Blue-in-me-Veins

Mourinho talking shit to Conte at full-time, Fuck Off! Conte with the masterclass performance, by handing JM the worst loss of his PL career! 3 Straight Clean Sheets. Forza Chelsea!

Nah Laporte is committed to Athletic Club. Unless the club hierarchy tell Laporte that they absolutely need to sell him for funds, he's not gonna leave anytime soon. He truly loves the club.

I would actually argue we do have a football philosophy in our Academy Coaches and Academy players. The problem is, the Board and Roman don't want to commit to that philosophy for whatever reason when it comes to the First team. Either they hire the wrong managers for possesion based football (Mourinho Mark II, Roberto Di Mateo) or Hire the right manager for that style of play but don't arm him with the correct players for that style (AVB, and Conte). This tweet sums it up.

A clean sheet and Ivanovic on the Bench? This can't be life.

Leverkusen with that quick 2-0 victory. As much as I rile against Roger Schmidt, he got it completely right today. (Besides starting Bender at RB against Ousame Dembele! Almost had a heart attack every time Dembele got the ball.) Surprised the Aranguiz--Kampl double pivot worked as well as it did tbh. Neither are particularly defensive minded, and thought Baumgauntlinger would have been paired with either one. The opening 10mins, Leverkusen were all over Dortmund, and were right to take the lead. Dortmund looked very confused in those opening minutes, with Weigl dropping back deep and Dembele/Pulisic almost positioning themselves as Wingbacks during the buildup phase. Dortmund had completely conceded the center of the pitch, and Leverkusen took advantage by positionin themselves brilliantly for the press. Then when Weigl pushed up to position himself in CM where he normally plays, he was heavily man marked/pressed whenever he got the ball, with 3/4 Leverkusen players closing him down forcing him to pass backwards and nullify his killer defense splitting passes. (Was nice to see Schmidt focus so hard on taking out Weigl, learned his lesson, because last year Weigl put on a masterclass performance, ripping Leverkusen a new one in their 3-0 win.) For me, Sebastian Rode simply has to do more when Weigl is being defended against that much, and offer himself as a second #6 (not only for today but moving forward) because all the focus will be on stopping Weigl orchestrating from deep this year, and with Gundogan gone to help carry the load, he has to step up. Think Tuchel was right to start him. Was also happy Schmidt completely bypassed any sort of buildup play by having Bernd Leno hoof the ball upfield on every goal kick/Open play save. The 11tegen pass map shows, how little passing was done across Leverkusen's backline. Kevin Kampl and Admir Mehmedi were fantastic. Both were very excellent going forward and in defense, and shoutout to Heinrichs at RB in that second half, nullifying Dembele on the wings and not letting him get past him. Also Tah, who late on kept making crucial recovery tackles with Aubameyang and his ridiculous pace. But as is custom with Leverkusen, we'll probably bottle it by drawing our next League match.

WHat a week of Champions League football we just witnessed. Absolutely brilliant matches. So many interesting storylines, and results to talk about. Anybody watch that Napoli vs Benfica match? I tell you man, Maurizio Sarri is soooo underrated. Argument can be made he's easily one of the top 10 managers in European football. Man coaches some of the best buildup play I've ever seen, and they create serious goal scoring chances for fun. Switching to GladBach vs Barcelona, what a gut-wrenching result for Andre Schuberts men. IDK what it is, but Gladbach be performing like World beaters at home. They HAD Barca on the ropes in that first half, it's just that final ball was severely lacking. Dahoud, Christensen, Traore, and Thorgan all put in fabulous performances. A point on Christensen, besides one slip up in the box, he was very very solid throughout, and even though he was isolated against Suarez numerous times he stuck his ground well, never diving into reckless challenges or getting spun around.. Dahoud is the real deal, mans is not staying at Gladbach after next summer, the next Vidal confirmed, me thinks. Must be good to be Barcelona, where you can sleep walk for 65mins, then turn up the style, and walk away with 3pts. Still cannot believe they turned that result around tbh. And lastly, Diego Simeone doing to Carlo Ancelotti what he always does. Got to give a shoutout to Felipe Luis and Juanfran who absolutely bossed that match on the flanks, Especially Juanfran who had Ribery in his pocket the entire game. Diego Simeone much like @The Chels already mentioned above, has reinvented the art of defending. His UCL Home record is ridiculous. They absolutely bossed that match, and I'm so happy to see Koke back in CM where he belongs. Not a fan of Saul on the RW, especially for his development, because from the matches I've seen him play on RW, he's largely been anonymous. Fantastic week of Champions League footy.

Two transfer windows too late, But it's avout timewhatever the Chelsea Heirarchy wake up and realize this squad needs to be disbanded ASAP.

Mate, they took a lap of honor after beating Man City last December, and then the team was posting selfies all over Twitter/Instagram after beating Leicester City at the Emirates. They are the definition of "small club mentality". Theo Walcott thinks he's won the PL trophy after his performance on Saturday. It's just sad how much of an achievement beating Chelsea after 5 years in the league is for them. After 5 fucking years!? I've been praying every day that Arsene Wenger gets a contract extension before his contract runs out this year.

U don't think Dybala would work as a CAM/SS to Costa? I think it would work, and then have Kante/New CM in behind, and an industrious Winger in the Ivan Perisic mould, on the RW. I don't think that would destroy our balance. But that's assuming our backline has undergone a total makeover.

I think I would explode if we pulled this off.

Absolutely. But this is a two year thing with the board. (one might argue a 4 year thing, since the hiring of JM the second time round). They are trying to penny pinch their way back to the top because for some reason they have placed the future of Chelsea FC in the hands of Ivan/Cahill/Oscar/Matic/Willian/JT.

