Jase

I don't know whether to applaud or cry at the optimism of this.

BRING BACK MIKEL!

I don't disagree with the notion but I don't think the CB position is one that you can mess about by putting an untested player in while wanting to challenge and win the major honors. Granted, Tomori himself is not the finished article yet but at the very least, he's got more proven experience than Guehi has so far.

At the risk of jumping the gun, based on yesterday's performance, it feels like Havertz can provide what both Abraham and Giroud do in leading the line. He's got good pace, good movement, good at linking up play by dropping deep, capable of running beyond the defence and not bad in the air either. Just need to bulk up a tad bit.

The only issue with Guehi is he's still only 20 years old and still untested in the Premier League. Tomori is a few years older and has more experience at the highest level.

We should just convince Tomori to come back. Money saved! 👀

And yet, look what happened with him... Even if Werner had been clinical this season, we can't be reliant on him just to score the goals. No team that wants to be successful in the Premier League and even the Champions League can be reliant on just one main scorer. The fact that (a) Jorginho is our joint top scorer in the league with 6 penalty goals and (b) despite Werner missing chances for fun but is still our second top scorer in the league and third overall in the team in the team say it all. There's probably been one or two incidents but don't think there's been anything major or any frustrating moments with Werner on this. My point with that is at least he is still showing the right mindset, the right attitude to try and help the team even when things are going shit elsewhere for him. That's the basis for any player, no? Last thing we want from a player is the player just ghosting around and not doing anything at all if things are going shit in other aspects for him. And I brought this up because of the comparison others brought up with Morata and Torres. People seem to have forgotten how awful those two generally were once things started to go downhill for them. Otherwise, agree with the lack of consistency at the moment. As bad as it may look, Werner isn't the first player to get shouted at by the manager for not doing something right and won't be the last. I don't know if you're just nit-picking at this point but how do you expect him to react to his missed chances? Scream in agony? Kick the post in anger? Punch the ground in frustration? I am no expert in how strikers are supposed to react when they miss chances but using normal life circumstance scenarios, I would say everyone has their own way when it comes to dealing with frustration, anger etc. If Werner has been as hopeless as you're making him out to be, then I don't think Tuchel would have played him as much as he has or he would have subbed him off a lot more often. Sure, you can point to the likes of Ziyech, Pulisic not being in form but he could have easily given them the playing time to regain their form from the start if he wanted to. If Tuchel was really frustrated with Werner yesterday, he would have taken him off way earlier, way before the 90th minute.

One from Abraham/Giroud will likely go but then, the new striker will just take their place and we would just end up with the same number of attackers. Even if we somehow allow both of them to leave, 7 players for 3 or 3.5 positions is still a lot. But that's just your thought/speculation, no? There's no indication whatsoever that we will sell Ziyech and if we play Mount as one of the #6, where does that even leave Gilmour? He hasn't even been able to play with Tuchel just swapping between Kante, Jorginho and Kovacic. The point with getting a new DM is that it would help us solidify our midfield in a back 4, which has been a problem for ages. Whenever we have played that system in recent years, the defensive balance has never looked right in midfield. And playing the back 4 also opens up another attacking space, meaning we would have 7-8 players for 4 positions instead of just 3. Am sure things have gone well for him before at Mainz, Dortmund and PSG but that has never stopped him from playing different formations. Part of the reason he isn't doing that right now is because he came in in the middle of the season and didn't want to rock the boat too much. He just chose the best possible formation and went with it.

Indeed...

Worth reminding that Jorginho started against Liverpool.

Didn't Werner play as the ST in that game? Anyway, the difference between Lampard and Tuchel is that the latter gives better clarity to players to make a role work.

Is Werner even competing with Abraham and Giroud for the striker position? He can play there but we know he's not a classic #9 and now we have Havertz playing as the False 9. So, go figure.

I know Werner is frustrating everyone right now in front of goal but there really is a lot of history revisionist when it comes to comparing him with the likes of Torres and Morata. Torres was long gone when we got him from Liverpool. He did score some memorable goals for us but we spent far too long in trying to make a lost cause work, especially as a focal point of the team back then and the price we bought him for. Morata had all the tools to be a top striker but his mentality was weak and his attitude was undesirable here to say the least. None of those apply to Werner right now. He's all the opposite and the fact that he's even missing all these chances from every direction possible suggests he's not a bad player and he's doing somethings right. It's just a matter of converting chances. I don't know if it's down to the mental side, confidence, finishing touch or all of them but that's like the only thing missing from him at the moment. If he had scored like 5-6 additional goals, people wouldn't be having this conversation about him at all.

