Pizy

The concern about Rice hampering our build-up play would be valid if that's what we were targeting him for. Which it wouldn't be. We wouldn't be asking him to be Fabregas or Luka Modric. We need him to be what prime Matic was for us. Someone with a no nonsense approach who can clean up any sloppiness, win 50-50 balls, make timely tackles, and cover for the defenders. And he's got more going for him than Matic did I think. Much more competent on the ball. We've got Kovacic who is excellent at carrying the ball from deeper and building attacks. Mount can build attacks. Havertz can do it. We don't need a deep lying playmaker, we need a hard bastard. Look how Allan has transformed Everton instantly. That's what Rice would do for us.

He really is an incredible keeper. And not just his shot stopping. His positioning and anticipation is insane.

Liverpool look unreal going forward just as they always do and Mané & Salah weren't even sharp today. They create massive goal scoring chances with ease whenever they want. But you can certainly see where they can be exploited defensively. It's just that nobody is able to punish them regularly enough. Ceballos playing those Fabregas balls over and over and finding joy every time.

I was literally just coming here to type that this is just like Arse's games against Liverpool and City at the end of last season where they've been totally dominated and should be 2-3 nil down but then still fluke their way to the lead. Why does Liverpool keep having these calamitous, bedshitting moments against these cunts...

For the love of god can Liverpool please, PLEASE spank Arsenal here. Don't think I can take the Arteta wankathon if they win again.

Fulham are truly diabolical. What an absolute waste of a PL place.

Good money in this case is probably something silly like £70-80m. Which would be stupid unless we subsidize it by selling Jorginho, of course.

I think sending Jorginho to Arse is very dangerous. I think he could be very good if they partner him properly in midfield. He's not the pure DM they need, but he could still do a great job for that team. Very idiotic if we let him go there unless we get Rice or someone even better.

City are such a weird team. At their best I think their ceiling is even higher than Liverpool's. But their floor is so much lower. Very rarely, if ever do Klopp's team capitulate and look like school boys. City have done it often over the past year.

I mean, we do have one of the best in Europe at those balls. Sadly, he hasn't been fit yet. Ziyech will be a godsend to Timo. Havertz is excellent at those balls, too. But wow, not often you see City get battered like this. Pep must be going nuclear.

There were a lot of comparisons stylistically between Vardy and Timo Werner. But what makes Vardy so effective and why Timo will find it harder is that teams don't park the bus against Leicester whilst they do against Chelsea. Vardy is able to exploit acres of space to run into and get the ball in the exact situations he loves all the time. Only the big teams will allow us space and as we saw with Liverpool that was Timo's most effective game so far. As we saw against WB yesterday, he's less effective when teams park the double decker. Was still unlucky not to score twice, though.

City were as dominant as a team could be until Leicester scored. Then they collapsed as badly as a team could.

Feels like City have had about 95% possesion. The way they ping and pop the ball around with every single player in their side (keeper included) extremely good on the ball still makes me jealous. Almost a rarity to see City players taking more than a couple of touches and most of their play is intricate one touch football. This is the sort of stuff I doubt we'll see under Frank sadly. He's not as maniacal or proficient at coaching this stuff.

Very similarly to RLC, he's got every physical tool in his locker to be a dominant, world class player but has the same nonchalant demeanor. He's got sort of a lazy style and switches off too often. He needs to become more aggressive and focused. Because when he gets into crossing position he's one hell of a weapon. We absolutely need to persist with him imo. Don't put Azpi back in. Especially if Ziyech is back soon I think our right flank will be deadly. How do you stop both Ziyech and Reece from crossing? They'll terrorize defenses.

Why the fuck would Rüdiger want to go from Chelsea to West Ham? Come on, guys. There are probably plenty of big clubs who would be interested. And as for avoiding Rice because Frank may be sacked at some point this season, he is a player any manager would love.

I screamed about it in the match thread. A big, lumbering CB was about 10 yards behind him and Marcos had already started sprinting and he still ran past him with ease! Alonso looked like a 60 year old man in that instance. Shocking.

Btw, having watched these first few games do people who hate Declan Rice still think he wouldn't make a big difference? Or any natural, top DM. We have him sitting at the base of midfield breaking up everything and being the security blanket for the CB's would be massive. Kante and Kova are always out of position and any turnover of possesion means we're totally exposed. For me, a midfield 2 of Rice & Kova would be ideal. Kante can play in the biggest matches in place of Kova of need be.

We should be calling up Inter/Conte and begging them to take Alonso. He'll probably thrive there in that league.

Just like against Barnsley, Silva made one shocking mistake but was nearly flawless otherwise. In fact, the mistake he made today was nearly identical to the one a few days ago. He's just not nearly at his sharpest yet. Not worried a bit about him. I'm not going to go nuclear yet because we still have so many game changing players to come into the team. But fuck me, do we need them quickly.

If that was a valiant comeback against one of the big boys I'd be elated. I just feel empty and barely celebrated Tammys goal. It was embarrassing that it had to come to this.

CHO just repeatedly trying to pass it into loads of WB players. Giving it away cheaply repeatedly.

WB players now all throwing themselves around with any contact at all to slow the game down and time waste.

How is it that every Chelsea fan, every pundit, and every announcer during the games can realize that Alonso is USELESS in a back 4 but Frank can't? How!? He struggles there EVERY time he plays. Unless it's a back 3 DO NOT PLAY ALONSO! It's amatuer hour stuff. He must have completely underestimated the opposition and thought "eh, it's West Brom, Alonso can start this."

West Brom haven't even played well at all or hurt us in the ways small teams have been. It has literally been all on ourselves. We've gifted them the goals, they haven't killed us with physicality or quality.

We desperately, DESPERATELY need a competent sitting midfielder. We have nobody home when the ball is played through. This is humiliating.