closed Chelsea 0-2 Liverpool

[dreamcfc 177]

1 minute ago, Blue Armour said:

He needed someone to help clog up the midfield, and Mount presses more than Barkley, CHO or RLC. If he was more adventurous he would could have played CHO on the wing and dropped Jorginho for mount.

Clearly that was not the plan.

If we had Pulisic and/or Ziyech fit today, I can guarantee he would not resort to such tactics.

Jorginho would have been dropped and you would have had Mount Kova and Kante in midfield. Maybe even Kova dropped for Havertz (unlikely though, since he still hasn't settled in).

Sorry but can't agree, you don't bring in a player who wasn't making your bench a few games prior to name him captain just to clog up the midfield.

I understand the wanting to go compact, but as I said, he has been doing this since last season and it didn't work, what's so different this year that these 3 can suddenly all play together?

[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, Blue Armour said:

If we had Pulisic and/or Ziyech fit today, I can guarantee he would not resort to such tactics.

I find this somewhat amusing. Yes, we were missing several players and it wasn't our ideal starting XI but barring Pulisic and Willian as well as the new additions of Werner and Havertz, this is pretty much the same team that played well - much better than today, even before going down to 10 men - against Liverpool (except the game at Anfield) and Man City last season. Are you seriously saying that Pulisic being out and Willian no longer here has changed our approach this much? 

[Laylabelle 9,292]

Just passed the Liverpool coach on the motorway..  

BOOOOO

[Blue Armour 4,158]

Just now, Jason said:

I find this somewhat amusing. Yes, we were missing several players and it wasn't our ideal starting XI but barring Pulisic and Willian as well as the new additions of Werner and Havertz, this is pretty much the same team that played well - much better than today, even before going down to 10 men - against Liverpool (except the game at Anfield) and Man City last season. Are you seriously saying that Pulisic being out and Willian no longer here has changed our approach this much? 

 

But from where were you expecting creativity to come from, if not Pulisic or Willian. Havertz?

Don't give me that BS about him not playing in his 'favored' position. The guy hasn't settled in yet and is not ready.

He could have taken a risk with CHO or Barkley in the lineup instead and played more gung ho, but I can guarantee we would have been ripped to shreds on the counter.

Christensen's mistake came from us giving up possession high up the pitch., one of the few times we decided to play with 'attacking intent' in the first half. 

[Blue Armour 4,158]

6 minutes ago, dreamcfc said:

Sorry but can't agree, you don't bring in a player who wasn't making your bench a few games prior to name him captain just to clog up the midfield.

I understand the wanting to go compact, but as I said, he has been doing this since last season and it didn't work, what's so different this year that these 3 can suddenly all play together?

I will agree that there was a period where he dropped Jorginho, seemingly forever

But he played majority of the first half of last season (during our best period last season in fact) and reclaimed his position after Gilmour got injured.

So, its not surprising he would use him again if needed. Like I said, I do not think he will be part of the starting 11 for too long, if players come back

I couldn't care less about the armband though. There is no John Terry in this squad. You could tie it to a tree at this point and it wouldn't make a difference.

[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, Blue Armour said:

But from where were you expecting creativity to come from, if not Pulisic or Willian. Havertz?

Don't give me that BS about him not playing in his 'favored' position. The guy hasn't settled in yet and is not ready.

But is it really BS to suggest that maybe playing Havertz in his best position would have helped us and him? At least "make" him feel comfortable that he is able to contribute to our attacks - be it creating chances or scoring goals. Instead, we played him upfront and treated him almost like a target man. 

3 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

He could have taken a risk with CHO or Barkley in the lineup instead and played more gung ho, but I can guarantee we would have been ripped to shreds on the counter.

Playing CHO or Barkley doesn't mean we would have to go gung-ho. It just means we would have more attacking threats that we had today because really, before we went down to 10 men, what were we really creating going forward? 

4 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

Christensen's mistake came from us giving up possession high up the pitch., one of the few times we decided to play with 'attacking intent' in the first half. 

Can't remember the move but I remember Alisson had the ball, passed it to Henderson who had no one around to pressure him and was given the freedom of Stamford Bridge to pick out the pass.  

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

The point is the intent. Am fine with the counter attacking approach but what the hell were we trying to do going forward? It looked as though our plan was to just give Werner the ball and hoped he score from somewhere. Otherwise, the game plan looked like a containment job. We would be better off going down swinging and see what would have happened, because the general approach to sit back and counter didn't work, did it when there's people Christensen and Kepa at the back?

Sorry for misreading your post about the game you mentioned.

