Jase

There is more than one way to skin a cat. And do you think only Lukaku's goals will be enough to have us challenge for the league title? Because even when we have won the league with a #9, that #9 isn't the only goalscorer in the team. And what if Lukaku's goals only come against the smaller teams and not the big ones, thus maybe causing us to lose the head-to-head games and points?

Kinda amusing to see the narrative has changed from "we keep missing chances" to "we don't create enough chances".

Why is having a #9 seen as the be-all-and-end-all? City didn't have a #9 last season and they still coasted to the league title. Liverpool, albeit they have Salah and Mane, don't play with a #9 and yet they have been consistent in the league in recent seasons barring the last one.

It's always schadenfreude with you and some players on here, isn't it?

One thing I would say with City is at least the manager and board work in tandem on transfers. The players bought may not always be right but at least they're bought to fit the manager's system and style of play, not one side just buying whatever shiny toy out there.

We needed a goalscorer but it's debatable whether Lukaku is actually the right fit for this team. Last season we had a system that worked for the team and it was never just about one player. This season with Lukaku, if you listen to Tuchel, he is trying to make everything revolve around Lukaku in the system and hence, despite sitting top of the table right now, we have seen unconvincing attacking performances this past month. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks but based on what we have seen overall, the concerns people had about signing Lukaku are proving true. Also, the United fans over on Redcafe doesn't seem too surprised by what they have seen from Lukaku. They are like "yeah, he will score goals and probably bully small teams along the way but he'll get found out against better teams". We should know better than most about having a system that relies on an individual is not the most ideal of situations.

And his first game is against Liverpool after the INT break...

You have changed your tune, huh?

How long have the English media waited to say this? 🙄

We were top just 2 weekends ago.

2020/21 disagrees with this.

Did the fact that Chilwell started his first game in months against Villa the other day fly over people's head? Anyway, dumb ass penalty to give away yesterday. But that aside, he was decent and great technique to score from the shot with the lowest xG in that sequence of play. The quicker he gets up to speed again, the better it will be for the team.

Or one could say that Tuchel is just making use of the tools he has at his disposal. But I can see where you're coming from and he really needs to figure out the attack problem, especially since he's not going to drop certain players at all. Don't think it's anything worrying yet but given Tuchel's history, it might be worth keeping an eye on certain things because lately/this season, he has started calling out players a tad more in public - though not in the same manner like say Mourinho - and making some strange/stubborn decisions that hasn't really been seen with us (no manager is perfect of course but it's been un-Tuchel-like). It doesn't seem a lot but these little things could become something big down the line.

There were 18-19 seconds between the foul and goal. Fucking joke they went back that far!

Aren't those fixtures more up to Solskjaer's alley?

Thought CHO looked more comfortable at LW, TBF. Hard to expect him to be perfect but thought he was more willing to drive at people and make things happen, even if the final passes weren't always great.

Just going back to this, I wonder if this was just Matt Law stirring up shit after back-to-back losses or did Werner's agent really went and leaked info to the press? As much as the lack of Champions League minutes has been bewildering, Werner has played 298 minutes this past month and started 3 of the last 4 games. Think that's not too bad? And it also came after Tuchel said Werner shook off some early season disappointment and was training better and sharper etc. Only Lukaku has played more minutes during the period. Mount was injured and off form. Havertz and Ziyech were underwhelming. Pulisic of course injured. I suppose this will become a bigger issue (along with some others) if the minutes and starts are low come January but I guess at the same time, it's also in Werner's hands to force Tuchel to play him more.

Brentford vs Chelsea PRE/POST-MATCH DISCUSSION, LIVE CHAT AND ANALYSIS 2021/22 Premier League Matchday 8 16th October, Saturday 2021 Brentford Community Stadium 17:30 Kick Off (UK time)

All of the offside ones are down to him really but the VAR ones are just trash. From my memory, the VAR calls at Leicester, Liverpool and today are BS. At this point, best to just take the good and bad with Werner. He's gonna score goals but he's also gonna miss chances. Hopefully, he'll do the former more than the latter.

The attack with Lukaku still looks off but better today with CHO and Werner around him as both provided the energy, movement and pace going forward. And as much as we only scored the two killer goals after Southampton went down to 10 men, I'd say that win was deserved. We had enough chances to win the game before then (and stupid VAR!) and Southampton only managed to score because of a stupid brainfart from Chilwell. Didn't threaten us much otherwise. The xG was 3.2 v 0.6 (excluding the penalty).

Was screaming in my head when Tuchel brought Barkley on. Was like "Barkley over Werner in midweek and now Barkley over Havertz!? WTH!?" and then the second goal happened... LOL

Here's something quirkier - since Lukaku arrived, only two other attackers have scored - Werner and Havertz - and that Havertz goal came from a corner. And here's our full goalscorers list for the season: Lukaku - 4 Werner - 2 Chalobah - 2 James - 1 Havertz - 1 Rudiger - 1 Silva - 1 Kante - 1 Chilwell - 1 Ziyech - 1 Pulisic - 1 Alonso - 1

Apparently, Werner has had 16 goals ruled out due to offside, VAR etc since joining the club.