Chelsea 2-1 Crystal Palace

[Fulham Broadway 16,424]

1 minute ago, Magic Lamps said:

On the night it was a positive one for once. Nothing wrong with the desire and fight today.
Disasi and Badi are still clumsy, Maatsen and Caicedo remain absolutely pathetic players, broja and Jackson are wasteful wanna be strikers. The rest did quite well. 
 

in the grand scheme of things this squad has years until it can challenge provided it stays together. We saw glimpses of its potential but no real end product. We always rely on luck to win. It will be enough to survive but not much more . Still a lot of dark years ahead  

Agree with that, but not the last sentence. Think we can improve quicker with Nkunku, Mudryk and Palmer firing - this is the fine margins that we are existing on. The importance of confidence can not be said enough either

[Fulham Broadway 16,424]

3 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Poch was CB. 

Commentator said he was red carded 18 times 😄

[ZAPHOD2319 3,903]

As much as the owners deserve the battering they are getting from fans. I do believe them when they say this is four years of recruiting the players needed to compete. I do not think for a second they just stop trying to move players that cannot perform and get players that can. It just sucks they have bought so many misses so far. 

[DDA 9,570]

The more I think of it.. the worse that performance was from 90% of the team. If everyone played with the integrity of Gusto did in that game... we would be challenging for the title... now these players are either not good enough which I really think could be the case or they just don't care enough. Ontop of which... the manager is making some fucking strange decisions with the defensive line up. Truly Bizarre. 

[NikkiCFC 7,604]

2 minutes ago, LAM09 said:

How many players have we bought since within the past 12 months?

There's been drastic changes within that time.

Even this argument works in his favor. Last season we had more CL winners: Mount, Havertz, Kovacic, Kante... this is completely new inexperienced team. 

[lluubbeenn 117]

From the starting eleven today only one player has started last season with us. I think this is unprecedented in pro football. 
Poch can make a team out of all these players. Time is a bit of an excuse, but he certainly needs a fit squad to establish training rules. 
 

[robsblubot 3,257]

5 minutes ago, bluesman2610 said:

I also agree with the team being young but defensive positioning should be drilled into these guys. If you can read the game well a lot of these kinds of goals don't happen. Look at Silva it's only that his body can't keep up with his brain anymore - but when we first got him he was one of the best CB in the PL because he could read the game. Like if you don't have exceptional pace like a Rudiger for instance you have to read the game well. And none of the players we have back there are doing that, hence the chopping and changing of the partnerships.

Agreed, but I don't know to what extent that's already been done or not. It could be that they are doing a good job, but it's taking time for the youngsters to understand, and especially put it into practice.
I've always played (amateur level along some semi-pro players) mid/forward and always struggled in defensive positions. Played FB a few times and it was always a struggle. Reading of the game is hard. 🙂 Trying to guess what pacey players will do is hard. Esp at this level where the opposition plays so quickly, you have to be quick to read the other team's movement.

[robsblubot 3,257]

10 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Even this argument works in his favor. Last season we had more CL winners: Mount, Havertz, Kovacic, Kante... this is completely new inexperienced team. 

yup. Kante is playing regularly and making big bucks... his choice likely due to fitness questions.

Kovacic is rotating in midfield for the best PL team and club. Havertz rotates for the second/third best PL club atm.

Quality available isn't really comparable, but young players have the "unknown" allure for fans. I share that esp the super talented youngster coming thru! Too much of that at the same time and it's trouble eh.

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by robsblubot

[LAM09 6,558]

8 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Even this argument works in his favor. Last season we had more CL winners: Mount, Havertz, Kovacic, Kante... this is completely new inexperienced team. 

How does that have any relevance? 

Average players (in the case of the first two) didn't become world beaters because they won a CL medal. What are both up to now? 

I'm honestly starting to wonder if people know where most of our players have come from. These aren't players who been promoted from the second tier or such. Nothing more than a cop out excuses to mask over Poch's consistent selection mistakes.

Edited December 27, 2023 by LAM09

[JFKvsNixon 27]

Chelsea's XG would put them around 4th, so even a half decent striker would give us at least an extra 10 points this season. Our season, and people's opinion of Poch, would look a lot different with an extra 10 points.

Personally, I'd give up on Broja and Jackson and play Palmer as a false 9, until we can get someone in. He seems to have all the positive attributes that Havertz had with none of his negatives, but more importantly he knowa how to hit the back of the net, and is confident enough to soak up a bad miss.

[Laylabelle 9,305]

Wins a win...win number 7 woohoo!! 10th place is going to be ours 🤣 

[Fulham Broadway 16,424]

Poetic justice for Madueke - Palace threw him out as a kid

[robsblubot 3,257]

2 minutes ago, LAM09 said:

How does that have any relevance? 

Average players (in the case of the first two) didn't become world beaters because they won a CL medal. What are both up to now?

Where are they playing now? Kovacic is average now? Kai is getting Arsenal points.... if he is average what the fuck is Madueke then?
Pulisic would be a sure starter in this squad... he starts for Milan regularly.

