Jase

But it's mostly the same players we had and competed well last season...oh for god sake, never mind...

The lack of intelligence or bravery of our midfielders or even defenders today to not play the ball over the top for Werner to run into is maddening. Even if they don't succeed, at least that intent might have scared Liverpool off and forced them to drop deeper and thus maybe would have allowed us more room to play with from the back. Fabregas would have had a field day playing with someone like Werner upfront. If only we could go back in time and put Fabregas in this team!

Three stages of us under Lampard so far - Youth FC ➡️ Christian Pulisic FC ➡️ Timo Werner FC.

I don't disagree with Tomo's stance. I just didn't like how passive we were today. Am fine with playing on the counter against Liverpool but we gotta show a bit more ambition than we did and better execution than lumping balls to Havertz and hoping Werner do something on the break. It's not rocket science.

Who is to say Werner won't score every penalty between now and the end of his career?

That is just an assumption, not a guarantee. Pretty sure Tomo meant we have a defined style of play and stick with it through thick and thin as opposed to chopping and changing the style of playing from one game to another.

He has missed only 2 penalties for us - one today and the other in the League Cup final penalty shootout. If anything, it's his style that maybe doesn't fill one with the greatest of confidence. Scoring 10 out of 14 penalties is hardly a bad record, is it? It's not like Lampard did not miss a few penalties in his career. Same goes with Hazard.

That lineup would have Havertz as the No.10 and Mount and CHO as the wingers. Of course, we don't know how that might have panned out but we would have likely given Liverpool more to think about than what we eventually put up. We didn't exactly play on the front foot all game in that cup game. We were also playing on the break but with far more attacking intent and threat against them. What did we have today besides Werner and to an extent Havertz?

No one is asking us to go gung-ho on Liverpool them but is it asking too much for a bit more attacking intent? And since playing offensively or defensively makes no difference at the moment because of the individual mistakes, yeah, might as well have a bit more of a go.

We didn't always passively shithouse our way to a result and I don't think anyone is saying that approach under Mourinho or Conte was enjoyable either.

If we are gonna lose, then we might as well go down swinging. There is a lot of ifs and buts there. Maybe we have different definition of "competing" here. Restricting the opposition while setting up to counter attack is one thing but have a go at the opposition, have a clear idea how to go about hurting them on the counter attack. We did the former well but did we do the latter right? Are you gonna tell me lumping long balls up to Havertz was a legitimate plan? Other than that, the plan was hoping Werner did something. Otherwise, nothing was coming from Mount and from the midfield as well as the full backs.

No one is asking Havertz to score or assist in every game, especially not at his point, but at least let him feel comfortable, build his confidence by playing him right. Last thing we would want is, before he even settles, we destroy his confidence because he's not able contribute to the team. Granted it wasn't a full strength Liverpool XI back then but it was still close to being that, we played Gilmour, Barkley, Kovacic, Willian, Pedro and Giroud against them in the FA Cup and won with a very good performance. Not saying we would have won today but would say a front six of Kante, Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, CHO and Werner not have able to produce a similar kind of performance at the very least?

That game or the away game but the point is, we showed that we can compete with those teams in a game, without our new signings last season. So, it doesn't make sense to suggest that missing some players meant that we should be forgiven for being so passive today.

But is it really BS to suggest that maybe playing Havertz in his best position would have helped us and him? At least "make" him feel comfortable that he is able to contribute to our attacks - be it creating chances or scoring goals. Instead, we played him upfront and treated him almost like a target man. Playing CHO or Barkley doesn't mean we would have to go gung-ho. It just means we would have more attacking threats that we had today because really, before we went down to 10 men, what were we really creating going forward? Can't remember the move but I remember Alisson had the ball, passed it to Henderson who had no one around to pressure him and was given the freedom of Stamford Bridge to pick out the pass.

If only...........

I find this somewhat amusing. Yes, we were missing several players and it wasn't our ideal starting XI but barring Pulisic and Willian as well as the new additions of Werner and Havertz, this is pretty much the same team that played well - much better than today, even before going down to 10 men - against Liverpool (except the game at Anfield) and Man City last season. Are you seriously saying that Pulisic being out and Willian no longer here has changed our approach this much?

Chelsea 6-0 Barnsley PRE/POST-MATCH DISCUSSION, LIVE CHAT AND ANALYSIS 2020/21 Carabao Cup 3rd Round 23rd September, Wednesday 2020 Stamford Bridge 19:45 Kick Off (UK time)

But we were hardly playing to his strengths. He did well given what he was dealt with but we basically treated him like Giroud with all those long balls up to him.

I said "second game last season", not the "second last game of last season". Remember the UEFA Super Cup? The point is the intent. Am fine with the counter attacking approach but what the hell were we trying to do going forward? It looked as though our plan was to just give Werner the ball and hoped he score from somewhere. Otherwise, the game plan looked like a containment job. We would be better off going down swinging and see what would have happened, because the general approach to sit back and counter didn't work, did it when there's people Christensen and Kepa at the back?

We have West Brom (a), Crystal Palace (h) and Southampton (h) in our next 3 league games before we go to United. There needs to be improvement and wins from those games...

Worth remembering that we also played Liverpool in the second game last season and we looked better and played with much more attacking intent back then, when it was 11 v 11. And yeah, today's only the second game of this season but it's under the same manager, not a new one. If we really played possession football, then WTF did we have so many basketball-esque games last season? Why did opponents make so many inroads and cause us defensive problems last season? That shouldn't have happened as much as it did if we really played possession football and dominated games.

No. It's still a shit season where everyone was shit and Willian was only decent in a few games just because he scored those free kicks.

That was overall, larger point of what we are trying to play. That wasn't specifically about today's game.

Mate, it has been over a year under Lampard. The least we ask for is seeing that defined style of play and improvement from the first season. It's easy to say everything will be better when we have Player X, Y, Z (everyone can say that) but as we all know, things don't work out like that.