Pizy

If Alaba is available you'd have to imagine Pep would be all over him. Their defense is as shambolic as ours is.

Okay, I'm watching it in full. Although I bet even on the American broadcast I'm going to be hearing nothing but Liverpool this, Liverpool that for most of the 90 minutes. 😷

HOLY SHIT, WE WON?!! YES! Should I watch it since I missed it or was it not a great performance?

I can honestly see another "high score to nil" score line again here. Such a poor looking XI. Kinda glad I won't be able to watch.

Just found out I'm going to be busy when this match kicks off and probably won't even be able to pop in for updates while it's going on. 😩😩😩 Going to be excruciating wondering what's going on in such a massive game and it'll feel like an even bigger gut punch if I check later and see we've lost.

Win tomorrow and it'll give us a massive boost in confidence. Think we 100% lock up a top 4 finish afterwards. Lose and its squeaky bum time. And for players like ours who are mentally fragile as it is.....I think we're in real danger.

Nah, don't think they'll win out. I just think we have far more slip up fixtures than they do.

All about their defense compared to ours. They've been horrendous to watch up until just recently but even at their worst they could always defend very effectively. Now they can both shut teams out like before but also have crazy attacking firepower since they're all fit. Us on the other hand.... Honestly, though, even with our horrid defense we would be in such a comfortable position had we capitalized on our dominance in so many matches.

So the two sides who have been punching way above their weight all season appear to have completely collapsed. Both Leicester and Sheffield United are dropping like a brick. With the two run-in's compared, I think there's a very strong chance United finishes above us if we lose tomorrow. And while everyone would go mad if they did, we have to remember that they spent £150m on players for this season whilst we've spent £0. Plus we have essentially a rookie coach. They should finish ahead of us and it'll be a ridiculous achievement if Frank hangs on and finishes in the top 4. I think (again, assuming we lose tomorrow which is highly likely) we need to worry about Wolves and finishing in that 5th spot. Then hoping like hell that UEFA don't get clowned on and City's ban is upheld.

As long as he doesn't end up at a PL rival I won't be devastated or anything if we miss out. If he goes to Real Madrid or Bayern I won't be bothered. I think he's going to develop into a worldie in a couple of years so if he ends up at City, Liverpool, or United I'd be super jealous.

Seems like every morning some Twitter rando posts some nonsense about us bidding or being in talks with Leverkusen. And every day nothing happens. This is why people should stop getting excited or convinced he's joining until we actually get news from someone reliable.

If we somehow get 3 points on Thursday I think Leicester shit themselves and we finish above them. Hell, they may even drop like a stone. I just don't think our defense is good enough to beat City. Can't see us winning that with the form City are already in.

The only journalists I'm taking as true "ITK" on Chelsea matters are Matt Law and David Ornstein. When it comes to German players (like Werner and Havertz) I'm not buying anything I read unless it's from Rafa Honigstein or Christian Falk (cfbayern). Everyone else just sounds like they're guessing.

Maybe Frank is thinking that if we add a bunch of clinical, killer attacking players we simply don't need a new CB? Like, if we are actually able to convert the countless chances we often create and make our dominance of all these smaller clubs count we can demoralize them and our defense wouldn't be under pressure so much. Look what City does to just about every small PL team. Blitz them so hard that they basically give up.

I'm not seeing anything other than the same speculative bs we've been reading. Doesn't seem any more or less likely at all to me.

It's just insane that teams like Leicester, Wolves, and Sheff United have far better defensive units than a massive club like Chelsea. And I do indeed think a big part of it is coaching/training. Because Rüdiger, Zouma, AC, and Tomori aren't poor players. Johnny Evans was the butt of jokes before this season, they've sold Maguire, and replaced him with a relative unknown and they've had arguably the best defense in the league. Would you have said those players are better than what we have? I don't think so. So it has to be coaching. We can see Lampard has got his ideas about attacking implemented quickly and effectively. But maybe he and his staff just don't properly know how to coach defending quite as well? Like how Mourinho can coach the hell out of killing a match with defense but is completely outdated and barely coaches attacking football. Idk, maybe starting next season with Reece as first choice RB, Chilwell at LB, and Werner + Ziyech ahead of them pressing will be enough to considerably improve our defense and a new CB will be unnecessary. Attack as the best form of defense.

Not like there are many options. Some of the names I see posted here like Varane are literally impossible. Not sure I can stand another season of shitting bricks every time the other team gets a corner or set play inside our half. Even shit teams have entire game plans centered on winning set plays against because we're so poor at defending them! That can't continue next season.

I just realized that Koulibaly is only a month older than VVD. I for some reason thought Van Dijk was a few years younger than he is. CB's can often remain very good well into their 30's and I doubt VVD drops off any time soon. So maybe Koulibaly is actually worth the big money even at 29? God knows we need a quality CB who can dominate physically.

Oh, I don't think I'll ever think "I miss Willian and wish we still had him," but it would be kind of annoying seeing him at a hated London rival. And I think he'd play quite a bit on Spuds' right wing rotating with Bergwijn. Im actually not sure if he'd lower himself to joining Arse now that I think about it. They're a sinking ship.

He'll be a very solid player for one of our rivals for a couple more years if that's indeed what he decides to do. It sucks, but unless he's willing to be a squad player and sign a 1-2 year deal it's what has to happen for us to rebuild. He would instantly improve Spuds or Arse. Mou would kill to have him again I would think because he still has the work rate.

Acceptable, if understandably rusty going forward. Still as calamitous as ever at the back. Rust + already shaky defense is heart in mouth stuff. Both Rüdiger and AC had numerous nearly catastrophic mistakes. Literally every set pice is a huge danger. Every. Single. One.

Reece gives the bal away 4 times since coming on. Christ.

What an insane foul for Willian to give away there. Knowing how fragile we are at set pieces.

This is worse than Arsenal. Arse and Brighton looked fairly evenly matched. We on the other hand have completely bossed Villa, had nearly 80% of the ball, and yet they're ahead.

Also doesn't help that nobody can breath in Grealish's direction without the ref awarding a free kick. He won like 5 fouls while barely being touched. So frustrating.