MrExcalibur100

Yeah, it's a clear 'tactic' (which is pathetic, btw) and has occured in the last 3-4 games in a row now? I wish Conte will come out and say something about it. Not in a 'moaning' way, but at least to put it in the conscious of the refs. This continous punishment Hazard suffers is going to end up costing him and us in the future if it continues.

Actually, this actually the 2ND fastest ever start we've made to reach or exceed 40 points. Conte is the quickest to do it since it's his first season here. The all time record is 2005/2006 with 43.

Conte is the quickest Chelsea manager to ever reach 40 points. He's currently out-performing Mourinho's legendary 2004/05 season which is insane, considering how much more competitive the PL is and how many other teams can now fight for the title. Still a LONG way to go though. His current league record since he took over at Juventus stands at 130 games, 97 wins, 25 draws and 9 defeats.

No doubt. Title winning save.

Thibaut! Thibaut! Thibaut!!! 3 points biatchesssss!!

Matic on, so we're changing to 3-5-2?

That was a very nice finish from Fabregas. It's been a while since we've scored those sort of goals from that area of the pitch. Lampard-esque.

Honestly, they aren't even so "defensive". It's not like the Tony Pulis shitshow. We're easily picking them apart on our left side. We're just lacking quality and compusure atm.

As for the game, it's clear how much we miss Hazard's genius. Without him, there is no spark or forcefulness in the side. We're going to have to do this the hard way.

It's a midweek game and it's night time at least we're I'm at. We usually get less posts here.

Just a simple ground pass from Luiz. Over complicates things sometimes.

Pedro in for Willian. Matic in for Fabregas. Back to the 'death line-up'

This is the video proof. This is why I always laughed inside at fans that worshipped Jose. He has no shame! He's just mad Conte is a better tactician than him and has Chelsea playing football he could never achieve. The "evolution" he claimed he was going to give us 2nd time out, he couldn't do after 3 years. Conte is already showing it in 14 matches.

He just said "you have teams that are playing defensive, counter-attacking football and you (the media) praise them to the heavens" something to that effect. Jose has no class man.. Pathetic.

Well tbf, Fellaini is no midget like Baba Rahman. He's more like Ivanovic and we know Jose loves his giants: "Because Baba Rahman arrived in the last day, because he doesn't know what is is to play in this kind of championship. He had no pre-season with us. He needs time to learn, he needs time to adapt." "At the same time, every team expect Maccabi Tel-Aviv is a team of giants. And if you don't have a minimum of five tall players good in the air, you are dead in set-pieces." "When I play Azpilicueta on the right and Baba Rahman on the left and I don't play Ivanovic, I have only three, not ever four [good players in the air]. So we have to think about all the details. And I think about all the details."

Mourinho playing the score 1-0 and defend till the end, "game" . But unfortunately for him, this isn't 2005. Backfires yet again.

Why would you even contemplate changing the team that has brought us so much success?

Nice one Nathan. I heard he's been immense since going to Bournemouth. Still he might have a future here.

Zouma won't do shit in this lineup. Stop overrating him. Also, how can you single out Alonso and not think the discussion with Matic has to be accounted for? Alonso was left stranded on many occassions. On his own. No one is saying he's Cafu but this obsession of inferring he's this mediocre player is stupid. In case you haven't noticed, we've conceded 2 goals and won 8 matches in a row with Alonso as LB. The defending player is always at a disadvantage when isolated with an attacking player. Azpi being so amazing in 1 v 1's spoilt a lot of you. Get a grip.

I think the fact that we stuck to our principles, pressing them high up the pitch in spurts throughout the game and more importantly, passing out from the back, even with a few mistakes (note - it goes both ways. City made a lot of mistakes trying to pass out from the back as well, even though Pep is supposed to be the master of that art). Answer me this. How many times under Jose did we ever play away from home and pass out from the back with almost all our goalkicks? How many times did we ever have our fullbacks/wingbacks so high up the pitch? How many times did we have 5 shots on target? Or score 3 goals? Jose would have gone 6-3-1 in this game. Hazard fullback for 90 mins. Costa feeding off scraps. I'm actually disappointed by the (admittedly very very few) posters here still having a moan about Conte needs to do this and that. 8 wins in a row, including wins against Utd, City, Spurs, Everton and Southampton. We obviously need upgrades in defense in the next transfer window(s), but can you imagine how good we'll be if we're already this formidable with this backline?

I'm amazed this is actually an opinion here. City superficially looked dangerous but this has to do with them having better attackers than us in general and the absence of Matic. With any other coach in the world, we would have lost this game. He outcoached Guardiola in that 2nd half and City only really ran us ragged in the last 10 mins of the 1st half. I don't see how you can say he was "outcoached". He pawned Guardiola. If you think you're going to go away to City with the players that they've got and not expect to get dominated, you're deluded.

There's no team in the premier league with the quality City has. You can't speak about Alonso without speaking about the absence of Matic and how that affected the additional covering on the left side. When you have Navas, Silva, Sane, De Bruyne and Aguero all running at you in various stages of the game, sometimes in 2 v 1, no defender can sustain that on his own.

Azpi is a freak. This City game wasn't so much about his display but speaking generally, I think he's the best pure defender I've ever seen in my 20 years watching Chelsea.

I love this "He knows how to make problems go away"

Pep is such a classless arsehole. His post match interview could have been handled with far more grace. But I'm not surprised.