Jase

A point and a clean sheet. YAY!

It's precisely why I said this as well, which you didn't quote.

You said it as if the manager at Chelsea has a final say in transfers. Ultimately, it comes down to the board.

At Dortmund, that is somewhat forgivable considering he was only a teen but he's been around long enough now.

Are you sure the output isn't a concern? We spent most post-games complaining about not putting chances away. Even yesterday, we created tons of chances in the first half but no one put them away. I don't necessarily disagree with this notion but this only works if the club have a long term, overarching strategy in terms of how they want the team to play (e.g. like the Barcelona of old aka 4-3-3 with possession style football). Otherwise, it's pointless because every manager that comes in will just play their own system and try to fit in the pieces, which has been the case under Roman. Where have I heard that before...

And yet, Mount squandered two golden opportunities in the first half today...

Obviously there's no guarantee but if Spurs win their 3 (THREE!) games in hand, they would just be 3 points behind us.

It's debatable when you consider the amount of workrate and off the work the players do from the front. Are you gonna tell me that Tuchel would have gotten Hazard to start pressing around like a mad fella when Mourinho and Conte couldn't?

Well injuries or not, this is not the first time we have a winter slump. It's why I said I'm not too excited that we were top of the table etc some weeks ago because of this annual slump. If we're up there come March or April, then we talk. With the way things are going, we might want to start looking at what is behind us as opposed to ahead of us.

But didn't Sarri say that Hazard would practically go do his own things instead of doing what Sarri wanted? Hazard did deliver the performances but managers did have to make concession with their system etc.

I know Pulisic has been playing in different positions of late but think @Tomo hit the nail on the head not too long ago. Barring the purple patch after the lockdown back in 2019/20, Pulisic has not been good/consistent at all when he starts (unless it's against Crystal Palace). He has been better when coming off the bench against tired legs etc. Tuchel was onto something with his comments and usage of him last season.

Things haven't gone well since THAT comment of yours. lol

Ironically, Werner and Lukaku still have more goals than those other players you mentioned. Could go on a bit more but I'll stop there. Also, am starting to wonder if we're having too many attacking options for our own good. We complain so much about those players not being consistent but, we constantly chop and change those players (when everyone is available) without them having any sort of chance to get any sort of consistency. Liverpool have mainly only 3-4 attackers. City have as many as us, I think, but a lot of their players are quite similar and interchangeable. The same can't be said about ours. Only Pulisic and CHO are arguably similar. The rest aren't. So every time we chop and change the front 3, the attacking plays can be different, disjointed etc.

You said that and want Chiesa but he has gotten into the double digit only once so far in Serie A. Are you sure he's gonna start banging the goals in in the Premier League when it's so much different/harder than Serie A?

If Conte thinks Inter would sell more players to balance the books, then he probably didn't speak clearly enough with the board. Sure, he did the build the Inter team and if anything, he should really know best whether they are truly good enough. Instead, he decided jump off the ship at the first sign of difficulty. Did he underestimate the players that he got, the players that he improved in the 2 seasons that he was there? None of the signings you mentioned there are WOW by any means and yet, Inzaghi has managed to maintain the same high level with them plus the squad he inherited minus Lukaku and Hakimi. Obviously things could still go wrong between now and May but so far, Inzaghi has Inter on good track, despite having lost supposedly the 3 most important people from their squad - Conte, Lukaku and Hakimi.

If only because the replacement was not good for a variety of reasons. Said it before that I don't think we necessarily need a #9 to thrive but at the same time, I also did say there are many ways to skin a cat. At the moment, if we could find a consistent goal scorer and someone who also fits the system, then that person would easily replace Havertz upfront.

Dude, Havertz has been playing football for years. He hasn't just turned up last weekend and still trying to figure out what are the things he is really good at. This is someone who has been called a generational talent and even tipped by some to win the Ballon d'Or in the future. Regardless of whether Werner, Lukaku etc are older and much more established, people are supposedly holding them to high standards and if that's gonna be the case, then the same should be applied for Havertz as well. At the moment, he is looking like a 70 million aka expensive jack of all trades, master of none.

Chelsea and the annual winter slump. Name a better love story. Could have easily been out of sight after 20-30 minutes but as always, didn't take the chances and ran out of the ideas the second Everton started parking the bus. They might have scored a few goals on the counter had they had better quality.

I have nothing against Conte. Just pointing out the obvious things about him. He left Inter because Suning don't have the funds to invest in the squad but with a few cheap signings, Inzaghi has already surpassed what Conte did in the Champions League in 2 seasons with Inter in half a season and he has them on track to defend the Serie A title, all this after losing supposedly their best players in Lukaku and Hakimi. Also, Inter under Inzaghi has more wins, more goals scored and less goals conceded after 17 league games than at the same stage last season.

Arshavin appreciation post.

Easy to say that from the outside. Wait till they come here and it will probably become a different story altogether.

PSG couldn't get City. They already played each other in the group stage.

There's also the Pochettino subplot!

It's obviously Lille now.

Oh please. Conte would have probably crashed out of the Champions League group stage again or if not, struggled to mount a title challenge with midweek European games and moaned about things...