OneMoSalah

Aye thats it. Leicester game is actually the perfect example, they were very depleted against a full strength Liverpool but showed that it just takes a lot of grit and that bit of quality in the final third to beat them. I tend to remember us showing that grit at Anfield with 10 men at the beginning of the season when we had arguably the toughest start of the any top 6 side.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a couple of good results in these games and then its “our title challenge is back on” from all the doom and gloom “we will struggle to make top 4 playing like this” merchants. Wouldn't put it past us to taken points from either Liverpool today or City when we play them. Just have a feeling.

When we signed Rom a lot of people complained about Serie A’s standards of defenders so is going for another CF who plays in Serie A necessarily a great idea? Or is just a matter of anybody but Romelu? Like it is for Alonso also re the links with Digne? Its hard to judge because he has had a fantastic 18 months or so but Lukaku also scored 64 goals for Inter in 2 seasons. Yes he’s younger but I just seem to get a sort of Stevan Jovic vibe off him right now. I don’t buy that all of a sudden a lot of people have went from bashing Serie A standards and defenders when we were trying to buy/signed Rom to all off a sudden thinking its an incredible/much better standard now theres links to Vlahovic. I do think Lukaku’s is in hot water though and could be expendable come the summer.

I don’t think he has to do this to prove who’s in charge as he’s already shown on a couple of occasions he is the man making the decisions and had made some big ones. He is doing it to purely make a point to Lukaku and anyone else who might be thick enough to do anything similar, to the same way he also harshly subbed CHO on then off v Southampton last season for ‘not being happy with his counter pressing’ and then he subbed Mount off at HT v Spurs a few months back, although IIRC he did say he could have brought many off and then talked about energy levels, second balls etc. I think the fact he’s done this sort of things before, the squad will 100% back his decision and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the senior pros have also had a go at Rom.

I just think those sort of comments, the timing as well as Tuchel’s reaction will be very detrimental if I am honest. I mean a bad patch of form and he does an interview like that? He effectively said he wishes he got a new contract and stayed at Inter. Why wouldn’t it be odd to assume that he might end up a victim of his own comments? We all know the club and Tuchel aren’t fools Not exactly the same as Costa under Conte but remember he got that bid lost his head and ultimately wanted out?

Aye I would expect the summer. Tuchel isn’t impressed by the comments and ultimately he hasn’t exactly helped his case with his performances at times (although he has had injuries as well as continuously playing with other attackers and not a fixed combination) so if he still feels that way, I’d guess that there will be some sort of plan hatched. Also yeah he could potentially kill a bit of morale around the place, the manager and perhaps even some of the senior players like Azpi, Jorginho, Thiago Silva (same sort of player Rom’s meant to be in terms of leadership and experience in the group) have to get a hold of him and say “WTF is this interview about and are you committed or not” and try and get him committed to even the end of the season if he’s on about a return to Inter. For such an ‘educated man’ who speaks X amount of languages, is apparently very intelligent, he is thick as fuck.

Would say his Chelsea career is as good as close to over, when has the club ever kept unhappy players? Its funny though the video of the interview, he talks about Inter but now their probably doing just as well/better without him and their ultras clearly couldn’t care less.

Also but again, why is it another Belgian Chelsea player talking utter nonsense to the foreign press? Hazard and Tibo were also notoriously bad for it. It blows my mind.

The irony of this is were you not saying Tuchel could get sacked and comparing him to Di Matteo like 2/3 weeks ago? Seems a sudden change of heart……

Mad hes said those comments. He has divided a lot since his arrival but those comments are 100% pure idiotic comments. Tuchel wont be happy either

Shit I forgot that. Aye not got a clue how much of an effect it can have, Havertz big example of it last season 100%.

Sorry but what does that even mean? Obviously finishing 2nd isn’t an achievement in itself as ultimately you want to win trophies as a team but if people think we should just focus on domestic cups after a wee sticky spell - then what is the point? And even then this run of results - remember City’s start last season? Worst one in however long yet they ended up strolling the league. Worst start to a season of Pep‘s career. Written off by everyone. Not saying we will win the league but I honestly think we just need a run of 5/6/7 easy games without a lot of injuries/covid incidents. 100% agree, more points = more wins which ultimately means less losses. Which either means your doing things right or in Utds case last season, the standards poorer than expected. This year City and Liverpool are the standard but we are definitely closer this season even with this blip run.

