manpe

Sure, Bos is a leg in that regard, but Benny Hill was still the soundtrack to his crosses

Came close to some of the shit shows Bosingwa put us through with his "crosses", but not quite that bad yet At least his high stray balls went past the first man...

Far from it, we still sometimes get threats from his camp that he will leave if he doesn't get to play more. And with Chelsea everything can happen, he may feature regularly for a period of time, then get frozen out (look at Christensen). Once Sarri gets sacked in 1-2 years time, the next manager may not rate him at all. He is not the type of player who will survive any manager, so let's not jump the gun.

Pleased with what I've seen from him in the last few months. His game has finally grown some meat around its skeleton. He is becoming the type of player who when in or around the box, you expect something to happen... You don't immediately think it's a dead-end like with the likes of Morata and Willian. If he keeps at it, keeps his head down, learns and improves, he may actually make it here... I'm not very optimistic about it, but I hope, like I hope with every other academy graduate who has the slightest chance of breaking through. There have been plenty false downs down the road (McEachrans, Kakutas, Stochs and so on), but with RLC the feeling is a bit different, he's been around for quite a while now and the club is still adamant of keeping him. Other hopefuls have appeared to the picture out of nowhere and faded back to nowhere just as quickly, but Cheeks has been groomed for years now and shows no signs of fading into obscurity. He certainly is EPL level and wouldn't be short of suitors if it didn't work out with us. I have an idealistic dream of Mount, Barkley and RLC being our all-English future. How cool would that be?

I was wondering why our Sarrismo was better in the beginning than now, this probably explains it. We look much more laborious now.

Sweet! Kante down, Azpi down, now Hazard and CHO are left.

Lmao Alonso is so bad at crossing it's painful to watch Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk

Not sure if Kante is really needed at home against the league's last, would have liked to see Kovacic take his role and either RLC or Barkley play AMF. But hey at least Willian and Morata are benched

I got a superb offer from my television provider to subscribe to a sports channel package for 1€ /month until the end of January. I of course took it the moment I saw they show EPL games and game day reviews, so I'm hyped that this will be televised live tomorrow in HD quality Small things in life, need to appreciate. No more choppy Russian streams. Kepa Azpi - Rüdiger - Christensen - Emerson Kovacic - Jorginho - Barkley Pedro - Giroud - Hazard Sarri plz

You've changed your tune. I'm not 100% sure but I believe you slated him here before, calling for him to be sold because he is past it, doesn't offer anything and is not up to it physically. If it was not you I apologize. If it was, what made you change your mind? Surely not him having Greenland-sized spaces to pick his passes against 10-men minnows in EL? Cesc must go either in January or in summer, he is not good enough. But first he must be adequately replaced because Sarri doesn't view anybody else fit to deputize Jorginho.

Yeah, agree with everything. But I have a feeling that this goalscoring/free-kick thing comes into their thinking when choosing him or Emerson. Another thing that probably comes into the manager's mind is his physicality and usefulness in the air... but that is sooo Mourinho. I really don't see compelling reasons why Alonso is so strongly ahead of him.

Nor did Conte like Emerson. Conte is a winner, he picks the players he believes give the biggest chance of winning. Sarri is a philosopher, he picks the players he believes can carry out his philosophy to maximum efficiency. So there must be something our peasant minds cannot comprehend - either Alonso is very good at something important that we don't see, or Emerson is so bad at something we put no great importance on, but managers do. Instead of slating them and forcing our opinions on managers who are far more qualified to make those decisions, let's try to constructively understand WHY Alonso keeps playing while Emerson is a mickey mouse game option only. I think there are two main reasons for that: Goals - We lack firepower up front: Our midfield is more a provider than a scorer, our strikers stink so there is not much to whom to provide to. Our wingers also far from clinical, even though Hazard was carrying us earlier. Willian hopeless, a fucking center-back (JT) scored more than him in almost the same amount of games, Pedro old and injury-prone but by far the better option between the two. That's all we have to offer in terms of attacking prowess, it looks pretty bleak if you ask me, so the managers may look towards anything they can find that can produce goals. Alonso has proven that for a defender he scores more than average + his free-kicks are always potential game-changers. Defending - Yes, he is much slower than Emerson, but his positioning, anticipation, tackling, marking etc. might be better than Emerson's. I'm not a professional football coach to fully understand all the intricacies of defending, I see only the basic stuff (like pace, slide tackles, clearances, blocks), but perhaps over the course of 90 minutes he IS the better defensive option?

Giroud again! Fabregas with a trademark lofted through pass. But this is kinda boring now that they are trailing 2-0 and are a man down, there is no way we're gonna give them a sniff anymore. Not really a game to give fair assessments on performances tbh.

Plenty false dawns from recent history, we pull off some rare quality coups and then revert to mediocrity, thinking our problems are solved. I'm not getting my hopes up this time, especially with Roman's state of affairs and a big fat fine looming, or worse - transfer ban. But yeah it's only speculation at this point, let's live and see, but I have no expectations whatsoever that the club will back him.

Except Pep has been properly backed in the transfer market and has steadily been getting players suitable for his ideas. Our board more than likely thinks Jorginho was enough effort and will revert back to apathetic denial in the market.

Some good points made tbh. Non-rotation doesn't work in EPL, it is more demanding than Italy and even there it backfired. He NEEDS to stop using key players in games where we can afford to rest them (EL and cup ties). Some players are fatigued already I think and it won't get better with games coming thick and fast. There is no reason for the likes of Emerson, CHO and Christensen to be completely frozen out from EPL fixtures. Chelsea is a different animal to any club he has managed so far, he must be careful not to alienate a large group of the squad, or else we know how that ends up for managers over here.

If we sell him and with Sarri saying only Fabregas can play Jorginho's role, who will be backup for Jorgi? Doubt we'd sign anybody meaningful to replace him. Think he's offski in the summer, not January.

I keep forgetting we have him. Doesn't even enter my mind when thinking of our midfield options.

I laughed, sue me

People who actually truly believe this video isn't fake, are simply the special kind people. The kind who need to have supervision at all times when awake. The photoshopped Chelsea logo and the fact he never says the names he supposedly said are dead giveaways.

And who isn't even a starter. Dortmund are having a laugh.

I'd stick Barkley instead of Kova in this formation, he's more of a goal threat and probably a more natural nr. 10. But yes doubt we'll see it.

Morata keeps starting yet his tactical understanding is to stay offside and fall. Luiz keeps starting yet his tactical understanding in defence is.... CHO can't be worse.

I still wish he would try the 4-2-3-1 formation with Kante and Jorginho in double pivot against stronger teams. Kante goes too far up when we get hit by counters, so it's up to the Jorginhos, Luizes and Alonsos to track back against speedsters. We saw how that ended up yesterday with Son's goal. Some tactical flexibility needed or we get predictable (aka honeymoon period ends). Kante and Jorginho would still have the license to bomb forward, but more conservatively than in our current system.

Glad that name is sticking Overall, I wouldn't overreact over this game. We were bound to lose some time, our first loss came at the end of November - I would have bit your hands off if such a strong start was offered before the season began. It was Spurs away, anybody can be overplayed and lose there, it's not like they are pushovers and we are not steamrollers like City. We got that unbeaten monkey off our backs now, lessons hopefully learned and we get back on track against Fulham (shouldn't be too difficult). Season is still long ahead, we will see more losses like that, but it's important we get the points that are up for grabs and finish top 4. Currently we are on track of doing so, but the race will go down to the T I believe.