Magic Lamps

Even though this is just a 2nd round Carabao Cup game vs a poor ManU side this game is massive. They are somewhat in form again and we have unfinished business with them. I have always hated Utd more than City, Tottenham, Arse and Pool as they were our greatest rival when I started watching regular Chelsea games in 2006 and they had such an unlikeable squad back then as they have now. Albeit they are hardly direct rivals for us since Fergie left I hate losing to them even in tiny competitions. further, this young chelsea side yet has to win vs a big club domestically so about time to get that monkey off our back.

The ban gave us no choice, any sane fan would understand that. But his showings last season were so inconsistent that we surely would not have signed him without the ban. Now it does look a masterstroke with all the injuries. 40m was an absolute steal given how young he still is. Even if he does not add another dimension to his game like producing output as a technical DM together with Jorginho they can control most games pretty much like the Modric-Kroos connection.

Goalies often get caught grounded for looping shots when they are unable to read the trajectory properly and then look bad it goes in right between their outstretched hand and the crossbar. The only two solutions to this are height and experience.

Willian will retain his place after his solid overall performance and his goal was well-taken. Their goalie dealt poorly with all those low shots tho. this shows just how much quality we have. CHO came in as undisputed starter, then Pulisic starts performing again and he is out of the first XI.

Lamps is obvviously not gonna throw anyone under the bus in public after a 4-2 win. But surely we can improve on what we seen today. The first 20 mins were nervy af and the last 10 minutes we had a few needless turnovers. If we do this vs ManU and Rashford has a good day again, we are gonna be in trouble.

I dont think Alonso has anything to do with those goals conceded As you said it is clearly jorgi and Kovas positioning that allowed those shots to be taken as they should be sitting right there in front of defence when the opposition have the ball but toher than that the jorginho kova pivot has allowed us dominate about every match they played in. For big games it is obviously great to have Kante back but in his absence this is probably the best we can do defensively.

what a performance from the diminutive American. Great goals and well-rounded overall performance. Can not be overlooked in the next few games. Lets hope he does better than last game vs ManU.

Yes so that 3 goals did not quite serve as the wake up call we hoped. lets hope this time it works. i could not stand losing vs such an inferior ManU team.

a win is a win. we made the most of our chances. the gloss is off but who cares. I think we were passive for both goals conceded but at 4-0 it is understandable. Lamps will still have a word about that. Great away support as usual.

dont panic now. jsut pick them off.

now this is embarrassing. dafuq are we doing there. nice reminder we are not perfect yet. dont allow stupid shots.

that would be a case for VAR with that clear foul on pulisic. completely unconsistent the use of technology

wooooot shame for the cleansheet but how are you gonna defend that one.

dafuq. not a penalty is fair enough, contact was minimal but that was surely no dive. what should he have done, ran straight into tarkowski and hurt himself?

whats so awesome is to have 9,10 players on the field who are all good at the ball can pass and run with it. Even in the good old times, we used to have a few midfielders and defenders who would be content with winning it back and delivering it to Lamps to open play but today we are just so unpredictable everyone can make things happen.

damn Reece is so smooth on the ball he look like a bigger right-footed version of Marcelo. What a beast.

tomori is so damn quick. and they are not very good at football. here we go. James on for Alonso. no idea why Alonso

when even Willian scores, teams know they are in trouble. it is weird some games we keep hitting the corssbar 7 times and some we are so clinical every shot hits the net.

perfect hattrick only if that counts as a header lol, it looked like it came off his lower neck or traps haha

now that is a perfect hattrick. left right header. beuatiful moment for him

we looked to be struggling vs Burnley weird mix of kick-and-rush and dive-and-thug-ball. But Puli took care of things. what a performance from him. the second goal was damn lucky but we head enough bad luck so far. the first goal however was absolutely brilliantly taken. that pace, directness and determination made it. We have improved with time and look to have our game management on so far. Now we need to take the sting futher out of the game and pass them into submission. Defending with the ball like we did vs newcastle and Southampton. However, we only have Barnes complete incapacity on the ball to thank to not have conceded an equalizer. I knew Burnley were shit on the ball but damn are they shit technicians.

you are obviously right if selling them would have meant sureyl getting a superior replacement. But not selling them was not necessarily a statement of trust in them bu talso a statement of the board's lack of confidence in its own ability to secure these replacements. We have failed to replace big-name sales numerous times in the past. As much as they hate them as players, we are better off with those two right now than we would be without them given no replacement. I wish it was always that easy to kick this player out and sign that one instead. I could well imagine Willian and Alonso insisted on staying when those offers came in.

I want to see the back of all three as well. Zouma maybe can be kept as a bench option to shut down shop in special cases. But we do not need the cash, so we could as well release Willian if it helps things. It is annyoing given what we would have got for them but they have proven kinda useful in this ban situation. And its not like we need their sales for funding other transfers. I do not believe we have ever refrained from digning someone because of lack of funds rather than refusing to be held to ransom Zouma's clumsiness rubbing off on Tomori is a good observation. He will profit much more from playing with Rüdiger. One more reason he should return to training with the team asap.

I expect his form to drop afterwards. I suspected that his absence in the last two breaks meant he had a slight sharpness-advantage over his younger competitors. Let's hope he gets a confidence boost that makes up for that. Cool pic tho

I guess we need to do the double digit win ourselves. Need to get a bit more clinical first tho.