closed Man City 2-1 Chelsea

[Milan 17,957]

Onto to the next one, really. Big, big game in Spain.

[Superblue 6,372]

5 minutes ago, Vesper said:

sorry m8 (and I have NOT bashed Tammy at all)

Tomori is not up to par

he just isnt

maybe someday, but he damn well get on that learning curve and quick

I don't agree. I think he's largely been excellent this season and needs commending for stepping up given Rudigers absence. 

It's difficult to judge a 21 year old playing away at city against mahrez, sterling, de bruyne and aguero when he's played about 15 games in top level football. 

Like the rest of our young players he will get better and in my opinion will be a big player in the future of this club. 

[MoroccanBlue 5,382]

Tomori is going to be 22 in December and took the step up from the Championship to the Premier League. 

I'm still adament when I say our defensive issues have little to do with either Zouma or Tomori. We concede because of either complacency or set pieces, to which the latter is a coaching aspect. 

This is the first defeat where I am honestly fine, especially if United drop points. I see loads of promise. 

 

 

[Vesper 30,185]

26 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

Yeah let's just all act spoilt and want the club to ditch some very talented kids at the first opportunity and blow another couple of hundred million on players. 

Give it some time we are in a huge period of transition, but it's exciting and enjoyable watching players that are our own coming into the side and performing this season. There will be some harsh and steep learning curves along the way but the likes of James, tomori, mount, Hudson odoi, pulisic and tammy are all excellent players within their age group and will continue to get better. 

This whole mentality of wanting everything now is unfortunately a negative from the years of success we've enjoyed and is also a big reason we lost the likes of de bruyne and salah in previous times. 

totally unfair

nobody wants it all now

and we cannot buy players due to the bans

but if you think we can can roll with Tomori and Zouma as our main CB's then you must have developed an Arsenal mentality at some point

there is NO guarantee that Rudiger is going to stay healthy

we shall see on that one when he comes back for the 2nd half of the season, but as it stands,a healthy Rudiger and Reece are the only players who are good enough moving forward after this season

we cannot afford to wait 3 years or so for Tomori to constantly start and constantly fuck up whilst he (if he even ever does) learns the tools of the trade

if you thing we can, then I repeat my Arsenal mentality positing

he has 6 months to sort himself

that is plenty of time to make a call if he is good enough to warrant even a role player slot

I hope he comes good as that is one less problem to solve

 

 

[cosmicway 1,333]

We were a slow motion team after the 2-1.
Could have been that we were not and City scored more - luck plays an important role.
But the psychology was not good.

 

 

[Pizy 18,916]

Just got home and wasn't able to see the match. I expected us to lose this since in my mind City away is the toughest fixture on our fixture list. The way they play in attack is what our personell in defense struggle against. 

With Arse dropping points, all we need is a nice Sheff United result tomorrow and this won't be that bad of a weekend. Just have to keep getting victories consistently against the smaller teams. All of our rivals are super inconsistent and can drop points against anyone it seems. Just have to keep United and Spuds at arms length. 

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

Just now, Special Juan said:

1 loss and the world goes fucking tits up against the champions....

We are doing fine, look at the table, look at the changes of direction and management. 

Very few here are overracting rn imo.

Most of us expected this loss I suppose. But we keep on stating what is wrong with the team. lack of composure/experience, making costly errors/losing the ball in stupid positions, Kepa and lacking serious individual quality in key positions to win those big matches. Maybe Liverpool, ManCity are a bit ahead of us and we are not really competing against them. More worrying is how we botched those games vs ManUre, Leicester, Valencia and almost Ajax at home. Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester away will be the games this team really will be measrued cos IMO we should be beating them. Today I can not really blame our current team apart from the individual fuck-ups. When you come to the City in this era, you always need luck to win and we had some really bad luck with their goals. The issue is that we currently can not compete with the absolute top even if they just put in an average perofrmance but that has nothing to do with the squad and staff ou thtere but the strucutal problems within our board. So no need to panic. We might no win jack this season with the kids but we will secure top 4, i am convinced of that.

[Vesper 30,185]

5 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

I don't agree. I think he's largely been excellent this season and needs commending for stepping up given Rudigers absence. 

It's difficult to judge a 21 year old playing away at city against mahrez, sterling, de bruyne and aguero when he's played about 15 games in top level football. 

