cosmicway

Nope. He fouls Mendy. The ball was moving towards the other hammer player but it counts as "ball in no man's land" and the last contact was a foul. Many such decisions.

Luck of the Irish. Before the Kai goal they should have scored. The foul on Mendy was a foul but it was a foul because the rules are crazy.

Those efforts by Reece James. Should n't he try to pass the ball to the penalty area rather ?

Corners are 8-0. Pray for los fuerzas aereos.

You just can't leave attackers roam outside the box like what we saw yesterday. If defenses behaved that way in the premier, Ziyech alone woud score hat tricks every week with his dirty legs.

Leeds and Soton did that. Spurs no, but they were saved by Taylor.

We were chasing the scoreline for almost all the duration but won only three corners, to Southampton's five. That too says something. The defense made the childish mistakes allowing the opposition players acres of space but also there was no midfield, no buildup to go forward. As if Southampton are the giants of Europe.

The downward slide begins from the failure to sign Haaland and spending the 100 mil on Lukaku. The Abramovitch affair passed without serious consequences but we lost Rudiger as well. It's conference next year.

Name me some playmakers who would also be good for Chelsea. You may include Modric.

Like I said elsewhere the age of the great playmakers is over. The ones you remember shined because no one was marking them. Tsartas of the Greece eurowinner team who also played for Sevilla was nicknamed the magician. Apart from being a great playmaker he could score from corners too. But the opponents rather unkindly made fun of him for his shiny appareil when it was raining and everybody else was covered in mud. That proves something and it's the same for all other number 10s of old. Today's football is total war. Tonight Southampton deserved it but it is also 100% down to the absance of the defense from the match. I don't mean individual quality but there was no coordination whatsoever. If you give me the space Lavia had in the Southampton first goal I can score 10 goals in every match, at the age of 97. Have you seen that before in football after a corner ?

We scored one by hook or crook. The defense is at sea.

Maybe but if they were giving us such free space after corner kicks the score would be 25 to 2.

Man to man in the back is awful. Their first goal was ridiculous. The second too.

Not reallly. Brighton look strong - heading the table.

Fix the submit reply button. Ich weiss nicht was is happening but it breaks my nerves.

Mendy is ok as a keeper. Well, 90% ok and better than Courtois when he was playing for us. The problem is his distribution and he did n't have the chance today to pass the ball to a Leicester attacker ! For that reason -and not for today's performance- he deserves some benching.

I did n't like RLC today missing that chance early on. The Leicester goalkeeper was all over the place and all he had to do was tap it in with his left foot. Instead he used his right and banged the ball onto the body of the goalie.

The submit reply button stinks. I have to try ten times.

The Norwegian is a goal machine - no Lukaku, no Morata.

Bournemouth are evzons but City worries me. They seem to be unstoppable.

I left City at 0-2. Haaland scored three.

With ten men it was the equivalent of the champions league final against City.

Many people don't realise that the age of the great midfielders has died, just like the age of the great wingers died in the seventies. There were some great attacking midfielders in the past in international football: Platini - Sandro Mazzola - Archie Gemmill - Francescoli - Charlie Cook ... Today it's only Modric really, but what did these people havd in common ? They had in common that no one was marking them ! They had all the room in the world to manouver and prepare dangerous attacks. Some people call Messi and Maradona great ... playmakers but they are mistaken. They were attackers who of course at their best they could evade their marksmen. Today's football is totlal war (totaler krieg) so Platini would have to be twice as good as he was to have the same effect. Players who could make the difference for Chelsea today have to be of the Eden Hazard genre, or Didier Drogba genre.

It was Mendy plus gross underestimation of the opponent in the end. We thought Leeds were like Norwich or APOEL of Cyprus but they showed their teeth from the first minute. Plus the front line unless somethhing happens before the transfer window closes is the same as always, Gobi desert. We should take a lesson from Arsenal. It's true they faced weak opponents so far, but could we have scored the same number of goals against the same opponents ?

De Gea made a similar howler last week, Brentford v. United. For a modern goalkeeper foot skills are essential, maintaining cool head when the ball is on the floor is also essential. The back pass as we know has been made illegal 30 years now and the option to hoof the ball downfield is not even an option all the time. It certainly was n't an option with the Leeds goal - Mendy could only have kicked towards the corner flag. Goalkeepers are fooled. Even the legendary Lev Yashin was fooled once (against Greece, USSR won 4-1 in the end). But it happens all the time. What can we do ?