brownindian

I get what you are saying and like the optimism - but the loss to Tottenham is the clearest indicator to me that we dont have the mettle to finish in the top 4. Right now i am more in the opinion of playing Odoi, palmieri and other players who need more experience that trying for the top 4. I am sure a lot of people will not agree with me, but i hope we dont qualify for the Europa league and that next year we just concentrate on the league and win it.

The review of him sounds really good.

The left-back got left back(behind).

Southhampton is a relegation threatened team. It will look pretty sh*tty celebrating a win against a team that could potentially get relegated and us with nothing to win except the game.

Fair enough - had you asked me after the Barcelona performance, I would have most likely agreed with him on selling of Morata, but now i have cooled down on that. Wised up maybe ?

Good goal today.

I actually like this arrangement of starting Morata and having Giroud come in as a sub. The substitution needs to happen earlier like today and not in the 80th minute and beyond. I think it is important to give Morata his run of games instead having him in the bench and since Chelsea has nothing to play for right now (Except FA cup).

As much as i hate his goal output, I do feel that he should get better and given the amount of money spent, it makes sense to keep playing him esp now with nothing to play for. I dont know much about Morata prior to his Chelsea move. When he played for other team and was good - what formation did those teams use and what was his role there ? Was he used as a hold up striker in his old teams as well. Is he just not clicking here or are we not playing to his strength ?

Neither the players nor the manager could be arsed to bring in their A+ game today - a day after the loss of our own. I honestly do not know how some of people have the passion to defend the players or the board or the manager. Everyone deserves an arse-whooping. The board spend big money to buy average average players! Conte is not a miracle worker and you can expect him to turn turd to curd. Even Moses who looked like a changed player has reverted back to crap this year. The worst part about all these buys is that none of them improve our first team and there are so many in our first team that seem past it. We can chalk most of these players to losses. And with that being the case, why cant Conte experiment with the lineup. Last year all it took was a few defeats for Conte to tinker with the formation to go from back 4 to back 3 and win the league. Why is he married to this formation ? 3 at the back seems to not be working and for a while - Why cant he tinker with the formation again? 4-4-2 / 4-3-3 - these are not revolutionary ideas ! Try something different! Our midfield with Cesc is struggling defensively and lack of pace and physicality, yet Cesc is there constantly. Moses cannot beat his man to put a proper cross for most of the season, yet he is the guy starting. All i know is Emenalo is not to blame for this mess.

The international break cant come soon enough. Hope he and Willian and can hammer the Spurs.

I respect your take and I feel bad arguing with you on this cos i too believe that when he is in top form and is played in a formation that suits him he is capable of it, but lets live in the now shall we ? -Chelsea right now are in a sluggish form. Willian and Kante (Alonso could be slotted in perhaps)are pretty much our in form players right now. Morata seems to excel only when the ball is played to his feet in space or a cross is put when he is in space. How often has that happened recently ? -Also, how much of Conte's style of play seems to be built on that as opposed to try and have the front man hold up the ball ? A lot of what applies to Morata could very well apply to Batshuayi and Conte did not want him. Giroud does the donkey work of holding up the ball and allow Willian and Hazard to attack and not carry the burden of holding the ball. He also provides a physical presence to trouble the defenders and a tall target to head the ball into the net -Also, which do you think was our better performance? A winning effort against Leceister in the FA cup or the losing effort against Barcelona in Spain ?I feel like if we could bring that intensity we brought to Barcelona into all our remaining games, top 4 is ours for sure. And that means getting Hazard and Willian more into the mix.

I would take Elbow-Yanni just so I can play him and he can elbow everyone he comes close to or try long balls to him. Plus considering our other options in the squad are Cesc and Bakayoko - he may arguably be an upgrade defensively.

I dont think at this time with us hunting for top 4 we can afford to alter our tactics and formation to accommodate Morata and nurse him back to form. Giroud is the only hold up striker we have and he needs to start. Unless Conte wants to play a 2 striker formation with Giroud and Morata.

I thought David Luiz played in a 4 man defense in PSG before moving to Chelsea. Also, when i look at the team line up that you suggest - If the opposition decide to press us or defend hard - I dont see our forward players be able to hold the ball and we will be forced to be on the backfoot most of the time. I think this team needs an injection of players with pace, height and strength (football intelligence to but that is always a given).

Like David Luiz :P ?

does anyone else get an annoying Hulu video ad playing in this page on loop that just shifts the page down to where it is playing and forces one to scroll back to where u originally where ?

That was some goal. He is the purest goal scorer we have at the moment. It is a pity that we could not get a formation that plays to his strengths in our squad.

Considering we bought Ross Barkley, I think Ramsey will be a step up.

My preference would be this: Willy. C Zappacosta Caesar Christensen Rudiger Alonso Kante Drinkwater Willan Giroud Hazard I would always play this team from now on unless someone gets hurt

In hind sight after looking at the entire match I would have 1. Drinkwater For Fabergas to shore up the defense. 2. Zappacosta for Moses cos, Zappacostas played much better and his height and physicality troubled the Barca player 3. Brought in Pedro for Giroud and moved Hazard to the #9 position (i know i know - we tried that in leg 1). Bring on Morata did nothing. We played with a scarecrow.

AS someone who just posted that I would not mind letting Hazard go if PSG offered 200 million for Hazard, I will have to respond. I respect your take on it, but i feel like we are talking different problems. Our current plight is that of the old Liverpool who sold Torres and brought sh*tty replacements that screwed the squad. The newer Liverpool sold Suarez/Coutinho and bought decently priced players (save VVD) and are in top 4 and also playing some of the best football. So the problem really is not selling but replacing. Also, I dont see Hazard staying with us once his contract is over esp without Champions League football.

5 for Morata ? Whats with the generosity ?

My Thoughts on this game: + Did we just play a good spell of attacking and possession football against Barcelona ? Everyone where saying we could not do that we can only play negative football. Wow! If we can get an offensive minded coach and tweak our squad just a little bit, we can play some fun football. + Based on our display vs Barcelona i am absolutely confident that we have the squad to get us into the top 4 with the rest of the games underway. The only thing that remains to be seen is if we bring this intensity into everygame. + All the goals scored against us was due to individual pieces of errors. Cut the errors and we would have had a game that goes to penalty. + Replacing Giroud with Moratta effectively ended our possession spell. Morata experiment needs to be ended. + Cesc - he needs to go. I have been a staunch supporter of him so here i am eating my own words. For his salary it is not fair to have him be a squad player - he better contribute or take a pay cut. He seems to struggle to keep possession of the ball when threatened and struggles to track back against moderately pacy players and cant win balls against moderately physical players. He is a spent force. + Courtouis - A horrible performance today. And it is not just today, he has been letting in goals more frequently now. I know he can still get better but no way will i feel terrible if he leaves. + Overall Squad - The first thing we all would have noticed when we saw the bench was damn - if things get difficult we have no game changer. For all the money spent we are a team of average players - quantity over quality and the big money signings so far have not worked at all. Can anyone name me one player who we bought this year that has clicked ? We need to fire some scouts.

Based on today's performance - Cesc was a bigger pain than Moses, Moses atleast put a shift. Moses never put his own defense in danger.

Useless !!!