Like the rest of our young players he will get better and in my opinion will be a big player in the future of this club. 

totally disagree, he is terrible on the ball atm, which is down to innate skill far more than the art of defence is

like I said he has 6 months to sort it to prove he belongs

I will never accept being a flat tarck bully but failing in most of the games gainst true class teams

I know we are very young and i do not expect us to be world beaters

I am being laser-like in my critiques, not bashing the whole team at all

Emerson was horrid (LB is our nghtmare position, anyone who says we are ok there is a pure gaslighter)

and our on the ball play by our CB's was almost as bad

Zouma was caught out of position and ball watching far too often (much more than Tomori)

Kepa looked shaky yet again he needs a far better coach as he has regressed since last years GK coach left

that is the extent of my criticism

I did not have a go at anyone else

[Vesper 30,185]

8 minutes ago, Magic Lamps said:

Very few here are overracting rn imo.

Most of us expected this loss I suppose. But we keep on stating what is wrong with the team. lack of composure/experience, making costly errors/losing the ball in stupid positions, Kepa and lacking serious individual quality in key positions to win those big matches. Maybe Liverpool, ManCity are a bit ahead of us and we are not really competing against them. More worrying is how we botched those games vs ManUre, Leicester, Valencia and almost Ajax at home. Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester away will be the games this team really will be measrued cos IMO we should be beating them. Today I can not really blame our current team apart from the individual fuck-ups. When you come to the City in this era, you always need luck to win and we had some really bad luck with their goals. The issue is that we currently can not compete with the absolute top even if they just put in an average perofrmance but that has nothing to do with the squad and staff ou thtere but the strucutal problems within our board. So no need to panic. We might no win jack this season with the kids but we will secure top 4, i am convinced of that.

this is not directed at you, just in general

 

I am NOT panicking at all

all my critique is future forward looking and is very detailed and specific and I almost always offer options on how to help solves the issues

I cut the team a tonne of slack as we are so young

[the wes 7,212]

Pep Guardiola records his lowest ever possession as manager against Chelsea... 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7718531/Pep-Guardiola-records-lowest-possession-manager-against-Chelsea.html

[Jase 43,479]

Anyone having issue connecting to the site via wifi or LAN???

[Jase 43,479]

Lampard was philosophical and looked a bit pissed off at the same time...

[milka 3,393]

i’m disappointed at the result, not at the situation. I didn’t expect us to beat City today, and a draw would have been great. But I felt that game was there for the taking in the first half. Some bad luck and us being our own worst enemies, that’s what annoyed me. 

[communicate 2,703]

2 hours ago, the wes said:

Pep Guardiola records his lowest ever possession as manager against Chelsea... 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7718531/Pep-Guardiola-records-lowest-possession-manager-against-Chelsea.html

Useless stats. Pep is happy when team to try attack the , he always praises team that try to play football against him especially when his team won. 

[DDA 9,941]

I was over reacting throughout the game because I knew we were still huge underdogs going into it but we could have done better. If we had turned up properly, City were there for the taking. Individual mistakes really cost us today. Onwards and upwards ad they say. Valencia next... then hopefully we can send West Hams goalkeeper into retirement. 

[Superblue 6,372]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

totally disagree, he is terrible on the ball atm, which is down to innate skill far more than the art of defence is

like I said he has 6 months to sort it to prove he belongs

I will never accept being a flat tarck bully but failing in most of the games gainst true class teams

I know we are very young and i do not expect us to be world beaters

I am being laser-like in my critiques, not bashing the whole team at all

Emerson was horrid (LB is our nghtmare position, anyone who says we are ok there is a pure gaslighter)

and our on the ball play by our CB's was almost as bad

Zouma was caught out of position and ball watching far too often (much more than Tomori)

Kepa looked shaky yet again he needs a far better coach as he has regressed since last years GK coach left

that is the extent of my criticism

I did not have a go at anyone else

Dont get me wrong, I'm not for one minute saying we shouldn't strengthen. It's abundantly clear we need to improve and some of that will have to come from the transfer market.

But I do feel a lot of Chelsea fans have next to no patience. I suppose it's hard to be critical of this when the club has shown such limited patience over the last 15 years, but we are in a period where we need time.

Bearing in mind it felt we were pretty lucky to finish 3rd last season playing some pretty boring and uninspiring football, with a toxic like atmosphere making things overall pretty depressing. If after that Europa League final, we would have been given a screenshot of the first 3-4 months of the new season being: Lampard as the new manager with just one year of experience; not contesting the transfer ban for the summer, Hazard and David Luiz leaving, Kante barely played, Rudiger and Loftus Cheek been out all season, and a reliance on Tomori, Mount and Abraham I think a lot of people would have expected us to be struggling to make the top 6.

