BlueLyon

I have reserved my judgrment on Morata and Bakayoko, since they are new and whole team plays like shit (just look at Pedro in first season when we were shit and then in his second). But Baka is 23, came from smaller club, while Morata is 25, played in juve and real, plus he is striker and I always except more from strikers, since its very delicate position. So... Im not impressed at all tbh. Not saying he cant improve whatsoever, but the style he plays makes him absolutely not main #9. He can be great second striker, but uptop you need someone ruthless, someone who burries chances and bullies defence, not vice versa. Dude is 190 and gets bullied by every damn opponent. He isnt "weak". Its all in the head. Technique is there, finishing can be improved. Despite I get awol when he misses the whole goal shooting with his feet almost everytime 1v1, I guess that can be improved. But mentality is something that cant. I wanted him to come here because he was serious worker back then at juve and even in Real. He ran and ran and chased opponents. Here, all he does is jog around and either makes quite good pass or loses the ball in attempted dribble. His attempts to dribble the defensive line are quite shitty to be honest.

This thread gonna be a graveyard for some dudes here in year or so when Baka rips the league apart.

You know what they say about magicians...frauds. Harsh on Cesc but yeah, theres so much average about him and the worst is he managed to hide it for ages. Been saying that since his first year here. He offers nothing besides passing and even thats two great passes per game. No backbone, no character, no defensive work. As a central midfielder thats one big fucking liability. Its time for him to be benched or sold.

I see he is not playing much... Another one bites the dust?

When it rains it pours...

And never mind as long someone plays along Cesc, you cant blame him, be it Kante or Bakayoko or someone else. Cesc is absolute ghost in any defensive or off the ball action and when in possession, he cant control the tempo, cant held his own under pressure. Neither is he a leader or mental winner because he goes in hiding in every bigger game. No wonder his partner in midfield struggles too then, doing two man job and eventualy getting lost. Bakayoko had Fabinho in Monaco, once Kante comes back and the two play few games, it should be allright.

Drogba, Essien, Azpi, and bunch of others werent ''proven material'' either. They had good season or maybe two, much like Bakayoko. I always prefer the club to buy less known players and turn them into club heroes rather than buying established world stars. The prices tho are a reflection of the entire football tho. Yes 40m for Bakayoko was alot, but we have bigger revenue, bigger sponsor contracts, bigger tv rights etc etc. 40m for Bakayoko is like 25m in 2004. Most here dont see Cahill and Hazard are now the players with longest time here, 2012 (not counting Tibo and Moses who went on loans, or Luiz who left). Thats 5 years. Several top clubs have players who have been there for 10 years. Thats huge difference because those players are true leaders of those clubs. We changed whole generation few years ago and new one is just getting their feet here, and already got 2 titles. Stability comes with time. And time only. You cant expect great things from players like Morata or Bakayoko just yet. Give them time. Azpi, Tibo, Eden, Kante and maybe Luiz are the backbone of this team and they perform well in majority of the games. But you need whole 11. Bakayoko, Morata, Christensen, Rudiger will get there soon. However we wingbacks and RW leave plenty of improvement to be made in coming windows. We are 3 signings away of having excelent squad. Majority of our squad is 25, 26 then you have Baka who is 23, Azpi who is 28 and Luiz, Cahill over 30, but we already have younger future in Rudiger and Christensen. Majority of our club youth is overrated as hell too. They might be decent squad players, but I guess they want regular role elsewhere. Nothing we can do about. But most of them would never be good enough for first 11. Once we solve wingbacks and quality RW, which should be done hopeguly by start of next season, and if we keep all the main players here, this team is going to be beastly in 2019-2020

I agree about the other two chances, he was bit unlucky there, but generaly speaking he should have a goal in this game, that was simple execution, but he didnt even hit the target. If Gk pulls unreal save, nothing to say there, but Morata needs to hit the target more often. I think there were several chances he was 1v1 but completely missed the goal. For now, thats acceptable, he is 25 and adjusting to this league. But at one point he will need to be more composed and reliable in front of goal. Its nice he is good with the ball and linkup, but some games, there will be one such chance and he will have to score goal.

I dont think Morata was unlucky. He should have scored that clear chance, but didnt even hit target. It happend quite few times now already, he has to become better finisher.

Not linked with us at all, but I think its worth to create a thread, he will be big player one day and linked with everyone. Played brilliant against troyes tonight, fantastic talent. Ligue 1 has some amazing talent these days, Malcom from Bordeaux is another.

