Southampton V Chelsea (PL) Sun 7th Oct 14:15 UK

[zes]

Kepa is amazing. Great shot stopper. Tidy feet too. 

 

Good start to the season, always had high hopes for Sarri coming in been a supporter of his for a while but I wasn't expecting us to be joint top of the league. Top 4 is achievable especially with Manure disasterclass taking shape so far. 

[Old Shaggy]

3 hours ago, Giordano_Bruno said:

Kepa - 8,5 Finally a good performance from him without mistakes and pressure. 

Azpilicueta - 2 terrible in  offense, outplayed in defense. the weakest link in our 4.

Rudi and Luiz - solid 8. Reduced mistakes, no chances for their forwards.

Alonso - 7. Not bad, but we used to have better performances by him. 

Jorginho - 8. Great control all over the pitch, once again. He is a world class. 

Kante - 6,5. Not bad, but clearly not his position. It's about time to put him on the bench and play Kovacic and Barkley/RLC. Even his defensive contribution has declined. 

Willian - 7. A bit better than his recent performances but still lacking in ending product.

Hazard - 9. Man of the match. the best player in the world

Giroud - 7. He always manages to deliver some great assist. His one touch game is just precious for the club. 

What drivel!

Firstly, Azpi might not have had his best game for us, but he improved massively in the second half. So a 2 is just a piss take.

Secondly, if you can't see what Kante gives us, even on the right of a 3, then you have no business marking our players at all. I watched him press the whole game and win the ball back for us a few times. If you watch him, he's constantly running in front of players, closing down space and blocking passes. The guy's a machine, and you want to bench him!

 

Edited October 7, 2018 by Old Shaggy

[TheBluesBrother]

Top performance today. Some outstanding play. Kepa has grown into the job and the saves he made were world class. Morata scored again. AMAZING. Hazard was top notch. Barklay had a very good game. Willian was the weak link. His passes were terrible at times plus we were denied two penalties. Man City and Liverpool drew, so we are all on 20 points joint top. A great day for Chelsea and the fans. Now the International break. WHY ????? Man Utd next. We must keep up the pressure at the top. A very good day at the office.

[charierre]

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31 - There were 31 passes made in the build-up to Alvaro Morata's goal for Chelsea against Southampton; the most of any goal in the Premier League this season. Slick.

[mojo]

[guddy69]

2 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

I don't actually agree with this. I am sure we tried something similar in a recent previous game and it didn't quite come off. I think this is a training ground routine. It looks like to me that Giroud shapes for a scissor kick making the defenders brace for it. He then fizzes it in across the goal into an area where any touch will do. If the defenders are bracing for a shot then our attackers, and i think we had two on the line, are in a prime positon to anticipate the ball, which is what Barkley did.

Hopefully someone better than me can remember the game recently where we tried this and it didn't work. Was it west ham maybe or Scouse in the carabao.

We tried it in our last prem game, Giroud completely miskicked it but it nearly worked..   :0)

[axman2526]

For as poor as they were Southampton got some really good chances. I think we would have kicked up the gears had they scored but yeah that defensive phase needs more work yet.

Good overall performance, Willian pissed me off less than normal so that is good. Though how is it Hazard took two corners, both of which were good and yet Willian had all the rest and every single one was useless?

Happy for both Ross and Morata. Eden and Kepa excellent. Good win.

Edited October 7, 2018 by axman2526

[ozboy]

Defence continue to look vulnerable and one of these days some team will put 3 past us. The midfield doesn't shield as well as it wold if Kante was central. Jorginho though does play some beautiful passes at times.

That said the things I hoped would happen, Barkely and Morata running into form are happening and we look strong in the air in defence. Our midfield is a match for any team and Sarri's rotation is working well. its a long season and Liverpool will run out of energy before us. 

As well as Keppa's shot stopping his distribution is quite the thing, although playing to an isolated player on the wing did result in some lost possession.

Rudigier needs to make better directed defensive headers and we need some offensive headers from set pieces.

