Belgiannutt

While there are other factors that play a role in our low possession i think the biggest one is the lack of real quality passers in our back 3 and 2 man midfield. Of those 5 how many would you call great passers. David Luiz, and that's it. Kante does a good job too but he's not great at it. Even if we count Kante that's 2 players out of 5. That's not enough for a top team. Imo we need to look for a LCB that can rival the passing ability of a david Luiz while still doing what is required defensively. Same in our midfield. We need someone in there that's a great passer while still able to do the dirty work. Verratti for example. I'm sure Conte will be working on improving our possession but there's only soo much you can do as a manager. You can train as much as you like you'll never get the likes of Cahill, Azpi or Matic to pass the way David Luiz passes.

Still weird seeing Hazard as the most advanced player. Like Conte flipped the switch on Costa and Hazard's off the ball movement. Costa dropping off instead of running in behind while Hazard running in behind instead of dropping off.

Don't bother. MCM4PR3Z is a massive Courtois fan and is just pretending to criticize Courtois because he feels Courtois has been unfailry criticized these past months.

Batshuayi has been poor. Aina looks out of his depth. Terry is done. Just can't play in a back three. Simply isn't mobile and aggresive enough. Far too passive and arriving late everywhere. Cahill needs to be replaced in the future. When we come under pressure he cracks and starts piling up the mistakes. Willian anonymous. Only real positive has been Chalobah/Kante and the fact we're only 1-0 down.

I don't have the page but this article from "the independent" seems to summarise the Times article. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/chelsea-transfer-news-roman-abramovich-backs-antonio-conte-squad-overhaul-three-day-meetings-a7337016.html#commentsDiv Seems to be that Abramovich is backing Conte and 5 players are on the chopping block. Ivanovic, Cahill, Oscar, Matic and Fabregas.

True. We only have 2 players that you can call creative so we need to make the most out of them, the 3-5-2 does that. It allows Fabregas to influence the game from deeper while still having enough players around to make sure he doesn't get isolated while also allowing Hazard to be further forward. Willian or Oscar all in all it doesn't really matter bith have their strenghts and weaknesses. Oscar might be the better defender and have a superior tactical sense then Willian but Willian has the ability to break from deep with pace. Don't really care if Cazorla is better or not then Fabregas. Fabregas is what we got and we have to make do with what we've got, for now. Noone is saying that we should build our team around Fabregas for multiple seasons to come but right now there's still the majority of the season to play for. We have to add creativity to our team and Fabregas is 1 of the 2 players we have that can offer it.

Well we don't have a second Kante but we do have Willian. I don't remember who it was that proposed it first ( think it was DYC or Skipper but i'm not sure ) but Willian could be a good fit at CM. Probably the closest thing we have to Kante. Maybe go 3-5-2. Back 3, Azpi and Alonso on the wings, Fabregas in front of the defense, Willian and Kante on either side of him, Hazard and Costa up top. Would help Fabregas get on the ball more and get him away from pressure (not completely but still it would help).

Fabregas needs to play. He's the only central midfielder we have that can pick a pass. The only player besides Hazard that has any creativity to offer. Arsenal dominated us with a midfield 3 of Coquelin, Cazorla and Ozil. From a defensive point of view that's the equivalent to us fielding a midfield of Kante, Fabregas and Hazard. Yet we're stuffing our midfield full with worker ants and then act suprised when we can't string three passes together.

Costa shouldn't be blamed for Hazard's average performance but i get what Coop is getting at. Hazard frequently passes the ball to Costa and then makes a run into the central area looking for the lay off from Costa but it very rarely happens. Most of the time Costa just ignores Hazard's run. Funny thing is that the times costa does pass it back to Hazard it's almost always results in a good chance for us. (Willian's chance in the first half against Arsenal for example) Ofcourse he needs to do more. The seasons before we didn't have more quality in the squad then we do now and Hazard was able to perform then. However there's also no doubt that having so many limited players in our starting lineup is making it a lot more difficult for Hazard then it would be if we had the quality of a Barcelona, Bayern or Real Madrid running around. Also i think the fact that Hazard is a pass first, shoot second type of player makes the quality of his team mates a bigger factor then it otherwise would be.

FFS Cahill

Don't think we're going to play a back 3 but if we did i believe Azpi would have his place as 1 of our 3 CB. Luiz, Zouma, Azpi with Alonso and Willian as wing backs.

Wilmots isn't a scapegoat. The man was a joke of a manager. Bit ridiculous to expect Martinez to solve everything in 3 training sessions. Our team has three players that are arguably worldclass or close to it. Hazard, Courtois and De Bruyne. That's it. The rest are just good players. 2-3 levels below those 3 and then there's also our fullbacks Meunier and Lukaku who aren't that good but they're the only natural fullbacks we have.

I use squawka when i need stats from a season or a couple seasons back. Just type the name of what player you want stats on and then you can pick what season you wants stats from. It goes back to the season of 2012-2013. ( don't forget to change the name of the club to what club the player played for that season) You can then also click on the stats on the left to get a more detailed break down of the numbers. There's also a comparison bar down below that compares the specific players stats you selected to his teammates. http://www.squawka.com/players/david-luiz/stats#avg.-pass-accuracy#paris-saint-germain-(current)#french-ligue-1#24#season-2016/2017#629#all-matches#1-3#type Also a nice addition to the site is that you can compare different player stats with other players by going to "stats centre" (at the top of the screen) then click on "comparison matrix". It gives you the possibility to compare whatever players you like. You can choose the stats, what season, what specific competition. http://www.squawka.com/comparison-matrix

Damned !!

http://www.fiorentina.it/it/news/articolo.54.51941/ufficiale-alonso-a-titolo-definitivo-al-chelsea.html It is

Ofcourse he did. Under Mourinho he was barely playing. Only time he played was against the bigger teams in midfield.

Don't know if the Brozovic deal is going to happen. Alonso deal does seem like it's going to happen but maybe we're spending money on this "medium" player because he can play a number of different positions including LB and CB. Maybe we're not going to buy a CB and Alonso is simply a cheap option to get some squad depth as he can play both CB and LB.

Maybe Conte doesn't want Maksimovic ? Didn't Conte say something about not wanting to spend money on medium players. Maybe maksimovic falls into that category.

They weren't outnumbered. Terry had Ighalo. If Ivanovic picks up Capoue and Cahill picks up Deeney then it would have been a 3 on 3 with Kante being close by to offer support. Can see it well at 2:13.

Despite the important goal he was really really poor. The amount of attacks that broke down because he couldn't properly control the football was just ridiculous. Either play with 2 strikers or play Batshuayi over him. Batshuayi simply offers more.

Yeah i agree, there's just no way we're gonna go through the season with just Ivan, Azpi and Aina. Jay wasn't even part of our preseason so i don't think we're counting on him.

I honestly can't remember seeing anything about an injury. Maybe he's being trained as our secret weapon at LB...

As much fun it would be to continue this i get a feeling we're dangerously close to a ban. I'll just leave this here. http://www.wikihow.com/Spot-a-Sociopath It's actually kinda frightening how well it fits Mourinho. Also explains the constant "mindgames".

Conte clearly doesn't rate him that highly as he barely featured in preseason. Better he gets some playing time on loan then being here and not playing at all.

Same lineup although i'd switch Matic and Oscar around. No your interest seems firmly concentrated on writing it. Wouldn't worry about that mate. My inside sources tell me that the 3 ringleaders Costa, Fabregas and Hazard had a meeting and apparently they like this manager. Something to do with this one not being a freaking sociopath.