Jay - The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed. (U16498)

Make sure you take notes

Keane makes me laugh with how stern he looks in the studio. A more miserable-looking human on TV you will not find anywhere.

I plan to I'll even draw heat maps on my tv

It's days like today that make me wonder why I'm still employed, I must have made a few hundred comments today alone

Jay - The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed. (U16498)

Don't be so hard on yourself, this is ground breaking material!

Barring a couple of muppets, this has been a decent debate.

I would prefer Baines over Cole for Chelsea. Cole been in terrible form this season and since AVB in general I find him average in most matches except for the big ones.

I was only posting the stats as they you were all misinformed earlier on. They are off of ESPN.

I've said this whole thread, when playing a side who play possession orientated football Cole is our man, he's a brilliant backs to the wall defender still.

But if we are playing teams we have a chance of beating, (basically not Spain, Germany or Brazil) ten I think we should play Baines because we are going to need spells of possession and an outlet on the left.

I still don't see a solution to the left hand side when Cole is playing, unless we want to contain like we did vs Italy.

Has anyone got some solid info on how Baines defends?

BusbysBabes (U9083)

Misinformed?

I posted the stats for the Premier League games as a fair comparison, and clearly stated as much.

So no, not misinformed.

Those stats do prove that the suggestion Cole does nothing going forward is wrong.

comment by Mr Chelsea ✪ (U3579)
posted 1 minute ago
Has anyone got some solid info on how Baines defends?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have, a reliable source informs me it is not as well as Cole.

Cole's defending isn't as perfect as it's being sold either. He is good but again, unless it's in a big match he is prone to errant passes and pace merchants.

I guess because it's only big matches where we defend deeply for prolonged periods.

Totally Charming & Wonderful (U6489)

I'm happy with that - it surely doesn't come much bigger than a World Cup?

Yes, but in a world cup you can be expected to play a variety of opposition. Pretty much everyone on here agrees against the top international teams Cole should get the nod, but elsewhere Baines should be preferred.

I guess we will see over the season who will get the nod, but right now Baines wins the form, Cole has been pretty poor so far this season, excepting Bayern where he was admittedly brilliant.

Totally Charming & Wonderful (U6489)

Two issues with that... firstly, I think regardless of the opposition, the World Cup means it will be a big game to them all.

Secondly, can we really expect more than one game against teams that aren't 'top' opposition?

It's too early to say really...In the last WC we had USA, Slovenia and Algeria...I'd have said all of those are not 'top' opposition and would have expected us to attack more.

Jay - The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed. (U16498)

Yes, but we were seeded then. Looks like we won't be this time.

Add to that the South American teams that will be stronger because of locality, and I would be extremely surprised if we have more than one game that we'd expect to dominate.

Well, yeah. We could well only have a couple of games against top opposition if we are lucky, given we may well lose to the first one we meet in the knockouts. Also we saw last time round that the team cannot self motivate solely on the back of it being the world cup.

The point is, Cole is really good at deep defending. His best games usually coincide with the ones where we have our backs against the wall. Going forward, i've watched him do little in this department for Chelsea for a while. It sometimes feels like we still play to Drogba, when Cech punts 60 yards roughly at Torres or Eto'o or Hazard and Cole is guilty, not of that but of playing slowly and deliberately, knowing that they could let a play stagnate and still get a free kick or a corner or a chance out of an eventual long ball.

Totally Charming & Wonderful (U6489)

Whenever I watch Chelsea, I see Cole make several probing runs into the opposition penalty area - so I really don't understand the notion that he does nothing.

Where are these assists coming from?

He doesn't do nothing. He's just quite ineffective. Maybe it's not fair, he is our more defensive fullback as Ivanovic likes getting forward a lot slightly perversely.

I won't lie, if you told me that Cole got 8 assists last season I would have called you a liar

We had a huge amount of games last term.

comment by Winston (U16525)
posted 41 seconds ago
Jay - The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed. (U16498)

Yes, but we were seeded then. Looks like we won't be this time.

Add to that the South American teams that will be stronger because of locality, and I would be extremely surprised if we have more than one game that we'd expect to dominate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Who would you play vs Ecuador? Valencia has consistently torn Cole a new one for us yet Baines has always had the better of him....

As Jay said, we may get a group similar to the last, even if we get a France ect it anybody not top top notch, I think we should be playing Baines.

TCW!

Aye, hadn't you played somewhere around 80 games last season?

Also Winston, Chelsea fans, who I think we can agree have a more educated opinion if Cole, believe Baines should be playing

Totally Charming & Wonderful (U6489)

But relatively speaking, he seems to be doing well for assists in comparison to Baines?

If you take goals and assists, divide them by gametime I would be shocked if Cole came out on top.