Mhsc

I mean it would be a brutal red, hardly ever seen one given for something like that, we'd all be fuming for sure. But sure, it could have been given. It was a pretty minor incident imo

Nah man no way

They'll try everything to disallow it

Reece will surely retire at the end of his contract, if not earlier. Poor guy.

Caicedo is almost our only proper footballer Would have forced his way into every team we've ever had in some position or another

Be funny if we don't take up the option to buy Sancho and send him back to Man Utd, heh

Maresca not fucking around with subs this game

True, perhaps clubs just take Cole more seriously now i don't think top 4 is gone! We can still get a result from this game, but even if we don't it is not gone - not because we are that good, but because the other teams are also incredibly inconsistent and there's plenty of games left.

Guess its just me that doesn't think this is Maresca's fault then! I don't think there is really that much he could do differently. He was too patient with Sanchez, and he's become less flexible with his tactics and his subs as the season as gone on - seemingly as he's lost faith in some of the rest of the squad. But our foundational issues can 100% be blamed on the directors that assembled the squad and the owners who created the strategy they're trying to execute. So far, it simply doesn't work and they've wasted a LOT of money.

It depends on the circumstances to be fair - did Felix & his agent demand it? Did he want out? I am reasonably onboard with Pep's approach: if they don't 1000% want to ride or die with you, off they go. Even if in the short term its worse for you.

We don't have a single player who looks like they know how to score a goal - same old Chelsea. Cole's super clinicalness when in form papered that crack nicely and maybe I underestimated how far short we were in the rest of the squad - as when he was scoring, it was so much easier for the rest to play well, it seems. They all played under far less pressure. In truth we did create several reasonable chances in that half but didn't even look close to converting any of them.

Despite everything, I disagree about Maresca. Have not agreed with all his decisions but you have to put responsibility on someone other than the manager at a certain point - the Directors who assembled the squad, the players who fail to deliver, the owners who orchestrated it all. Maresca could have done better, sure, but I think he is the least of the problems here and still the best manager we've had since Tuchel.

Yes, at least one... He looks like a pen waiting to happen in the box, and he is a consistently poor decision maker under pressure. Sanchez hit a particularly dreadful run of form recently but before that Colwill was the number 1 cause of my high blood pressure during our games, even with Sanchez on the pitch.

Said it countless times, Colwill should be going through multiple years of loans, no where near ready for playing at a top club, bags of potential but he is not blessed with football IQ, he needs years of experience to cover the gap (if it ever will) He wasn't even a guaranteed starter CB for Brighton.

If NJ's hamstring is done then our season is over probs, 5th or 6th becomes most realistic scenario

Some good chances created but everyone toothless, basically same ol Chelsea Cole our only clinical player in unclinical form, hopefully he can find it again

No no, my man, you misunderstand. By 2030 the best of the players we've bought now are sold for huge profits, and we bring through a new crop for Project 2035. This is the forever project. And then someone like Levi Colwill will retire and step up to manage us under a transfer ban, effectively restarting the cycle

Santos is way ahead of this guy or Ugo - and even then is far from a certainty to make it into PL squad next year. They'll all be in loan army probably. Maybe Santos will stay if Lavia is perma injured, but in all likelihood he will be rotation/backup. What is consistently baffling though is why we keep signing these players to Chelsea FC directly. Put them under the BlueCo umbrella directly at Strasbourg or buy another club in Portugal or whatever. It made more sense having a massive loan army before the rules around max loan numbers came in (at least conceptually it made sense, in execution we always just bought tonnes of shit players and lost money on them, got stuck with Malang Sarr's etc)

Clearly Maresca didn't rate him and the directors persuaded him to give him a try Also seems likely this is the reason the Samu deal fell apart, a player we needed far more.

Yes, or really just anyone that will add a lot of goals to our team tbh, but ideally good competition to NJ As an alternative would probably take a left winger who is essentially a striker who plays out on the left and puts in good numbers

Nah, absolutely not. He would be a massive downgrade on NJ for 6x the weekly salary and 2x the transfer fee. His only plus side is his defensive workrate.

He's dreadful. Arsenal fans can't stand him and can't wait for him to be replaced. Even as bad as we've been recently, he'd be on the bench.

In classic fashion, I dropped Wood from my fantasy team this week for Ollie Watkins

Lets not forget, club were all of a sudden HARD after Osimhen at end of transfer window going into deadline day. Nothing has changed since then has it - at least its hard to say they'd be more positive and relaxed now than they were when they wanted to go all in on Osi? So surely they do want and feel the need for a number 9. I wonder if we'll suddenly see some transfer deadline day idiocy again... Probably not for Osi now, given that he chose to retire. I have had the feeling for a while the directors like to create time pressure for players and other clubs, which seems to backfire at least as often as it helps.

I didn't really see it that way personally. Generally, I am one of the biggest supporters of NJ on the forum and think he has been a great signing and have long term faith in the guy - not to be our only number 9, but to be a key player for us competing there. Usually I hate to see him go off because even though he's missing chances, he is normally still confidently going for things and I have the feeling that given more time he is our best shot at doing something. Did not see that at all in this game, felt like every minute he was on the field was a minute wasted - I saw a man bereft of confidence, out of ideas, shying away from the ball and afraid to take risks. In my opinion he absolutely had to go off and Maresca did the right thing. Unfortunately Nkunku was a total disaster but I'm glad he took off a player that was clearly struggling as much as NJ, who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else than playing City. Just my opinion based on what I saw.