[NikkiCFC 7,604]

With Nkunku back and Palmer being efficient as number 9 against Arsenal it's time to forget about Jackson and Broja for a while if not forever. Mudryk is growing and I guess Madueke will get more chances now plus there is Sterling for wingers positions. 5 players to rotate for 3 positions.

Lavia, Gallagher, Caicedo and Enzo to rotate for 3 MF positions. 

Gusto locked as RB. Chilwell back soon. Petrovic looking good. We may finally put our best team soon.

[robsblubot 3,257]

3 minutes ago, JFKvsNixon said:

Chelsea's XG would put them around 4th, so even a half decent striker would give us at least an extra 10 points this season. Our season, and people's opinion of Poch, would look a lot different with an extra 10 points.

Personally, I'd give up on Broja and Jackson and play Palmer as a false 9, until we can get someone in. He seems to have all the positive attributes that Havertz had with none of his negatives, but more importantly he knowa how to hit the back of the net, and is confident enough to soak up a bad miss.

Honestly, I don't trust these stats on face value. Take the Broja play as an example: it was a long ball (Silva I think) and Broja's first touch was fantastic, and his finish wasn't bad. If the stat counts that as a "should've scored" does it consider the quality of the first touch, or that the ball travelled 50 meters and had quite a bit of weight on it?

Not sure Palmer has the physique for false 9 tbh. I'd prob do similarly, but Nkunku.

[Blue Armour 4,168]

Another game with so many up & down moments.

While you can look at the goal we conceded and blame Caicedo or Colwill, IMO the problem started way before that.

The real cause is our poor game management, as result of having a really young side (in case you dont know by now, the commentators kept bringing this up throughout the game).

In the 1st half we had Palace on the ropes, but towards the end of the half we started moving the ball back into our own half, allowing Palace to advance.  

Gallagher was fantastic today, but in the end of that first half, our midfield slowly conceded the initiative to Palace.

This is just how it's going to be this season until the side matures. 

More up and down moments, and topsy-turvy results.

Just enjoy the wins when it happens.

Still on course for 8th in the league table.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Blue Armour

[Chuckso 17]

I had declared we had turned the corner after the Sheffield game because we had upped - matched and surpassed - the (defensive) intensity of our opponents and carried it into our next match. 
 

I was wrong. 

 

The previous game our opponents upped their intensity/work rate mid-game and we did not respond. This game we did not match through out and the game gradually slipped away. 
 

Football is quite simple when you think of the basics. Score while preventing your opponents from scoring. 
 

For scoring, what gives the advantage is level of talent and elusiveness I.e not being “easy to see” - that is where “pass and move”, “finding space” and work rate and intensity comes in. 
 

The other part is defense, and the evolution of football has gone from catennacio type defense to all round pressing all over the pitch (this has been in combination with the increase in fitness and athleticism of players in the top leagues) - and it is quite simple - if you can prevent your opponents from settling and letting their talents shine through, you have gone some way to nullifying them while giving you confidence. The quality of players in the premier league has increased a great deal so there are fine margins at play here. 
 

Watch this match again and see how the Palace players pressed our players as they are receiving the ball while ours would arrive to press after the opponents have gotten control of the ball and are already making the next decision.

We only play well when the opponents have a lowish intensity which happens “down” teams with the bigger games - Man City, Arsenal etc -  because these opponents would rather not work as hard but let their talents do the work - however unlike us they recognize the smaller teams know they are at a disadvantage talent-wise and have to up their defensive work rate These bigger guys respond in kind to up theirs. Our manager does prepare the team for this. Think of it as a maths problem: Talent + work rate = performance. A 5 Talent + 7 work rate / intensity would defeat an 8 Talent + 2 work rate. This is what we are seeing. 
 

We are at the stage now where even the minnows smell blood and are no longer falling back to press us from their back third of the pitch but looking to match us toe to toe on our home patch, pressing us all over the pitch. 
 

Poch has brought sad times  

 

[JFKvsNixon 27]

Just now, robsblubot said:

Honestly, I don't trust these stats on face value. Take the Broja play as an example: it was a long ball (Silva I think) and Broja's first touch was fantastic, and his finish wasn't bad. If the stat counts that as a "should've scored" does it consider the quality of the first touch, or that the ball travelled 50 meters and had quite a bit of weight on it?

Not sure Palmer has the physique for false 9 tbh. I'd prob do similarly, but Nkunku.

XG takes into account the difficulty of the chance, for example the XG of Jackson's miss would be higher than the XG of Broja's.  So you can see that even though Palace had more shots, and more shots on target, our XG was almost 2 goals better which does accurately reflects how the game panned out.

Even if you don't trust XG completely, and believe that as I suggested, instead of perfuming to our XG, we were only 10 points better off, then our season would be looking a whole lot different. That also doesn't take into account the negativity associated with not scoring chances, it makes all of the team hesitant and insecure, when defenders worry that one mistake will cost us the match.