quickpassnmove

Ross Barkley, midfielder everyone.

Impotent attack is our big problem. Probably will be dubious all season.

Is Kovacic the only person on the field that can dribbling foward?

I've been watching so little football that I forgot Ruben Neves is still only 21 y.o. Still an interesting young 'baller. And I've become one of those who does not know some of the players on Vesper's list here. However, I would never have included Dele Alli --not that he's over-rated; I think he's good, but he's not going to reach any higher IMHO and he's not at all intimidating, nor magical. No way Chelsea were going to sign Benjamin Mendy it seems. Clearly, Ben was going to sign up for Pep only when he was the main target for Pep last summer.

My prevailing thoughts for this season on CFC's inadequacies regard our lack of scoring, so I am looking forward to more forwards who can score ASAP. Nevermind the defence for the moment; that can be addressed later --or when the right person is targeted/we make the CL again. Like Sarri, my focus would be on scoring and confidence in our attacking prowess in any given match as opposed to being too concerned about clean sheets. Time for Chelsea to evolve under Sarri and become that team that we want to see play regardless of the difficulty in any given matchup.

Hope it's an exciting January for us looking at new forwards with a left foot dominance. Where's the player that looks like the next Robben (with his shooting accuracy anyway)?

Cesc's legs are done. This kid should be in a rotation this season. Hopefully Sarri puts him in soon.

Our weak spots on the day were CF and Barkley. No surprise there. Good to see Mateo; hoping for many more with us.

I am 187 and he definitely looks a hair shorter, so 186 sounds accurate. I like his demeanor and minimal expression, plus his strong legs. Despite the height difference, I would tend to choose a player like Kepa over Thibault if I were choosing only based upon appearance, demeanor, body morphology, gait and overall movement. Looking them over briefly, I think Kepa looks physically stronger than both Lloris and DeGea. Kepa is one cool cat with skills and a good build too. That's my first impression. Positive. Good luck to him and our side this season!

Pedro for top scorer??? Well, we're hoping for the best, but we'll see about scoring and defending with this squad. Good luck to Chelsea this season.

I stopped watching last season well before 2018 rolled in (mid-November/early December). Caught bits of matches here and there, didn't have much interest in anything going on with CFC except that Christensen was playing, others were staying healthy etc., and that we got a couple players in January --one being a left back. Things I could see without watching much: Morata a push-over, Bakayoko sucks ass. Hope we're better this year, defend well and we can score, but I think we need some better defenders and better goalscorers in the squad.

If we can defend and score goals, maybe. Big maybe.

some nice moves for transfers, but our fullbacks, centre backs and forwards will not allow us to climb the PL table unless another side shits the bed.

I thought we should have signed Mcguire last summer. I don't see the downside to Mcguire at all. He's not Latino, he's not Spanish, not German, but he's a really good footballer with speed and size. Doubt he has Terry-like spatial awareness and positioning, but otherwise he's one of the best choices IMO.

Getting interesting. Don't know about our set of centre backs and our attackers (another RW/LW and/or striker), but I like the CM buys/loan. We can put off the fullback acquisition for a later date, but we will need a new RB sometime. Would be nice if Chelsea finally have a full first team of high quality players again someday, like in 2005 --or even BETTER. Good luck to our new manager!

Do Chelsea sign superstars or budding ones anymore? Thought we just sold them and kept one: Christensen.

Buy Doucoure from Watford, sell Bakayoko. We need a playmaker CM with legs too (like Kroos/deBruyne) --IDK who that would be right now 'cuz I've become sick of watching football, thanks to CFC.

Let me know when the board and owner have changed and maybe we can have a discussion on something that fucking matters related to yet another manager at CFC. Genuinely don't know what they're doing, so CFC are now a mid-table side that won trophies in a weakened league recently (with Leicester City between BTW).

no knows what this club is doing anymore. GL with that Marina.

there is no next 'big' manager for CFC. more incoherent action, lack of vision. watch something else.

Just another billionaire who happened to care about the progress of the club throughout. Fresh change is probably required to get Chelsea on the right start after 11-12 years of not knowing what the hell the club's vision really is. Still have no clue today.

Idiot fans can debate the manager and the squad, but this is exactly what is wrong: the board don't demonstrate the necessary vision and bravery required to even begin talking about "ambition." Therefore, a big name manager's hope will not be matched by Chelsea's office. Next Chelsea big manager = same problem (unless, as you say, Fernando, the next manager accepts mediocrity as the goal). And, as Zola suggests, the mending of a relationship between club and Conte is a two-way process. On the one hand, the club hasn't demonstrated the vision, nor ambition for years already and Conte doesn't necessarily demonstrate the courage or confidence to play other players (regardless of what side he has managed IMHO). For me, it's been the same problem since the first firing of Jose Mourinho over a decade ago. Don't know what they're doing while there were strong players along the way to pull the club into trophy contention; the club lacked vision and cohesion regardless.

Oh well.

Chelsea played well. Kante had a difficult time. Conte should have subbed Pedro out for Giroud around 63 minutes.

1st half Olivier Giroud was the most powerful CF presence we've had since Drogba (playing with his back toward defenders). High hopes for Ampadu. Current squad isn't good enough to win anything, but we have some potential for the future.