closed West Ham 0-0 Chelsea

[Milan 17,835]

I just hope West Ham will produce a similar compact performance next week at home against Man United. It would be a disgrace to see them getting beat easily.

[Johnnyeye 7,404]

2 minutes ago, milan.cech said:

I just hope West Ham will produce a similar compact performance next week at home against Man United. It would be a disgrace to see them getting beat easily.

they will lose at home to the mancs just to piss us off, shit team

[Laylabelle 9,292]

36 minutes ago, milan.cech said:

I just hope West Ham will produce a similar compact performance next week at home against Man United. It would be a disgrace to see them getting beat easily.

Hopefully.. Then again other way to look at it might simply be a case of many u taking their chances and scoring them should they win... Hopefully this is our poor meh performance done now. 

[Jase 43,479]

An OK performance overall but going forward, there's a lot left to be desired. Had so much of the possession (what's new with us these days?) and our attacking plan was to put crosses onto Giroud and Kante?!  Didn't even create enough clear opportunities to test Fabianski but when we did, we hit his face (Morata), decided to it's better to back heel to a teammate than shoot (Hazard), shot straight out for a throw-in (Willian). It's already troublesome enough when we have Morata and Giroud as our strikers and yet, we continued to make life difficult for ourselves with those situations!  Gotta be clinical in games like this! On a whole, getting 16 points from the first six games is a good return (not sure how many of us expecting this given what happened in the summer) but think today's game also showed why we're not good enough to win the title this season. Get top 4 and win a trophy or two and it'll be a decent season.

[Stats 6,980]

4 hours ago, El P. said:

Willian is just a headless chicken. Hazard had a game off, but it happens here and there. Willian was acting like midfielder, only without passes and physical presence. We needed something different (read: Pedro). Kovačić wasn't good either (can't really figure out why), but Willian was our main problem. Giroud was awful too.

Kante avoids a lot of criticism because he "isn't playing at his position". It's not like he is playing as striker... When did Kante actually play that position? Drinkwater and Matić were both closer to defense than he was. Kante is not Makelele. I think people expect too much of him. He needs to be to Jorginho what Vidal was to Xabi Alonso in Bayern, or what would now be to Busquets. Why isn't Vidal DMF? Why was Verratti DMF and Matuidi was b2b? Matuidi is something closest to Kante. You always have one destroyer and one tactically smart player a little behind him, that's all normal. I'll overexaggerate now: it's like saying, Moses isn't good at wing because he isn't playing his real position.

But isn't Kante a B2B midfielder? He can play DM but also B2B. He just is not being effective and either way when you are considered to be the best at what you do, you expect a little more from him. He did not contribute anything today and it is not as if he was excellent in defending either.

[bigbluewillie 1,805]

16 minutes ago, Stats said:

But isn't Kante a B2B midfielder? He can play DM but also B2B. He just is not being effective and either way when you are considered to be the best at what you do, you expect a little more from him. He did not contribute anything today and it is not as if he was excellent in defending either.

Don't get me wrong i love the little guy, but he's totally out of his depth as a B2B player, if Sarri is going to play him there......... i'd rather have Barkley.

[El P. 1,354]

44 minutes ago, Stats said:

But isn't Kante a B2B midfielder? He can play DM but also B2B. He just is not being effective and either way when you are considered to be the best at what you do, you expect a little more from him. He did not contribute anything today and it is not as if he was excellent in defending either.

That's correct. And I will write something that applies more generally:

He lacks better positional and tactical intelligence (like Makelele), or strength-height to be considered an elite out-and-out defensive midfielder. If he had one of those I would consider him elite and it would be worth playing him as a DMF. Ranieri and Conte knew that too. They would have put him in Makelele role if that was the case, and the whole world would know that he is that. But he isn't, and Sarri knew that, hence why he never had any problem bringing Jorginho in.

For B2B position he lacks better passing (he is playing rather simple passes), or even shooting. His dribbling is ok-ish I guess, but his ball control can be shaky sometimes, also because he could be easily shaken off the ball.

And why I think people are expecting too much from him? Because I knew all along what his limits are, and that he has really few qualities to offer, attacking wise. Ok, maybe he can do more than what he did today, but not much more.

When you call someone elite player, you need to consider what would he look like in some other systems too. You can't be elite player if you are great only in one system (defensive one with midfield-2, in this example)

[communicate 2,703]

6 hours ago, Jason said:

 our attacking plan was to put crosses onto Giroud and Kante?!  

I am not sure why are you complaining. West ham played a compact system 451/541 at times. The only space that is available was on the wing. Our combination in the middle was not working. The only thing that was working was lofted ball from jorginho. If Cesc were healthy, he should came in for Kovacic or kantebecause we need another player who can play lofted through ball. 

[BlueLyon 9,359]

With Pedro out, Odoi should be at least on bench. 

And Christensen should come for Rudiger. 

Smells Sarri isnt one of those bold managers either, always goes for safe option to not risk the result. We need to look for our future damn it. Cahill is past it, Christensen needs playtime. Its also funny Sarri wanted ball playing CB and he doesnt even play Christensen. If we bought fucking Rugani for 40m while youth product Christensen rot on bench, Id be fumming.

Just sell Christensen, Odoi, RLC so they play elsewhwere where they would actualy be valued and appreciated. And get chance to show how fucking clueless our board and managers are when handling these kids. 

