Pizy

Work rate from Cole Palmer has been great so far. He’s everywhere.

Finally a bit of luck FOR us rather than against us!

YESSSSS

What a pass, what a take!

Why is there just zero pressing whatsoever? Just letting them casually walk the ball up over and over again.

We already look low on energy or urgency. Like this is an early round League Cup match against League 2 competition.

Another perfect Chelsea tackle penalized….

I continue to be shocked that Maatsen still can’t get a sniff at either fullback position despite many injuries or suspensions. One of the best in the Championship last season and great in preseason (though not at fullback) and it’s now as if he’s a 15 year old who can’t be trusted. We’re totally going to lose someone who would generate a big fee for nothing by treating him this way. And then there’s Conor deep with Enzo advanced again. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Can see this going badly.

If we do start with a false 9 it’ll surely be Sterling up top. I would go with Sterling flanked by Mudryk and Palmer and then have Gallagher just behind them as the advanced CM rather than Enzo so that we have more aggression and energy in our press. Move Enzo deeper next to Caicedo where he can actually dictate the tempo and spray creative passes. We can try the “Enzo as a #10” experiment once Lavia is fit and up to speed. But for now it’s stupid. Play Gallagher where he’s more comfortable and play Enzo where he’s more comfortable. Anyways, we 100% have to win this by any means necessary. Have to start putting wins on the board. I expect Fulham to come out super aggressively to try to rattle us knowing that our team is shocking once we go behind. So it’s extremely important that we match their intensity.

Spuds are what we should be so far this season. Absolutely humiliating and embarrassing that they are where they are and we are we here we are. That they’ve been whipped into a super competitive and smooth playing footballing side overnight whilst we struggle though every match is depressing.

Villa are legit good. Thought we outplayed them last week until the red card so it goes to show that if we could put away chances we’d be up there mixing it with teams much higher than where we are. Happy see see Brighton getting smacked, though.

So who are some other proven striker targets we could move for in January? I see Arse are apparently going to go hard after Toney and it’s highly unlikely he’d choose us in our current state ahead of a team near the top of the table and in the UCL.

Unlike last summer where nearly all of our big money signings flopped I’m not angry or let down by this summer’s signings. I think ALL of them will eventually grow in to great players. Some like Ugo and Gusto into very solid squad players. It’s the coaching that I’m extremely let down by. The constant playing of players out of position is what’s harming us nearly as much as injuries and the inability to finish our dinner. I like Poch and truly thought the turnaround would be rapid entering the season.

What makes things even worse is what’s happening at Spuds. Sold their best player, hired a manger everyone in the league laughed at, and signed a bunch of supposedly mediocre players that we would’ve scoffed at. Yet they’ve been transformed virtually overnight. Well and truly feels like we’ve been cursed.

We entered this season with every advantage you could hope for. No European football for a team that has a new manager, full weeks to train and get the tactics across, a whole solid preseason for the coach to work, hundreds of millions spent on quality players. The feel good factor and optimism really felt around the place after outplaying Liverpool comfortably for much of the opening match. Now we’re right back into the same exact nightmare as maybe our worst ever PL season with no apparent hope of changing things.

And done.

Cheated by the ref again. Fuck off. That’s a perfect fucking tackle.

That’s a perfect tackle. Follow through unfortunately caught him. But perfect fucking tackle.

I would move Enzo back to his actual position and swap Gallagher out for Palmer to play in the #10 spot. Having him there for some of these many cut backs could prove the difference. And he can also receive the ball between the lines. I just don’t see what Conor is adding to this match.

We’re doing basically whatever we want on both flanks. Their wide defenders are invisible and we’re torching them there but failing with the final pass or cross as usual.

Having Gallagher play deeper when he’s actually a #10 whilst Enzo plays at #10 when he’s one of the best deep lying playmakers in the world is so nonsensical. Dreadful to watch.

Not going to bother continuing to lament Gallagher starting while Lavia remains injured. That’s just a given at this point and there’s no point getting pissed off about it. But continuing to see Colwill playing LB is super fucking annoying. It does him no favors at all and does the team as a whole damage. He himself will struggle with quick wide players defensively and isn’t someone who is going to help much overlapping or supporting Mudryk. And then to compound things Mudryk is bloody useless in defense so it makes Levi’s job that much harder.

I would never take a break from Chelsea and watch other teams. Doing that would indeed make someone a “plastic fan” or glory hunter. But taking a break from football altogether like I would is different. When it starts to feel like we the supporters care more than the players on the pitch and they put in embarrassing effort and performances week in and week out then I’m not going to have my weekends ruined. A rough patch for a few weeks or a month is nothing. A disastrous humiliation for a year+ with no signs of it ending is another.

It’s too early to call for his sacking now for sure, but what this team needs desperately is a manager who extracts the absolute maximum effort and quality out of players. Someone who makes even guys who are not at the very top class level play out of their skin. And most importantly a manager who has the team working as one cohesive unit. I had really bought into Poch being that manager in the buildup to the season but there is zero evidence that he’s going to be the miracle worker I had hoped thus far. I really did think he’d have us transformed in short order after that horror season. Not fighting with City, Arse, or Liverpool but in amongst the rest of the top 4 challengers. How is it possible that Spuds have been completely transformed and their manager who has never coached at a high level can come in and get them playing great football and scoring for fun but we have a super highly experienced coach who hasn’t improved us at all yet? And that’s after they’ve sold their best player who has carried them HARD for years!

The mentality and structure is what I was happy about in preseason. We looked cohesive and much more crisp on the ball. None of that translated to the real season. Honestly, I’m not seeing ANYTHING promising with Poch since the PL started. It’s extremely worrying.