Agree. We are very much Man United 2012 Mark II. Yes we won the title, but Chelsea (much like that Man U team) were very very flawed. What I do not understand at all. Is why the hell the Board have given the likes of Cahill/Ivan/Oscar/Willian/Matic, (Even Courtois! with the whole Lollichon fiasco) as much trust and backing like they did prime Drogba/Lampard/Cole/JT/Cech? ( I don't mind players having power, but they have to be WC talents man. They can't be this lot.) Somebody else on this forum said this but I cannot repeat it enough, and that is "why isn't Chelsea management as ruthless with underperforming players, as they are with managers". The Board deserve everything that is happening to this team. Because they would rather search the galaxy for a manager that can turn these players into PL Title winners instead of facing the cold hard reality, that they fucked up when it came squad composition, and built a very expensive but deeply flawed team. I mean, who turns down 50M for Oscar, Juventus coming in for Matic, gives our Worst player of the year last year a contract extension, and then goes two consecutive summer transfer windows keeping the likes of Ivan/Cahill/Matic/Oscar/Willian/Cesc as undisputed first team starters because The Board refuse to buy any sort of competition for their spots. For an ownership, that places such lofty ambitions on the managers they hire. The Board truly do go out of their way to sabotage the clubs efforts. Unreal. /rant.

Pretty sure Conte was screaming "Vi Ammazzo Tutti!" (I'll kill you all!), and throwing water bottles at the the entire team at half time. He did that at Juve and was captured screaming that to his players at the Euros.

I want to cry just looking at that passing map. No positional structure, the wrong players have the most touches, and Costa again dropping super deep to get a sniff of the ball.

TBF he only needed 1 assist to have more than Willian

To be fair, your probably right. Every unseen/untried combination of players on the pitch ultimately becomes the solution to all our problems. Ivan/Cahill/Matic/Oscar/Willian.... seeing these guys play week in week out is just... it's just so depressing man. And seeing the board place so much trust in those players like their prime Drogba/Lampard/A. Cole/JT is just mind-boggling.

Disagree. When he has to the tools, Conte's teams play with sound buildup play, very distinct and clear passing patterns [much like Guardiola and Pelligrini], and impose their will on teams. Just look at his Juventus teams that ran riot in Serie A for 3 years, and Italy in the Euros. They played very sound football. He may fail here at Chelsea, but all the evidence before hiring him showed he is a complete antithesis to JM. I mean, just look at his statements after our first pre-season game, where he called for the players to control the game more and not sit back so deep, because a big club like Chelsea is supposed to own the ball. (pretty much word for word what he said.) He's even quoted as saying in the summer, that he doesn't "believe, in the counter attack". So nah, I don't buy the "shit on a stick football" merchant tag much like you gave JM. Because the difference with JM, is that he'll still produce poor football even after his teams have spent obscene amounts of money. If we had spent 160M Pounds this summer much like City, no doubt we'd be better suited for these matches against the top sides, trust. Now, that doesn't mean Conte is absolved from criticism. He's gotten the past two games horribly wrong. What Conte is struggling to figure out, is how to approach these big games. We're simply not good enough to impose our will against the top sides (much like you reminded me last week lol). He's struggling to find a starting XI for these big games that can bring the great defensive intensity needed against top opposition. And he's struggling to have our players in the right situations defensively, because I don't think any player looks particularly comfortable (especially in CM) with their defensive responsibilities. He's messing up in the big games, no doubt. But trust, if it was up to Conte, we wouldn't be playing counter-attacking football at all if he we didn't have to.

Both Mikel and Chalobah cannot, I repeat, cannot, be as horrendous as Matic. I refuse to believe either player has the ability to make our midfield even worse than it is, than when Matic is playing. Said it in the summer aswell, the club should have let Matic fuck off to Juventus.

But guys, Willian was Chelsea's player of the Season last year! I cannot stand Willian's non-contributions in attack. He's simply allergic to scoring any open play goal, and constantly hiding with the types of runs he makes to avoid putting himself in goal-scoring opportunities. Like I was saying all summer, Upgrade needed. EDIT: The prosecution rests it's case.

The fact Costa has been our best hold up player/passer over the past 2 league games says all you need to know about how shite our midfield continues to be. Can only imagine how frustrated he must be over the last 2 league games.

I agree. Conte has gotten it all wrong in the big matches so far, and to be honest, our players look tired as fuck on the pitch. I thought Arsenal had 5 extra players on because time and time again, Theo and Alexis were winning balls deep in defense, and then were beating our defenders in transition. It was shocking stuff. I see Conte has given Willian the same instructions as JM. Because Willian is effectively played as a wingback, and Ivan just stands there doing fuck all in defense. and Azpi is told to tuck in too, which means Hazard has to play as a RWB as well. And then in CM, It's just all gone to shit. I couldn't even tell you want any of our 3 CMs are supposed to be doing, and I doubt they could tell you either. He's got to do better, but I still maintain, the squad above all else is full of deadwood. Too many inconsistent footballers who aren't good enough to be regular starters for a Top 4 side.

All we need now is for Ivan and JT to lead a revolt against Conte, and it'll surely be AVB 2.0. Although, I'm not as down on Conte as you are, because I simply don't know what to make of half the squad. Yes, these players won the league 2 years ago, but they also oversaw our worst PL finish. And some of these players look broken. Both physically and football wise.

Koulibaly who?

Pep Guardiola said it best -- "Chelsea need 10 new players." Cannot believe not one 1st team player from last season was sold.

Nainggolan who?