Worst in 35 years

[fiel]

On 3/7/2018 at 21:13, moi said:

The funds used to run this site are provided by members who regularly donate money towards the running of the site.  They have DONOR written under their avatar.

You don't actually believe donations from forum users are even a slither of what keeps a forum going do you? (We all probably think so at some point so hey ho.)

There's a reason online newspapers write wacky headlines instead of asking for donations. Interaction on a website equals money for the website. This forum makes money because people post, not because people donate. The original poster was right - the forum owners are privileged, not the users who have plenty of websites to choose from, including starting their own. 

Great forum though. Don't see why there's a need for a handful of already established members to paint themselves as snobs who can't handle new thoughts (not yourself) 

Edited March 9, 2018 by fiel

[fiel]

3 hours ago, Old Shaggy said:

BIB. I'm confused by this bit, not because of your opinion, but because I'm still trying to place our team among the rest of our rivals. I was under the impression that we had better players than Liverpool. But, Liverpool have played City twice, beat them comfortably once, and probably had got a result the first time, if not for the red card. How come they can do that and we can't? Have Liverpool got better players than us? Are they a better team? Have they got a better Manager?

Re: Liverpool. They're better than us, but they're not better than us. It's like we're the pure-bred stallion who everyone should be betting on to win the race, but the Liverpool horse continues to be neck and neck despite living in a poo-covered barn, while ours lives in a mansion.

Now; why is it that a horse in rag can compete with a horse in jewels? Simple. 

Repetition.

Take a great horse/great team (Chelsea) - fine, quality to start with. Take a decent horse/team (Liverpool) - eh, we'll see what happens.

Now - have the great horse change running routines, running partners, and running courses consistently. Then also, have the not-so-good horse actually running consistent routines, with the same partners, running the same courses until he knows every blade. 

That's us summed up quickly.
We're ill-prepared and 'entitled' as some would put it, compared to a team that's put in grit and determination for 5+ seasons now; and in those 5 seasons regardless of manager, maintained similar drills, pairings, philosophies and such. We don't have that consistency; our team grows in all sorts of directions, but Liverpool grow in a focused direction, maximising traits of their choice, not just leaving the universe to decide what their team will look like in 3 years. They have a plan. And that long term plan - the faith in that plan - can be used as fuel in the short term vs. the likes of City.

It's like, who's the more talented striker - Robinho or Defoe? But, if you could only choose one to lead your team for a Premier League campaign, who would you pick? - Probably the vastly shorter, technically inferior Defoe - simply because he's practiced more, and thus, makes a lot more use of the little he has, vs. the 'more talented' option who squanders massive amount of potential, because it's so easy to get complacent when you have it all.

Liverpool are simply a unit. We aren't.
A small platoon of 50 men will take down 100 men if they're organised correctly and going to war with the right mindset. It doesn't matter if those other 100 have been in training twice as long, with twice as expensive guns.

Edited March 9, 2018 by fiel

[dkw]

1 hour ago, fiel said:

You don't actually believe donations from forum users are even a slither of what keeps a forum going do you? (We all probably think so at some point so hey ho.)

 

Without donations this forum would not exist, or at best it would cost the guys who run it a lot of money. It doesn't matter how other forums do it, thats how it is on this one

[Osgoodwasgood]

16 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I agree with you on this point. From the moment the teams were announced, it felt just like you said, a "we have no chance of winning this game, let's just get it over and done with" feeling. The attitude from everybody but our away supporters was unacceptable in my opinion. I have never seen a Chelsea team approach a game with such a defeatist attitude before. I have seen us turn up to games being overly confident and expecting a win only to get undone by the opposition, but i have never seen what i seen on Sunday before. We laugh at how gutless Arsenal are, well that performance from us was as gutless as Arsenal are when they are at their worst. The scoreline doesn't tell the whole story. If City felt like it, they could have gone up several more gears.

Exactly Scott, that's what I meant to get across when I initially posted "WORST IN 35 YEARS", not the misplaced passes, or poor ball retention, it was the demeanour of the players,manager etc, it was very strange. Like I said, we've played better sides than this City side, and beaten or at least given a good account, Barcelona, Bayern PSG ect.

[coco]

3 minutes ago, dkw said:

Without donations this forum would not exist, or at best it would cost the guys who run it a lot of money. It doesn't matter how other forums do it, thats how it is on this one

I see it more of a subscription than a donation.

