Bournemouth 0-0 Chelsea

[Pizy 19,026]

All this money spent since the takeover and we are still just as desperate for a killer #9 three years into the project. Haven’t had a beast of a striker who strikes fear into defenders since Diego Costa almost a fucking decade ago.

Just let that sink in. A club of Chelsea’s stature and with our resources and we have 4 strikers on our books if you include Jackson who are miles and miles away from being a 20 goal per season guys.

How does that situation improve? None of these look like they even have the potential to become that!

[Blue Armour 4,567]

1 hour ago, mkh said:

🔴Liam Delap update from Maresca: "He has to be out again. We don't know how long, but it looks quite bad. He has been unlucky." 

That's not good. Even if he can be incompetent at times, we still offers a different type of striking option.

Guiu is good in terms of positioning but I wouldn't trust him to hit a barn door with his shooting.

Not sure what happened to Joao Pedro. He looks so off it. Hopefully Palmer returning can see him return to some sort of form he showed early season.

[prime adriano 25]

Liverpool level on points with us during their horror season. Maresca out

[Blue Armour 4,567]

1 hour ago, Johnnyeye said:

i’m looking at your profile picture, i miss those times when we had players who bled for the shirt and fucking cared. Cheers

Those players simply had more footballing IQ.

I dont think that sort of stuff can be coached 

[prime adriano 25]

Rabona assist whilst we have spent billions to have big liam barrelling into people. We are so far behind 

[whats happening 1,635]

lets post about every player who scored or assisted today 

[NikkiCFC 8,461]

26 minutes ago, prime adriano said:

Rabona assist whilst we have spent billions to have big liam barrelling into people. We are so far behind 

He wouldn't make our bench. Basically Buonanotte. 

[Mário César 1,368]

1 hour ago, Pizy said:

All this money spent since the takeover and we are still just as desperate for a killer #9 three years into the project. Haven’t had a beast of a striker who strikes fear into defenders since Diego Costa almost a fucking decade ago.

Just let that sink in. A club of Chelsea’s stature and with our resources and we have 4 strikers on our books if you include Jackson who are miles and miles away from being a 20 goal per season guys.

How does that situation improve? None of these look like they even have the potential to become that!

we will never fight for a league title with this board

They only send to us sand in our eyes to shut up us

[prime adriano 25]

18 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

He wouldn't make our bench. Basically Buonanotte. 

Find that hard to believe , he just started  and assisted twice for a much better team than us

[OneMoSalah 8,954]

1 hour ago, Pizy said:

All this money spent since the takeover and we are still just as desperate for a killer #9 three years into the project. Haven’t had a beast of a striker who strikes fear into defenders since Diego Costa almost a fucking decade ago.

Just let that sink in. A club of Chelsea’s stature and with our resources and we have 4 strikers on our books if you include Jackson who are miles and miles away from being a 20 goal per season guys.

How does that situation improve? None of these look like they even have the potential to become that!

The striker, wingers, all poor.

I am sure you were one of the ones who said these attackers would’ve warranted a title challenge earlier in the season too, no?

Clearlake/Stewart & Winstanley have no intentions of us competing at the very top it is so clear. Simple as that. You don’t sign Garnacho, Gittens & Delap when your team has been crying out for top GK & CBs for about 5 years. Even when your manager has said about a CB publicly.

The recruitment has been wrong for so many seasons now. The manager also has to be reviewed in the summer because his inflexibility against smaller teams is killing us.  Like you need to be able to see these teams off to give yourself the best chance of competing for titles, dropping points against the likes of Sunderland, Leeds, Bournemouth just undoes any points gained against the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs & whoever.

51 minutes ago, prime adriano said:

Rabona assist whilst we have spent billions to have big liam barrelling into people. We are so far behind 

Tbf his ability was always there but it was the consistency that was a massive concern. Not to mention the fact he was always a luxury player who lacked the bit without the ball. 

People forget he’s went under a big physical transformation at City, shed a lot of weight & has had to buy into Pep’s approach where everyone has to work without the ball. 

I am very doubtful Maresca would’ve gotten that out of him, proof is in the pudding, Cole & Enzo still waltz around as if they don’t have to do their bits without the ball. Not to mention none of the defenders or midfielders seem to want to compete in duels.

