closed Chelsea 0-2 Liverpool

[Hutcho 8,443]

No. What is the common theme here is people simply assuming showing more attacking intent equates to going gung-ho, as if we can't strike a balance between defending and attacking. 

Come on. This is TC. Every single thing is magnified to another degree. If we played more open and got smashed there would have been people going "Tactically naive against a good team with lots of players out bla bla bla"

Of course we can strike a balance. But the situations I have already mentioned made it a reasonable tactic despite it being shite to watch.

[Hutcho 8,443]

Everyone's fitness level will still be different when you take into consideration not everyone will play every game and there are players returning from injury. 

Of course. That is football. But more people will be fit more people will be available than game week 2 with no preseason. Less passengers and more players back as we go through the games, training sessions etc.

 

Also the fitness demands playing against Liverpool compared to a team like Burnley or West Brom is a lot different.

 

Does anyone truly believe that we are gonna play that defensive going forwards? The system, players and (hopefully) performance will be completely different if you compare the first 2 games to 4 weeks time.

 

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

No one said we didn't defend well. We did.
The game at Anfield aside, did we leak many goals against Liverpool last season? The aggregate score of the other 3 games was 5-4 in our favor.
Why do you focus only on the defending side? Does it have to be one or the other? Why can't we do both sides well? Again the game at Anfield aside, we had the right balance between defence and offence in the other 3 games. Sure, there were some silly defensive mistakes in the goals we conceded (not that it was any different on Sunday) but we were still okay defensively and didn't look like we were going to get blown away. And not to mention, we had threats going forward, more so than on Sunday.
Have said it a few times, I wasn't necessarily against the counter attacking approach on Sunday but what was our plan to win the game? How were we going to hurt them? Because as it turned out, it didn't look like we had a proper plan. Hoping Werner did something was like hoping Hazard did something in the past. Werner is great in his own right but he is not like Hazard who can conjure something out of nothing. We had Havertz upfront but ended treating him like a target man by lumping long balls up to him to win against Van Dijk. Other than that, we didn't look like we had a proper plan on how to hurt Liverpool because we had a defensive player on the RW and 3 midfielders who couldn't do anything offensively to save their lives. 

Why the Anfield game aside? We well could’ve been ended up like that on Sunday if we didn’t play it the pragmatic way considering the current general condition of our squad (missing players, unfit, new boys unsettled, etc.).

“Why can’t we do both side well?” Why? Maybe it’s because simply in reality we are not capable to yet, especially against a unchanged full squad champion of last year? Come on be realistic, who doesn’t want to do well on both ends, when we’re not that certain we can deliver it’s very sensible to prioritize your focus. For Frank, second game of the season, not ideal squad condition, 200m spent with higher expectation, to nick even a point from the scums is the most logical and ideal approach, I see nothing wrong with it. You mentioned other 3 games last season, we lost didn’t we? For Frank Sunday’s game’s top priority is to not lose simple as that.

And why you keep mentioning lumping the ball to Havertz? Yes we did, not that many of times though. We also have created a couple of chances through ground work, if Werner Mount and Kante could be more decisive to take shots we might be even leading before half time.

The only questionable selection for me is no Giroud, but can you blame Frank to start our 70m pound shiny new toy who is also known as capable to play No.9?

[Jase 43,479]

17 minutes ago, Ryan Fong said:

Why the Anfield game aside? We well could’ve been ended up like that on Sunday if we didn’t play it the pragmatic way considering the current general condition of our squad (missing players, unfit, new boys unsettled, etc.).

I didn't count the Anfield game because we performed far better in the other 3 games and it was a better representation of what we can actually do. The one at Anfield just turned into one of those silly games.

24 minutes ago, Ryan Fong said:

And why you keep mentioning lumping the ball to Havertz? Yes we did, not that many of times though. We also have created a couple of chances through ground work, if Werner Mount and Kante could be more decisive to take shots we might be even leading before half time.

The only questionable selection for me is no Giroud, but can you blame Frank to start our 70m pound shiny new toy who is also known as capable to play No.9?

Doesn't matter how many times we lumped the ball to Havertz, we still did. We ended up doing that partly because of Liverpool's pressing but that should have been known beforehand since it's Liverpool's play style. As you said, it was questionable not to start Giroud since he would be better equipped for this than Havertz. Also, since you are all here saying Lampard set up the way he did because of unfavorable circumstances and prioritized getting a result over anything else, then why didn't he play Giroud instead of Havertz upfront? Havertz may have played upfront before but he played as a False 9 as opposed to a traditional No.9. Moreover, if Lampard could take time to ease Pulisic into the team last season, then shouldn't he at least try to do the same with Havertz?