OneMoSalah

You’d think so, granted he played poor but in the match thread there was a lot of OTT comments. The contract situation probably doesn’t help and clouds peoples judgement also, same with for Rudiger but as you’ve said he’s done more than enough the last 12 months to get away with one poor game. He will bounce back. He wasn’t the only one tonight, Azpi and Sarr were also horrible as were most of the players bar Kepa.

But why make the comparison at all then? Lots of our managers have hit poor spells this time of year. It just seems stupid and hardly relevant to compare him to RDM unless you’re hinting at the chance that he may be a few results away from maybe losing his job. I mean if you can’t see that then I don’t know. I mean how often is any Chelsea manager compared to Di Matteo result wise ? Or any manager? Plus Di Matteo was sacked in November so technically Tuchel isn’t a few results away from being like him because its December and he’s still here 😂

I don’t think any manager worth their salt at a big club would of wanted Drinkwater. I also don’t think he specifically said anywhere he wanted him. And if he did want him, he hardly used him so that contradicts any real notion he wanted him because if you want a player surely you play him no? Bakayoko signings questionable but Conte also said he wanted to keep Matic, not sell him and the club sold him.

I think Bayern are an exceptionally good team but they aren’t unbeatable. I don’t think its necessarily all been smooth sailing for Nagelsmann although they are on a very good run at present. They look very top heavy at times. Just have to wait and see.

You are getting a bit too excited. In fact far too excited. Di Matteo’s fate like Lampard’s was always going to be sealed early due to not being number 1 choice (RDM was warming the seat for Pep although never happened) and not having a great deal of experience at a big club as a manager (both Frank and RDM). Where as Tuchel is arguably of the leading coaches in the top tier of coaches around Europe, having also managed at Dortmund, Paris and now Chelsea, having a lot of experience and success at each club. We need to pick up more points and improve the performances after some bad games/dropping points v Burnley, Man United and West Ham as well as tonight but I don’t think we need to panic yet about a few results away from changing managers. Thats just extremely over the top.

True enough but better to be in the draw finishing second than not at all. I think either way, if things went well, we would of ended up playing the likes of a Bayern/Madrid at some point so if we get early, we get them early. Just the beauty of knockout football.

Bayern surely put the hurt on Barcelona tonight. They’ve only got 4 goals from 52 shots in 4 games under Xavi. 2 of them have been penalty kicks.

Least we qualified to be fair 🤣 Last time we won the CL, we got knocked out in the groups the following season with a group containing Juventus, Shakhtar and Nordsjaelland. Finishing second is a bit of a fucker because we could get tougher teams but just means we play a bigger team a round earlier than we normally would. Also means if we go through and put one of the big boys out earlier, strategically means that perhaps the draw could get easier/not as many big teams will be in it (as theres always one or two slightly smaller teams who go on good runs too)? Also works same way if we get put out.

James ball watching whilst that area outside the box had 2 Zenit players there waiting for a knockdown…. Great… Also who else was playing in CM with Reece because every time we lost the ball they were nowhere to be seen. Kepa perhaps could get more on the shot but also maybe harsh to say he could of done a great deal more to keep it out. Didnt deserve anything tonight so to get a draw is more than we deserved.

Great goal. About time Timo did something like that, only been waiting about 12 months.

This is why we need to keep him here at all costs. People act as if we can just replace him with ease… That left side has been fucking horrendous tonight though.

Don’t care what anyone says re the injuries etc, if this team has shown two things so far v Zenit its a piss poor mentality and severe lack of quality. Embarrassing. Not as if this is a poor poor team either.

I don’t think he’s necessarily regressed per say, just as usual, people were getting overly excited about him far to soon.

Yeah definitely using him in certain games/not giving him a guaranteed start every week is likely the way to go until we figure out how to get regular goals at the top end of the pitch. Still, he isn’t a write off either and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Timo, Hakim and Christian find themselves on the chopping block before Rom does transfer wise. There are others who think we can/should sell him though as if its easily done and go and spunk another £100m or whatever on other players though ie Haaland, which won’t happen. As you’ve said the sulk/wanting to leave is really the only way he will leave because nobody will try and sign him outright from us already considering he cost 100m. Whilst I agree in a way, there are still going to be games where we create a lot and don’t score enough (Manchester United and Burnley) which will bite us in the arse, especially when we are clearly in the title race and have already cocked up 4 points that could of been very useful due to poor chance conversion and now City and Liverpool starting to look like they are in the sort of shape to put a good run together. Lukaku’s more prolific and I don’t think any of those other attackers will outscore him this season. Goals are a big issue. How Rom fits into the team and we remain a successful and effective team, I don’t know, but its not as if it cannot be done regardless of him limitations. Same way in how its not impossible for a combination of the other attackers to play together.

Again a lot of ifs and buts. For me, he is like Barella, someone who will not move from a big Italian club to another league anytime soon. Well maybe 4,5, 6 years down the line if they go on and achieve a lot or fancy a change but I can’t see it. The top Italian players don’t necessarily leave Serie A historically. Verratti, Jorginho, Donnarumma have more recently in last 10 years or so. And Emerson isnt a top player but hes another as is Gollini who went to Spurs this summer. They don’t really leave Serie A.

