ashwin

Really nothing to fault today. With a little bit of luck, we'd have gone through. But at the same time, without a bit of luck last year, we wouldn't have won it. All in all, the performance was there. Results can always go either way in tight match ups. Werner and Mount were electrifying at times.

Just love his constant engagement and coaching off the bench, right to the end. On another day, we'd have won this. A super defensive display. Just can't account for ridiculous passes like Modric's!

Thinking that the only job of the Chelsea FC director (or the main job) is to negotiate transfers is incredibly naive.

Some quality Maguire videos out there. Read the comments as well 😂

No, anyone but the Ambanis. They are just really horrible people, stop at nothing to grow their wealth 😢

The US have been killing and bombing civilians (and 6 yo children) for years. And have completely destroyed many countries. Let's see some sanctions against them. Or against Israel. Russia has many million people to go to reach the levels of murder that USA has been responsible for. There is so much more here than a bunch of people doing the right thing. I don't think Boris Johnson or any right wing politician would do the right thing if it hit them in the face.

A wonderful statement and gesture by Roman. Sad that it had to end like this. I find the severe anti-Russia narrative really hypocritical. Suddenly when a white European country is invaded, the world loses its sh*t. USA has destroyed so many countries over the past few decades, killing millions of people and starting (and funding) civil wars that haven't ended to the day. Israel continues to invade and destroy Palestine. Many middle eastern countries including Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue to fund wars and bloodshed. But no one cares. USA's anti-muslim narrative has given rise to so many right wing Governments around the world that all participate in their own forms of genocide and ethic cleansing (but no one dares sanction the USA!). Of course this invasion and the war is devastating and unnecessary. And I'm deeply saddened by this. But I've also been deeply saddened by the humongous level of atrocities that USA, Europe and most of the world have condoned over the last three decades. And now they suddenly feel they can adopt a holier than thou attitude. The hypocrisy is sickening. As are the references to Hitler that I've seen even on this thread. Here, the war is not primarily built on racial discrimination that was the essence of Hitler's actions. If anything, leaders of Israel, Myanmar, USA and so many other other countries that continue to discriminate based on ethnicity deserve that accusation. And most of Europe for turning a blind eye to all the pain and suffering. We live in a problematic world where every world leader and billionaire has been responsible for their fair share of violence/suffering/injustice along the way.

Actually one of Jorginho's biggest assets (often understated in professional footballers) is his ability to stay fit and avoid lengthy layoffs. Just like Lampard.

Hard to say. I think Jorginho and Saul would have retained much more control than Saul and RLC. Of couse, RLC and Jorgi would have done far better.

Not really, 1/2 for us. Kovacic was a cast off from a big club, that worked quite well.

Agree, these changes were largely forced.

True 🙂 it's important for TT to NOT play Jorgi once in a while just to show everyone how much less in control we are.

Poor performance, good result. Completely understand why TT made these changes, we need to keep the squad fit and rested to make the most of this period. What better game than Watford to do it.

I doubt it. He seems to be peaking now and has a coach who properly understands how to use him.

And he seems to be a good enough footballer to adapt to any system 🙂

And it gets worse every day...

And generally remove patriotism along the way 😀

Our match threads are usually not dissimilar to what you described 🙂 maybe go through some of the older ones (when things haven't gone entirely our way) to get a taste.

Aside from generally being a very good footballer, Pulisic has a real eye for goal and takes up goal scoring positions like few others in the squad. A real asset if he just gets his injuries under control.

What on earth is this? Really curious 😂

Don't disagree with any of that. Werner's numbers are way below par and he was bought to do much much better. But that said, I wouldn't take any of the others above him because his movement, workrate and general game sense are fantastic assets for any team to have (Mane and a prime Pedro are of course way better but certainly not a prime Willian). My disagreement was with inferring that Origi has been more effective than Werner given the presented stats.

Any reason you haven't included 20/21 for Origi where he did not score a single PL goal? Or CL? Or FA Cup? Anyway, there's a glaring issue here which is what are the games Origi is played in? In 19/20 when they won the title, he scored in the first game and the last game (a dead rubber) and just one in between. He scored in a 4-1 over Norwich, a 5-2 over Everton and a 3-1 over Newcastle. Origi's sample size from 19/20 to now is just 4 games with goals, none of these contributions decisive. Unlike Liverpool for Origi, Chelsea have expectations from Werner that go beyond scoring goals (he should be doing that much better of course). There's a reason Werner starts CL finals and Origi barely features for Liverpool. Do you really think Werner's contributions are encapsulated in this table? I'm amazed. "Effectively, Liverpool are able to get a similar contribution from a bit-part player as we can get from one of our main strikers, while Chelsea seem to have extremely low expectations for Werner." Origi's most certainly are because he offers nothing else tactically.

Agree, both are relevant pieces of info. I'm not entirely sure where to get these though (without physically calculating them myself!).

Origi played a part in 28 PL games in 19/20 and scored in a grand total of 3 of them. He scored in the first game and the last game of the season, and in 1 of 26 appearances in between. He played a part (including starts) in 6 CL games in 19/20 and scored in 0. He played (started) in 3 FA Cup games in 19/20 and scored in 0. In 20/21, he played a part in only 12 PL + CL + FA Cup games (including a few starts) and scored in 0. In 21/22, he has played a part in 5 PL + CL + FA Cup games and scored his first goal yesterday. This is your great finisher? 😉 Just saying that it's useful to use some more information to draw an inference than this one good finish and a vague memory that he scored an important goal in the past. His stats are so bad that even Werner looks like a world class finisher in comparison. And this is not even considering that Werner adds so much more to a team tactically (pressing, movement, pace and assists). Football is frankly far more complex than putting a finisher (who is incapable of anything else) in the team and expecting good team play as Ole is finding out every game.

I really enjoyed our play. We played scintillating stuff at times and had enough chances to win 6-0. We were due a bit of luck not going our way.