petre.ispirescu

Again Chelsea the perfect tonic for struggling teams to end their winless streak, fucking knew this would happen, but the manner in which we're losing it is disgraceful. Fuck this shit

I absoutely hate this scenario, especially in derby matches. It is not only about Chelsea, but happens in every single sport - a supposedly even game (a derby match is a derby match, right?) where one of the teams is favoured by every human being and their dog and surprise, surprise what do you get? A dog shite performance from the favourites. I saw this scenario happen time and time again, I am completely fed up with it (people into sports betting know very well what I am talking about here ha ha). Not taking anything for granted in this match, but an Arsenal win would be "so Chelsea" and would probably put me on hold in regards to English football for some time. I can barely read some news after a draw v Southampton, a loss v the current Arsenal, the joke team they have become, I don't think my stomach is ready for it.

At least there is Azpilicueta to the rescue, someone we can rely on and not Zappacosta.

Hopefully just a minor ligaments stretch, at least that is how it looked to me. Should brush it off in a couple of days.

If this would be the 2021/22 season (next one) then I would question whether Lampard is the right one for this job or not. Next season supposedly is the one we should challenge for the title which I totally agree with this hypothesis. Now it is all about securing top four and getting another year of experience for a newly assembled, young squad. Truth is about 40% of this team is not sorted out yet as the preffered attacking trio of Pulisic Werner Ziyech have yet to play a single minute together and Havertz still finds life in a new league very, very hard to deal with it seems. Not only the three attacking guys have not played together, but two of them have barely featured at all and Werner is yet to have played the position he was brought for. Yes he is versatile, but there is a difference between the position Nagelsmann used to play him at times as an inside forward in his 343 and the current one at Chelsea as a winger. The two positions might look similar, but are not, which is why I think that when Ziyech is missing we'd be more suited to a 352 with Werner and Giroud up top and Chilly and James bombing down the flanks amd Mount Kante Havertz/Kovacic in midfield or a 343 with Werner Giroud Havertz up top, two systems that would allow Werner to be more centrally and close to the net, but I'm not in charge so it does not matter. Don't forget about the horrible schedule though that seems to affect the big clubs in particular, club matches plus international ones this guys pretty much play every three days for months now and to be fair if you watch other leagues, too, they all seem tired. Chelsea looked like that last night, City, too, Liverpool at Fulham looked rusty. This is a strange season in which mid table/small teams will play a big part benefiting from fresh legs. You can clearly see all the big leagues are pretty much balanced mid December and Bayern and Paris are not even at the top. If managed well, this could be a season for the opportunistic ones. Still a work in progress and the way things look Liverpool and Spurs will play for a draw tonight and bail us out for a second round in a row and keep things tight at the top.

Willian's "I will do a few useless static moves before I attempt a pointless cross or an unsuccessful dribble and all the momentum is gone" trademark move should have me feel relieved for getting rid of him (which I totally am!!!), but still, even as an Arsenal player now, I still shake my head (introduce 'facepalm' too) watching those lame moves. He is completely useless.

What a clean strike from the Fulham player

I play five a side footie three times a week and one of those times I do it with my friends that have played the game during their youth - I didn't, just played the game for fun, I'm not bad at it, but not great either. But when I am around them I look exactly like the current Kai Havertz, I am three steps behind them, I misplace passes, I am all over the place, I can barely dribble anyone because they know the game and they do this little tricks you learn during football practice like using your body to shove someone off and stuff like this. At least I compensate by being fit and I go into Kante mode and I tackle the shit out of them and block shots and play it safe by my standards. But they are my friends and understand all this. It is the best how I can describe Kai Havertz at the moment, he is soooooo off the pace compared to everybody else. Maybe a bit insecure, too.

Same old, same old, we're the perfect tonic for out of form teams, I mean it's been going like this for fucking bastard years, there is no other club in Europe to gift points to struggling ones the way Chelsea does it every season. Got beaten by Alex fucking Iwobi. Fuck off

Exactly what I was saying in some of the past match threads - Chelsea can't win them all, but at least maintain the unbeaten run, some draws now and then are just fine, especially if it's in big matches. This gives you confidence and gives you the upper hand over your opponents before matches knowing they go against a team that others have failed to beat before. It is what happed with Liverpool last season, they were riding a phenomenal wave of confidence, even when they were crap by their standards, still were looking untouchable. That's what the confidence and momentum and an unbeaten run give you.

