Closed West Brom 1-1 Chelsea

[bababoom 4,478]

Lads, being top was good while it lasted

Oscar, Luiz and Ivan was all pretty poor tonight... Luiz looked like a fish out of water in the last 15 minutes, looked really uncomfortable.

Oh well, it happens. Usually dropping points against the smaller teams would be costly but this season every team is, look at City against Norwich for example. My main worry though and i was thinking this when we beat City, we can beat the big teams but why do we struggle so much against the smaller teams? it's incredibly annoying.

To think, i was looking forward to watching the matches tomorrow knowing we'll be top regardless of what happens... mad season really if you think about it.

[duo11bluecl 207]

It's getting ridiculous now!

Why we look so shitty against the teams we don't supposes to be ?!

Beating Citeh in their own yard and drawing against fucking West Brom, losing two vital points that should be in the bag by defualt?!!

Everyone were pure shit especially our Brazilians! Oscar, Luiz, Ramirez! Luiz was definitely guilty for the goal.

Simple, against top teams we will always be on our guard. Always shit teams we will get complacent.

[Laylabelle 9,345]

That's the most frustrating thing. We go into matches like City, Liverpool, United, Newcastle and the like a bit nervy and not expecting an easy match, but when we come up against SHIT relegation candidate sides like West Ham and West Brom we just don't seem bothered or have so few ideas. We should be entering into matches like this expecting to blow teams like this out of the water with the talent we throw out there compared to theirs.

Its the attitude in the past coming into games like this playing either like its a walk in the park or its already won before even kicked off.

[iseah100 5,612]

We'll be fine. We can still win, can't win em all. Still have games vs Arsenal and Liverpool so we control our destiny.

[steve_n17 31]

this mourinho guy needs to stop yapping about little horses, we are definetely title contenders and second favourites, he needs to start telling his players this

[Alan Partridge 1,124]

Every team in the top 4 will drop more points this season, no one is good enough to go on a winning run til the end. Too many smaller teams within a few points of relegation, they actually have a reason to fight against the top sides.

Has anyone even looked at the bottom of the table? 18th - 10th is 4 points!

Top 3 fighting for the title.

4th-7th fighting for CL spot

10th - bottom fighting to stay in the PL

[Beepu 1,714]

WBA at home against the top half teams this year:

Chelsea - Draw

Liverpool - Draw

Everton - Draw

Newcastle - Win

Man City - Loss (by 1 goal after going down 3)

Arsenal - Draw

They're good against bigger sides at home, very motivated. Those acting like WBA are getting rolled over by the bigger teams this year really need to stop lying.

You need to stop making sense in your posts skipper, this post is so out of place in this senseless thread. Tired of your sensible posts!

[The Chels 2,502]

If, in every one of our PL matches, the opposition were to sit back I doubt we would even make the top 4. We have become so dependent on the counter-attacking system that we are beyond clueless when trying to break down a team's defence when they 'park the bus'. Ramires lacks a footballing brain and any technical ability; our £85m trio of AMs cannot pick out a final ball to save their lives; losing the JT-Cahill partnership really destabilises our defence; and it doesn't help when we don't have a striker capable of holding up play. Sadly we are likely to see more performances and scorelines like this as our remaining fixtures are predominantly against teams in the bottom half of the table who don't play to our system. I actually reckon we have a better chance in the Champions League since we can play counter-attacking but we need to learn how to play with possession too!

[Laylabelle 9,345]

Every team in the top 4 will drop more points this season, no one is good enough to go on a winning run til the end. Too many smaller teams within a few points of relegation, they actually have a reason to fight against the top sides.

Has anyone even looked at the bottom of the table? 18th - 10th is 4 points!

Top 3 fighting for the title.

4th-7th fighting for CL spot

10th - bottom fighting to stay in the PL

Yeah its all a bit mad at the moment!Though would say Liverpool at 4th are in with a shot at the title even more so if they win tommrow...sadly lol..

[robsblubot 3,476]

Or there is a simpler explanation, which Jose has been hinting at, but it's difficult for supporters to accept: our team may not be as good as we think it is.

We need 100% focus to be in the game during the 90 mins and that can be accomplished sometimes and in some games, but not all the time during a long championship.

