Magic Lamps

and they did. Hazard probably would have tried to pass in Messi's position

What a bonkers game Expect barca to kill it off now

He is a talented player just a knee made of glass. Not due to his playing style je never made it.

Sorry hazard but Messi is still the best... two brilliant post shots and now this goal orchestrated it himself

Barcas goals have been ridiculous tho. Great individual quality. Spurs however forgot how to press as a team

Good article apart from.the fact that it insists on calling Willy Caballero Simon Mignolet. I dont think you can pin Sturridges wonder goal on Barkley. In 99/100 that shot goes in the stands. We had enough players behind the ball.. Ut those weird turnovers in the cup game...truth be told Barkley had his opportunity and failed..i hope gets another one and uses it

I think the biggest danger is the pace of Mane and Salah on the counter. We should not go about this as offensive as we do against the small teams and phase our pressing and all-out attacking periods to remain unpredictable. Still we should try to have more posession and tire them out a bit, we know they don't like it. But I expect them to perfectly organized like they were vs City in the CL. I think set pieces will be absolutely crucial again as defending those is one of their major weaknesses with the lack of height they got everywhere outside the CB positions and alisson is not that much of box commander either. However just dominating their midfield will not ben enough, even though IMO we are vastly superior there. even if we cut off the supply to their deadly front 3 they will always get supply from the flanks and loose balls which they will latch upon thus everyone except hazard has to retreat quickly as fuck as soon as they go on their bikes. Forced into quick decisions their pace will actually impede their composure.

I am pretty sure Cahill still has at least an inch on him in that department but Barks looks absolutely shreeded and his fitness is not the issue but you can see that his mind is not really sharp enough yet after that long break. some guys just take longer to re-acclimatize. Barkley's job is not to score goals primarily, so I am not worried it rocks his confidence too much but setting himself a target of 20 goals without ever having scored even 10 was a bit too ambitious givne he is not a regular starter. However he is one major factor why our midfield is 3 times better than last year. Barkley is a good shooter and should exploit that more often but whilst Lamps was ana mazing shooter from any reasonable distance, most of his goals were classic striker goals coming from excellent positioning, timing of off the ball runs. If he really would like to emulate Lamps he should study his movement first. Barkley is someone who wants teh ball at his feet, driving it forward, going in to the dribble, which is nice and he should not give up. Lamps on the other hand was actually the opposite especially in the later stages of his career where he scored most goals (was already almost 30 when he hit the 100 for Chelsea). Despite being an excellent dribbler with great close control when called upon (remember when he put Balotelli on his backside and anothe rtime a few Atletico defenders with some intricate zick-zack touches), Lamps seldom kept the ball for longer than a few seconds, like the Tom Brady of football. Still he was able to orchestrate a game all by himself, dropping deep to open play with his legendary accurate long range passes, skipping the opposition midfield without even breakign a sweat. Then waiting for their lines to retreat and finding space to get the ball back and play a killer steep pass or making himself available for the cutback and apply his deadly shooting skills. You will barely find a midfielder this complete and this impactful on build-up play and attack likewise today. Mostly because football has changed. Midfielders are more about the subtle art of circulating play in the tempo the game management requires (like Kroos, Modric, Thiago, Jorginho etc) rather than directly breaking the defence with such force and consistency as Lampard did. Then again there are enough players who desperately try it but just dont have the talent (like Pogba) esp. footballing intelligence wise. So back to BArkley. Barks obviously has all teh techncial and physical tools to be any kind of midfielder he wants. He could be more of a younger Lampard, doing many runs and taking on many shots driving the play vertically forward and being almost everywhere then he will not score as much as the later Lamps who was all about his end-product and distribution. Either way he has to fit it into Sarris system, which imo is both possible as a midfield 3 like this allows the two more advanced midfielders a lot of freedom. I wish him good luck and hope as long as he keeps playing well and improving he will not mind too much about stats at first but find his role and then he will automatically fidn himselfs in shooting position like the Hamsik role in Napoli which is actually pretty close to waht i just elaborated on. I think of all our midfielder he is bes tsuited to taht but it does not hurt having competition and variety.

dafuq did he not score that. That is probably the only quarrel I have with this season so far. It is perfectly understandable we are leaky at the back after switching back to back 4 which is harder than going to back 5. Not that we have not been scoring enough. But given all the chances we created we could have scored more from midfield and striker. Esp Kovacic and Barkley should start scoring at some point. With Pedro out we only have Hazard to bail us out, making us very predictable and Alonso who is absolutely unpredictable but we cant rely on a defender scoring us vital goals.

