Blue Armour

This game was crying out for more energy from Chelsea, and he left Kante on the bench. Why have Kante on the bench if you're not going to use him? Granted you want to protect him, but not even for 15 mins? Should have brought on Kante and moved Mount further up., a lot sooner in the game. Also substituting Alonso to leave Pulisic as a wing back was complete waste of time. Also waited too long to bring on Giroud who is lacking match sharpness from barely playing, and is given just a few minutes to make an impact. This one is on Tuchel really.

Like @Magic Lamps said, these founder clubs and UEFA are most definitely going to reach a compromise. The latest ESL announcement is nothing but an opening shot. It's been a long time coming. Ever since Spurs and City started breaking into the top 4, the power players have been trying to protect their nest. FFP was one of the first signs. Now you have clubs like Newcastle also looking at getting foreign investment, to break into the elite circle that doesnt really want more competition. The one certainty in all this is that the current Champions league format is most definitely going to change. What I'm more worried about is the timing of this announcement and how it could potentially affect our remaining games this season. Refereeing decisions, and the rest are all likely going to come into question. I doubt that they will go to the extreme of docking points (not without warning at least) or kicking teams out of existing competitions, but this goes beyond that. Will managers like Tuchel still want to be involved in something like this? Hope he and the team are able to shut out all the noise and keep themselves 100% focused on the remaining games., at least for this season. Pre match conferences are going to be very interesting over the next few weeks.

Lovely.

Any chance he could travel with the Madrid squad, even if unfit? Would have been nice if he was on the Stamford Bridge pitch to get his return,..and also nicer if there were fans to welcome him.

Not any better than Atletico? Sorry, but you should watch some of the more recent La Liga matches. Atletico have sucked balls ever since we faced them in the CL, and Madrid are miles above them right now. EDIT: Granted AM are top of the table atm., but barely We better hope Kovacic is fit by the time of the first leg of the CL. Same goes for Kante.

Double post

I'm saying it again. We need to focus on getting above Leicester and Spurs to secure a top 4 spot.

First time listening to an audio interview of him today. Surprisingly sounds a lot like Michael Ballack when speaking, especially given how young he is!

Not sure why Souness keeps saying that Havertz goal was just down to bad goalkeeping, and nothing to do with his finish. Does he have an agenda?

LMAO, seriously? What a way to bounce back from the West Brom game, eh?

Good. Don't even care about the West Ham game to be honest, even if they do go ahead in the table. We need to focus on picking up more points than Leicester in the coming games., and the all important 6 pointer against them next month.

Couldn't catch the west Brom game because I was traveling, but what a horrible result to come across when checking the score. Anyway,..I said this more than a month ago,...Man City, Man Utd and Liverpool are nailed on to finish in the top 4. It may have looked absurd when Liverpool went on a losing streak at home, but they are well placed to recover. IMO, Leicester and Spurs are our biggest threats, and we need to look at closing the gap on Leicester. 5 point gap at the moment, but I fancy our chances at closing that gap more than our chances of keeping Liverpool out of the top 4.

Hope that means he can start playing a deeper midfield role with us. He did play there a few minutes in the last FA cup game, so hopefully that's a start.

More so because of his positioning on the pitch as an attacking outlet, unlike Chillwell who still doesn't get into advanced areas as often as he should. And this is strictly about their performance as a WB. I think Chillwell trumps Emerson as an outright FB. If Chillwell improved his positioning (just like he said in the article above) he would be the best option for us.

Interesting that he played as the WB, while Emerson played as the left CB in the last FA cup game. IMO, Emerson is the most clueless defender we have (even more than Alonso) and he failed to play the Sheffield United attackers offside during the 2nd half, when they kept trying to play the long ball over his head. Neither Emerson or Chillwell are dominant in the air, but at least Chillwell has more defensive nous to play an offside trap correctly. Conversely, I think Emerson is better in attack.

He does bear a slight resemblance to the winter soldier (Sebastian Stan), no? [img]https://images.app.goo.gl/58MVgUVJC53FNKLz9[/img] https://images.app.goo.gl/58MVgUVJC53FNKLz9

Shades of Jorge Jesus and his comments about our tie against Benfica in 2012...

Clean shaven Pulisic >>>>> Bearded Pulisic

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed, and that has been our problem too, in the few seasons we won the title. I have no idea why we didn't bother to strengthen significantly in Mourinho's 3rd season following the title win. Same happened with Ancelloti's second season. No signings of note. Just an ageing Benayoun of all players. (I'm not mentioning Conte's title win here, because his second season transfers were mucked up by him). It's as if management thinks that the same group of players are a bunch of machines that can reproduce the exact same results year after year. Just illogical. Liverpool are suffering from the fact that there is no challenge or respite being offered to either of Salah/Firminho/Mane from their bench, besides Jota. Minamino and Origi are below par.

The positive for me from this match is Havertz's improved performances in 2 consecutive games. His finishing may have been sub-par today, but at least Tuchel has got him playing with more energy and decisiveness on the ball again.

No.., it started out a bit more attacking today. But for some reason he decided to go a bit more defensive late in the second half by bringing on another defender in James on. Then we lost all impetus, and ironically conceded more chances to Leeds in the process.

Sigh... Another week in which we have to hope results go our way. Looks like Leicester will pull away from us again.

Our play deteriorated with his subs today. Settled for a draw by bring on Reece James., and leaving Giroud