG, Arsenal, and Schalke.

Statistics are only so relevant till some extent. But watch your team play against the lesser teams, you'll understand what I'm trying to say. Liverpool year before last year played exceptionally well. They attacked against every team, and that is what led to their downfall. Had they played park the bus against Chelsea, they would have won the title. Like I said, its ok to park the bus, but not against teams that are inferior to your squad's quality.

I've always given credit where it's due, especially to Mou and his methods. But, I'm done with this argument.

Whatever boys , we always seem as victims to you . Just watch it . I will just let my team to do talking on the field . Enjoy another season chasing Chelsea . I promise you this . Keep hating , it keeps us hot on our toes !

"Bus parking ""Coward" team that does not know how to play football embarrasses you at your own fields in domestic league . Then goes to Europe represents England proudly since 1998 . Please ooh the GREATS of Football teach us the beautiful attacking football you play after spending millions on players who can't shoot straight . Pretty pathetic that only thing you reserve to when your club is loosing is to dive for free kicks and penalties .

@dynastian

In English football traditions especially in Chelsea , we have RESPECT to our players and OUR Manager ( even supported fat waiter Benitez ) . We back them 100% in good and bad times . Something that "nobel" club like Real never learned to do .

Also you should worship Mourinho ! Ungrateful madrid fans . You would have been eating Barcas dust and sh*t till this days if it was not for him . Watch how fat Benitez fcks all the work that he has done . Good luck this season .

@Marcus and @KTBFFHSWE: I have to disagree. Btw, it's not us again Chelsea... the crowd does things for certain reasons. In this forum, we are not stupid, we dont buy everything the media feeds us.

Chelsea is in general great team, last season, I remember both me and @Dyn said Chelsea were the only one that deserve the title in EPL.

But that doesn't mean you guys sparked out like a true champion in all ways like those Barca, Real, Bayern or MU or Arsenal (in the past). Not to take any credit away from you, but last year non-of-the-other team deserved any craps.

Cowardly or not, Im not saying it, it's tactic and it worked. But I certainly dont enjoy your game plan in A LOT of games. Against PSG and a few other like @ashwin mentioned were emberrasing (trust me, and we are aware that MU has **** loads of emberrasing games too in term of result).

========
As for Mourinho, he's not the best role model out there and a lot of shits come out of him, ironically. He's genius, master mind-**** and a leader. That's no doubt. Super entertaining, but sometimes he is like a child. Much like Ronaldo. Sometimes I feel like, he forgot that he said certain things that contradict to what he wanna say today.