I think what we've done so far is phenomenal and shouldn't be over-shadowed with our lack of wins against the top teams. Flat track bully's is fine for where we are at the moment because if we continue to roll over the rest of the league then we'll get top 4 this season. I've no doubt that results will come in the big games as this team (including the manager) grow and develop. Bearing in mind that Arsenal and United have tried experimenting similar this season by blooding through some young players and they are massively struggling with dispatching mid and lower sides. We've dominated most of these teams and beaten most more convincingly than the scorelines have often suggested.

Of course the end game is something tangible (a trophy) but at present this feels more than that. It feels like a new culture is being implemented at the club. And it's something that isn't likely to really bother our Chelsea fans here from different countries, but there is a huge amount of pride seeing Chelsea currently developing young players not just for our squad but for our country too. I've always felt for English clubs there is that extra special sense of pride with 'one of our own' and at the minute we have a few. Last season I would have said we were probably 7 or 8 players away from City and Liverpool and that was before losing Hazard. Now I do feel that if a couple of players can be added to this squad, with a year under the belt for half a dozen of our young players too, we will run them even closer next season. Spurs were in that position 2 or 3 years ago with a young side and manager knocking on the door and if they had spent some money and brought a couple of key additions to the club rather than concentrating on the stadium then they could well have been in that bracket with City and Liverpool rather than falling away. 

Unlike City and Liverpool who have managers in their 4th or 5th year and likely will not be around for much more than a couple of seasons and their best players are mostly in their later 20's (prime years), we have a much younger and fresher squad and manager who lack a bit of experience and need that time to develop and tweak the squad through a couple of key additions. The aim should be to get to where Liverpool and City are in Lampard's 3rd year because I believe their squads by then could be very different and the managers themselves may not even be there by then.

[Tomo 21,751]

3 hours ago, Mana said:

*sigh* I don’t care about that sadly. I’d rather if City broke their highest ever possession record like 98% and we still win the game.

It's meaningless in terms of the result but it's something to build on in terms of actually competing with City and therefore winning the title (eventually).

Let's say your ideal played out and City pissed all over us with 98% possesion and the one time we managed to turn it over we pumped it forward and João Cancelo put the ball in his own net, yes three points ahead in the table but in terms of actually competing with City properly a massive step back.

There's elements of today that has annoyed me but the fact we went to The Ethiad played our own game and not looked atall out of our depth is very encouraging, infact I think it's quite frankly exceptional we went toe to toe with them so early in our cycle and competed, something no other side bar Liverpool in this league will be able to do against them, especially in Manchester.

[Superblue 6,372]

9 minutes ago, Tomo said:

It's meaningless in terms of the result but it's something to build on in terms of actually competing with City and therefore winning the title (eventually).

Let's say your ideal played out and City pissed all over us with 98% possesion and the one time we managed to turn it over we pumped it forward and João Cancelo put the ball in his own net, yes three points ahead in the table but in terms of actually competing with City properly a massive step back.

There's elements of today that has annoyed me but the fact we went to The Ethiad played our own game and not looked atall out of our depth is very encouraging.

Agree. A team will always get lucky from time to time and win a game that they have struggled to impose themselves upon but ultimately we need to show progression that we can regularly compete with them moving forward.

Following on from the United game (and the Leicester game to a similar degree), we've matured quite a bit in a short space of time to show that we can still play in an expansive manner and try to impose ourselves on the top teams without being ruthlessly exposed with alarming regularity. 

The City and Liverpool games have ultimately yielded nothing points wise, but they have shown that we are on the right path and I think Lampard's comments after today's game confirms his belief in that too.

[Ryebread 22]

Here is what I saw, for what it is worth... The midfield was set up in a defensive posture. Frank didn’t want to get blown out. Should have stuck with what has been working. Play our attacking football that has worked and don’t be afraid. Don’t reign in our horses. Saw way too much back passing to kill the clock. I love what Frank is doing with this team but I have always believed that when a football team is on fire, don’t put a damper on it. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

This defense of ours cracks under pressure.
We allowed them many scoring chances - even better ones than those they managed to convert.
On one occasion Mahrez I think it was galloped outside our penalty area, he did n't like his shooting position, started galloping again until he found the position he wanted and fired it - no one to block his path.
It was too easy for them to find unmarked men except for the last twenty five minutes and even then they scored that fractionally offside goal of theirs.

You don't see this pattern against teams who are struggling against us to gain possession.
Not even from Valencia when they beat us at home.
But against the likes of Liverpool, City and Ajax also it becomes apparent.