Clockwork

Completely fair, i know i am in the minority. Just something i have never liked. Always a fan of the yellow kit in general, it needs to be prominent every year.

That would be interesting to see us ditch the white socks for blue socks as the default home uniform. Personally have never been fan of our white socks don't think they have ever been a good match, although the 2013/2014 socks were quite good because it had blue more represented.

No you don't have to, the issue with Sarri possession football it is it lacks the free flowing and situational movements. His style is rigid and mechanical. On the other hand most well known attacking football managers like Pep is the opposite. I recall KDB saying in his first year under Pep, they hardly stayed in one formation, they spent the majority of training moving from one formation to another. Key being giving the player freedom and use their intelligence, to recognize situations and exploit areas. Not saying Sarri style will never be successful, but i am very uneasy about its rigidness and the way it shackle some players.

Higuain is past it, and the EPL is no league for old men.

Watching Alonso makes me feel sorry that Luiz had to play next to him all season.

my gawd this team is terrible, and to think many of them have been a regular this season.

Also another big factor imo, is City is actually really good in attack while we are setup for attacking style but we are failing in that department. In this type of style your best defense is your offense, teams are scared to attack City and for good reasons they are the best goal scoring side in the league and arguably the best in all of Europe. On the other hand we are the worst side in goals forced in the top 6. Teams are much more willing and aggressive in facing us, the majority of teams do not respect our attack. It is a terrible combo to play open while struggling to score goals.

It will be interesting to see if teams will play the diamond formation and man mark Jorginho with RLC and CHO on the team. Because those two create a lot of dilemma if they set up like that. CHO ability to create width really makes it troublesome for teams trying to play narrow. Kovacic and Barkley had incredible amount of space when teams tried to man mark Jorginho, they couldn't capitalize on the oppertunity. RLC is incredibly dangerous when giving space to run into. Not as cut and dry anymore for the opposition. Stop Jorginho, stop Chelsea.

Well at least he didn’t kill anyone.

Meh don't like Kante playing that ahead and always looking to attack, just doesn't have enough in offensive arsenal to effect the outcome.

I think if he fills a role as a super sub that would be fantastic.

I really liked how seemingly both Christensen and Luiz were able to switch, and Christensen was there to clean up when Luiz stepped up. Just the routine counters tend to give Luiz and Rudigar a lot of trouble, mainly because both players are super aggressive and poorly communicate with one another.

Hope this is more or less he is starting team until the end of the season. There is no point strolling with the same players he has all season, because that team has gotten worse. Reward the players who played one of our best performances in recent months. Sarri has talked about how he can't motivate this team, maybe arguably the biggest reason is you don't reward good performances and punish bad performances. Players who perform find themselves back on the bench, while the players that underperform get rewarded with more playing time.

The recent game against Wolves, he was not on the pitch. His performances recently has been good even against league opposition. He definitely deserves a start especially after watching the brainless duo of Rudiger and Luiz game after game. Weird to hold a player for one game in early December which I can’t recall much about it, especially when he has stringed good performances one after another lately. Christensen is a bit soft, but he reads the game on another level than the current starting CBs.

Pulisic is not doing so well recently, but he still has the tools to be a great player. He has elite pace and acceleration to go along with his technical ability. I have seen him healthy and on form, he can be devastating. His constant injuries/medical issues do concern me though.

Kante has been a trainwreck himself from the opening minute of this game.

Absolutely on RLC, he has so much more intelligence and awareness too. Ability to make quick one touch passing and very decisive.

Luiz and Rudigar play and communicate like they have never played together.

He is playing well, but on a another note fans tend to have little expectation for the role Kante plays in. When we concede goals they blame it on Jorginho, if we fail to score goals the LCM tend to get criticized and others. But yeah this is the role i have been arguing for Kovacic since September, he is just not the offensive midfielder to play that advanced as Sarri had him.

Honestly my biggest qualm is RLC not starting, someone tell me what does Kovacic and Bakley do when they start on a regular basis?

My #1 choice to fill the LCM void would be Lyon's Aouar. I think Sarabia is better than Dross Barkley and Kovacic. But i would prefer someone with a higher potential.

I think for some of us, posting in the match day thread is a good way to deal with our frustration. You are right this is who Sarri is, acceptance is quite hard even though i know what is coming. As the comedian Jeff Jeffries said, hope is the biggest cause of depression.

The whole Alonso and Emerson situation is extremely strange, the latter fits the type of football Sarri wants to implement so much. For example arguably our best oppertunity came from a combination play that started with Emerson. This type of combination was enormously important to the football Napoli enjoyed, the duo of Alonso and Azpi are just not capable of it.

I think the concern for most is a statement that implies that Sarri rates Alonso, and that is concern. Alonso should be binned as soon as possible imo, he has been one of Chelsea weakest link. Sure managers can overrate their players or sing bigger praise, i don't think anyone would care for the praise if Alonso was actually at Chelsea standard.

Having Azpi as your captain is seriously flawed, imagine trying to implement a new style and mindset of attacking football. While your current captain is so poorly conditioned in that type of football. It is equivalent of the blind leading the blind, actually it is worse in fact.