Blue Armour

To be fair, the bar is pretty low at the moment with the number of quality finishers in the team right now. All we have are Sterling and to a lesser extent, James With Aubameyang not fully fit, I'm keen to see how Broja will perform if he plays from the start.

Also, was it not possible to have Chelsea v Fulham this weekend instead, with the Pool game not happening?

Apparently FA will take a decision after the international break. If the FA have sense, and Oct 1 is a no go, they'll move it to Oct 2nd. They'll probably bend to the will of the broadcasting companies though.

Plenty of bright spots in his first game in charge: Just need the all important win in the next game to get us going again.

Players like Drogba, Hazard, Kante, Essien, even Fabregas, Costa, were not terribly expensive buys. Whenever we obtained gems in the transfer market, it's always been because of fast, smart recruitment. Four of those names I mentioned above happened with Mourinho, and Kante happened under Conte. Having the manager work closely with the club in identifying targets early on can really set us up strong. This is one area where I hope Potter can do better than Tuchel. If the past transfer windows were an indication, it would seem that Tuchel either did not care much for this, or his ideas were all over the place including chasing unrealistic targets.

No to Koulibaly, but yes to everything else.

Should he even be starting over Broja, especially if he isn't even 100 percent fit as he himself has admitted.

Werner's departure has to be pinned on Tuchel. I feel we fucked up this season by letting CHO and Werner leave, instead opting to keep an unhappy Pulisic and a wantaway Ziyech.

Agreed, even though I'm surprised at how easily a veteran defender like Azpilicueta was left ball watching to let an attacker get behind him like that. Its even more ridiculous when you think about it. It took two massive cock-ups by our two most experienced defenders to lead to their goal. What are the odds.. At the other end, we seem to miss from positions that are easier to score from. Can't make this up. Maybe someone needs to do what that former Liverpool striker Bruce Grobbelaar did by peeing on the goalposts at Anfield to lift their title curse. Even if it worked for only 1 year, lol.

I don't deny his attacking talents. Links up play very well, and a good eye for a pass. But I'm not convinced he is defensively sound. At least compared to Chillwell. When the team is leaking goals, and hasn't found the right combination for a defensive setup, I'm not sure if I would pick him over Chillwell.

Know Didier Deschamps, he'll be licking his lips in anticipation.

Yes the previous regime has a lot to answer for. Still can't get over how we let both Rudiger's and Christensens contract run down like that. And I really hope a new DOF and a couple of transfer windows can fix the mess we are in currently, but I fear we'll be in an even bigger mess if we fail to finish top 4 this season. If this window has been any indication, we will find it even harder to attract talent. If we fail to win the next league game and the next CL game, I'll be almost ready to write this season off. At that point its going to be a massive ask of Potter to steady the ship. And yes, Koulibaly is looking to be the biggest dud so far. But to be fair, not too many people thought he would be this horrendous. Ideally, I would have liked to sign Skriniar, and kept Koulibaly for rotation. For Silva. But 37 year old Silva seems far superior, FFS. Instead of solidifying the back line and linking well with Mendy he's gone kamikaze. I still hope his nerves settle and he can regain his reputation as a commanding CB., but for now the signs don't look. And agree about your assessment about Fofana. Physically Chalobah is better than both, but he still has mistakes in him.

Based on current form I agree. More than the turgid attack I'm concerned about our inability to keep clean sheets. I think today the oddball combination of Silva and Azpi in the center let Potter down. Just hoping he finds a better solution for the next game. But hey, Kante's back next month probably. So he might end up masking our deficiencies again.

Despite the current state of the team, I agree. If we win at least one of the legs against Milan, and at least draw the other one, I would fancy our chances to finish second.

For Potter's sake I hope this team gets him a win in the next match. Else we'll fall into a rut that I think he'll struggle to get us out of. His decision to go with back 4 was bold, but the choice to go with 2 ageing CBs (even if Silva is the best of all our CBs) was a bit weird Of course, the downside of a back 4 is that our wingbacks are no longer as aggressive as they used to be. Looking at James here. And Cucurella needs to be benched.

We lost Abramovich? Face it. There are a lot of questions about the current Chelsea. Its no surprise that we failed so miserably to attract first choice targets. There will be doubts about the clubs ambition, with the new regime taking over. Its absolutely imperative we finish in the top 4 in their first season to show that we still have the same edge. And this is why I did not want the added doubt of Potter replacing Tuchel, especially so soon.. It just adds to the list uncertainties.

Have to say., it is refreshing to to have club owners that at least openly speak about the decision making process. And while it's questionable, it will be interesting to see how Chelsea fares with a different approach. The old regime was purely driven by results first. While I'm not keen to see the club transform into another Arsenal, I'm interested in seeing how this vision plays out in the long term. I only hope they don't let the club become a lackluster destination like Arsenal has become. For that, the team needs to keep challenging at the highest levels in a consistent manner., even if not outright winning trophies every time.

Still possible he might change it for Chelsea and based on the opposition, right? But yes,...it's likely that Potter will stick with something familiar to the team

Tbf...if Koulibaly got a 5 yr contract, Kante deserves it even more. But agreed, club needs to be more careful about these things. Kantes injury record is becoming a real problem, and this season its happened even before we started playing games in midweek with him.

Hope Turbo Timo can put in a good word. He might have disagreed with Tuchel, but I'm sure he appreciated how the stadium going fans had his back even when he went through tough times.

The irony is that from a logistics standpoint, it might have more sense to cancel next weekends game instead of this one.

There are differences though. I know Moyes did well with Everton in terms of results (and his teams also punched above their weight at Goodison), but I don't recall anything remarkable about his style of play or tactics. That's not the case with Potter. Also, he had really big shoes to fill with regards to the departing Ferguson. It must have been a steep drop in quality for the players, in terms of coaching experience. It remains to be seen how Potter can handle a squad of big names, but I hope his genial personality will help him there. The only other question is his ability to manage in Europe, but we'll find that out soon enough.

It works two ways. There would be probably only 1 or 2 elite managers to choose from if they keep disregarding every manager that has had at least one high profile failure.

One thing I'm going to miss about Tuchel was his ability to raise the mentality of the squad for the big games (esp the cup ones). Went toe to toe with Liverpool, beat City 3 times in a row in his first season in charge., made it to the finals of nearly all cup games., that too without any real big game player. Definitely the best I've seen from Chelsea in that regard ever since Contes first season.

To me, the more annoying thing is the shitty international break coming up in a season where we already have a farce of a world cup tournament in the middle. If for some reason next weekends football is also untenable, then we'll have to wait until October for the next club game because of FIFA and their shenanigans.