However its worked out for Cherki - him going there to Pep, with top top players, in comparison to him coming here - it would’ve been a wrong move. I was 100% convinced us signing him would’ve been a bad move & still stand by it. 

Edited 12 hours ago by OneMoSalah

[Fernando 6,663]

Defense has improved. Needs to continue with that defense next games. 

We definitely need a maestro in the mid 

 

[Reddish-Blue 2,596]

2 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

Clearlake/Stewart & Winstanley have no intentions of us competing at the very top it is so clear. Simple as that. You don’t sign Garnacho, Gittens & Delap when your team has been crying out for top GK & CBs for about 5 years. Even when your manager has said about a CB publicly.

To be fair though, we had like 20 CB's on the books and the club can't find 3 half decent ones? 

They could have re-integrated Veiga like they did with Chalobah. 

Instead we have to watch Tosin make mistakes and Josh ride the bench. 

[TheHulk 2,588]

5 hours ago, mkh said:

Leeds and Bournemouth had zero wins in their last five games before facing Chelsea, yet we managed just one point from both teams combined. That’s beyond poor!!!!

Everton, Newcastle and Aston Villa coming, we gonna slide down bad.

[OneMoSalah 8,954]

1 hour ago, Reddish-Blue said:

To be fair though, we had like 20 CB's on the books and the club can't find 3 half decent ones? 

They could have re-integrated Veiga like they did with Chalobah. 

Instead we have to watch Tosin make mistakes and Josh ride the bench. 

Still yet to be convinced Veiga was a big improvement on what we have already also though. Or am I missing something? I mean our CBs now we don’t need players around the same level. We need top class quality. Same with the GK position. 

Veiga’s profile maybe would’ve been better for the squad (left foot, cover CB, LB & DM) but one would argue Hato also does the same? Nobody here for sure would’ve been able to say what Veiga’s best position was based on his minutes here because he played all of those roles & was clearly more of a swiss army knife player than someone who specialised as a CB, LB or a 6. 

I don’t think any of the players Maresca froze out in that January (Felix & Veiga especially), in terms of quality, were vast improvements on what we had/currently have. Felix playing more would’ve perhaps would’ve prevented him from running Cole into the ground but that was about all his worth given how reluctant the manager was to use Nkunku behind the striker. 

Tosin signing was a bad move though. Always was. Better than what we already had? No. Get the feeling he came into replace Silva in terms of being a more experienced player and it was always going to backfire horrifically because he hasn’t got the same ability or experience. Seen comparisons with him coming in to Cahill signing at the time too. Captaining Fulham and being a non capped England international is not the same.

[DDA 10,049]

The actual state of our squad. Insane! Lol.

 

[Vesper 30,538]

2 hours ago, Reddish-Blue said:

To be fair though, we had like 20 CB's on the books and the club can't find 3 half decent ones? 

They could have re-integrated Veiga like they did with Chalobah. 

Instead we have to watch Tosin make mistakes and Josh ride the bench. 

Enzo Maresca regrets not starting Josh Acheampong vs. Leeds, loss ‘not about experience’

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6864936/2025/12/05/josh-acheampong-maresca-Chelsea-leeds/

 

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca insists a lack of experience was not to blame for Chelsea’s defeat at Leeds United and admits he regrets not starting teenage defender Josh Acheampong.

The club’s chances of challenging for the title suffered a blow with the 3-1 loss at Leeds United on Wednesday night.

Chelsea have the youngest squad in the Premier League and with the transfer window opening in Janaury, talk from outside the club has suggested they need to buy some older players.

Maresca is adamant it was not a factor in the way they struggled to compete throughout the 90 minutes at Elland Road and highlighted how 28-year-old Tosin Adarabioyo was one of the individuals who struggled.

When asked if there should be more focus on buying experienced players, he replied: “We always talk about experience when we drop points. When we beat Barcelona, we drew against Arsenal, no-one was mentioning about experienced players.

“I understand that when we don’t win, we are always looking for the reason why, but I think the reason why we didn’t win against Leeds is not because of the experience, it’s because we were not good enough.

