Blue Armour

And without Silva too!

Its not Pulisic's fault obviously, nor was it the fault of quality players like Ledley King or Jack Wilshere. I am saying that Chelsea can thank their stars that Mount has remarkable endurance. He can play full matches back to back and not show much strain.

The most annoying is how a lot of people compare his output to players like Maddison (age 24) and Grealish (age 25), and use that as a stick to beat him down. To me, Mount has the necessary tools, the time and the attitude to reach those levels. More importantly he seems to also have that same kind of endurance that Lampard had as a player. An underrated quality which you value only when you look at players like Pulisic who end up being missing for nearly 2/3'rds of the season.

Which is what we should do anyway. It would have been nice to have Silva, but a clean sheet is the least of our priorities. Don't want a repeat of what happened in 2014 with Mourinho when we got a 0-0 against Atletico away, only to bungle it up in the return leg. We need to get away goals.

Hope so too. We really could use a 'big' win to really kickstart our season. Our biggest scalp so far this season, was against an out of sort Spurs side. A good result against Atletico is something that could spurs on to do better in the league. Didn't quite work for Liverpool, but they have different kinds of problems.

Its a do or die situation, considering that our next fixture is at Anfield. We are not going to displace United from the top 4, and unlikely to even finish ahead of them, but they are among the more 'beatable' top teams barring a VAR controversy..

......but, have they ever lost 5 straight..? Asking for a friend...

My favorite season. 2012 Champions league obviously special, but 2009-2010 brought out the best in Chelsea breaking the PL goal record with 103 goals scored.

Remember Carlo's match in charge when we won 2-0 at Anfield on the way to the title in 2010? Clinical stuff.

Ughh...don't remind me.

Alonso is obviously more experienced as a WB., but I think if Chillwell can get more used to it (in terms of when to push up and when to stay back), he can work his way back. Alonso hasn't been spectacular (barring that one goal he scored), so there's a chance for Chillwell to return sooner rather than later

Its blatantly obvious, but the big gap between City and Liverpool is really in terms of their squad strength. No matter what with Liverpool, you know the best you're going to get from their attack is their front 3 of Salah-Firminho-Mane. Its been like that for 3 years, and eventually things can go stale. Its troublesome if a club doesn't do much to improve on what they have. You're asking for trouble. They don't have the options that City have to mix things up and surprise the opposition.

Sigh...why can't we just face a team on a winning streak instead. 😅 Hope we can nick a few away goals, regardless of the result.

I've said it before. It depends more on Chillwell than anyone else. Chillwell was dropped because of his indifferent form, rather than Alonso doing anything spectacular. Chillwell will get his chances before the end of the season, and if he steps up, he will go back into the starting 11.

Its been happening for a while really. We've slowly been shedding players with grit and footballing IQ, and instead chasing eye candy with flair and technique. The result is that we have players with specialized skills but unable to do the basic things correctly and professionally. A player like Kovacic is symptomatic of this. A guy with such excellent close control on the ball, is unable to keep 90% of his shots low enough to hit the target. That's why we are becoming nothing more than a top 4 team, and not a team that is able to go the whole distance and actually win a title.

In our case, we better take some away goals. Regardless of the result, we have to play on the front foot (probably how Atletico likes it, but still).

Sorry to burst your bubble, but when has facing a team that came off a poor result ever been an advantage this season? Chelsea is always ready to put you back up on your feet.

He was better than Kova today, but that's not saying much

Where did we struggle against the press? Southampton barely pressed us all game. We had excess possession, especially in the first half. The only time we conceded the initiative were in the minutes following Mount's penalty and before Kovacic was subbed off. We did well to control the game overall, but we were let down by: 1. Poor decision making and lack of invention in final 3'rd (apart from Mount) 2. Zouma playing as sweeper (poor awareness shown for runners behind) 3. Tuchel's reluctance to ditch the 3 CB formation and bring on an additional attacker when we were trying score the second. Ever since Tuchel got here, the one thing that has dramatically improved is our quality in the first 2/3'rds of our pitch. The players are clearly being well instructed to control the game and deal with pressure. We're playing out from the back a lot better. But I guess there's only so much a coach can do when dealing with a lack of quality from the players (Rudiger's brain fart for his own goal, Zouma not noticing Minamino and terrible choices in the final third).

Heh...that would be ironic.

I have a feeling that Tuchel has sort of taken CHO 'under his wing'. Basically he expects a lot more from him, and is trying to hold him to a higher standard. Granted, his decision to bring on Ziyech instead did no favors, but its simply a case of Tuchel being strict with his pupil I think.

I said it weeks before and stand by it. City, Utd and Liverpool are nailed on to finish in the top 4. Its the likes of Leicester, Spurs, Everton, W Ham, Villa and their results that we need to be bothered about. From those 5, the latter 3 are pretenders. The poor GD is evidence, so its really Leicester for me. Spurs are a bit behind in terms of points to be overly concerned about.

Sigh....the players (apart from Mount) keep getting cold feet whenever they're in the final third. Absolutely criminal by James to sky his shot in the last few minutes. As someone said before, good coaches can instruct the players on how to get to the final third but its mostly on them to make decisions in the opponents box. And our decision making is poor. Having said that, playing Zouma as the sweeper CB was a strange decision. He just doesn't have the awareness of someone like Silva, and it wasn't the first time this season that runners have got behind him. Also, the reluctance to not switch from the 3 CB formation and bring on more attacking players like Giroud was far too conservative for me. Why keep all of Azpi, Rudi and Zouma on when we're trying to get a must win result? Not a good sign ahead of our obviously tougher set of upcoming fixtures

No titles for the next 2 years (as in 2 seasons)? That's a bit much, don't you think. I can guarantee the club did not bring in someone like Tuchel with those kind of objectives in mind.

Man, I wish his professed love for playing with Lampard also translated into the fact that he is some kind of Chelsea fan... Regardless, there's going to be a long queue of clubs waiting in line for his signature. We'll need any advantage we can get in order to sign him. Still think he, or at least a striker in his mold, is the missing piece in our attack.