BlueLyon

3:5:2 will end up like city game where we had no attack to worry them and Pep thrown their fullbacks in midfield, completely overruning us. I can see Roberto and Alba do the same. But if we put front 3, Barca will have to worry counters, I think thats better. But for 3:4:3, we probably needed inform Bakayoko. I dont see Cesc or Drinkwater hold that line in middle next to Kante. Both systems have some big flaws. People like to point we have positive record against Barca, but now we have different formation with 3 at the back, never mind different character. We are not that Chelsea anymore. I hope we wont just close down and pray. It would take enormous luck to win vs barca on goal difference. We have to go for a win at SB. Defensive approach certainly, but with clear plan to counter attack them and press them in second half to score for advantage. What we have over Barca is strenght and stamina. We need to exploit that.

I just hope we put a good fight and make the club and fans proud, whatever the result. We dont have much chance, lets be honest, but it would be nice to see one of those classic european nights when we define the odds. Whatever happens, come on blues! Edit: Oh and I hope for fair refereeing.

Naturaly, he is definately spoken Pulisitsch (Pulisić), as he had croatian family. Much like Ibrahimovic (bosnian roots) Mila Jovovich, Abramovic (USSR roots),... But Americans will certainly call him Pulisik because they are lazy and they want to make that surname sound more ''american''.

Morata is faster and also probably very motivated to beat Barca. Giroud on other hand is stronger and somewhat experienced. Both have questionable finishing, but great headers. IMO I would field Morata, simply because on counter, he is more of a threat than Giroud. And I think we will play on counter.

I find players in football as someone who needs support based on their experience rather than age. Luca Toni comes to my mind. He was 28 when he made his breakthrough in fiorentina (he was already good in palermo but fiorentina was truly the step forward before he went to bayern at 30). So what if Bats was 24? Yes he is older, but that doesnt mean he is there on top to lead the team. Same for Bakayoko or Morata who are 23 and 25. Same for Drogba who was 26. Its all what was before. You have Eden who was destroying ligue 1 at 21. Or Kante who led leicester to title. Or Torres who was regular scorer for Pool. Some did succeed, some didnt. But point is some players are ready sooner and some arent. And those who are not need more time and trust. It doesnt mean they will never make it. I mean what did you expect when Morata and when Costa arrived? Both were 25. But I expected for Costa to be instant impact while Morata needed at least one season IMO. It also goes to say 10, 15 years ago 18 year olds had already same mentality to those of 24 year olds now. Younger generations completely changed since internet became everything. Not to mention where they are coming from. Michy might be 24, but its clear he isnt ready mentaly and needs quality, organised environment around him. To others belief he is shit and will never make it in top team, I wont be surprised if he is top striker on the level of Salah or Kdb once.

Bornemouth lost to Huddersfield 4:1 and Watford to Whu 2:0. Just makes our defeats even more dissapointing

Yeah, when we talk about Torres or Eden or Kante where big things are expected from the start since they were proven quality players. For some other, younger players its different. They need much more support and you will see it pays off. Young people often take to heart who helped them breakthrough and who just wanted them to perform or be dumped. We would have very thankful players in Salah and Kdb if we developed them with patience and faith. As you said, lawyers, doctors,... are expected know all, but younger apprentices always get support and opportunities before becoming top in profession themselves.

Ohh relax a bit ffs. Too many people with inferiority complexes here. Ronaldo stated multiple times he wants to go back to sporting one day and that he loves sporting. Did Real fans turn their heads and started moaning? Its obvious that Morata loves Madrid and who gives a shit? Who cares. As long he plays well for us, thats the only thing. If he wont play well, he will be sold. Its simple. If people werent so offended by every little thing and didnt have such big egos, from Conte to fans, we would still have Diego here who was quality striker and who shown passion for club and fans, even though he also had Madrid in his heart.