[Osgoodwasgood]

3 hours ago, Kev56 said:

League Division 2
                              P   W  D  L   F   A   W  D  L   F   A  Pts
 1. QUEENS PARK RANGERS      42  16  3  2  51  16  10  4  7  26  20   85
 2. WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS  42  14  5  2  42  16   6 10  5  26  28   75
 3. LEICESTER CITY           42  11  4  6  36  15   9  6  6  36  29   70
 4. Fulham                   42  13  5  3  36  20   7  4 10  28  27   69
 5. Newcastle United         42  13  6  2  43  21   5  7  9  32  32   67
 6. Sheffield Wednesday      42   9  8  4  33  23   7  7  7  27  24   63
 7. Oldham Athletic          42   8 10  3  38  24   6  9  6  26  23   61
 8. Leeds United             42   7 11  3  28  22   6 10  5  23  24   60
 9. Shrewsbury Town          42   8  9  4  20  15   7  5  9  28  33   59
10. Barnsley                 42   9  8  4  37  28   5  7  9  20  27   57
11. Blackburn Rovers         42  11  7  3  38  21   4  5 12  20  37   57
12. Cambridge United         42  11  7  3  26  17   2  5 14  16  43   51
13. Derby County             42   7 10  4  27  24   3  9  9  22  34   49
14. Carlisle United          42  10  6  5  44  28   2  6 13  24  42   48
15. Crystal Palace           42  11  7  3  31  17   1  5 15  12  35   48
16. Middlesbrough            42   8  7  6  27  29   3  8 10  19  38   48
17. Charlton Athletic        42  11  3  7  40  31   2  6 13  23  55   48
18. Chelsea                  42   8  8  5  31  22   3  6 12  20  39   47
19. Grimsby Town             42   9  7  5  32  26   3  4 14  13  44   47
20. ROTHERHAM UNITED         42   6  7  8  22  29   4  8  9  23  39   45
21. BURNLEY                  42  10  4  7  38  24   2  4 15  18  42   44
22. BOLTON WANDERERS         42  10  2  9  30  26   1  9 11  12  35   44

 

Top year that was, probably only missed 4 games home and away. Close to getting relegated to 3rd division.

Don't remember to much moaning and bitching in those days.

I believe this was the season we were in serious trouble, We played Bolton away in one of our few remaining games and won 1-0 thanks to a Clive Walker goal. I was 13 and followed the game on the radio while at my Saturday supermarket job, closest we've ever come to dropping into the third tier. I could be mistaken though

[chi blue]

16 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I agree with you on this point. From the moment the teams were announced, it felt just like you said, a "we have no chance of winning this game, let's just get it over and done with" feeling. The attitude from everybody but our away supporters was unacceptable in my opinion. I have never seen a Chelsea team approach a game with such a defeatist attitude before. I have seen us turn up to games being overly confident and expecting a win only to get undone by the opposition, but i have never seen what i seen on Sunday before. We laugh at how gutless Arsenal are, well that performance from us was as gutless as Arsenal are when they are at their worst. The scoreline doesn't tell the whole story. If City felt like it, they could have gone up several more gears.

Spot on, when I saw that team announced, and the obvious formation it would be, I decided not to watch the game and went out with my Mrs and Daughters, our two sons watching in different locations text me, one after 10 minutes to say this is going to be an awful long 90 minutes, the other text after 20 minutes to say pathetic. I got home at half time and the son watching it at home was scathing about us. I didnt even bother watching second half, would I have done that during the 80's with Kerry Dixon and everyone, would I have done that in the 90's with Guilliet etc, the early 00's with Zola, and also  lamps, jt , drog era, no chance.  

[Old Shaggy]

8 minutes ago, chi blue said:

Spot on, when I saw that team announced, and the obvious formation it would be, I decided not to watch the game and went out with my Mrs and Daughters, our two sons watching in different locations text me, one after 10 minutes to say this is going to be an awful long 90 minutes, the other text after 20 minutes to say pathetic. I got home at half time and the son watching it at home was scathing about us. I didnt even bother watching second half, would I have done that during the 80's with Kerry Dixon and everyone, would I have done that in the 90's with Guilliet etc, the early 00's with Zola, and also  lamps, jt , drog era, no chance.  

BIB, Exactly! It's not so much the result, more the performance. It made me furious that we set up not to lose! It was one of the worst performances that I've seen at Chelsea. Fortunately, I'm not old enough to remember the relegation days, but even then I can't imagine the tactics as bad as they were against City!

