Pizy

The experiment of Cucu inverting into midfield and Enzo pushed WAY up the pitch needs to ONLY be used against teams that are more open and trying to actually play. Against teams like today who sit in their half with 3 compact lines of players it just doesn’t work. Put Enzo deeper where he can use what was his best asset was and the entire reason we bought him: his ability to control and dictate from midfield. Then we’d have Cucu AND a winger out there creating overloads. Enzo playing way forward surrounded by their entire team meant he was totally invisible.

Thought Josh had a really good game but he didnt offer any forward passing. Same with Trev. It’s like Maresca says, we have a bunch of CB’s, yes, and quite a few really solid ones like Josh, Trev, and Tosin. But none of them offer what Colwill does and that’s a BIG problem when teams park the bus like that today. All we could do is pass it along the back and to Caicedo 800 times with no danger to the opponent. We don’t have that deep player now who can put a team on their heels with a single pass.

Result itself isn’t an embarrassment but that performance was. Not a single attacking player had a good game except a couple of flashes from Estevão. We will still struggle mightily against super well organized defensive setups this season unless we up our tempo. All that hype about us finally taking a step towards challenging with the big boys and then we get deflated a bit by such a shit performance.

We still look like Palmer FC. If he doesn’t have a worldie we have nobody else who can consistently create magic.

The complete lack of ideas despite all this talent is what’s most maddening. We look clueless how to deal with this Palace shape.

Palace has completely out tactic’d us. Played right into their hands and not made them uncomfortable at all.

Just insane that we STILL haven’t changed the tempo. We’re walking about like this is the first preseason match, ffs!

Is Enzo on the pitch?!

Chelsea player gets a second yellow there. Fucking lucky Mateta.

And btw, we’re seeing exactly what Maresca was concerned about so far with the CB’s. Trev and especially Josh were very solid defensively and even with the ball in terms of retaining it. But without Colwill we have no CB who can play those penetrating, dangerous passes through the lines. All they can do is pass it side to side with the occasional diagonal from Trev.

We SHOULD be playing Enzo as a Jorginho/Fabregas style deep lying playmaker like he was to great effect at Benfica. But for whatever reason Maresca is obsessed with playing him way advanced where he’s basically a second striker. Xavi Simons in this sort of #10 area would be much more suited.

Xavi in place of Enzo in this match would’ve made a massive difference. Enzo looks like he just arrived back from holiday last night and hasn’t trained in weeks.

We’re literally playing the excact game Palace would’ve wanted. Playing this like a training session.

Enzo has been woeful this far. Miles off the pace.

We’re playing at walking pace and allowing them to just sit in their shape and easily nullify us. They’re perfectly happy letting us pass it 400 times between our CB’s like this.

We look so vulnerable when the ball is turned over as I feared.

It was absolutely 200% nailed on he’d score against us on his final match before joining Spuds.

If we play to our best level we should be blowing them away for sure. Will we be at that level on MD1 is the big question.

Going to need a really big and disciplined game from Enzo today. That Palace attack is very dangerous and Wharton is very good in the middle of the pitch. We saw them cause Liverpool and City loads of problems. Enzo needs to help out and be smart positionally. If he gets caught too high up they’ll kill us on the counter. With these CB injuries it’s imperative that we keep the ball as much as possible as to not expose them unnecessarily.

Just thought that with Jackson being younger and being a PL proven goal scorer he’d have multiple bery interested suitors bidding for him. Whereas with Nunku’s injury history + having not played much for us in the PL I thought we’d have an extremely tough time selling.

Wonder if we’ve convinced Bayern on a sale rather than loan. There’s a good chance that he gets yet another injury this season so a loan is too risky. Need him gone for good.

Indeed. If you had told me when the window started that Nkunku could move before Jackson I’d have been stunned.

So basically this will be his farewell game for Palace. Opening match of the season, his farewell match, London derby, against us who are missing multiple starting level CB’s. He’s going to be massively up for this one. Hopefully we are so dominant and on top of them with intensity that it won’t matter. 🙏🏼

The Veiga situation is so weird. We still don’t have any clue why he isn’t even being considered. Did he forever lose Maresca’s respect for demanding to leave in order to play CB? It’s basically a Chelsea tradition at this point that if you’re a young player who has a successful loan you’re at least given a chance to make it here. Mount, Gallagher, Andrey Santos, Reece, Colwill etc. Yet Veiga was apparently really solid at Juve and isn’t even being considered. If he’s good enough that the likes of Atleti were seriously considering him why isn’t he given a chance I wonder?

The hierarchy can believe we have enough all they want. But if the manager says that we need a new CB, wouldn’t he know much better than they would? Guess we’ll find out tomorrow who is right.