at this point, I just want a solid striker. someone who is emotionally stable can be in and out the team without losing confidence. Scores his fair share and has ok link up play and dribbling. Basically a younger, quicker , more clinical Giroud. I think nowadays for striker it is more important to be a jack of all trades than someone who is a pure finisher but does not do anything else like Bats. (Still prefer Bats over Morata with our current system). But at the same time it does not help when you are quick and decent pace and size but cant use it like Morata. As soon as one of the boxes is not at least half ticked the striker becomes a complete liability. Also because of the dominance of the inverted wingers being the most potent threads in most top teams, strikers have a hard time to shine as such. Combine that with the current say moderate average class of top-league strikers available. Really bonkers how we splashed out 70m on MOrata who never was the leading striker for any team and is not even caught out to be one. I doubt we would have finished lower than 5th last season with any other average EPL striker. A lot of strikers go into weeks and weeks of not scoring and the media blows it up like hell but only the bad ones let their confidence be affected by that. As so often in life, it does not matter why you got down it counts how you get up, again and again and again that takes strength of character and will but that is exactly what we are missing from Morata.

Lol. And who teaches the bear English?

After rewatching 2 that studge miss was worse than the torres one

William, Morata and Moses must be the most frustrating attacking 3 in football.history. the new Anelkalouda (who at least could score goals)

I hate these games..tons of losession but being caughg on the break and will prolly concede first. Fabinho is a trainwreck. Just as shit as Bakayoko

Well that was painful to watch so wasteful. But not as painful as for Pedro. Hope he is ok. Win is a win I bet my left nut Batshuayi would have scored a hattrick today. Exactl his kind of game. That being saif, 6 games and as many wins into the season and we are already playing better football than Arsenal have for 15 years when they get praised for it all he time.

Both are not chelsea material

Dont get why people ate always happy to see rivals losing in europe. We need to keep them occupied as long as possible. The faree they get in the CL the better our chances in the league. Same with Spurs. I hope all english team go into the quarterfinals at least. also better for the coefficient and the better the league the greater achievement it is to win it ourselves. Dont be short-sighted guys.

God to see Kovacic, Hazard and Luiz rested. Hopefully, Jorginho, kante amd Azpi also will not start. Disappointed Drinkwater and Emerson are not in the squad. Maxbe its injuries bc i can not see us restricting our contingeng voluntarily

Lol Athens or Saloniki. Hauptsache Italien😅🙈

I hope Hazard, Jorginho, Kante and Azpi do not even travel to Athens for this mickey mouse competition. Hope we lineup with a b/c squad. Actually very much like the ones posted above

True, the players are tactically very flexible, esp this change to 3 man defense and back to 4 has been executed to perfection both times. But then again, the board by accident or by cleverness chose manager whose philosophies in terms of work ethic are similar. Mourinho instilled a hard working mentality into them that got reaped by Conte to mould into his defensive, running around style with 11 behind the ball at times and now Sarri, without losing this mentality gave them some more offensive joy by scrapping the shackles and allowing players to drift forward more as long as they get back fast enough. I just really really hope we can somehow convince Kante and Hazard to stay bc then I could see something lasting and genuine being build here. Even if we do not win titles every year, the way the players express themselves on the pitch atm and the football we play is just great to watch and when the academy graduates can pick up this philosophy we can become what Roman always dreams of and what many fans wish too. Sure, I prefer winning titles ugly rather than losing in beauty but we have won a shitload of titles in the past 15 years and in order to do again but by playing beautiful football too which surely is the next step we need to learn to play taht football with a little less pressure first.

Easily the best team in the league so far and we are only to get better esp defensively. Have to compliment Sarri for making the best out of his limited time and putting everything together this fast. Let's hope he will also stand through the more difficult times we are set to face at least in November like always.

His assist was amazing as is his composure. He looks so good in dmf that i am not sure he wouldnt be wasted in cb but then again we are much szronger in midfield but could see him break through in defense. Either way great player and will become a world beater here or somewhere else

Dont see there being much of a problem. Many of our players are not international a listers and either riding the bench like Azpi, Kepa, Kovacic or having stayed in Cobham like Morata, Pedro, Luiz, Barkley. They are gonna be fit and tactically well prepares for Cardiff

I like how Mourinho plays the "its too expensive to sack me" card. Avb said the very same once and was sacked weeks later. What a disaster that was tho. 30m for a bang average manager