Closed Stoke 3-2 Chelsea

[Tomo 21,751]

Im so glad we have safe and solid Cahill in our back line.

[Laylabelle 9,535]

Totally agreed. People are being premature if they're saying we're out of the title race, as some of the Twitter-trolls seem to think. We definitely need to reinforce the team defensively in January, though.

Nah not out of yet though making it bloody hard.Hopefully Arsenal will drop points tommrow and it looks a little bit better.Shit fixtures coming up though..fun fun..

Learn from today..and from Sunderland and not do a repeat

[bluesman2610 1,417]

If we are not going to play cole can Bertrand plz play left back for us.. and can we play Ivan as a CB and Caesar as our RB.. Stop with this out of position backs when we have more than capable players in defence on our bench..

[DYC. 7,542]

A cross against Stoke?

A dribbler of a shot at him against West Brom?

Like I said, some weak moments but he has saved us quite a few times. Arsenal's GK for example has had to deal with far less.

[gr123 167]

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, speaking to Sky Sports: "I don't feel comfortable enough to tell you what I think about the game. We're in trouble."

Last bit is interesting..

Still, today was disgusting. Can't wait til January so we can throw hundreds of millions of pounds at the problem.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

What the fuck was that.. Very strange game. I have to put some blame on Big Pete for this result, I can't help but to think we would have won easily if he didn't make that mistake. Up until then Stoke were nowhere near shooting, let alone scoring. We were in complete control, especially defensively and in set-pieces. After that, everything just went horribly wrong.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

triple post sorry

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Hopefully we can have a solid win against Steaua - with a clean-sheet to boot - to top the group, and then follow that up with three points against Palace. Onwards and upwards!

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

A number of small thoughts and one longer one

1) Taking off Schurrle was fine. He ran around like a maniac and hasn't played much recently so his match fitness wasn't likely to be there for 90 minutes and besides...

2) Schurrle was my MOTM, but he did give the ball away a ridiculous 9 times. including 6 turnovers. Our entire rest of the team had 7.

3) Dribbling, by itself, is the most overrated aspect of football IMO. Sometimes, it allows you to create space for a shot or a pass and sometimes it's just a more complicated alternative to passing. Dribbling allows you to do more things but it isn't in itself a great play. Hazard had 13 dribbles but didn't have a particularly good game at all.

4) I don't know why Mata doesn't get played centrally at all. He was poor as was most of our team. I really don't see him fitting under Mourinho. I think it's a style-thing. You can talk about how he can now maintain possession in traffic or how he's stronger, but it's clear that he's been made into a much less effective player in this system. He's been turned from one of the elite offensive players in the world into a completely replaceable player.

5) I also don't know why Mourinho feels he can't rotate the defence at all. After the game mid-week, why not bring Cole back in which gives the team options to take other people out of the lineup?

Longer thought-

1)Still, the same problem. We have a bunch of players and not a team. A group of players that don't seem to fit together because they play different styles. We have players that like to dribble and then cross but a system where the striker drops back into the middle rather than attacks the net. We have counter-attack players next to possession players. Different sorts of players can work together, but they have to be complimentary and many of ours aren't. Even when we win, it's rarely because we play well as a team. It's because one or two players play brilliantly and we win. There is just so little cohesion and it's been years since we had any. Part of that is the constant train of new managers who all have their own ideas and part of it is the continued buying of expensive players when something doesn't work. Look at Arsenal's defence and back 4. if that were Chelsea, when they struggled mightily, we'd have gone out and spent tends of millions trying to find the answer. They now have the best defensive record in the Premier League because often, just playing the same group of players together for a while improves a team. It's not always "hey, we lost, so let's go spend 50M pounds on this player and 30M pounds on that one." Fans love that and you do need to buy improvements to keep up, but familiarity of players with one another also helps. Having 3 strikers and 6 attacking midfielders ( 9 players) for 4 spots is simply way too much depth. Yes, there will always be buying and selling and Chelsea need to do that, but the sort of thing we did by spending 30M on Willian was absolutely ridiculous.

I think we have to pick a system (which under Mourinho will be defence-first counterattack) and then just start selling the players off that don't fit even if they are great players. I think Mata and Luiz were our best attacker and defender last season but I don't see either as fits for Mourinho's system. Sell them and KDB who also doesn't fit and spend that money on a better central defender (or two) than Cahill and a distributing central midfielder who fit the system Mourinho wants to play. At some point, you just have to develop something specifically rather than trying to mesh all your players together. For the rest of the year? Grind it out and see what works I suppose. It's a down year at the top of the Premier League so we can still make a play for it despite our many problems.

[mediator 2,026]

Only 17 passes from Schuurle, 0 dribble, that's poor from a winger.

But, 94% pass completion... Seeing how our striker are bad, time to play him as striker again. He is a good passer and sure he can score. Could be nice player to link up with

----------- Schuurle ------------

Hazard - Mata / Oscar - Willian

will do it, i want to see KDB in our pivot before the opening of the transfer window

[Pizy 18,918]

Hopefully we can have a solid win against Steaua - with a clean-sheet to boot - to top the group, and then follow that up with three points against Palace. Onwards and upwards!

The way we're playing we'll beat Steaua 6-0 and then lose to dire Palace 1-0.

[CMS 382]

Smh.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

The way we're playing we'll beat Steaua 6-0 and then lose to dire Palace 1-0.

Well Palace have won three of their last five games with four clean sheets to boot (I believe), so they'll probably nick a draw against us!

[Jase 43,479]

Looking at the stats, we only conceded 7 shots on target in the last 3 games (1 vs Southampton, 3 vs Sunderland and 3 vs Stoke) and we let in 7 goals from those shots. Abysmal!

[Starman60 1,343]

Do you know what really frustrates me ????????? Its that we are consistently inconsistent !!!! Out of the top seven teams we have only beaten City and have yet to play Arsenal & Liverpool. Not the form of Champions.

CHELSEA................SORT YER SHIT OUT !!!!!!!!!! TODAY WAS AWFUL AND AN EMBARRASSMENT

[mediator 2,026]

Looking at the stats, we only conceded 7 shots on target in the last 3 games (1 vs Southampton, 3 vs Sunderland and 3 vs Stoke) and we let in 7 goals from those shots. Abysmal!

True can't remember the last save from Cech

[ChelseasMessiah 304]

Horrendous defensive performance yet again. We're gifting away goals like we're fucking Father Christmas.

[borriske 330]

Hazard: 88 touches, 13 dribbles (!), 96% pass accuracy (!!) - from whoscored

While that last stat looks mightily impressive (it is), it probably also means he is playing it too safe. For a CM that would be excellent, as it would mean he kept the play going. As a winger/CAM he should be trying more risky (key) passes and assists.

[Jase 43,479]

True can't remember the last save from Cech

It's difficult when we keep giving cheap goals away (and we have been doing that A LOT this season). Oppositions hardly ever have to work hard these days to even put one goal past us. And the ball will already be in the back of the net before Cech knows it.

[Laylabelle 9,535]

We dont seem to defend set pieces just sort of watch as the ball goes in