[Jase 43,479]

2 hours ago, communicate said:

I am not sure why are you complaining. West ham played a compact system 451/541 at times. The only space that is available was on the wing. Our combination in the middle was not working. The only thing that was working was lofted ball from jorginho. If Cesc were healthy, he should came in for Kovacic or kantebecause we need another player who can play lofted through ball. 

1. Most teams also closed down the middle space against City but do you see them put endless amount of high crosses into the box and hope something pays off?

2. If the plan was to put high crosses in, that's fine but then, why wasn't Giroud more in the position to do something with it? Why persisted with Kante as the midfielder to get onto the end of those crosses? Better off putting Barkley in his position, especially late on in the game.

[communicate 2,703]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

1. Most teams also closed down the middle space against City but do you see them put endless amount of high crosses into the box and hope something pays off?

2. If the plan was to put high crosses in, that's fine but then, why wasn't Giroud more in the position to do something with it? Why persisted with Kante as the midfielder to get onto the end of those crosses? Better off putting Barkley in his position, especially late on in the game.

1.They do pump tons of crosses but it come usually from mendy and kdb. They can cross both low and high with pretty good accuracy. That is the reality, you have to cross against a very compact team to loosen their defence. We tried to attack through the middle but it was a failure pretty much everytime plus both hazard and Willian were poor,so our wing play got affected. 

2. If you believe on our defensive quality with Jorginho, Barkley and Kovacic then it is an option. I don't think Sarri trust them as a unit defensively, If we were behind I think he will go for more offensive sub. 

[manpe 10,855]

3 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

Cahill is past it, Christensen needs playtime. Its also funny Sarri wanted ball playing CB and he doesnt even play Christensen.

It's now quite cringey how everybody, even Chelsea's official social media accounts were hyping up AC to be the second coming of JT, boldly proclaiming that he'd "made it". At some point last season he got dropped for fucking GC and hasn't got a look in since. I wish media would stop hyping up kids who make a few starts in a row.

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

5 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

With Pedro out, Odoi should be at least on bench. 

And Christensen should come for Rudiger. 

Smells Sarri isnt one of those bold managers either, always goes for safe option to not risk the result. We need to look for our future damn it. Cahill is past it, Christensen needs playtime. Its also funny Sarri wanted ball playing CB and he doesnt even play Christensen. If we bought fucking Rugani for 40m while youth product Christensen rot on bench, Id be fumming.

Just sell Christensen, Odoi, RLC so they play elsewhwere where they would actualy be valued and appreciated. And get chance to show how fucking clueless our board and managers are when handling these kids. 

Sorry mate but please help me understand something - when did Chelsea become some sort of Lyon or any other team similar to that? I see this frustration over youngsters' playing time, but do you forget who you support? This is Chelsea FC coming of an ugly season, they did not bring Sarri to nurture kids into grown men, they brought him here to fight for trophies from the 1st day at the club. Chelsea do not have time for experiments after a bad season, nor does Sarri. He might talk nicely about youngsters, but in the end all he is thinking of is winning something, not making a hero of himself by trying to make the next Messi out of Hudson Odoi. 

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see this guys play, too, but the season is long and they will have plenty of chances. What I don't like is the way some of you talk about this situation and you make it sound like Sarri has no clue what to do and he's failing at integrating youth. But it's not his target this, he's at Chelsea for trying to fight for the big trophies with settled players first and then if things go his way he might try to introduce new faces. Sometimes I think you are too greedy, you want beautiful football, also lots of goals and possession, but also youngsters. You want everything in such a short space of time, must understand this is a process and will take a bit of time. 

[Special Juan 27,093]

Drab as fuck and some awful pass choices on show from us yesterday.

So frustrating, not only that but it was compounded by seeing Morata rise from the bench and miss another chance.

[Laylabelle 9,292]

Morata... Sheva...torres. We don't have much luck when buying expensive strikers. They just don't score! 

[Thor 2,117]

3 minutes ago, Laylabelle said:

Morata... Sheva...torres. We don't have much luck when buying expensive strikers. They just don't score! 

Did I miss something? Giroud was the invisible one all game, and Morata at least made something happen. Not his fault Willian didn't square an easy ball for a tap in.

Funnily enough, yours isn't the only post blaming Morata for this somehow. lol..

[Jase 43,479]

6 hours ago, communicate said:

1.They do pump tons of crosses but it come usually from mendy and kdb. They can cross both low and high with pretty good accuracy. That is the reality, you have to cross against a very compact team to loosen their defence. We tried to attack through the middle but it was a failure pretty much everytime plus both hazard and Willian were poor,so our wing play got affected. 

Difference between us and them is they know what they are doing with such approach and we don't. Whenever we cross, it feels more like hit-and-hope something comes good from it. Giroud was neither here nor there. Kante isn't a nature goalscorer but we expected him to be like Lampard. And where was the player at the far post when crosses come in from either flank?

[Laylabelle 9,292]

5 hours ago, Thor said:

Did I miss something? Giroud was the invisible one all game, and Morata at least made something happen. Not his fault Willian didn't square an easy ball for a tap in.

Funnily enough, yours isn't the only post blaming Morata for this somehow. lol..

Not just yesterday in general. For 60m you'd expect more then 12 goals in the League so far. Hopefully he'll turn a corner and all be good but didn't happen last season. Be surprised if still here next unless something changes. 

Same with Torres.. 50m and we got 20 league goals. It just ain't happening... Again!