Thankfully the opponents aren't that superior either, so we might have a shot despite of what our pragmatic manager says.

We will find out soon enough.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

All is not lost obviously, West Brom love playing against us. We are still in a good position

[manpe 10,861]

@Hutcho, you have by far the best avatar.

And we obviously lacked proper offensive full-backs in this game. Dave offers nothing at left back offensively and Ivanovic, despite his good displays against better teams, is a centre back being played out of position. We don't stretch those teams enough who defend deep and compactively. Also Ramires is not a big help playing like that, he needs space to attack with pace, he's never gonna be the creative midfielder orchestrating our transitions. People may say we lack a proper striker, but against such teams I'd rather have tireless offensive wing-backs and an orchestrator along with Matic.

[Las7 951]

Salah is the most dangerous player we have on our bench - possibly Lampard.

Can't bring Torres or Ba on expecting anything other than them falling on their arse a few times and loosing the ball

Schurrle I sometimes forget we even have him

[CHOULO19 24,332]

That's the most frustrating thing. We go into matches like City, Liverpool, United, Newcastle and the like a bit nervy and not expecting an easy match, but when we come up against SHIT relegation candidate sides like West Ham and West Brom we just don't seem bothered or have so few ideas. We should be entering into matches like this expecting to blow teams like this out of the water with the talent we throw out there compared to theirs.

But this isn't La Liga or Ligue 1, there are no shit teams. Every single team in the EPL has players that can defend and keep their discipline for 90 minutes and have the quality to hurt you on the attack. We have at times blown teams away like Newcastle last week and Westham away, but we just don't have the consistency yet to do that every week.

Tonight, WBA were very disciplined and kept their shape in the fist half. We were lucky that they lost their concentration in the final seconds. In the second half we had much more space and got into the right areas to create chances and score goals but we just weren't clinical enough. Then around the 75 minutes, we made a few mistakes at the back with tiredness playing a role and Iva prefering to argue with the ref rather than actually defende playing a role as well and we gave them a few chances in a row and they got the belief and momentum and put us under pressure. Our players lacked the experience and the leadership in defense to hold on and we were always going to concede.

[lionsden 4,689]

Can someone give me a logical explanation why we always try to sit on a narrow victory to see the game out when it's been proven time and again to be a very dangerous and risky strategy. why did we stop pressing them high up the pitch in the 2nd half and genuinely try to control the game and push for the killer second goal. why invite unnecessary pressure to yourself by sitting back deep.

Makes no sense at all to me. the equalizer was inevitable, if you invite so much pressure , one moment of lapse in concentration or mistake is all it takes and you get punished.

[The only place to be 11,313]

If, in every one of our PL matches, the opposition were to sit back I doubt we would even make the top 4. We have become so dependent on the counter-attacking system that we are beyond clueless when trying to break down a team's defence when they 'park the bus'. Ramires lacks a footballing brain and any technical ability; our £85m trio of AMs cannot pick out a final ball to save their lives; losing the JT-Cahill partnership really destabilises our defence; and it doesn't help when we don't have a striker capable of holding up play. Sadly we are likely to see more performances and scorelines like this as our remaining fixtures are predominantly against teams in the bottom half of the table who don't play to our system. I actually reckon we have a better chance in the Champions League since we can play counter-attacking but we need to learn how to play with possession too!

I would say this is a copy and paste from a post you made a couple of weeks ago, but I can't see you bemoaning the selection of Ivanovic.

[Blue Traveler 256]

We were surrounding to them at the last 10 mins of the match like we were 1 man down against Real Madrid in Santiago!!!

[Pizy 18,350]

Its the attitude in the past coming into games like this playing either like its a walk in the park or its already won before even kicked off.

Just rage inducing for me when we drop silly points against sides who don't have a single player who'd even make our bench. Knowing we can possibly create a small gap at the top and put massive pressure on our rivals the player should've been starving to make a statement win. Instead, we just stopped playing and offered West Brom a point on a plate.

Should've killed that game. Dropping points to Everton next week I could've accepted. Not West Brom. With City and Liverppol having bankers in their next matches we MUST beat Everton now.