Chelsea Vs Man City (PL) Sat 30 Sep 2017 KO 17:30 GMT

[carrickblue]

43 minutes ago, dan_cfc said:

Poor performance all around apart from Christensen, Rudigar and Morata whilst he was on the pitch.

Players just looked tired 3 days between games is ridiculous why on earth we play on a Saturday after a Wednesday is a joke.

Always horrible to go onto international break off a loss but hopefully Morata can rest and get back to full fitness and we go again. UTC.

Seems Mourinho is the one who keeps raising this but the way the PL/Sky/BT configure games around CL weeks does make it feel unfair at times. City don't travel and get an extra day's rest. Liverpool play Tuesday and Sunday. 

People say it evens itself out, it's hard to know

[carrickblue]

if post CL fatigue is a problem for us we get caught by this situation again in November. We're away to Qarabag on Wed 21st Nov, away at Anfield on the Saturday to play Liverpool who will have an extra day's rest after playing in Seville on the Tuesday.

having looked at the fixtures of teams in the CL it looks like we and Man Utd get the worst deal, Spurs get the best

 

Edited September 30, 2017 by carrickblue
more info

[Zola Mio Fratello]

Just got to swallow my pride and say we lost to a better team, it's only one game but gutted it was at the bridge and against those smug turds! A game to quickly forget, anyone watch the Atletico game?   God we was good!

Hopefully no more losses at the bridge, so far pants at home but great away. Hope Morata isn't a long term injury, remember where we were this time last year, come on the Chels!

[enigma]

53 minutes ago, dynamite said:

It gets better. Next month we play Roma on Wednesday and then play Watford in the 12:30 game on the Saturday. We get screwed over again.

There's a difference between playing Roma (at home) and then Watford, and Atletico (away) and Man City. Both important games, so you can hardly rest anybody and like Conte said, it makes it difficult to press too over zealously because we would have tired ourselves out fast. I would say there's something in the fatigue issue, but that's a smaller part of the reason we lost today; the rest was city being the better team with a good game plan. 

[enigma]

no need to be overly critical. the game vs atletico put enough confidence in me that we can continue to have success throughout the season. we have had a tough start to the season with some tough games, so i've no doubt we'll be back to winning ways after the break. 

[just]

After performing so well in midweek it was clear that our players had their minds on the Champions League final and didn't want to get injured.

 

[maddoo]

christ there is some moaning and bitching going on this evening, long way to May, as they say in our house.

[The Don Antonio]

36 minutes ago, carrickblue said:

if post CL fatigue is a problem for us we get caught by this situation again in November. We're away to Qarabag on Wed 21st Nov, away at Anfield on the Saturday to play Liverpool who will have an extra day's rest after playing in Seville on the Tuesday.

having looked at the fixtures of teams in the CL it looks like we and Man Utd get the worst deal, Spurs get the best

 

if we cant rest players for qarabag away then shame on us. If i was conte some players wont even travel

[axman2526]

16 minutes ago, The Don Antonio said:

if we cant rest players for qarabag away then shame on us. If i was conte some players wont even travel

Beat Roma twice then send the reserves there 

Edited September 30, 2017 by axman2526

[Viper]

What should come out of this is learning and adaptation, Conte will do whats needed. We did well against ATM. Not so well here, wont be surprised if man city and united go on a long steak of draws and a few losses later. They do that every year.

[dynamite]

58 minutes ago, enigma said:

There's a difference between playing Roma (at home) and then Watford, and Atletico (away) and Man City. Both important games, so you can hardly rest anybody and like Conte said, it makes it difficult to press too over zealously because we would have tired ourselves out fast. I would say there's something in the fatigue issue, but that's a smaller part of the reason we lost today; the rest was city being the better team with a good game plan. 

Still not ideal having an early start on Saturday after playing on Wednesday night.

[strider6004]

I've watched MOTD now and have to credit City with a great goal by KDB, always better to lose to a great goal rather than a mistake.

As I said earlier we were unlucky not to have Luiz or Drinkwater for the 3rd midfield spot rather than Fabregas who I feel is a luxury when facing such a strong opponent. The Morata injury did not help and neither did playing with a day's less rest than City.

Still City have been scoring for fun yet could only put 1 past us and it was special and Pep conceded he had been to SB several times with City, Barca & Bayern and had never won until today.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Strider6003

[Viper]

This isnt really about resting players, its about tactics and skill.

[WeatherMan]

5 hours ago, JPH said:

It is quite bitter to admit that the fight for the PL tittle is over already in September.

No offense to you personally because there are several other posters spouting the same tosh but for goodness sake get a grip.

The title ( tittle ? ) race has barely started, it seems some of you have already forgotten how last season started, and how it ended up.

