Strike

It is tricky because without Caicedo, the team is so much worse. Especially with Lavia and Essugo not around. Doesn’t have the luxury of resting Caicedo at the moment. re: the attackers. JP is injured and Liam is out. They were considered upgrades. The wingers we all thought were dodgy

That was the wrong call but I don’t think Maresca has a longstanding pattern of making terrible substitutions. His subs changed the game vs Liverpool for instance

Maresca admitting Pedro, Caicedo, Enzo are all carrying injuries. The lack of a summer break has caught up with this squad on top of the obvious issues

Liverpool spent way more. Look at their state Signing kids and ignoring key positions is not on the manager when we all know the set up at the club is owners make these decisions. Manager was clear about the need for a CB too but was ignored

All of which stems from the owners' decisions with squad planning. Blaming Maresca is missing the forest for the trees

Spent a billion but didn't fix the issues manager wanted to address. This is squarely on the owners and their decisions in the summer - more than anything else.

Sunderland going 2nd in the table instead of us

Fair result all things considered.

lost the plot in the last 20 - Sunderland likely to get the winner here

Away fans way louder

How I wish we had a better CB than Chalobah in passing through the lines. He's a handy defender but definitely need to work out a way to get a better passer playing there

Is the only time he's got things completely wrong imo Every manager gets the odd game like this

We're not world beaters but there are plenty of worse teams in the last decade. 2015-16 under Jose. 2022-23 when we finished 12th were far worse. Dont get the complaint against the manager at all. His only loss in the last 7 months which did not involve a red card was vs Bayern Munich. Maresca's record is actually pretty decent. It is not like he is consistently getting out-thought or his set up has been bad. There's a large sample of games to assess this.

A centre forward pressing and making runs for crosses. We don't do that here

Sounds like Delap could play a part in the League Cup tie. This is great

Guiu up front with JP behind him almost certainly I think

Only sustainable if we add to the core group and round out the squad with quality options in GK CB and up front.

Can take off Fofana and Lavia before the end

Take Lavia off for Santos. Job done here

Youngest Chelsea goalscorer in the CL is now Estevao. It was Guiu for a few minutes in this first half

Top corner. 4-1

Estevao taking

One more pen

There was no option once JP was suspended. I doubt he would try George again

Red Bull ?