Is this a contest to you? 🤣 The xG numbers paint a slightly different story to the stats above, especially for Bamford. Bamford's league xG for the season is 13.92 and with 13 goals scored, he's pretty much matching it one way or another. Werner, of course, is underperforming by at least 5 goals because his xG is 9.72 but he's scored only 5 goals. Hard to argue with the numbers if you just throw them out like that but the funny thing is, Morata's trajectory back then isn't too different from Werner's right now. Morata started with 9 goals in his first 14 Premier League appearances and then scored only 2 more goals in his remaining 17 appearances that season. Werner started with 4 goals in his first 8 Premier League appearances and then scored just 1 goal in the subsequent 19 appearances. As pointed out by @MoroccanBlue, think people have genuinely forgotten how awful Morata got after his bright start at the club, how awful he became when things started to go against him. He was spending more time on the ground, complaining about refereeing decisions, bitching about everything else than getting at the end of chances, never mind missing or scoring them. Werner, for all his stupid brainfart in front of goal, at least still keeps going, still tries to make a difference via other means even if he's not scoring (hasn't hit a consistent level in terms of performances yet but that's another debate). The saving grace with the big chances missed stat you pointed out is that Werner has a lot of them and that he would eventually find the composure, that clinical edge to convert most of them, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Which good saves are you talking about if you're excluding the misses and stolen goal? And why do you care about England? 🤣

But it is maybe easier to sell some of the defenders given there are obvious deadwoods and youngsters in there? Otherwise, how do you justify having EIGHT attackers - Werner, CHO, Pulisic, Ziyech, Mount, Havertz, Abraham and Giroud - for just 3 positions? Abraham and/or Giroud will likely leave for the new striker but that's still A LOT of players for just 3 positions. Maybe it's time we actually go out and buy a defensive midfielder for good. Kante isn't getting any younger and we haven't exactly replaced Matic after we sold him to United. The problem for me is that this back 3 feels like sticking a temporary plaster on a wound. It is merely helping us achieve what we want to achieve this season. Sure, stick with it for now because it's working but I have my doubts whether it'll actually be consistently good in the long term. Get to the summer in good shape and then we can look at plugging the holes in this squad with some signings. And as I pointed out before, Tuchel has a history of playing multiple formations - mostly the back 4 - and he's not stuck to one specific formation. So, I don't think this back 3 is still gonna be a permanent thing next season.

Pretty sure Jorginho will play on Saturday given he's suspended against Atletico next week.

I meant, I want to see how Christensen does again in a back 4. Him doing well in a back 3 is not news. We saw it under Conte. I don’t think we will stick with the back 3 next season, if Tuchel’s history is anything to go by. We would likely be using different formations. Right now, the back 3...no problem. Tuchel probably decided on it to make sure we achieve what we want to achieve in the short term and he’s making it work so far. And we spoke about this before, one problem with the back 3 now is that we’re stupidly loaded with attacking players for just 3 positions. That’s gonna be a problem if we want to permanently stick with this system. Then there’s also the fact that some players in the squad are better in a back 4 formation and some better in a back 3 formation. So, there’s some thinking to do over the squad composition this summer.

Our top scorers in the league this season: Abraham - 6 goals (all non-penalties) Jorginho - 6 goals (all penalties!)

Still need to see him play in a back 4 under Tuchel consistently.

Tuchel on Pulisic just now. Seems to think he's better as a sub. https://soccer.nbcsports.com/2021/03/08/pulisic-tuchel-Chelsea-usmnt/ “I cannot say anything other than positive things about him. Maybe his problem is that I know from Dortmund how strong he is from the bench. I think he started only in the cup game and in the end that is my responsibility and my fault. But like I said, it is a bit unfair but I know how good he is and what an impact he can have in 20-30 mins. He was unlucky in the last games. It is not a lack of trust or lack of quality. It is maybe just to be a bit patient. “We have, for example, another guy which I would love to mention which is Emerson who suffers from bad decisions against him from me, who does not play but is an amazing guy and trains at the highest level. Never lets the team down from his mentality. This was a super hard decision today to have him out of the squad. The same with Tammy [Abraham]. It is like this and tells us we have a strong group and guys have to keep on fighting. There is no other way.”

I assume Mount would start anyway given he's suspended against Atletico next week.