closed Man City 2-1 Chelsea

[DDA 9,570]

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 6,331]

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 21,681]

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 6,331]

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 1,260]

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.

 

 

 

 

[cosmicway 1,260]

We don't have continuous movement in the back, that's the problem and this is why we are not seeing a problem in the matches we have possession.
The City players were finding open spaces and a mistake or two will happen.
They could have scored early on with De Bruyne from the same position as the one from which Mahrez scored their second. I think De Bruyne was better positioned than Mahrez when he missed, but Mahrez was more lucky.

 

[the wes 7,212]

3 hours ago, communicate said:

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. 

The board need to get the finger out and started buying quality players instead of wasting money on the likes of Drinkwater 

[Strike 6,966]

I loved the performance. Kovacic was nerveless in possession and in patches, the team looked brilliant. Just could not recover after conceding a jammy goal. 

[Blues11 213]

Thought as soon as we scored the goal we weren't aggressive enough and just tried to hold possession instead of playing our forward game. City is dangerous but we needed to force their wingers and back four to defend more and that didn't happen enough. Would be nice if Wiliian could finish in big games once in a while....Still loving the progress with Frank so far and excited for the coming week!  

[Jase 43,479]

It was so painful watching Tomori and Zouma on the ball yesterday. Clueless on how to pass it from the back and ended up just passing between themselves (plus the FBs and keeper), which reminded me of the dark days when we had Cahill and Terry together. The fact that City didn't bother pressing them, like our midfield and attack, said it all. 

[the wes 7,212]

 

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

In a transitional season this surely is a game you have no high expectations going into, at least in terms of the result,so everything other than a loss is a bonus. I give it two more seasons before we're able to say before an Etihad match "This is a game against a league tital rival that we must win". But not now, it's too early. 

Still it was a decent game from our Chelsea and frankly it did not look that big of a difference between City's stellar squad and our group of young players. 

 

[Jase 43,479]

L 0-4 Man United

L 1-2 Liverpool

L 1-2 Man City

Next Big 6 opponent is Spurs on Dec 22...

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, the wes said:

 

Strange to see Roy Keane being so complimentary!

[Laylabelle 9,300]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

L 0-4 Man United

L 1-2 Liverpool

L 1-2 Man City

Next Big 6 opponent is Spurs on Dec 22...

Then after Spurs we play Arsenal just over a week later. Lovely. 

[OneMoSalah 8,615]

16 hours ago, !Hazard! said:

Amsterdam away. But apart from that no, something we need to improve upon. Quite clear we just dont have the quality up front and in defence to win Liverpools and Man Citys right now

I get the CL games are big games usually but even then wouldnt necessarily say Ajax is as big a game to be counted as that. Theyre a good team but I did think we should be beating them for sure. They lost their 2 best players in the summer, who were hugely fundamental in how they got to the CL semis last year along with Dusan Tadic.

The big league games weve played weve dropped points and that is a shame. Spurs and Arsenal to come yet hopefully have more luck,  although big games were a problem even under Sarri and Conte in his 2nd year.

[Fernando 6,376]

I'm actually happy that we played good over there instead of the usual we had with Mourinho or Conte of suffering with the ball.... 

But yesterday it showed clearly what I have been saying we need a topic striker and top cb and Lb. 

Tammy has done great but not a striker we should have as elite like Costa and Drogba. So would love to spend on a top striker. Top striker, Tammy and bats will be good for rotation. 

Defense have said it for a while be thankful that zouma level gone up because we can sell him for some money. Don't want zouma next season to be there in the defense. Get a top cb. 

And Lb, yeah I would take chilwell over Emerson. I will be happy with chilwell and Emerson for depth at Lb. 

So please club those are the only 3 areas that should prioritize in order to move up in quality.