Just agree to disagree. I saw we have created few decent chances through ground work just didn’t execute them properly by Timo and Kante.

[dreamcfc 177]

2 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

I will agree that there was a period where he dropped Jorginho, seemingly forever

But he played majority of the first half of last season (during our best period last season in fact) and reclaimed his position after Gilmour got injured.

So, its not surprising he would use him again if needed. Like I said, I do not think he will be part of the starting 11 for too long, if players come back

I couldn't care less about the armband though. There is no John Terry in this squad. You could tie it to a tree at this point and it wouldn't make a difference.

I don't remember Jorginho playing much at all since before lockdown, after lockdown he was not even in the squad and everyone said he was going to Juve. 
Now he is back as our Captain, to me this is poor management from Frank, just an opinion. You can't have a captain that some weeks won't even be in the squad, that's just shocking to me.

 

I feel frank needs to grow a pair and decide between Jorginho and Kante, this has been an obvious problem to us from when Sarri and Jorginho first came the 2 are not going to work in the same team very well.

Both of them need a different style of play to be effective, you can't have both of them at the top of their game, 1 of them needs to go but doesn't look like Frank has decided which direction he wants to go.

[killer1257 3,282]

I find this somewhat amusing. Yes, we were missing several players and it wasn't our ideal starting XI but barring Pulisic and Willian as well as the new additions of Werner and Havertz, this is pretty much the same team that played well - much better than today, even before going down to 10 men - against Liverpool (except the game at Anfield) and Man City last season. Are you seriously saying that Pulisic being out and Willian no longer here has changed our approach this much? 

Which Man City game are we talking about? The 2:1 win for us, in which Pulisic punished the Mendy mistake and Fernandinho getting a red card+penalty rewarded. Willian then scored the penalty.

I just remember we played very deep against City and Pulisic and the Fernandinho red combined with the rewarded penalty won us the game.

Willian btw is much better player as Mount and I am not even a Willian fan.

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[Blue Armour 4,158]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

But is it really BS to suggest that maybe playing Havertz in his best position would have helped us and him? At least "make" him feel comfortable that he is able to contribute to our attacks - be it creating chances or scoring goals. Instead, we played him upfront and treated him almost like a target man. 

 

Maybe not. If him playing in the middle is really much better, its not a bad shout. My point was that is unrealistic to expect too much from him so soon., at least after his Brighton showing.

Ironically though, I thought the few contributions he made in today's game were pretty decent. His square pass in the first half to set up Kante (of all people) was brilliant. Hope to see more of that.

5 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Playing CHO or Barkley doesn't mean we would have to go gung-ho. It just means we would have more attacking threats that we had today because really, before we went down to 10 men, what were we really creating going forward? 

Yes, it might have meant more attacking threat. But that's a big MAYBE. What is more certain is that we would have been more open in midfield.

I will admit that you can question the manager and ask why he didn't ask the players today to get closer to Liverpool.

Anyway in hindsight, its possible to name a lot of options that may have worked better, given that we got the worst possible result from the one option he went with.

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

Can't remember the move but I remember Alisson had the ball, passed it to Henderson who had no one around to pressure him and was given the freedom of Stamford Bridge to pick out the pass.  

Hmm, looks like I didn't remember it the same way. I thought we gave up possession before that.

Its a shame that the players didn't get close enough. Inconsistent pressing from the players.

I will admit that that is on the manager to be more aggressive with his team to ensure everyone moves as a unit. Shame that Jorginho didn't do the one thing we usually helps out with (calling others to press) 

[dreamcfc 177]

1 minute ago, killer1257 said:

 

 

Which Man City game are we talking about? The 2:1 win for us, in which Pulisic punished the Mendy mistake and Fernandinho getting a red card+penalty rewarded. Willian then scored the penalty.

I just remember we played very deep against City and Pulisic and the Fernandinho red combined with the rewarded penalty won us the game.

Willian btw is much better player as Mount and I am not even a Willian fan.

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We had a game vs City in which we came out on top on possesion, it was the first time it happened under Pep and pundits were mentioning it alot, we were certainly moving towards a more domination based approach under frank last year, this year we are going backwards it seems.

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, killer1257 said:

Which Man City game are we talking about? The 2:1 win for us, in which Pulisic punished the Mendy mistake and Fernandinho getting a red card+penalty rewarded. Willian then scored the penalty.

I just remember we played very deep against City and Pulisic and the Fernandinho red combined with the rewarded penalty won us the game.

Willian btw is much better player as Mount and I am not even a Willian fan.

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That game or the away game but the point is, we showed that we can compete with those teams in a game, without our new signings last season. So, it doesn't make sense to suggest that missing some players meant that we should be forgiven for being so passive today.