Its definately confidence too. We put huge pressure on these players. When they play it feels as someone cut their balls off. Bats looks much more relaxed in borussia now, after just a couple games. Same was with Salah, Kdb... IMO we as a club have strict business model and its all about business. We buy players, we expect results, we loan out, if its not working we sell. Like a machine. In, out, in, out. There is no things like faith, patience, belief here. Just a shell that either works or falls apart. When player wants out, again, we go straight business. Thats why we sold Matic to United, Cech to Arsenal etc. They pay, we sell. It looks like the club is running by numbers and statistics. There is no "personal touch and feelings anywhere. I dont like it, but thats how it looks. And dont expect players to return any favours then. Obviously some players are bit different like Azpi but that is more exception than rule.

I understand in principle you want one of their players for one of ours, but mate, what you just said is suicidal. Kante is one of a kind, dying breed of a player in today football and to me he is worth easily 180m. Im not even exaggerating, people look at goals and all, but tell me how many players are in the mould of Kante. If VVD goes for 85m, midfielder who was Poty, is easily worth 100m more in today market. And Psg is full of cash, so why not even more. But in the very end, even 200m wont replace Kante if you ask me. Not with the way our board works and the players we can attract. Now I see it will be pivotal to keep best players. Because if we let go either Eden, Kante, Tibo it will cause chain reaction and everyone will know we sell for price.

Get Dyche and play 10 at the back. Barca will shit themselves.

People regulary call nearly any player a cunt or something equaly offensive as soon they talk about another country/team or dont perform well enough for a while. There are pages on Eden, Tibo, Costa,... threads full of such comments when certain events were happening. Personaly I understand one goes nuts after losing 4:1 against watford and spills anger in couple after match posts, but when someone posts like "sell this cunt as long he is worth something" randomly few days after matches (and repeats it or others join the bandwagon) is beyond my understanding. No true fan would say that after all the players did for us. I mean I seriously dislike Cesc, he is ex gooner, has no leadership backbone despite he is experienced player, but hell he is useful player and I value his contribution from the bench. I wanted him benched since 2014, but I wouldnt sell him unless it was necessary, nevermind call him out with some silly names. But hey there was big group of fans wanting to ship Eden, the "cunt" in 2016, only to see them worshiping him year later. Im not on forum that long, was the same with Lamps, Drogba,...back then? Or is this just the new generation of fans that have no respect and faith in the team?

Isco, Asensio,...etc are all good players, but they are such typical laliga players. We need players of high potential, who are suited to PL and be their very best. Morata is very very poor example, but he is the definition why you have to ask twice who you are buying. His style of play of constantly throwing himself on the ground, not coping physicaly and also picks injuries quite frequently. And there is obviously the "love" for spain. They keep talking about it. Big question how they feel when they were in best club in world and then come here. Im sure there would be no genuine love from them for Chelsea, they all already love Madrid. How about we get players from lesser teams who are eager to improve and impress and can genuinely love Chelsea because thats their first big team that gave them chance. Thats why Lamps, Drogba, Essien, Riccy,...all love the club so much. They came from smaller team and chelsea was like lotery win for them. For Asensio or Isco, it would feel they werent good enough for their favourite team and now they are stuck here. Stop picking these rejects from other teams, and go for players that are fantastic, but not in best teams yet. Isco however isnt even reject, he wont leave Madrid. Bottom line keep Eden and tell Madrid to fuck off. I havent been impressed by any Madrid/Barca reject apart from Yaya and Makelele in recent years. Cesc, Ozil, Alexis, Di Maria,...you see they have talent, but they ultimately lack that edge. We built 2004 team on top players who played for smaller teams. Eden and Kante are for example another two, more recent. With those two, or our 2004 generation, its simple. They did and do their job. They simply do it. With Morata and Cesc and Ozil and Alexis there is always something. Be it shit finishing for Morata, inconsitency, Cesc with his awful ball hold up and crap mentality, Ozil same crap mentality, chokes in big games and Alexis being winny bitch. I mean they are all super talented, but ultimately you cant rely on them. And thats why they were sold. How many times we got frustrated by Cesc? He is a fucking experienced midfield playmaker, someone who controls the game, yet he isnt even closr to that. All he can do is long pass if he has space. Can he do anything else, like lead the team, defend, dribble, shoot, play b2b? No. And others are the same, just different positions. Morata is same, he can score, but he misses easy goals, he goes down all the time. Thats not what you call reliable striker. Ozil and Alexis are completely the same. Thank fuck we didnt buy Alexis, even more so because of the wages he demanded. He is so frustrating to watch. Dont even start with Ozil. Modric, Iniesta, Suarez,...those are class players. But they are never available. Would Barca or Madrid want Morata, Ozil, Alexis, Cesc now? No. Because they are not good enough. Would they get Kante, Eden? Yes they would, because they are good. And what does that mean? If we have enough of Edens and Kantes in team, we can beat anyone. We might not have superstars, but these players have the edge to win. You wont win jackshit with Alexis, Ozil, Cesc.... Yeah yeah Cesc helped us to win title when he came, but he had so many many flaws in game already. He always needed cover from Matic and he sucked against any big team apart from Arsenal. And he was equaly invisible in CL. Modric however is the real deal. We cant attract ready made world stars, but we can get top top players from small teams. Dont forget Suarez, Modric,...all played in small teams once and they are now big game players. We have to target players like Bailey, Torreira,...and we will be among the top again. With consistent and quality players that will be desired by other big teams, not rejected. Thats how you win the titles. But obviously we have to target quality players from smaller sides, not Zappacostas and Drinkwaters.