“We have experienced players. Unfortunately, they were not inside the pitch. One because he was suspended (Moises Caicedo), the other (Reece James, Wesley Fofana) because of (managing) injury.

“Who was the oldest one for us on the pitch? Tosin. Did he play good? So, it’s not about experience. It’s about that 11 players, they were not good enough. I know that we are always looking for experience, but it was a bad game for all of us. I love a young squad, I love young players and I’m delighted with the players I have.”

Acheampong, 19, has not started a game since scoring at Nottingham Forest in October. With Fofana and James being rested, plus Malo Gusto on the bench, Maresca opted to move Trevoh Chalobah to right back with Benoit Badiashile and Tosin at centre back.

Maresca added: “One of the regrets I have after the game is I didn’t play with Josh. The reason why we played with Trev, Tosin and Benoit is because analysing them, we saw that most of the time they were playing long ball for (Dominic) Calvert-Lewin, for (Lukas) Nmecha. And so we prefer physicality to win aerial duels. But even with that, we lost most of them.”

 

[TheHulk 2,588]

1 hour ago, DDA said:

The actual state of our squad. Insane! Lol.

 

The squad is a mess and we got someone who can't even correctly asses the players at his disposal.

[Blue Armour 4,567]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

Enzo Maresca regrets not starting Josh Acheampong vs. Leeds, loss ‘not about experience’

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6864936/2025/12/05/josh-acheampong-maresca-Chelsea-leeds/

 

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca insists a lack of experience was not to blame for Chelsea’s defeat at Leeds United and admits he regrets not starting teenage defender Josh Acheampong.

The club’s chances of challenging for the title suffered a blow with the 3-1 loss at Leeds United on Wednesday night.

Chelsea have the youngest squad in the Premier League and with the transfer window opening in Janaury, talk from outside the club has suggested they need to buy some older players.

Maresca is adamant it was not a factor in the way they struggled to compete throughout the 90 minutes at Elland Road and highlighted how 28-year-old Tosin Adarabioyo was one of the individuals who struggled.

When asked if there should be more focus on buying experienced players, he replied: “We always talk about experience when we drop points. When we beat Barcelona, we drew against Arsenal, no-one was mentioning about experienced players.

“I understand that when we don’t win, we are always looking for the reason why, but I think the reason why we didn’t win against Leeds is not because of the experience, it’s because we were not good enough.

“We have experienced players. Unfortunately, they were not inside the pitch. One because he was suspended (Moises Caicedo), the other (Reece James, Wesley Fofana) because of (managing) injury.

“Who was the oldest one for us on the pitch? Tosin. Did he play good? So, it’s not about experience. It’s about that 11 players, they were not good enough. I know that we are always looking for experience, but it was a bad game for all of us. I love a young squad, I love young players and I’m delighted with the players I have.”

Acheampong, 19, has not started a game since scoring at Nottingham Forest in October. With Fofana and James being rested, plus Malo Gusto on the bench, Maresca opted to move Trevoh Chalobah to right back with Benoit Badiashile and Tosin at centre back.

Maresca added: “One of the regrets I have after the game is I didn’t play with Josh. The reason why we played with Trev, Tosin and Benoit is because analysing them, we saw that most of the time they were playing long ball for (Dominic) Calvert-Lewin, for (Lukas) Nmecha. And so we prefer physicality to win aerial duels. But even with that, we lost most of them.”

 

Bringing on Tosin for aerial duels. The guy just isn't capable. 

He did that for Sunderland earlier this year, by subbing him on for Josh and it ended in disaster.

[bigbluewillie 1,944]

Palace win today they go above us.

Brighton and, and Man Ure both win they go level on points with us.

And Manure are supposed to be in turmoil.

Right down to twelth can go up there with us.

[Laylabelle 9,587]

2 hours ago, bigbluewillie said:

Palace win today they go above us.

Brighton and, and Man Ure both win they go level on points with us.

And Manure are supposed to be in turmoil.

Right down to twelth can go up there with us.

Yep! So much was made about Man U and their form but they've lost and drawn same amount we have as it stands having played a game less..And if win then be all square.

Don't expect us to win the league we are not capable but to have a chance to close the gap a little and sit 8 behind still..

Its a race for 4th