closed Chelsea 1-1 Man United

[kingofchelseadom 41]

point taken. Working away towards our goal of 40pts for the season. 10 more to go can we do it? Yes I think we can.Its too late now to see any changes in player form or style. it is what it is. Jose had no answers either. Pinning it on Guus is poor. We have not lost for a few games now. Give him that. Damage control here. Stop he drop etc etc. if one more person mentions top four I will drop this forum. Seriously, top 10 if your lucky!

[Wizacar 93]

gutted about Zouma's injury. His career might never be the same. he relies on speed and power .Dont know if his knees will be able to handle his explosive mindset. We better sign up JT and fast track miazga

[Muzchap 8,966]

11 hours ago, Kezza said:

Can't believe we got rid of Mou for this clown

Really? You haven't seen 'any' improvement under Guus? 

Strange reaction IMHO - Guus is doing a decent job with what he has, yes we would always want more, but at least the team is playing with a bit of pride now... 

[kellzfresh 7,229]

14 hours ago, Jason said:

We didn't draw against Everton and West Brom because of the defensive mindset. We drew with them because we were too vulnerable defensively and couldn't stop the opposition from creating chances. No disrespect to West Brom but when a Tony Pulis side see plenty of the ball and create lots of chances, then you know you've got some serious issues. The problem with us isn't just about the starting XI but also the mentality. Too many times we've started games slowly and only come to life after some time or going behind. Need to start on the front foot from the get go.

Against In that Everton match, we wasted the first half with rubbish football then we started attacking after we went 2 nil down and Everton couldn't contain our attacking play. 

Watford we wasted the whole first half throwing long balls to Oscar and Costa instead of passing properly and attacking. Then we started attacking when Hazard came on, and almost scored. But we should have played that way from the beginning instead of at the 70th minute. 

Now against manutd we let them have about 10 corners in the first 30 mins, totally dominating us before we balanced things but we never really applied pressure till we went down 1-0. Then suddenly we started fighting to draw the match, we created chances because Hiddink has improved our chances created in attacking but it was too late yet again, leading to another draw. 

Under Mourinho we defend after scoring only one goal but under Hiddink we don't really attack to our potential till the 2nd half so we've ended up scraping for draws. Annoying really. 

Our creativity has improved but only against MK Dons did we go out from the first whistle to score and win early. Our defense has been bad this season, so we need to play to our recent strength of attacking now more than ever, especially with Costa in fantastic form.... 

[cosmicway 1,323]

Chelsea 1 - Man. United + Michael Oliver 1

With 93% possession we could n't turn it around. I knew it was going to be CFC versus De Gea in the end.
But Diego is doing a lot better now, in the post Mourinho era.
One thing he should do is stop trying to take on all the opponents by himself, because he does that rather a lot. He is not even nibbly like Hazard - Willian who can dummy two or three men sometimes.

 

[Jase 43,479]

2 hours ago, kellzfresh said:

Against In that Everton match, we wasted the first half with rubbish football then we started attacking after we went 2 nil down and Everton couldn't contain our attacking play. 

Watford we wasted the whole first half throwing long balls to Oscar and Costa instead of passing properly and attacking. Then we started attacking when Hazard came on, and almost scored. But we should have played that way from the beginning instead of at the 70th minute. 

Now against manutd we let them have about 10 corners in the first 30 mins, totally dominating us before we balanced things but we never really applied pressure till we went down 1-0. Then suddenly we started fighting to draw the match, we created chances because Hiddink has improved our chances created in attacking but it was too late yet again, leading to another draw. 

Under Mourinho we defend after scoring only one goal but under Hiddink we don't really attack to our potential till the 2nd half so we've ended up scraping for draws. Annoying really. 

Our creativity has improved but only against MK Dons did we go out from the first whistle to score and win early. Our defense has been bad this season, so we need to play to our recent strength of attacking now more than ever, especially with Costa in fantastic form.... 

All goes back to what I said initially - we aren't starting games on the front foot. But this isn't just a problem under Hiddink. It's been an issue under previous managers as well. I mean, how many times have we heard Tony Gale talking about our slow starts on commentary?

[kellzfresh 7,229]

30 minutes ago, Jason said:

All goes back to what I said initially - we aren't starting games on the front foot. But this isn't just a problem under Hiddink. It's been an issue under previous managers as well. I mean, how many times have we heard Tony Gale talking about our slow starts on commentary?

But I don't really know where this our mentality is coming from. It seems that not even the coach can change it. Anyways let's hope for better next season. 

[communicate 2,703]

On 2/7/2016 at 2:57 AM, Jason said:

Hiddink deserves criticism for the starting XI he put out today, especially with Oscar starting on the left side and leaving Hazard on the bench. Should have been the other way round. Having said that, I can also understand in some ways why he did what he did. Hazard has played tons of matches in recent years and judging by the number of injuries he's picked up this season alone, the fatigue and exhaustion have clearly caught up with him. So, I can understand why Hiddink is taking precaution and slowly building him up to full fitness again rather than rushing him back and risking him getting injured again or worse, becoming an injury prone player.

On the game, I thought the point was the very least we deserved. In fact, I thought we should have won the game. I know we weren't great by any means, especially in the first 20-25 minutes, but when one look at the overall match, we still created the better chances and definitely should have scored more than the one. The fact that De Gea had so many saves to make - more than Courtois for that matter - says it all really. If we had better luck and been better with the finishing, we would be talking about another huge result here.

Regarding the point made about not wanting to see Matic and Mikel play in the pivot, I can understand why Hiddink has been going with that duo. Granted, it doesn't look great in any way but to put things into some perspective, we have been extremely vulnerable defensively in the previous matches whenever the opposition attacked. You only have to look back at the Scunthorpe, West Brom, Everton and even MK Dons games to see that we've been giving away too much space between the lines and chances and players have been given free runs at our defence. In this game against United, we barely gave anything away from the central area, forcing them to go wide instead with the team dealing with most of their threat very well. This squad definitely needs some major surgery in the summer but right now with the options that we have, I think Hiddink is clearly trying to utilize the players in the best manner possible to ensure that we are balanced as a team and not being too gung-ho or too vulnerable defensively. He can only work with what he was given and I don't think it's fair to criticize him for every little thing.

Excellent post, everybody complained about mikel n matic partnership but when fabregas play in midfield defensively we are leaking space plus goals like crazy. IMO best option is ramires but we sold him, so pretty much we have to wait till summer before we can have good midfield play

Regarding Hazard, I think hiddink said in his interview, he has been injured a lot and we have plenty important game ahead (UCL) hence he want to bring him slowly.