Jase

Tuchel on Tomori today... "To be honest, I did not spend too many minutes thinking about him. Every minute I spend here is for the guys here. It is tradition at Chelsea that many players are on loan. We will have this talk in the next weeks and months about the guys who are on loan but I have a general impression of Tomori which means he has, of course, high potential."

Tuchel once again reiterated that Mendy is the No.1 keeper and deserves to be the No.1. Said the position is not one to mess about and it's important to have a clarity over the main choice.

Abraham back in training today. If all goes well, he'll be in the squad tomorrow. Silva back in training but will still be out. Pulisic has calf issues. Nothing major. Just tight. Out as a precaution. Havertz is back and will be in the squad tomorrow.

It's not just Hoffmann. There was also something about Sule and I think another German player the other day.

Well sure. If you look at just this season, then stats do look great but less so if you look at the overall stats since he's been here. I don't see what Jorginho has done this season, whenever he's played, that is different from past seasons.

Because it's selective? Because it doesn't tell the whole story? This is like when people were using the 18-game unbeaten run earlier run this season to defend Lampard and as a reason to not sack him. Plus, it's not as if Jorginho just joined us last summer and has been our lucky charm. He's been here for 2.5 years and we have lost games with him starting. Would we have not lost had he started against say Man City or Leicester? He might not be directly responsible for the goals conceded etc had he started but he would still be part of a team that lost. What happens when we eventually lose games with him starting under Tuchel? Then what? What stat are people gonna use then? If people want to defend Jorginho, by all means, go ahead but using the stat of us being unbeaten in his last 18 starts isn't convincing at all.

I know Matt Law tends to be reliable but not sure how much I believe him in this one. He suddenly just mentioned this and I don't seem to recall any stories of us wanting him last year, not even on The Athletic. It was all Man United back then.

If we want to sign Haaland, we're gonna need a lot of factors to fall in our favor, even more than last summer when we had a free run at players.

AC Milan can buy him but ultimately, it comes down to what Tomori wants. He can still reject their offer, assuming they use the option to buy him.

People are really clutching at straws when this specific stat is used to defend a player. So, you're saying that Jorginho could have been THE player to save Lampard's job? 🤨 He's been at the club for 2 1/2 years and the fact that we're still having arguments over his use says a lot.

Am just putting it out there. Will leave it to you on however you want to twist it with your Mount agenda. 😛

cc @NikkiCFC 👀

Just seen Leicester's lineup in their Europa League game. Seems like Brendan Rodgers is taking the competition seriously.

But let's not pretend as if Arsenal weren't already falling down the pecking order under Wenger. He regularly got them into the Champions League but they don't make any impact at all, constantly crashing out in the last 16. Winning the FA Cup is always nice but no one is gonna be satisfied with just winning FA Cups if the team aren't doing anything in the other competitions. It's Arsenal, not Newcastle. Because of what happened in the latter years of Wenger's regime, Arsenal have basically found themselves in a position where (a) sane, top quality players will not join them and (b) no sane, top clubs will buy any of their players except maybe Partey and at a push, Aubameyang and Lacazette. Couple those with an owner who is reluctant to spend big money on players, although strangely (to put it kindly) committing to big money contracts on old players, you end up with a club that have to scrape the barrels for players. If Arsenal want to seemingly take the long road, pursue a road that doesn't seem to be leading to anywhere and with a newbie in charge, then I'd say let them have their "fun" with it.

Feels the like the media are just linking us to every German player out there because our manager is now German...so lazy! 🙄

For the record, I wasn't making excuses for Arteta and I could care less about whether he's out of his depth or not. The point is, Arsenal's expectations are at their lowest in ages. They seem content with taking the long road back to the top and content with being an "experimental playground" for Arteta. Not sure if anyone would be batting an eyelid if they finish outside the Top 4 or even the Top 6 this season.

