Blue Armour

If there's some kind of solace so far this season, our home form has looked far better. Hope that continues, and hope it makes a difference to our season.

Agree about dropping Mendy and Mount. Less thrilled about bringing in Pulisic, especially if he was as horrible as people say he was in the last game. Ideally this would have been a job for CHO, but since we don't have him, I'd rather keep Havertz on. At least he has some work rate if nothing else.

What does everyone here think of Arteta? Almost everyone agreed that his first few seasons sucked.. Now that Arsenal stuck with him and that he's on top of the table, what's your opinion? Is he a superior coach to Tuchel. Genuinely curious what people think.

You know...if we're praising Arsenal and Arteta now.., we should remember the awful performances they had with Arteta in the last 2 seasons. And the fact that they still stuck with him. By that token Tuchel also deserves time. And no, our squad isn't significantly better than theirs.

I don't get why we're so keen to offload attackers and midfielders without any reinforcements in sight. Feels like the priority this window was to reduce the wage bill more than anything else This squad is far weaker than last season.

In my view Koulibaly was never a Rudiger replacement. I always viewed him as the 2nd CB signing we needed, in addition to a world class CB like Skriniar. Koulibaly was there to fill the squad and take on Silvas role after he retired ( and probably won't be anywhere near that level IMO).

Hope he passed his medical. At this point I'll take an injury risked CB over the horror show that awaits with relying on three 30+ year old CBs for cover.

Start Kovacic right from the start in this game. Drop either one of Mount or Havertz for Broja. Maybe even drop Mendy for Kepa. If Reece still isn't fit., do not hesitate to start Fofana right from the get go.

Bring Broja on. Maybe even the Aston Villa kid

We also won 2 1 despite being a man down and then go on to lose the next game to mediocre opponents. Chelsea thing.

Mason just needs to be dropped for a few games IMO. Light a fire in his belly. Surprised to hear that he started this game. More so than the result.

Drop him for Kepa. Serious. Mendy is the better keeper but he is playing below par.

Shame we retained Pulisic and loaned out Odoi. Must have been a daft upper management move.

Feels that way. Especially if you see the craptastic performances from Mount and Pulisic. And who knows how the forced departures of Werner and Lukaku (needed, no doubt) have weighed on the squad.. I'm always on the managers side in these situations, but I really fear the worst. 2 losses in the first 4 games? This had vibes of the 2015 2016 season. Seriously, fuck off 2022. This year has just been miserable for us since the beginning. Sanctions, loss of Roman, players departing and now this. Just fuck off.

Madrid Hazard is a different player than the one we had. Its a broken down, injured shell of his former self. Yes, he tends to hold on to the ball a lot longer than other players, but that's just the way he opens up the pitch for other players drawing attention to himself. And no one can ever accuse Hazard of being selfish. While he has had forgettable CL performances, he has performed against big teams, scoring against several of them in the league. Whether Sterling is a better player for CL knockouts remains to be seen. He hasn't won his former teams a CL either. Anyway, agree to disagree. I think you have made up your mind about Hazard, and you have a right to your opinion. While I'm glad we have Sterling, I don't feel we have the air of superiority or the X factor we used have with Drogba or Hazard. Can guarantee if we had a player of that quality in our team right now, we wouldn't be complaining about our over reliance on wing back play., or lack of attacking threat.

What's so bad about Hazard's passing ability? Genuinely curious.

That Twitter thread is hilarious, lmao! All the Chels fans with those memes 🤣

Kovacic., Broja on as subs.

It's really annoying. IMO, VAR shouldn't be involved in any of these types of decisions. It was supposed to be meant for clear and obvious errors. But the officials have chosen to abuse the system, opting to create more drama instead. Basically to turn the Premier League into a cheap sitcom to increase ratings.

Exactly what I meant, when I compared their performances to our first season under Conte. We used to grind out 1-0 wins like this with Costa scoring. They are going to be awful to watch but will still be consistent., and could upset bigger teams in match ups against them. I doubt Conte will combust in his first real season with them, so we're in for a rough ride this year. To make it more difficult, Arsenal seem to be better than last year and United seem to be on the mend.

What is up with this guy? Ever since Sterling arrived he seems to be content with playing second fiddle and play in cruise control. I'm seeing more involvement from RLC in our general play. Hope it's just a case of him just warming up. He started last season a little slowly as well.

Raheem Sterling just singled out Kai Havertz for his great effort in his post match comments. I think Havertz did a lot for the team in the 2nd half after we went down. To use Sterlings own words - "worked his socks off" He deserves a lot more credit than he is getting here. But yes, we need a clinical finisher in our ranks.

Either him. Or worst case Ivan Toney. How is Mitrovic's link up play though? Toney has decent link up play.

He was alright IMO. Vardy got clear of him on 2 occasions, and would have put those chance away on another day. Chalobah still has room to improve. Hopefully Fofana can step in right away, or at least give Chalobah impetus to raise his game.

I think we will likely see some rotation on Tue for our front 3 attackers.