Lol!

Cheers, maybe one day at SB

It was a play on words

Hudson, we have a problem

I cant shake feeling Bailey would be such typical Chelsea signing like Tibo, Salah, KDB,..were. Less hyped, but very talented player that will probably end up super player. He made big leap since december though and there came lot of interest and price went double, so maybe he doesnt belong in that ''less known'' category anymore, but we were interested long before. Would love to get him, Iit would be nice to buy a young player with genuine high potential.

Costa might have been flirting with Atletico, and he did want to leave in summer 2016, but he decided to stay and he was about to extend the contract. Regardless he wanted to leave for atletico, he was in best form of his life the next 6 months at Chelsea. Does it realy matter if he isnt here with heart, when he still puts absolutely fantastic performances? Many players we have dont give a shit about chelsea, as long they get paid. He was however close to extendind the deal but he had argument with Conte in january and instead of Conte being grown adult and sort this shit out, he decided to ship him off. Hence why Costa wasnt his near his best after january. Not saying Conte was wrong, Costa had some ill moments too at chelsea, but you solve those problems between player and manager, given that Costa was, despite Chelsea fans thinking otherwise, in form one of the 3 best forwards in the world.

There was no better striker available than Costa. We should patch things up with him and continue for a season or two until another top striker would be available. Morata and Lukaku are far from quality strikers.

Mate this is not how football works. We would not only lose by far our best player but change 3/4 of first 11? Its has disaster written all over it. What we have to do is tie our best players to long term contracts and buy 3 world class players so we can play 4:3:3 I agree about Pedro and Luiz maybe. But first we need to get 3 quality players in midfield, wings and wingback positions