How is Rooney not doing it right by starting in the Championship? How is Rooney even failing? He's won 5 of his 7 games since being appointed permanent manager of Derby. That's a decent start and it's way too early to even judge him. And managing in the Championship is probably similar to, if not tougher than, managing in the Scottish Premier League. The Championship is way more hectic than the Scottish Premier League given how many teams are trying to get promoted, although Gerrard might have more pressure considering he's managing one of the big two there. Is Arteta really failing at Arsenal considering their recent standards? It's kinda par for the course since they are trying to rebuild after years of falling off from the best and their peak years. Different case with Lampard at Chelsea and Pirlo at Juventus where the expectations are higher, there are better players and there's more spending power.

City more desperate for CL success? Why do you think Juventus went all out to sign Ronaldo from Real Madrid? They bought him literally to help them get over the line in the Champions League, a competition they haven't won since 1996 despite reaching 5 finals between then and now. They are bloody desperate to win it considering they are already so successful domestically. Am sure they can survive not winning the Serie A for a season or two. Sarri played nice football at Napoli but never won anything with them. Gattuso came in after Ancelotti and won the Coppa Italia. So, go figure. The stats may suggest Lampard did worse than Sarri but on the flip side, had Sarri stayed, am not sure he would have been able to successfully integrate the youth players into the first team as Lampard did, especially after a season where he largely relied on Hazard to do the business. I guess one could say that we and Juventus made a dumb decision to hire Sarri in the first place. Given the type of our squad and Juventus' - both excelling in pragmatic football - it was never going to work with Sarri's style of play and even more so when he's super rigid in his ways. Both teams would have to likely rebuild the entire squad just to fit his way, which would obviously be more costly and take longer than just sacking one person. Most of the players Sarri had at Napoli were already there and he just bought a few notable players over the 3 seasons to complement with the rest of the squad. So in some ways, the pieces already fell into place for him at Napoli. Plus some managers are better when managing a second-tier side than when managing a top tier side. Less pressure and all that.

Thanks!

Where did he say it? Not seeing on his Twitter account.

@NikkiCFC I can't remember where you said "what will happen to Werner if we buy Haaland" but here's what Tuchel said about Werner's role/position after Monday's game... https://www.football.london/Chelsea-fc/news/thomas-tuchel-ziyech-pulisic-werner-19855534 "We know he likes to drift out a little bit to the wing, between the full-back and centre-back," Tuchel told Sky Sports. "So we try to bring him into these positions he likes to play next to a guy who is a reference in the middle like Tammy and Oli. "We wanted to escape the pressure in the half positions today so we played Mason on the right and Marcos (Alonso) more inside to keep Timo stay in a high position and use his speed. It worked well in the first half, the second half lacked precision." "I do think he can also play as another striker, maybe sometimes as a number nine if he is clever enough with his speed and his runs. But his favourite position and his biggest strengths are maybe if he can drift out a little to the left side." As said before, IF we do get Haaland (HA!), it'll be a bigger question for Abraham. Playing with 2 strikers - 2 different ones - isn't new for us considering we played with Drogba and Anelka in the same XI all those years ago and Werner himself has often played with another striker (e.g. Poulsen, Abraham, Giroud) in his career so far.

Despite that, Bayern still pretty much monopolized the league. I mean, they have won 9 of the last 11 Bundesliga seasons, even when they some times gave others a headstart. The 2 times that they didn't win were of course Klopp's Dortmund but otherwise, no one else came close. And there's no point in the other sides having quality coaches when their team have less resources than Bayern and see their best players poached by Bayern along the way. When Guardiola leaves City, I very, very much doubt they will just continue to dominate the league, not when there are far better teams in the Premier League to challenge them than the ones in the Bundesliga.

But the difference is Man City don't monopolize the Premier League like Bayern do in the Bundesliga or Barcelona do to some extent in La Liga. Let's not forget that Man City were beatable under Mancini and Pellegrini.

Not sure if it can be predicted. Some may take awhile to get back on track. Some maybe longer. For example, when the football restarted in June last season, Pulisic immediately found his form from the get-go after his injury and sustained it till the end of the season. But based on how he's doing this season, that feels like a purple patch because he's been back long enough to stop being a ghost in the team.