Blue Armour

Basically continue to play but risk having niggling injuries from time to time., or have surgery and sort it out once and for all. I don't know what type of knee injury it is., but hope if they decide to do surgery, the recovery time is more like what Kounde had as opposed to what Chillwell had to go through In any case, I doubt he will go under the knife soon. Else Tuchel wouldn't have proclaimed him ready for tomorrow's match. No way they decided on a surgery in a matter of minutes.

I remember Chelsea seemingly being his first choice over Arsenal before he moved to England. Even posing in blue (or was it his car) when hinting at his next club. 3 years too late, but let's hope he can bring it.

Don't forget the treatment home for central midfielders, like Kante, Kovacic and RLC

And the contract length. Ostensibly not that long either.

Seems to be full of energy, and is a Drogba fan. Hope he can bring it to the pitch. We've been lacking that since Rudigers departure.

Upside to me is better movement off the ball, and more effort in pressing the opposition. If Pulisic is not on form and beating players (hard to say when he decides to turn up) then we gain little else. To me, Broja is the one who really needs a crack at starting the game. Pulisics little cameos have looked unimpressive so far. Plus, he seems like a really disgruntled player at the moment. It should have been him instead of Odoi going out on loan.

A DM with less ball playing ability than Kante is asking for trouble, But.......I Hope this guy can handle the pressure and play a quick pass if nothing else. If his job is only to sit in front of the defence as a Makalele type player , I don't see why we can't switch to a 433 and play our attacking midfield players in their right positions (looking at Gallagher/Mount).

Fair points, and whilst I do agree that Tuchel seems to be on a short fuse these days, I'd argue I've seen the same with Arteta too. He practically drove Aubameyang out of the club (despite advocating for his contract extension initially), and also put Xhaka on the spot (rightfully so in this case) when he went on a red card spree. Maybe Arteta is a calmer head behind the scenes, but I haven't seen Tuchel behind the scenes so can't compare. @blahblahblah what's your take on Arteta v Tuchel? I saw you like the Blues11's post so surely you must have an opinion. Personally for me, the jury is still out on Arteta. He's done a great job so far this season, but at the same time he was given a lot of time for his ideas to take hold, costing Arsenal even Europa conference league football along the way. By that token, Tuchel, while largely disappointing so far this season, has earned more time to bring his vision to fruition.

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 🤣