[mickydroysleftpeg]

Given some of the reaction on here I thought I'd go all Rafa and list what I consider to be facts (I know there's an inherent contradiction in that sentence).

city deserved to win.

we could have easily lost by 2 or 3

we could have nicked a draw 

city had the much more favourable prep. An easy midweek game and an extra day to focus their prep on this tie.

Pep had a clear game plan that involved intense early pressing to take advantage of our potential tiredness from such an intense midweek fixture. 

This was successful as it appeared Chelsea were not as energetic as if they hadn't played that game.

hazard is recovering from injury and it was a big ask for him to put in 2 such big performances at the highest level days apart.

morata isn't used to playing every game in his career.

conte talks a lot about the striker position being a focus for his teams.

losing morata, an in form striker that can hold the ball up well, early in the game was a big blow.

batman has shown himself to be a good goal scorer but not the sort of striker that can lead the line well, hold the ball up and interplay with attacking midfielders.

Willian has generally been not his best this season and his passing has been poor.

given the choice between Willian and Batman Conte went for Willian, this indicates a bit of lack of faith in Batman. It also suggests a gap in our squad.

conte could have also rotated other players to keep a fresher team, but in many positions his opportunity to do this is limited.

conte may have made tactical mistakes with subs and squad rotation in this game.

man city are an outstanding football team with a very successful manager that can exploit weaknesses in the opposition.

losing to man city doesn't mean Chelsea will have a poor season.

it is likely this current squad is not strong enough to win the champions league and epl double!!

 

 

[haidertalal]

So honestly, where do you guys think we would end up this season ?

[robdog]

12 minutes ago, mickydroysleftpeg said:

it is likely this current squad is not strong enough to win the champions league and epl double!!

 

 

I woutld be fine with a 6th place finish in the league with a double of The FA Cup & The European Cup - Crazy? I know, but I have seen this before

[haidertalal]

21 minutes ago, robdog said:

I woutld be fine with a 6th place finish in the league with a double of The FA Cup & The European Cup - Crazy? I know, but I have seen this before

Easy to say then done. That was magic. It was written in stars and especially, King Didier <3

[gazza]

I don’t know why we were afraid of them man for man we are as good as the team they put out , it’s just they had pace up top and two creative players in KDB and Silva.

we should have lined up 4 33

[DaRick]

In general, a rather tired and lethargic performance. Disappointed but not surprised given the exertions of midweek plus the extra day Man City had to rest, plus the easier opponent they played (Shakhtar is definitely not Atletico Madrid). Having Drinkwater available would have been ideal because then we could have rested Cesc while he would have provided more defensive security. 

I had thought the combo of Cahill/Azpi might have been overly defensive, though to their credit both defended reasonably well. 

I was concerned that Cesc would not have the legs to start and that Willian was off-form, but I would have elected to gamble with starting Cesc in lieu of better options. Unfortunately, that didn't come off.

Morata going off injured was a body blow that would likely have affected the result even if we had been playing particularly well beforehand TBH, but especially here because he was one of the few players who was troubling City's defence. 

Hazard was left frustrated. Surprisingly Cesc didn't release him very often, maybe because Bakayoko/Kante were tired and couldn't win the ball often enough. 

On the bright side, Christensen impressed. 

 

 

[bloodyfool0]

We lost to a much better team today. We also were not playing up to par. It was quite evident that we looked tired and quite the opposite against our opponents in Madrid.

 

[old git]

It's not the defeat that irks me but the manner of the defeat. We were completely overrun in midfield. Bakayoko and Kante were lethargic and, while City had pace to burn everywhere, our lack of foot through players such as Fabregas and Alonso stood out like a beacon. Absolutely no complaints on our defence which stood up well against the onslaught. Christensen and Azpilicueta( no chance of him getting forward in his wing back role) were outstanding, Rudiger put in loads of tackles as did Cahill. Hazard was a shadow of the player that lit up Madrid. Conte was very vocal about the short timespan between this and Wednesday's games, citing fatigue as a potential problem. If that's the case, he should have recognised this in the players reaction in training but he still went ahead and selected virtually the same midfield and forward line that ran their legs off in Madrid. He talks about the trust he has in his squad but he didn't show it here.

[robdog]

1 hour ago, DaRick said:

On the bright side, Christensen impressed. 

 

 

I thought Rudiger did was ok as well

[DaRick]

3 minutes ago, robdog said:

I thought Rudiger did was ok as well

Was gonna mention Rudiger, but I felt that Christensen was the best of the lot. 

[abramovich]

5 hours ago, Viper said:

This isnt really about resting players, its about tactics and skill.

No, it's about the bottomless pit of money that allows you to outspend your opponents for years and will eventually allow you the kind of depth in quality others cannot afford.

We used to do that when Roman first arrived, City have been doing it since their takeover. Nowadays we have to sell in order to buy, while they can just discard what they don't need and spent another fortune every summer adding more top talent without sacrificing anything.

I'd like to see Pep trying to win things without having an open chequebook.