Well its both really. We need it to work because he’s clearly not going anywhere anytime soon (look at how long it took to shift Torres, Kepa now potentially and think about how long it may take with Werner come the summer if he doesn’t buck up his ideas) because 1) its still only been near half a season and 2) he cost £100m. Throw in on top we aren’t spunking another £100m on a CF anytime soon despite people living in a fantasy land thinking thats how football works. People need to wake up and accept there isn’t just an easy fix or it isn’t FIFA where we can just sell Lukaku 6 months or 1 year after buying him for £100m so there will have to be someway that he gets used and is used effectively. I don’t think it’s implausible that he cannot score goals in this team and that at the same time this team cannot be a good team. Theres too many good players here for it all to go to fuck because of one players limitations. And the managers far too good too for everything to seemingly go up in smoke because of one player and that limitations. Or barring that, then this group of players and manager is not what we all think it is (which is ludicrous to think).

The being good at pressing/bad at pressing thing is one of those things which you can kind of overlook because Pep has signed/coached players before who didn’t press and makes them buy into it and makes it work because its his philosophy. So has Klopp. So has Bielsa. Coaches who want their team to press set it up and coach it into the players, based on triggers. We don’t really play as a high pressing team either, obviously we press off the ball but we seen to do it more periods/phases of the game as well as sitting off and being compact and organised which is where a great deal of our success has come with under Tuchel. We did see it with Mount, Werner and Havertz last year but its not like we pressed a similarly to City or Liverpool do when they lose the ball everytime, we were probably closer to being a counter attacking team because it suited us more.

Chiesa would be a dream signing. I watched that Amazon thing for Juventus of the season under Pirlo and I didn’t actually realise how many important goals he scored for them that season. Everyone just talked about Ronaldo bailing Pirlo out but Chiesa got a lot of key goals. Obviously his talent is huge and his ability already is huge. I think he’s likely to remain in Italy with Juventus though unfortunately, even if they are struggling financially and under investigation, I would imagine he would remain if all was okay.

Personally, still think there has to be a way for him to play in our team successfully and contribute. Its not as if he is Rickie Lambert or Grant Holt or some other Z list PL striker. I still think that the alternative relying on goal shy and largely inconsistent players like Kai, Werner and Ziyech to deliver goals consistently is risky considering but as has been mentioned it is also risky shoehorning Lukaku for the sakes of it. There are no doubts that Mount, Havertz and Werner in our front 3/Mount as a 10 and those 2 as split strikers last season was effective as well as in general play bringing better chance creation than with a fixed CF like Giroud/Tammy for instance but they don’t score enough. Thats the issue. Thats always going to be the issue, particularly Werner - I mean we are basically 6 months into Werner’s second season and for me he looks even worse than he did for the majority of last season (didn’t think it was even possible). I’ve seen no improvement, in fact more of a regression, even his famed “movement” and “running off the ball”…. he’s doing nothing. Lukaku’s Chelsea career isn’t over by any stretches which you’d think trenching through some of the pages here, just right now it looks more like an inadequate buy than anything else.

Would hardly say those 3 are overrated as they are all good players who have had varied levels of success in their careers but would say so far that Lacroix seems to get a lot of chat on here, as if hes the next best/biggest CB, when he looks pretty ordinary/average. He has not been overly convincing when I have watched any Wolfsburg games this season. I know they were good last season and maybe he was but from what I’ve seen, the 4 or 5 games, he doesn’t strike me as any better than most other CBs at these sort of teams. I think with him being a left footed CB, which there really aren’t many of, people are getting overly excited. Also unsurprisingly, we did linked in the summer loosely and then all of a sudden he was then the best thing since sliced bread…

Keep seeing everyone ranting and raving about Lacroix but in like the last 8 games he has had like 2 red cards and given away 3 penalties or something ridiculous. Is he really that good? From what I have seen he just looks incredibly reckless.

Not going to lie saying someone at 21, with 100 club games for us is “more than ready” to be club captain is a bit far fetched. For now anyway. I mean let the guys go at their own rate, Reece and Mason are top players clearly but they can still get better and don’t need to be potentially talked up or compared to the next Terry and Lampard captain/vice captain thing when 1) we already have say 3/4 top players who are exceptional leaders in their own way in Azpi, Jorginho, Silva and Kante and 2) they’ve still got much more to achieved in their careers over a long term period, it wasn't long ago prior to Tuchel coming in where people were concerned by both of these guys performances. They need to show and earn the right to be considered over the long term, I don’t think many do it as a young player in just over 2 seasons (although Mason did wear the armband under Frank). Only that guys opinion but I am not surprised, obviously Reece coming into the best form of his career so far was always going to incur some over the top comments/opinions.

Erling Haaland apparently on MNF…

You talk as if we will be playing a back 4 sometime soon….

I don’t think we will sign another LWB, it will probably end up being us recalling Maatsen. If Alonso were to ask to leave, then maybe, but he wont. He knows he will have a big role between now and the end of the season with Ben likely to require surgery. There will be more pressing concerns in January if we are to do some business anyway, particularly if Rudi and Andreas’ renewals don’t happen soon enough, a CB will undoubtedly be looked at either with the aim of getting it done in January for the present or for having everything in place for moving at the end of the season (thats without mentioning Thiago Silva and the fact he will be 38 in September also).