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

Maybe not. If him playing in the middle is really much better, its not a bad shout. My point was that is unrealistic to expect too much from him so soon., at least after his Brighton showing.

Ironically though, I thought the few contributions he made in today's game were pretty decent. His square pass in the first half to set up Kante (of all people) was brilliant. Hope to see more of that.

No one is asking Havertz to score or assist in every game, especially not at his point, but at least let him feel comfortable, build his confidence by playing him right. Last thing we would want is, before he even settles, we destroy his confidence because he's not able contribute to the team.

4 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

Yes, it might have meant more attacking threat. But that's a big MAYBE. What is more certain is that we would have been more open in midfield.

I will admit that you can question the manager and ask why he didn't ask the players today to get closer to Liverpool.

Anyway in hindsight, its possible to name a lot of options that may have worked better, given that we got the worst possible result from the one option he went with.

Granted it wasn't a full strength Liverpool XI back then but it was still close to being that, we played Gilmour, Barkley, Kovacic, Willian, Pedro and Giroud against them in the FA Cup and won with a very good performance. 

Not saying we would have won today but would say a front six of Kante, Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, CHO and Werner not have able to produce a similar kind of performance at the very least? 

[killer1257 3,282]

That game or the away game but the point is, we showed that we can compete with those teams in a game, without our new signings last season. So, it doesn't make sense to suggest that missing some players meant that we should be forgiven for being so passive today.

We could compete and still lost the match regardless.

Today, if Jorgi scored the penalty, we would have lost 2:1. If AC does not get his stupid red, maybe even 1 point or a win was possible. Kepa also does not help winning games. Pool looked clueless against us and we were competing with them. It is hard to compete against Pool with 10 men. We still had chances with Werner and Tammy. And "being passive" . I mean it worked really well til AC got sent off with an unnecessary challange. We defended well overall, even with 10 men. We won many games in the past by being passive like with Mou and Conte.

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[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, killer1257 said:

We could compete and still lost the match regardless.

If we are gonna lose, then we might as well go down swinging. 

1 minute ago, killer1257 said:

Today, if Jorgi scored the penalty, we would have lost 2:1. If AC does not get his stupid red, maybe even 1 point or a win was possible. Kepa also does not help winning games. Pool looked clueless against us and we were competing with them. It is hard to compete against Pool with 10 men. We still had chances with Werner and Tammy. And "being passive" . I mean it worked really well til AC got sent off with an unnecessary challange. We defended well overall, even with 10 men. We won many games in the past by being passive like with Mou and Conte.

There is a lot of ifs and buts there. Maybe we have different definition of "competing" here. Restricting the opposition while setting up to counter attack is one thing but have a go at the opposition, have a clear idea how to go about hurting them on the counter attack. We did the former well but did we do the latter right? Are you gonna tell me lumping long balls up to Havertz was a legitimate plan? Other than that, the plan was hoping Werner did something. Otherwise, nothing was coming from Mount and from the midfield as well as the full backs. 

[Milan 17,835]

With Werner, I see a similar pattern to Hazard when he arrived in 2012. He also won 2 penalties in his first two League games and in the third match, he scored one pen himself. Timo will be the same against WBA 

[Superblue 6,331]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

If we are gonna lose, then we might as well go down swinging. 

The problem is we'll never know because the plan never had the opportunity to play out. If it was still 0-0 going into the last 10-15 minutes and we could start to impose ourselves on them then it would have been deemed a Mourinho esque masterstroke.

We lost at Anfield last season in the first half being far too bold and open trying to fight fire with them. With the players we had out today, and Werner and Havertz still adjusting, it would have been suicidal to use this approach. 

Our biggest problem continues to be huge individual mistakes. It could have cost us against Brighton and it definitely did today.

[Blue Armour 4,158]

17 minutes ago, killer1257 said:

 

 

We could compete and still lost the match regardless.

Today, if Jorgi scored the penalty, we would have lost 2:1. If AC does not get his stupid red, maybe even 1 point or a win was possible. Kepa also does not help winning games. Pool looked clueless against us and we were competing with them. It is hard to compete against Pool with 10 men. We still had chances with Werner and Tammy. And "being passive" . I mean it worked really well til AC got sent off with an unnecessary challange. We defended well overall, even with 10 men. We won many games in the past by being passive like with Mou and Conte.

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Exactly my point.

For once, we did not look tactically naïve against a big team.

Eliminate those mistakes, and we would have most likely come away with a point at least. Which is not bad, considering the lack of first 11 players.