[Guest]

On 3/7/2018 at 10:22, fiel said:

PS - More likely, some upset mods on other forums brought out the ban-hammer for little reason due to the emotional loss, so we emigrated here. I was literally banned from TalkChelsea a few hours before signing up to here; 13k posts, one of the highest post-reputations; because I asked a mod if he was sure he should be posting a shallow headline without any context re: the sudden death of Astori; it seemed insensitive. No warning - instant ban, by the least mature mod 'Special'Juan he's called.

I joined up there once, most posts were like yours, I didn't stay.

Well done on bringing your attitude over here though, I see you've gone just as far.

[forbzy]

2 hours ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

I believe this was the season we were in serious trouble, We played Bolton away in one of our few remaining games and won 1-0 thanks to a Clive Walker goal. I was 13 and followed the game on the radio while at my Saturday supermarket job, closest we've ever come to dropping into the third tier. I could be mistaken though

That was the goal from Clive that ultimately kept us up. Followed by a 0-0 draw at the bridge against boro that ensured both teams stayed up. Both sets of fans celebrated on the pitch after. A rare thing in those days

[Phillip]

Sounds suspiciously like that 0-0 result between Austria and Germany a few World Cups ago, whereby both teams advanced to the Round of 16 due to that result.  That game was played virtually entirely in the middle of the pitch, whereby both teams, due to some prior agreement most likely, did not attack at all (though I seem to remember that Pierre Littbarski hit the post on a shot, most likely by accident!).  Both teams received a lot of shtick, but since no one could prove anything illegal, no actions were taken against either team.

Was the Boro-Chelsea match a similar type of match, played amongst the midfielders for the most part?

[TheChelseaBlues]

8 hours ago, Old Shaggy said:

BIB. I'm confused by this bit, not because of your opinion, but because I'm still trying to place our team among the rest of our rivals. I was under the impression that we had better players than Liverpool. But, Liverpool have played City twice, beat them comfortably once, and probably had got a result the first time, if not for the red card. How come they can do that and we can't? Have Liverpool got better players than us? Are they a better team? Have they got a better Manager?

If you had to rely on either team playing the way Liverpool play or did against City which one would you pick. Liverpool or us? I dont think we had a team capable of playing that way. The tailor analogy Conte uses is fitting. 

I'd be up in arms about the City game if we played open attacking football all the time and suddenly that changed for City but we don't. 

[Old Shaggy]

31 minutes ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

If you had to rely on either team playing the way Liverpool play or did against City which one would you pick. Liverpool or us? I dont think we had a team capable of playing that way. The tailor analogy Conte uses is fitting. 

I'd be up in arms about the City game if we played open attacking football all the time and suddenly that changed for City but we don't. 

Oh I'm not confused about why we didn't play like Liverpool. I'm sure we would have lost either way. What I'm confused about is how Liverpool ended up as one of the most deadly attacking teams in Europe, and we ended up as a team who sits with 10 men behind the ball hoping for Hazard to latch onto a flipping long ball from deep?! How the f**k did that happen? 

[Famous CFC]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but the 5-1 defeat to Spurs in the League Cup Semi Final has to be up there. Certainly did not see that one coming. 

[TheChelseaBlues]

1 hour ago, Old Shaggy said:

Oh I'm not confused about why we didn't play like Liverpool. I'm sure we would have lost either way. What I'm confused about is how Liverpool ended up as one of the most deadly attacking teams in Europe, and we ended up as a team who sits with 10 men behind the ball hoping for Hazard to latch onto a flipping long ball from deep?! How the f**k did that happen? 

Oh. I would blame our revolving door of managers for that.

[coco]

4 hours ago, Phillip said:

Sounds suspiciously like that 0-0 result between Austria and Germany a few World Cups ago, whereby both teams advanced to the Round of 16 due to that result.  That game was played virtually entirely in the middle of the pitch, whereby both teams, due to some prior agreement most likely, did not attack at all (though I seem to remember that Pierre Littbarski hit the post on a shot, most likely by accident!).  Both teams received a lot of shtick, but since no one could prove anything illegal, no actions were taken against either team.

Remember it well, in fact i though of it the other day when we played Citeh and our players were just standing there and the citeh players just tapped it back and forth amongst each other, not to the degree in your example, but still fans turned up and paid hard earned money to watch that, embarrassing.