Jase

Surely, Conte won't allow himself to get beaten by us for the third time in like three weeks?

You keep on harping about that with Havertz but for god's sake, look at the quality of the opposition. 3 of those goals also came against a Championship side in Barnsley. Heck, you could even put that return down to maybe a honeymoon period, a purple patch. Even Werner had one in his first few months at the club. If he's this great generational talent that you and others keep on talking about, then he should be able to adapt to different systems. Him playing as one of the two 10s in the back 3 also isn't that different from playing as the lone 10 in a back 4.

Depends on when you said it. I only joined TC in Feb 2012. lol

You know shit is getting really real when Tomo starts to call people 'wanker'. 😆

RE Lamptey, he for sure is one quick, tricky player but I guess maybe because of his small size, he sure seems to lose his balance quite easily. He got at Alonso a lot but he rarely looked steady enough to do real damage against him. His pace advantage over Alonso was ended up negated by that and that Alonso was a tad more physical than him.

Yes, we were doing fine then as a team but at the same time, I'm sure we didn't pay 70+ million on someone to just show nice touches, holdup plays and pass the ball in simple fashion.

For all your criticism or even hatred of Werner, he was one of the key players who helped made the system work last season. In fact, him and Mount were basically the two mainstays in Tuchel's selection last season. The remaining spot was open until Havertz grabbed that. The selection was almost consistent. Werner might not a WOW player but he was an important cog in the system. He might not have been the goalscorer that we all want but he contributed(s) a lot in different ways (would even say the same with Havertz at least). Different case altogether with Lukaku who if is not scoring, what does he bring to the team? And he hasn't even registered a single assist this season.

Is the potential even there? Then here's the question, which I've been asking, what exactly is he? Is he a goalscorer? Is he a creator/creative player? Because so far, he has not shown consistent killer instincts to score AND he has not shown that he's capable of playing killer passes etc. He has not owned a game. So what exactly is he good at that we can fit him into one position? This is not quite true. He got a decent run of games towards the end of last season and this season as well, especially when both Lukaku and Werner were out injured.

Top talent? What top talent? Havertz has been here for 18 months, we spent 70+ million on him and he has yet to show any sort of consistency and qualities that made people go gaga over him in the first place. I know players are different from one another but Hazard was already showing his qualities, making an impact, giving us that X factor the minute he joined the club and he didn't even cost 70+ million!

For all the stick we give to those players, I don't think they are bad players per se (including Lukaku!). In the right environment, in the right setup, I think they would thrive. It's just we do a shit job at recruiting players because (a) the club don't have any idea how they want the team to play, (b) we keep changing managers and (c) the manager some times does a shit job at getting the best out of them.

The tiredness factor only works up till a point. If tiredness is an issue, then why did Tuchel start Lukaku for, I think, the fourth straight game? Why did he start Ziyech again? Why not Werner? Why not Havertz, who has suddenly started on the bench in the last 3 games? Why did Saul find himself on the bench again after the recent improvement? And let's not also forget that Tuchel went with quite a strong XI against Chesterfield.

Ha! You complained about practically all our attackers and now you mentioned only 2 attackers there. Besides the lack of finishing, we were generally doing fine attacking wise last season. We largely had a settled system and setup, with minimal changes, and we made it work. Fast forward to this season, throw Lukaku in - the only addition to the frontline - and suddenly, things slowly and surely have started to go haywire because Tuchel keeps on chopping and changing, trying to shoehorn someone who didn't fit into the XI.

Also, funny that the English media made all the hoo-ha about Mount after he didn't start on Saturday and he went and put in an average/a poor performance today. Where are those journalists now!?

So, Tuchel basically admitted that he was being reactionary with those subs and then complained about tiredness...again.

Ha! What's the point? They would just become shit here and style? What style? Does Tuchel even have any idea what he wants to do in attack?

Yes, our attackers are shit but better chance of potentially changing the game, making an impact with more time to do so than just 10 minutes! It's not as if we were doing anything for much of that second half or first half for that matter! At least try something different, try making the changes earlier!

Brighton have played us off the park for like 2+ seasons now. Our last convincing performance and win against them was the 2-0 victory early in the 2019/20 season!

Forget about Liverpool. We will be lucky to even finish 3rd at this rate!

That's not the point. The point is you make changes so late in the game and it's almost dumb that you expect them to make an impact with just 10 minutes. And it's probably made worse by the fact that Tuchel trotted out another system that we have rarely used and then placed square pegs in round holes. P.S. Would also be saying the same thing had it been other players that came on!

Is Tuchel starting to lose the plot? He complains about not having 5 subs in the Premier League to make changes but yet, it's two consecutive games now that he waited ages to make changes and that's with just 3 subs. Does Tuchel also think the Premier League is the Bundesliga or Ligue 1? He keeps rotating the players and making changes to the tactical setups, leading to us not having any sort of consistency whatsoever. Then there's the endless issue of putting square pegs in round holes. There's already been plenty of them but now, it's CHO in a front two with Lukaku and then Werner on the RW in a 4-2-3-1? It feels as though Tuchel wants to be clever and wants to out-tactic the opposition that he ends up overcomplicating things and makes things worse for us, especially this season.

Tuchel waited yonks to make changes and you expect the subs to make a difference with just 10 minutes? Kovacic did nothing. Werner did nothing. Havertz did nothing and looked off the pace. And oh, Tuchel also decided to put Werner out on the RW for god knows what reason.

Here's a stat - Lukaku's Pressure Per 90 stat in the Premier League this season is only 8.24. Only one other outfield player in the team has a lower stat - Silva (6.32). The next attacker in the team with the lowest Pressure Per 90 number is CHO but his is at 15.9.

You are not necessarily wrong but a truly world class striker (as Lukaku claimed himself supposedly to be) should be able to transcend systems and the likes of Lewandowski and Mbappe also have the performances and numbers in the Champions League, for example, to go with their domestic success.

Maybe. He's seen in training with the rest of the team today.

Came across this from a United fan earlier today and I think it expands more on what @Tomo's point: https://www.football365.com/news/benitez-everton-sack-tuchel-mourinho-Chelsea-lukaku-man-city-mailbox A few quick points I’d like to make that back up my view. Firstly, as brought up in the conclusions article, is the fact that “they’re not setup to get the best out of him”. It’s something I’ve heard frequently in his defence; that the system doesn’t suit him. How often do people make that same comment with regards to Lewandowski? Or Benzema? Or Mbappe? Or Haaland? Or peak Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez or Aguero? Even Kane? Almost never, because they continued to perform and to score goals whomever their manager was and whatever system they were playing. Why? Because they are or were genuinely world class strikers. If a striker can only play one way, or requires an entire attack to be built around their limitations, then by definition, that player is one dimensional and ergo not world class. Secondly, the references to how he “tore it up” in Italy. Does anyone think Ciro Immobile is world class? Would Chelsea sign him for £100m? Because in Lukaku’s time at Inter, Immobile out scored him in Serie A by 10 goals in the same amount of games whilst playing for a significantly weaker side. Scoring 2 in 3 (including penalties) for the best side in a league with the highest goals per game rate of the big 5 leagues in Europe (that they’re petitioning to have reduced back to 18 teams because there’s too many awful sides getting promoted), whilst at the peak age for a player, doesn’t make a £100m striker. Serie A is not what it was; it’s closer to Ligue Un in quality than the Premier League at the moment. Don’t agree? Darmian, Sanchez and Ashley Young played significant roles in Inter’s title win. See them getting a game at City, Liverpool or Chelsea? They weren’t playing at United, and we’re really shit.