Jorginho has played 315 minutes in the last 13 days though, he is clearly fatigued which isn’t ideal. You can see that in the performance. It’s different for Kovacic - he hasn’t played 90 minutes since the cup game v Southampton 2 months ago and after getting 72 minutes prior to tonight in the last 6 days or so v Villa and Brentford, he should be much sharper but it really was the opposite. I would go as far as saying it looked as if he was trying to work out how to play football for the first time at times tonight for 75% of the game. People were looking forward to him coming back and giving us another body and a boost in this period but he was terrible and even as bad as Jorgi played, I really don’t think he played much worse than Kovacic. Kante coming in got us a bit more of a foothold in there but even then bar a few moments, Kante didn’t severely alter the game either for me. We were just too poor and relying on Brighton leaving room to counter than actually getting real control of the game

They were all shit tonight bar Lukaku really in terms of quality and Chalobah did alright but honestly think Kovacic was the worst player on the pitch. It is almost as if he was playing for Brighton, must of been 8 or 9 times he gave them the ball. Sort of level he showed whilst under Sarri. Worried with Liverpool next we are so depleted.

Chalobah and Lukaku only ones who have really contributed something meaningful all game. Well deserved goal for Brighton. Fucking knew it would be Welbeck when he came on. Graham Potter celebrating like they’ve won the league.

Yep drag one of the attackers for Kante or drag Kovacic. One of the worst individual midfield performances of his since the Sarri days. Nobody doing great though. Also CHO what was that

All good providing legs and energy but if your giving the ball away every time though you’re not going to help much. Another very poor one there from a basic situation…. Our best MF 2 has always been Kante and Jorginho under Tuchel.

Possession stats poor and MF getting dominated but take off Jorginho? Why? Kovacic has been so so much worse and so sloppy on the ball, a few of their transitions have come directly from Kovacic’s getting caught on it.

Rudi lucky he makes no real contact or thats a straight red. Jesus christ.

Ampadu territory? Wouldn’t say he’s there or remotely close. I was gonna comment about the video of Norwich fans signing at him. I really don’t get the Norwich fans going after him - aye he’s not played as well as we’d and they would have hoped… I don’t get it, they’ve got so many guys who have also been horrendous this season and have spent like 3 seasons in the PL where they’ve been battered under Daniel Farke and celebrated the whole season of being there getting pumped 30 out of 38 games a season like a second rate club would so for a section of their fans to go after a 20 y/o loan player like that, especially now, it blows my mind. Unfortunately, he is playing for a championship team who are definitely going down, where its likely accurate that 75-80% of their squad aren’t anywhere near good enough to keep them in the PL. They have no obligation to play him and thats fine but honestly, how many players of the calibre he is at/better than he is at do they have? Its not just why Billy’s struggling, its why they are struggling to get results - because the majority of them aren't at the level. Re Gallagher and Gilmour, all this season shows is what difference a good loan (or loans in CG’s case) and a bad loan can do to people’s perception. Norwich looked a decent loan at the beginning because Farke’s always went to play a possession based style but its turned out a disaster probably. Anyone unsure of Billy’s ability to play at a higher level than Norwich should watch the clips of him play against Liverpool, Everton and virtually any Scotland game hes started in. He can definitely be a top top MF player, have said that since I seen him playing for Rangers u20 aged 15.

Lucas Digne? No thanks. Has been shite for 18 months now I get the need for a LWB or for some people I can see there is a sheer dislike/they dont value Alonso but that doesn’t mean every Tom, Dick or Harry is the correct answer. Particularly one who now cannot get into the Everton team (who sit 15th by the way) ahead of a CB who couldn’t get into the starting 11 ahead of their other CBs. I think it would make more sense to go elsewhere or if it comes to it, recall Emerson or Matsen.

Pretty daft from Ndidi to even contemplate sliding in too though but that sort of defending, no surprise given how bad Leicester have been in recent weeks. Also having a helmet like James Maddison in the spine of their team is never going to help either, clearly believes his own hype yet wouldn’t exactly say he’s a world beater by any stretch of the imagination. Good when everything’s going well but not someone you’d count on in a bad period.

Thank god we never tried to sign that CM Soumare who went to Leicester in the summer. He looks so so ponderous with the ball and extremely average.

Surprisingly (🤪), I do agree. I think Rom being in and out with injuries also hasn’t helped. Or the inconsistency with the other attackers. I think TT may look for some other attackers in the summer and may move some on though, Pulisic and Ziyech in particular and maybe Timo if hes in and out the team come next summer. We need a 10 or wide player who is more decisive to support the team and get between 15-20 goal contributions also as well as a CF who can do that (personally still think Rom can but means the set up has to he tweaked to do so). Mason cannot be the only one outside of CF getting decent numbwrs.

Aye but also wasn’t a huge part of our success last season, particularly in the bigger games (City, Madrid, Liverpool etc) not orientated more around playing counter attacking or counter pressing football and exposing/isolating teams in certain areas? And thats without even mentioning personnel? But not releasing the ball quick enough is a problem for a lot of our attackers - 100% agree - and I do think its fair to say that we still don’t know our best/most effective front 3. We seen the guys last year worked well but they weren’t ruthless and we’ve seen so many combination’s this season. I still cant shake the feeling TT is very annoyed with the performances and output from the majority of the attacking guys bar Mount. Injuries and COVID doesn’t help but again, if we had all our players TT would still vary the front 3 every few games like he seems to have done this season.