What I dislike about him are his leadership skills or lack of leadership skill to be exact. For someone so long in football, experience and being captain at young age at arse, I would expect him to lead the players in difficult games, but he just dissapears in every crucial game. Man lacks that character, otherwise I would forgive him for all the physical atributes, but without physical or character qualities, he is just average in every game apart from a pass or two. And when you have DLP like that, obviously you get dominated left and right in midfield. He is the exact opposite of what DLP should realy be. Alonso and Pirlo were example of class DLP.

For the moment he is still finding his very best role in midfield. He is not playmaker ala Cesc or Ozil, but I think he will develop into deep lying playmaker. He has all technical, tactical and physical atributes to become midfield general in the future. For the moment, he is good player for counter attacks. He works realy hard to retrieve the ball, then calmly keeps it in possesion and sprays long pass to attacker. Will be interesting to see his development.

Average in the beggining, but realy kicked on soon after. Best player for Nufc. Kid is realy all round, he got good eye for pass, he works hard and very neat on the ball.

Seri is great, but not sure about Torres. To me he was always as someone who could be much better, but never realy impressed when he was supposed to. Another one I look very close is Merino. Nufc just bought him from BvB, but he is some serious serious potential IMO. Very allround, technical, good passer and evenly good in defense. Working under Rafa isnt something to be underestimated either, maybe he found himself next Xabi. Another one with great potential is Weigl. But my two cents, if we gonna play with 3 midfielders (Kante, Baka, playmaker), 3 man defense should be abandoned. 3:5:2 offers so little proper width and no wingers, apart from fullbacks. I realy like 3:4:3 though, but you cant play 3 midfielders there.

He is definately way too soft and his finishing is realy inconsistent. Scores some beautiful goals, but misses simple ones. He definately has good technique and channels realy well, but will need to bulk up/get more agressive if he wants to dominate this league. But he had few injuries too, he will improve once he gets to play few months in a row.

Sergej Milinkovic Savic or Kovacic would be my picks. Sms is absolutely fantastic midfielder, Kovacic is too but I think it would be realy expensive and difficult to get him out of Madrid (but I can see him leave if he doesnt get enough playtime)

Watford and Silva have been great this season. Tough tough match, but I have feeling we will beat them comfortably. As long Willian isnt starting the game. On another note, why the f*ck this team didnt improve overall for years now? We have Iva and Oscar to ditch, we do that, then Willian starts playing below any level. Merry go round and round and round...You replace two players, next season there are 3 more to be replaced. I understand aging players, but we have problems with players in prime..Same was with midfielders. We had Lamps-Rambo midfield a while ago, Rambo was good, but Lamps was aging. We bought Matic, and Rambo never managed to perform at his best. We buy Kante and Matic never manages to truly stand out again. It should be vice versa. You buy new top player and he helps the team as whole and individuals improve, but not here. Some simply stagnate or stay decent for year, then fall in form big time. Yet several players like Kdb, Salah or Matic are doing very well elsewhere now. Something is certainly not right in our core, that is eventualy reflected on pitch when simple passes, pressing, organisation, keeping the ball are catastrophic. And the team certainly has the ability, at least most of the players. But consistency and motivation + desire to IMPROVE are not there. Not sure why, but it feels sometimes we are just a team with bunch of mercenaries who are good, but dont realy give a shit about the club. Hence we can play brilliant one game, then awful next game. Or in big picture, we have great season and then terrible next one...And its not even about the trophies. I couldnt care less if we dont win PL this year, sure it should be main objective every year, but hell where is the general improvement of this team in past 5 years if you put trophies away? The fuck did this team achieve? Is it younger? Better organised? Has stronger attack/defence/midfield? Did we improve in posession or tactics/pressing? Do we have exciting talents? Is our youth integrating better in first team? Is the play nicer to the eye? Not a single answer there is clear yes. Big ups and big downs, Rinse and repeat.

I agree with you entirely, as much Neymar was brilliant in some games, he was awfuly selfish and held the ball way too long in big number of games last season. But I dont agree on this; When you're getting outscored by Iago Aspas maybe you don't deserve to finish top 3 in ballon d'or. Neymar or whoever else, top 3 or even top 10 should not be based on who scores more. Goals are important, but its not everything. In this case, Neymar is still 10 times better player than Aspas.