"The same club to have already shown interest in signing him in 2028 as a free agent on a four year, £450k p/w contract. Zouma and Kovacic on their radar, too, both 34 at that point."

Exactly the same situation as in Greek. "Ala negru" = "The black one". But from the point of view of a Romanian, the term "black" does not involve any form of racism, it is just a term used to differentiate one from another, in a country full of white people. As a matter of fact I do not think I've ever seen black people on the streets of Romania or in the newspapers, or TV, offended by the racism in Romania because I do believe there is no hate towards black people there. If somebody would intend to be racist would use the term "crow". It is basically the most common one used towards the gipsies, too. But the gipsies don't care that much about it, though and I've probably seen two, maybe three people in my entire life calling some black dude a "crow" and they were probably some low life scumbags. Romanian newspapers say it was actually the linesman, not the 4th official, telling the ref "book the black one, find out who he is and book him, the black one over there". Was it stupid to call him that, even though their were talking in Romanian? For sure. Was it intended to be racist? As a Romanian I do not think so because Romanians do not use the term "black" to offend anyone. The funny thing is if the linesman/4th official would have used the actual Romanian racist term "crow" there would be no scandal now, because "cioara/cioroi" (crow) does not sound similar to any racist words used in other languages. And believe me 20 millions out of 20 millions Romanians would use "crow" if they would intend to be racist towards black people.

Listen, I simply cannot understand why there is 'Spurs are going to win the title' vibes around and people are truly afraid they might go all the way. I mean ok maybe Mourinho might have done it this way in the past, but not when he's had that many quality, and I mean really, really good teams that are challenging, too. For me Liverpool and City are nailed on to go head to head for the league title again and are the two main candidates. Not the sole ones, but still easily the two best teams around, then there is Chelsea and it might sound funny but United will go deep, too IMHO and the thing is that all this four teams have better attacking players than Spurs. You might think Spurs will park the bus v the big teams like they truly did v us, City and Arsenal, but they did not look that good v Burnley, West Brom and Brighton either, three wins in which they shot less than 8 or 9 shots on goal combined. In three matches... It's like a honeymoon period for them now and Kane looks like he's playing the Kante role now. They will fall apart as soon as they go on a winless streak and Mourinho starts blaming someone, anyone. In his mind they are now first because of him, soon Son or somebody else is going to be at fault for not tracking back on Ola Aina. On another note happy for Arsenal's brilliant title challenge yet again, fuck that obnoxious and deluded fan base.

The kind of match a draw is good enough for me because to be honest what I care about the most is to keep the momentum going and stay undefeated. I mean football is about the talent, IQ, tactics etc. but still the confidence and the atmosphere play a huge part, too and Chelsea must continue to ride this positive wave. Although it seems to be the kind of match we've all seen before where we'd settle for a draw, why not, thinking it's an away game on a difficult ground and then Chelsea go there and do the job immaculately like the Conte wins at the Etihad or in Madrid v Atletico where I did not even break a sweat in front of the TV. And the similarities were that the momentum was in our favour and everything seemed to click at the club, this is why it is important to keep the unbeaten run going on and on.

If this was a title race in late March ok maybe two points dropped as we were clearly the better team, but now it is too early, it is a draw that won't mean that much in the grand scheme of things IMHO. I'm taking the positives, another clean sheet and a very solid display in midfield, shout out to Thiago Silva and Kovacic great game from both of them. Mendy rock solid as he's always been since coming here and I feel Giroud would have taken at least one of Tammy's chances, the headers I mean. Reece and Ziyech not the best of games, but as I said we're massively improving as a team with every week passing by and that's w/o two of our best players Havertz and Pulisic that have not yet been integrated in the first team and our centre forward still playing on the wing. Up the Chels!!!