Blue Armour

I know Madueke works hard defensively, but can't Neto do the same and more?

Unfortunately Felix looks like the only fallback option to Palmer., because of his play style. Unless Maresca wants to be bold and play Nkunku behind Jackson. With Sancho replacing Madueke.

Palmer doesn't seem fully fit. Blowing hot and cold

Jackson working hard these last few minutes

Personally think it should be Neto, and Sancho on the other wing, if Palmer isn't fit. I would also argue that if Palmer isn't fit, it might be better to start Nkunku instead of Jackson. Jackson plays better with Palmer in behind. Lavia and Caicedo in the center again.

Basically Madueke contributes with defensive work on the wing. But based on the United game, Neto can do all that and more. Can easily see him taking that role.

Becoming more obvious why Enzo is on the bench. Happened last season too., with Caicedo and Gallagher displacing him to take the team on a winning run. He was brought in with view of building a team around. Not seeing what he brings to the starting 11. Nowhere near Fabregas levels of creativity. Poor defensively. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

He's been fantastic in the 2nd half Never knew he was such a hard worker. Up and down both ends of the pitch doing his bit defensively. Him and Caicedo were fantastic.

Fucking hell Enzo...free shot to take the lead there.

Credit to Mudryk for not getting in the way of the shot

Finally! About time we made something out of the dozen or so corners

Stupid goalkeeping. No reason to flap his arms around Holjund when he had James coming back for cover Holjund had no angle to shoot from.

Sanchez...

Cucu for Gusto it is

Lol spoke too soon 😄

While I would like to see Cucurella slot into the LB position and let James bomb forward at RB, I doubt we'll see that happen. More likely Maresca will try to preserve James fitness and sub him off later in the game. Good thing is we won't necessarily have to bring in a Disasi to play as full back. Game is finely balanced. Doesn't feel like it will take too much extra for either side to score. Chelsea should remain switched on in the final 3rd. The through balls played through the center have been decent.

To me the glaring exposure from this game was Palmer and his positioning by constantly playing through the middle. Screw the goalkeeper. This isn't a title challenging season anyway. Other teams are going to watch what happened today, and could adopt similar tactics to what Liverpool did and man mark him out of the game. Maresca can hopefully come up with a better solution for this. Bringing on players like Nkunku and shoving him out wide for sake of the Cole Palmer show isn't helping.

As much as I think Sanchez can be a goof at times, and even if I think James is one of the few truly WC players we have., that 2nd goal was largely down to James trying to be too clever with the offside trap, and also Curtis Jones bad (but ultimately the right) first touch. Think Sanchez was expecting him to take the shot first time, but got confounded by Curtis Jones' first touch of the ball.

Yeah, he can't have him stay in the center all game and expect it to always work. The real experienced players like Hazard and Rooney would drag their man-markers out of position by going wide, and stretch their defense.

Fine margins. Always going to be frustrating with a young side that is good, but not quite there yet. Anyway, difficult fixture behind us. Time to make the most of the rest.

Veiga should have scored there. Damn.

More like because Palmer has been playing in the center (and mostly ineffective because of the man marking) all game. Should have move Palmer to the wing and let Nkunku play behind Jackson

I don't get why Palmer is never instructed to go out into the wing instead of Nkuku playing there. We had Hazard go to the wing if he was drawing too much attention playing through the middle. Palmer is not having as much influence as he would have liked this game. Why not try something different for a spell

You can't take the clumsy out of Badiashile. Or Sanchez for that matter

Nkunku on for Madueke. Nice..