The sooner we ditch Cesc "slower than grandpa" Fabregas, Cahill and Willian aka zero fucks given, the sooner we will play better. But oh we dont have a bench. Nice one, board. That said, I dont see Baka as culprit, yes he was poor, but he has plenty of talent to improve and his play time is justified for the time being, unlike those three mentioned above. Also give Azpi some rest, he has been awful recently.

Balon dOr is a popularity contest. No way he is getting ahead of Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar, they are the most marketed players and Eden simply isnt such personality. For same reason Ramos is getting more praise than lets say Chiellini.

Willian man...everytime he fucks up a simple pass and tv zooms in on his reaction, he is like sorry not sorry I dont realy give a shit. And he had that kind of attitude for months now. He clearly isnt bothered to play, should be sold as soon as possible. That attitude is just awful.

I cant blame Conte for the performances, the players are as guailty as management. BUT Conte has been absolutely poor in picking players. We have many injuries and red cards, so there are not many options to pick sometimes, but even when everyone was fit, he decided to play Cesc. The guy offers absolutely nothing except for long passes. Even his so called leadership and experience are nowhere to be seen when we need to step up. He is perfect as backup and yet this year he comes back as starter. Definately on Conte this one. We dont have other deeplying playmaker, but we have Bakayoko and Kante and we should play 3:4:3 until we buy new playmaker, better this than 3:5:2 with Cesc and having midfield exposed. Then there is Cahill. To extent Luiz aswell. Christensen has been amazing, yet Conte picks proven players who dont perform well. Sure not easy to bench captain, but hell if these guys are given to play even when they play shit for weeks, they wont improve and train harder because they have spot in 11 regardless. Complacency comes in place. And what message it gives to youngsters? And finaly Willian. He has been absolutely awful this season, seriously cant remember player that was so shit for so many games. Sorry Willy, but its time to stop. Dribbles in wrong direction, missplaces passes, predictable crosses and shots...and hell, no drive to improve and work harder either. Yet Conte picks him for nearly every game. These three are simply down on Conte. Time to show some balls and dunno, play Musonda if necessary. As for Bats, no words either, but we simply dont have another striker apart from injured Morata, its understandable he plays now. Bottom line it shows clearly once again how big of a fuckup summer was. We brought 7 new players, sold twice more, but first 11 is no better than last year. Morata and Baka instead of Matic and Costa is a downgrade, but they are young. We have other problems like replacing Cesc, backup striker, new wingbacks, and quality RW. No way next summer we adress all those issues.

Hazard simply isnt as clinical as Messi or CR, but at the very least he would definately score more in spain tho. Suarez is nice example, he scored 10 more goals in single season compared to his best tally in PL. Ronaldo is obvious another example if you compare his PL and Laliga outputs. But again, both Surez and Cr scored 30 in PL, compared to Eden 17, I guess he would be around 20 goals in laliga at least. But Im still not sure why the hell people want Eden to score more. Its not what defines a quality player. CR and Messi completely fucked up the balon dor with all those goals, sure they are fantastic, but they are exception, not rule. Eden is magnificent dribbler, playmaker, good passer and almost never loses the ball. All those are as important as goals in games. Its what makes team tick. Then you have Kantes. Those players do the job so CRs and Messis can even score the goals. Without such players no team would win anything. Yet the focus is only on goals and goalscorers everytime. Heck even Ramos is ranked as one of best defenders because he scores crucial goals lol. Glad its slowly changing with Neuer being recognized, with Kante being rewarded etc I understand media trying to blow the shit out of everything and praise trademark players ala CR to god status, but in forums like this with people who actualy watch football every weekend, why some still focus and talk about Eden needing to score more etc. Football is bigger than just those goals and every fan should know it.

Why? Cesc shouldnt be in first 11 in first place, he wasnt last year and I have no idea why is he this season, unless its due to short bench, but we already had last years 3:4:3 11 fit, but still played Cesc. Been saying for 3 years he isnt the right player, all he can do is that one long pass or two per game which is superb on its own, bur otherwise doesnt contribute to the play at all. The playmaking part, he might be the best at it in this squad but that says more about lack of quality playmakers in Chelsea, not about quality of Cesc. Good utility player to bring up in second half but nothing more. Last year Conte made the right decision, this year we went back in 2015 season instead of moving on without Cesc in first 11. About Drinkwater, as of now its just knee jerk reaction to Cesc being bad and they see Danny as saviour. But we should wait till he actualy plays some games. I can see him having few bad games and same people calling for Cesc to replace Danny lol.

When heroes are injured, new heroes arise.Hopefuly others step up now that Morata and Kante are potentialy sidelined for a while.