Jase

Apart from maybe CHO and Gilmour, no one is really staking a claim for the first XI...

But it's 2021. No one is gonna fall for it.

But the ironic thing is Mourinho's defensive football can only be justified with wins and trophies. If he doesn't win games/trophies, then what does he have to stand on?

Carlo's "celebration" 🤣

He was being diplomatic about it. And besides, I doubt we'll have the money to buy both Upamecano and Haaland. It'll be one or the other. Plus, given more clubs are gonna be in for those 2 than say for Havertz and Werner last summer due to the pandemic, let's see if we can actually beat the competition this time, assuming we do go for either one of them.

Tuchel did not confirm anything. Christ!

Everton have suddenly turned it around. 2 goals in 3 minutes.

Chelsea have not given up on Kepa Arrizabalaga — but he is running out of chances https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/02/10/Chelsea-have-not-given-kepa-arrizabalaga-running-chances/ It was no coincidence that Kepa Arrizabalaga was officially unveiled as a Chelsea player just an hour after Thibaut Courtois had been presented by Real Madrid back in August, 2018. Losing Courtois had been a blow and, with Kepa’s proud family in attendance for his £71.6million club record signing, Chelsea were keen to show off the world’s most expensive goalkeeper in a packed Stamford Bridge press room. But, two-and-a-half years later, it may be inside an empty Oakwell Stadium on Thursday night that the Spaniard attempts to pick up the pieces of his career against Barnsley in the FA Cup. Kepa’s situation at Chelsea had become irretrievable before Frank Lampard was sacked and Thomas Tuchel was appointed as his successor. It might still be the case that the 26-year-old is fighting a losing battle to convince the club’s latest head coach that he can make a comeback of Lazarus proportions. But whether Tuchel’s arrival offers a new start for Kepa or proves to be the beginning of the end of his time at Chelsea, he will hope that his slate has at least been wiped clean in preparation for what follows. There remains a sense that Chelsea would like Kepa to be given a second chance before having to make a final decision on his future. Director Marina Granovskaia took time out from her summer break last year to share a personal heart-to-heart with the player in an effort to offer support and try to plot a path forward. Lampard had initially recommended replacing him with Jan Oblak, but Chelsea did not want to break the record for the most expensive goalkeeper for a second time and did not want to shut the door on Kepa at that stage, so Edouard Mendy was signed for £20m on the recommendation of Petr Cech instead. Mendy’s clean sheet percentage is already far higher than Kepa’s and the Senegal international has only conceded once in Tuchel’s first four games in charge, meaning he will remain the first-choice goalkeeper even if Kepa continues to play in the FA Cup and performs well. The finances involved in signing Kepa on a seven-year contract are, of course, important to Granovskaia and Chelsea, but so is the welfare of one of their employees who is still viewed as an asset by those who work with him and come into contact with him on a daily basis. Those close to Kepa insist he remains happy in his work, albeit not with his form or being out of the team, and he has never been viewed as a negative personality at the training ground, under Maurizio Sarri, Lampard or now Tuchel. His head may drop in the aftermath of a mistake, but Kepa has not sulked and he continues to train well and offer a cheery fist-bump to non-playing members of Chelsea’s first-team bubble. Nobody at Chelsea or within Kepa’s circle has attempted to excuse his disappointing performances or hide from the fact that he has not lived up to expectations. But there is context that is worth adding to the criticisms that he has had to become used to dealing with. Not least the fact that Kepa, who comes from a close-knit and supportive family, has lived through most of the coronavirus pandemic in solitude in his flat since splitting up with his long-term girlfriend roughly a year ago. Not only would he rate this as the most difficult time of his professional career, it has also been an incredibly challenging period of Kepa’s personal life during which he has not been able to see family and friends. Alone in a foreign country, without anybody to personally confide in over his troubles, Kepa has been left with his thoughts for long periods, which perhaps helps to explain why he decided he no longer needed to see the opinions of strangers on social media. It would appear that it was following a message posted on Twitter in which he paid his respects to Diego Maradona after the Argentine legend’s death that Kepa decided enough was enough. The replies to the tweet in which Kepa had written the message ‘RIP Diego’ were littered with responses reminding him of his poor form and making crass remarks over the state of his Chelsea career. When Kepa next tweeted, just over two weeks later on Christmas Eve, only people he follows or who he had mentioned in his message were able to reply. And so it has remained. While not thought to be obsessive about social media, Kepa is responsible for his own Twitter account and the decision to disable the comments of strangers is believed to have been his own. Those close to him do not get the sense he had been particularly upset or hurt by the unkind replies, but had simply decided that he did not need to expose himself to any added negativity during a time of unrelenting scrutiny. The decision may also have been taken with his family and friends in mind, who would no doubt have been upset by the replies to Kepa’s messages that they would have scrolled through. If and when Kepa reopens his Twitter replies to the public could depend on whether or not he can win back his Chelsea place or eventually move elsewhere to try to revive his career. A first appearance under Tuchel against Barnsley would not offer the chance of redemption, but it may be an opportunity for Kepa to start putting the past behind him.