All in all worth staying up for despite the start of daylight saving here in sydney.

Edited October 8, 2018 by ozboy

[The Brit]

5 hours ago, charierre said:

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31 - There were 31 passes made in the build-up to Alvaro Morata's goal for Chelsea against Southampton; the most of any goal in the Premier League this season. Slick.

 And yet, unlike Arsenal's admittedly fine team goal, not deemed worthy of any post match mention or praise on match of the day...

[icecoolguy22]

Really pleasing performance, you know it's a good day when Morata could score a goal coming off the bench. We scored 3 different goals, one resulted from high pressing, the other from well drilled set piece, and the Hazard magic set up we came to expect lately. With each game, we are getting more confident and comfortable with the ball, few months ago I wouldn't dream of us keeping 70% of the ball just about every game. Without any major injuries, I'm pretty confident of getting the 3 points against United in 2 weeks time.

[old git]

Was that Laurent Blanc next to Zola on the bench? Certainly looks like him.

[chi blue]

5 hours ago, The Brit said:

 And yet, unlike Arsenal's admittedly fine team goal, not deemed worthy of any post match mention or praise on match of the day...

Got back from our game yesterday to catch last bit of Liverpool v City, watched the after match analysis, in studio was carragher, Bellamy, and Souness, well it was like watching Liverpool TV, it was 30 minutes of Liverpool this Liverpool that, shocking TV biased, felt sorry for City fans, although a superior team and champions there weren't even mentioned hardly, then showed goals from our game, nothing said about us apart from implying we will fall away, recent history suggests only one team out of us three will fall away and that is that horrible dispicable shameless and blameless club in red!!

[Kev56]

22 hours ago, chi blue said:

I'll have what your drinking mate!!

You can have a half. 

[Kev56]

Big shout to the Chelsea fans, especially  Calling out  'Maurizio'  

[erskblue]

Pleased with that win and performance.

Three fine and well taken goals.

Good pressing and possession play.

Two very good saves by Kepa.

They missed two good chances and the one before we scored was a 'sitter'.

[Giordano_Bruno]

Man, what the hell is Andy Grey still doing in tv? What the feck is "he doesn't look like a manager" suppose to mean? He doesn't look like a professional. 

[Elliott]

I must admit, he's got us playing well (perhaps the best attacking football in the league right now?) sooner than I expected. When teams sit off, as Southampton did, for the first time in a long while, we look like we know what we are doing. We move the ball quickly. We press high. We move the ball fast from side to side. Neat interchanges and triangles. Good off the ball movement. All things we haven't seen as supporters for a long, long time.

Still conceding too many silly chances at the back, but the manager seems to be fully aware of that.

Very promising indeed....

[dan_cfc]

Played some great stuff yesterday, the 3rd goal was a thing of beauty. Very surprised how quickly we've seemed to adapt to Sarri's style and we're nowhere near 100% firing either so that's exciting.

Also quick mention for the fans our support was immense yesterday.

I f**king hate the international break.

[Londonisblue]

13 hours ago, The Brit said:

 And yet, unlike Arsenal's admittedly fine team goal, not deemed worthy of any post match mention or praise on match of the day...

Told you all that we could play attractive football and yet those smucks from bt and co would disregard our great goals because they've been spouting the same narrative about us for the last 15 years ... And all of the UK, apart from CFC fans of course, actually bought into that siht ! But who cares, the world is full of idiots, why looking for their approval when it's obivous we're doing great !

Edited October 8, 2018 by Londonisblue

[TrueBlueBIH]

Pleased with the win, the performance was also good. Our defensive errors haven't costed us yet but we do allow opposition teams a lot of chances. Sarri accepts that this kind of football will give you goals and that the defensive part is exposed. Kepa had two amazing saves, while at 0-0 Ings missed a sitter, it would be a much different match if we conceded first. Overall did enough to get the win and if we tighten things at the back we could easily go all the way. 

Another team win.