Blue Armour

Not the first time either in this tournament.

Hahaha. No pen. Natural arm position. What a clown show. Inconsequential goal, but come on

So dumb.

Why so much VAR checks .. no consequence goal

Santos wins a pen. Taken by Nkunku

Finally! Santos

Hope we can score a 3rd soon, and then he can consider playing Santos, no matter how "integrated" he might be.

What happened to Nkunku's finishing..

Well..this is a club that moved out Chalobah only to recall him out of desperation 6 months later. Wouldn't be surprised if Maresca and co. adopt another warped strategy that involves freezing certain players with a view of shipping them. Wish the media asked more pointed questions and ask Maresca what he intends to do with returning loanees like Santos.

At this point, I am beyond caring unfortunately....don't trust these lot to choose sensibly. Not to mention that managers might be reluctant to join. Poch left after 1 season., and Enrique/Naggelsman turned us down.

The best coaches adapt their system to work with the players in hand. Ancelotti abandoned his diamond formation after he came to us, when he realized he wasn't getting the best from our players, esp. Lampard, even Tuchel tweaked his formations. Conte waited before using his 3 atb formation. If big name coaches are fine with tweaking their system, why can't Maresca?

Maresca: "Nobody told me anything about winning titles this season"

Shitshow...and crotch digger Joachim Low, you say?

Match timings also did not help. Middle of a working day.

Now that they've secured CL for the season, AND a CWC participation, you would expect to get a reasonably big name shirt sponsor.

Marmoush and Cherki in attack. Don't know how effective it will be, but it definitely sounds very exciting. With Haaland in the center, it could be very deadly too. Think Pep and City are going to come back strong next season. No wonder Liverpool are battening down the hatches and acquiring targets asap.

Carragher & co. will still find a way to spin this into a positive and claim that Liverpool did it the right way, through prize monies from winning the championship, etc.

Some strikers can make up for any lack in heading ability with other skills, ala Thierry Henry. But I guess that's where the question mark comes with regards to Gyokeres. What are the other tools he has in his locker to overcome PL defenses in these kind of situations.

I too was thinking about that 'sideways/backwards' comment from Palmer. At the time I wondered if he had referred to his own decision making, but he clearly is talking about the team and it's tactics. Whether Maresca explicitly tells players to not be more direct and not use their inventiveness, is a separate matter.

TBF, Delap strikes the ball with more purpose and power. NJ hesitates and thinks too much in front of goal. We'll see how Delap does when constantly facing packed defenses, but there is no doubt he improves our attacking options. Nothing else like him in the squad. Still wish he becomes aerially more dominant though. We have great crossers of the ball in the squad, but not many to get on the end of it.

For him to use his physicality to help against low blocks, I would like for Delap to add some headers to his game, because aerially he hasn't been the best. i.e someone who can consistently get on the end of the delicious crosses that either Palmer or James can feed. Without the ability to head we might have to rely on him to instead create space for others to score, by occupying defenders.

Fair point about the price tag. 30m is far easier to recoup in comparison to the other target of 90., and I don’t think Chelsea with its current squad can afford to take a massive gamble on a striker with question marks. Morata and Lukaku oddly started off well. Both of them. Shame their attitude couldn't live up to the expectations. Both were pretty weak minded., and that's unfortunately something you can never be sure of with modern footballers.

3 more goals...and more assists. I think they're both quite raw as players and not reliable goalscorers yet, but I can still see Ektike at least link up with the team meaningfully and contribute with his dribbling ability. Don't think he's worth the current price tag, but I'd choose Ekitke easily over Delap. And of course, a proven goal scorer over both of them,.since Chelsea have none currently

Big shout out to Reece James for finishing the season strongly. He's had his injury troubles over the 3 years, but have to say that both Maresca and him have carefully managed his comeback, and hopefully this has given him a stable foundation for next season. I know he has got a lot of flak for his captaining (or lack of), and he isn't as vocal like a JT or even an Enzo. But he leads in the best way possible, through example. By being on the pitch and displaying what it means to be a top player. You can see it in the reactions of the other lads too. Palmer in his goal celebrations with James. Caicedo also voting only James from the current generation into his all time Chelsea 11.