Closed Chelsea 2-0 Newcastle

[Henrique 9,133]

Great game. Oscar was my motm. Costa was good as usual. Very good performance in the 2nd half.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

One major concern though - we have suddenly looked extremely vulnerable against pacey and direct players. Not that we have not seen our defenders struggle against such players before but it has happened far too often in recent games. Not to mention, some of the attempted challenges to stop these kind of players have been been pathetic. So many half-hearted tackles and hardly any committed ones. If the players are going to do that, then they might as well not bother putting in the challenges at all.

I think a lot of that comes down to amount of times we've been giving the ball away in dangerous counter attacking areas and also the fact that Matic, Oscar and Fab haven't been very good in the high press recently

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Tell you what though, Zouma was beasty. Deserves another start. What's ridiculous is, he's only 20, and he's already outperforming one of England's first choice CBs!

I have to say though, with JT I think the reason he gets played on the left because Azpi helps cover for his lack of pace. If Azpi does move to the right then I think JT will change sides as well, with Zouma and Luis on the left.

On a side note, we got denied another penalty. 4th in 5, isn't it?

I thought he was good not drool worthy.

[Jase 43,479]

Yeah, really noticed that when Shola Ameobi came on. I think out of our entire defensive line, only Cesar seems to be bold enough to make the challenges that are required. And of course, Ameobi chose to attack on Ivanovic's side (even if Cesar wasn't present)

It wasn't only Ameobi though. Cabella, Sissoko ran us pretty ragged in the first half as well. Had their final deliveries been better, they would have easily scored 2-3 goals since we didn't even bother putting in committed challenges. Of all the defenders we have, I'm only most confident in Azpilicueta to deal with quick and direct players effectively. The rest of them are too reactive when faced with such problems.

I think a lot of that comes down to amount of times we've been giving the ball away in dangerous counter attacking areas and also the fact that Matic, Oscar and Fab haven't been very good in the high press recently

It's not only about the pressing. It's about being committed in the tackles/challenges. There were numerous occasions where Matic, Terry etc just stuck out a foot half-heartedly to try and bring down Cabella (for instance) rather taking him out completely (of course not in a rash way). In the end, Cabella (and 1-2 others) just ran past our players like they weren't even there. This problem was evident against Spurs too.