Leeds United 3 - 0 Chelsea

[Blue Armour 4,165]

Everyones talking about Mendys awful mistake, but Koulibalys second yellow was even worse IMO.

What the hell was he thinking? We were anyway 3 down. This isn't like the 1st leg of a CL game where another goal could make a difference.

That too from an experienced CB. This is the sort of shit that we would bench Chalobah for, and even he hasn't done something dumb like that.

Just hoping this is just him adjusting to the frenetic pace of the PL. Even Silva had his moments when he first came here.

[Vesper 27,317]

1 hour ago, Vytis33 said:

David Luiz often got criticized for his defensive lapses but I do vividly remember him punting balls out of the stadium frequently to clear his lines.  Live to fight another day mentality.  Mendy for the love of God put your foot thru the ball!

Luiz's HUGE problem was he was the most blatant ball watcher of any £40-50m plus CB I have ever seen

it's why we all call him bobblehead

[DanP2311 65]

Chelsea was not prepared by their manager. Anyone could foresee that this would be all about handling pressure, and play in tight spaces. Eventually blaming a deficit of talent will become impossible. Leeds had a better game plan, end of story. 

[DDA 9,570]

Wasn't Jorginho and Conor G the midfield duo when we lost to Arsenal pre-season??

If so, why the fuck is he putting those two up against a high energy side like Leeds. 

Poor management. 

[NikkiCFC 7,582]

Loving it!  Just like in Leicester under Lampard when I cheered for them. It comes to that point now with TT... People will say how can you go against Chelsea... Well, I look at bigger picture. Short suffer but in bigger picture we will win. Zero improvement since day one in attack. 

[blahblahblah 73]

9 minutes ago, DDA said:

Wasn't Jorginho and Conor G the midfield duo when we lost to Arsenal pre-season??

If so, why the fuck is he putting those two up against a high energy side like Leeds. 

Poor management. 

Yup. Though in a 4-2-3-1

[Blue Armour 4,165]

36 minutes ago, DDA said:

Wasn't Jorginho and Conor G the midfield duo when we lost to Arsenal pre-season??

If so, why the fuck is he putting those two up against a high energy side like Leeds. 

Poor management. 

Against Arsenal it was a 4-3-3 with Mount, Jorghino and Connor, so it was even worse. Nothing to shield our defense

This time it was a back 5.

That being said, I like our performance for the first 15 mins of the 2nd half when he went back to a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 with RLC, Jorginho playing deeper and Connor moving further forward. Only issue is Mount being played out wide, which lessened his influence on the game.

All this tampering with formations feels like Tuchel is deploying players in unnatural positions just to accommodate certain players and formations.

I think he needs to do the hard thing and drop 1-2 of his first-eleven favorites and play the right personnel in the right formation,...whatever can get the team playing well enough with solidity again., even if it means upsetting those players.

[erinblue 13]

4 hours ago, Seymop said:

As I have posted before possession is a wonderful thing — but it doesn’t win you football matches. One thing does that — GOALS !! Until we get the ball forward more quickly instead of sideways and backwards, we will never get the best out of any striker we have currently or are looking to sign
The insistence of playing out from the back EVERY TIME leads to mistakes , like today. Let’s get a few more players going past opponents and creating space and get people shooting the ball — rather than this slow tempo dross that we often revert to

This...

Spot on

[Clockwork 1,764]

4 hours ago, bigbluewillie said:

But Mendy has been doing it for ages, he's still not learned.

If TT hasn't told him already then he never will.

The problem is for a side that plays out of the back, there is a certain level of competence Is required on the ball. Mendy does not meet it.

 

[cosmicway 1,252]

9 hours ago, Blue Armour said:

Everyones talking about Mendys awful mistake, but Koulibalys second yellow was even worse IMO.

What the hell was he thinking? We were anyway 3 down. This isn't like the 1st leg of a CL game where another goal could make a difference.

That too from an experienced CB. This is the sort of shit that we would bench Chalobah for, and even he hasn't done something dumb like that.

Just hoping this is just him adjusting to the frenetic pace of the PL. Even Silva had his moments when he first came here.

Both cards were silly - he grabbed his man like policeman grabs noisy demonstrator. 
You don't do that or we pay 50 million quid to buy a circus wrestler next time.
In the first case it was not even a terribly dangerous situation. In the second case the same plus the match was over.

[bigbluewillie 1,806]

It was criminal to play James at RCB, didn't we just know that we were in for trouble with RLC at RWB.

Mendy needs to be dropped, bring Kepa in against Leicester.

We have no front three, I've asked this so many times and it needs asking again, what is Kai's position? notice i've not said best but he's no good at RW or LW or number 9 or false 9 so unless he plays in goal I don't know where he needs to be.

Mason Mount is about as good as Kai atm fucking useless.

Cucu must be thinking wtf have i come to.

And Tuchel says we were the best team, fucking hell Tommy really, were you watching the game?

[cosmicway 1,252]

De Gea made a similar howler last week, Brentford v. United.
For a modern goalkeeper foot skills are essential, maintaining cool head when the ball is on the floor is also essential.
The back pass as we know has been made illegal 30 years now and the option to hoof the ball downfield is not even an option all the time.
It certainly was n't an option with the Leeds goal - Mendy could only have kicked towards the corner flag.

Goalkeepers are fooled. Even the legendary Lev Yashin was fooled once (against Greece, USSR won 4-1 in the end).
But it happens all the time. What can we do ?

[cosmicway 1,252]

It was Mendy plus gross underestimation of the opponent in the end.
We thought Leeds were like Norwich or APOEL of Cyprus but they showed their teeth from the first minute.
Plus the front line unless somethhing happens before the transfer window closes is the same as always, Gobi desert.
We should take a lesson from Arsenal. It's true they faced weak opponents so far, but could we have scored the same number of goals against the same opponents ?

 

[manpe 10,855]

Neutralize our wing-backs and we have no answer. Whether we like it or not, they are our most important attacking players. Our front three's main job is to play the wing-backs through on the overlap. When teams successfully block this strategy, we revert to sideways passing in the final 3rd and eventually give it back to the backline as we have no answer once the wings are blocked. We look so shit in attack when that happens.

RLC is a nice backup to have but shouldn't be starting when we have other options fit. Azpi and Trevoh were on the bench, WHY? They are natural center-backs, but Tuchel instead prefers to put Reece at CB and RLC at WB... square pegs in round holes and all that. Are Azpi and Trev really so shit that RLC blows them away? Azpi was good against Everton, then dropped against Sp*rs in favour of Reece to contain Son... but Leeds? FFS Leeds aren't Real Madrid or Tottenshits that you have to compromise attack for defence.

There was one situation I remember where RLC was played in for a nice shooting or crossing chance, but he overplayed and squandered it. Reece would have blasted it first time! And knowing his shooting probably would have hit the target at the very least. That's a potential goal lost because we chose not to play players in their best positions.

Reece is arguably our most important attacker, he should not be playing CB when it's not absolutely necessary imho.

[MoroccanBlue 5,199]

The game plan is always push our wingbacks back and press Jorginho. 

How to beat Chelsea 101.