Lewis Bate has travelled with the squad to Barnsley.

Kante confirmed to start tomorrow. Tuchel once again said his best position is in the double six.

cc @NikkiCFC

Out of Europe. Out of Coppa Italia. Conte MUST win Serie A this season or else...

Looks like the players are playing American football in training, judging by today's pics... Also, Pulisic was seen back in training. But Havertz not spotted.

Another consideration is that we are playing a back 3 at the moment, meaning Jorginho has a bit more protection to cover any of his defensive cock-ups, for example. What will happen when Tuchel switches to a back 4?

There's nothing stopping Jorginho from doing even half of what Fabregas did for us, especially when Jorginho himself has played those killer passes, albeit very rarely.

Can't compare? You have people talking about Jorginho's passing like it's so WOW when it's nowhere near that. Imagine thinking his passing and the passing range is good after seeing what Fabregas did for us.

Just seems very biased? If you can't see the difference between a winger and left inside forward, if you expect a player to perform well/consistently in a role that's alien, then I don't know what to say. Play players in ideal position and then we'll judge the performances from there. So yeah, agree to disagree...

Imagine going from worshipping Fabregas' passing capability - and not to mention, his creativity - to worshipping Jorginho's. How the standards have fallen...

TBF, it's @James who did all the work in getting the forum back up. He deserves all the credit. And not sure who were the people that emailed Jim after the forum went down, asking for the forum back but it's those people that ultimately swayed him to set up a forum again - before managing to restore the old database. Otherwise, Jim and I had a debate whether to get the place back up after some trouble with the last one. 😅

For starters, let's not play the 'I'm a Werner fan' card here. I can understand the criticism about his finishing, touch/control and all but what I don't understand is the nonsense that's being spouted about the position stuff you mentioned. Good players adapt but at the same time, not every good player out there is capable of playing in different roles/positions. It doesn't make them any worse if they can't, like you're trying to make it out to be. You can keep on saying Werner should have done this and that under Lampard but at the end of the day and for the umpteenth time, he is not a winger in the winger role that he was asked to play under Lampard. "but he also had to adapt whilst playing on the left, do a job for the team, a position he has played at times in his career and with the German NT, and he simply didn’t at times." - Playing on the left as a winger and as a left inside forward is completely two different roles! Christ! Are you really that blind to not see what his strengths are and what he was asked to do by Lampard just didn't go together? Also, Azpi grew into the RCB role because Conte worked with him on it. Can you really say the same with Lampard and his coaching after all the problems we saw under him? CHO may yet grow into the RWB role but he has played only 2 games there so far. Remains to be seen if that's gonna be his long term position. "He did it v Newcastle for instance on the left side" - What is that based on? The run to set up Abraham for the second goal? If so, that really doesn't count considering it came in a counter attacking situation. As for the chance he created for Mount at the weekend, how often did you see us find the runners, play balls in behind opposition defence or play in Werner the way we did on several occasions against Sheffield United? Too often under Lampard, we would just indulge in slow, sideway passing and then just get the ball out wide to spam high crosses into the box. Never mind Werner, how is that even playing to anyone's strengths apart from Giroud and maybe Abraham as well? You thought Kante grew into the advanced midfield role? That's your opinion I guess but not sure if the performances really reflected that at all. He has looked decent at times playing there but also totally lost in that role. He is best as a midfield destroyer, as seen in the work he did for Leicester and under Conte. Asking him to try and be attack minded - score goals, create chances for others - was just a waste of his talents. Instead of getting a 100% Kante, a Kante whose obvious strengths can be maximized, we tried to turn into a 50-50 Kante by asking him to do something he's great and something he's not great at.

Think Tuchel might try Werner-Havertz-Mount as the front 3 at some point, especially as he doesn't seem to like giving the opposition a focal point to deal with. On a random note, we're just stupidly overloaded with attacking options right now. It's good to have options but there just seems to be too many to keep happy.