If we had someone like Poch as you suggest, he would be sacked long ago for not winning any title yet. While its true we dont build for long term, its actualy fact that Conte created better team last year than Poch all seasons combined. In the end trophies are everything in football. Spurs have good defence, good midfield, good attack and all is result of Poch, but hey they flopped every season in title race and they have fallen off this season a bit. Already lost Walker and its only a matter of time before they lose someone else. On another note, its incredible that Conte won league ahead of manchesters and last year very strong tottenham with that squad we had. But we sold two key parts in Costa (I still cant believe how did people not see his importance) and Matic and replaced them with frauds. One cant score open goal and the other cant control a football. We have pretty much same squad as last year with two much worse players in Morata and Bakayoko, but the rest are same. And yet they play lik shit. Its not surprising majority of these players pulled same trick under Mourinho. You certainly cant blame only Conte for this because he managed to motivate Juve for several seasons, he isnt the type to just let it go to shit. But you can only do so much with the team we have. The difference between us and Spurs or City is they have players who can improve. Moses, Alonso, Pedro, Willian, Cahill, Cesc,...they all have been at their peak already. We spend so much money, but you shouldnt look at how much but at who. We had to improve both fullbacks, we didnt. Emerson has long way to be in first 11. We had to bring striker who can replace prolific Costa, we didnt. We had to bring top DM, we didnt. We had to bring quality central playmaker, we didnt. Cesc was bit player last season and thats what he is. Now he suddenly plays regulary because we dont have anyone else. We had to bring quality winger, we stuck with Pedro and Willian. What we did bring were Rudiger who is fine, Drinkwater and Zappacosta who are terrible, Bakayoko who is clearly not ready and flopped, Morata who isnt reliable striker, Giroud who is stopgap, Emerson who is recovering, Barkley who fits in no formation we play etc etc. The difference between spurs or city is they target players that suit them and can improve the team, small money or big money. Our scouting fills Conte with players that dont fit, dont have quality and most of them isnt even match fit. Morata, Bakayoko, Emerson, Giroud, Barkley,...they couldnt feature in first game for us. City throws Laporte in match one day after he was bought. Similar with Auba, Mkhitaryan, Sanchez,... The one signing equivalent to our business is Llorente to Spurs (who we were linked heavily too lol) who has flopped big time. Poch cant do anything if player doesnt have quality or potential, much like Conte. Except Conte has bunch of such players, you can sqeeze one top season out of them, but thats it. We played 3:4:3 last year and if we bought damn quality LWB, RW, striker and DM, we would be still very very quality side. But we sold Costa and Matic and bought average players. We are pretty much worse team than last year, only positive is Christensen who is doing well under Conte. Thats why Conte had to make patches with 3:5:2 which didnt work, several injuries and underperforming players and here we are. The environment at Chelsea is toxic, like under Mou. But this happend second time now, its not just on manager. The players are equal culprits. You can see they cant string two passes between. I admit Conte isnt innocent. His defensive play is something I hate alot these days. We could play Eden, Morata and Willian/Pedro many games, but we didnt. Maybe because Bakayoko is so bad and we needed to add Cesc. These problems wouldnt exist if we actualy bought competent players. Morata missing 1v1s isnt something Conte can do much about either. If you remember it all started with our bad finishing, then we couldnt create and now we cant even defend. We bought shit players, thats main explanation why we dont play well. Conte wanted Sandro and he got Zappacosta. And the constant talk of sacking and no future here, plus poor transfer support for his ideas, no wonder he will eventualy not give a shit. Trust and faith goes both ways. Costa was pivotal in both title runs, probably more important than Eden when on form, and we replaced him with Morata. You see all the negatives Conte makes, but hell he was doing miracles with this team. Now it just exploded as it was expected. Every neutral fan who watches Chelsea will tell you so. Our players have so little technical ability, you cant possibly make promising improvements like Pep did with City last year. Tell me how many Chelsea players can hold on the ball with composure? Eden. Kante. Christensen maybe. In tottenham and city you have Lloris and Ederson with more composure on the ball than our team, apart from those 3. Its funny but true. If we want to compete, we will have to buy better players. If we want longterm project we have to give manager more control. The club is somewhere in between and will eventualy pull the short straw on both ends. We have to make decision soon. Its the only way to stabilize our club.

Abramovic role at club should only be to pay the bills, nothing more. City and psg owners give money, rest is taken care by people who know football. I love RA for all he did for this club and he seems genuine fan too, but he should not be involved in the football stuff at all.

I know I was just saying while Bakayoko is shit, it wont make the squad any better if we put him out. Pedro, Matic were both terrible under Mou last season, but excellent last year. My point is that Bakayoko himself isnt major problem to his form, but the team is. Any player would look shit in current form the team is. Thats why IMO Bakayoko should play and hopefuly improves. Drinkwater IMO isnt any better plus he has no future here, Baka just might have.

I will make barbeque and invite whores for the whole week if that happens. We will probably again go with policy of 80m for top player is too much but two bang average for 40m is excellent business. On another note, Im glad we steered clear of Sanchez. I dont see what people vision in him. Good player but those wages were ridiculous. Even City left him lol.