Nickcook26

Disagreed with the team selection again today.
Whatever he has been trying in midfield since the start of the season (Kovacic/Jorginho/Kante) it still isn't working...
 

Couldn't agree more with the above. He was rightly subbed off and was absolutely awful all game. After the goal last week, I was hoping we would see him kick on and start showing his worth in the team. Sadly he was back to his usual self today.

Agree he’s not going to ping outstanding balls every game but I’d much prefer our defenders to actually be able to defend. Luiz has been caught having a shocker a few times this year - last night, Spurs, United. He’s a terrific talent on the ball but over his whole career it’s been proven time and time again. He cannot defend. He’s brilliant in a three because there’s two other CB’s covering for him. In a 4 he’s always going to be a liability defensively. Not that any of the back four covered themselves in glory last night.

CHO transfer request is just the tip of the iceberg. 
Christensen is surely set to also hand in a transfer request in the summer having been completely overlooked so far.
It's an important part of his career and he can't continue like this.
Some won't be bothered by the looks of things, but I fully expect him to develop into a very effective centre back.

It's very sad that Chelsea will never do this.
Harry Kane had some very uninspiring loan spells and is great proof of what can happen when you give someone a chance.
I would love to see him recalled and given a chance amidst the current striking situation but it's very sad Chelsea don't operate in this way.
Hopefully they will prove me wrong.
 

Why can't we just bring him back?
The guy can't stop scoring, another 2 goals vs QPR. We have Giroud injured, we have Morata who doesn't play. Let's give the spot to a young lad who is hungry to prove himself.

He was bought on when we were chasing the game.
After Kovacic had drifted through the game offering little to nothing in terms of attacking threat Ruben is thrown on to try and rescue the game. So he’s tasked with taking risks and forcing the issue.
That’s not easy, especially when the whole team has been pretty impotent for an hour. When you’re doing those things when it doesn’t come off you look poor, especially when contrasted to playing safe sideways 5 yard passes.
RLC had played well coming on against Brighton, played well in mid week against Bournemouth and was then bizarrely left out of the line up against Leicester. 
Should have started the game ahead of either Kovacic or Willian

Not every signing can be a marquee signing and not all signings work out.
Zappa and Emerson are very able deputies as we can't have one LB/RB operating all season. We are likely to play around 60 games. We need them for Europa League/Domestic Cups and in case of suspension/injuries.
Transfers are easy to judge with hindsight but even in successful times there are signings which don't work out. Kezman/Shevchenko/Boulahrouz/Del Horno spring to my mind.

Opinion of Andreas seems mixed amongst fans this season. 
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/17/football-transfer-rumours-chelseas-andreas-christensen-to-barcelona
Personally, it is no surprise for me to see another big European club linked with him. 
I think he needs regular game time, so wouldn't be surprised to see him leave. 
Is this something we might regret? I think so
 

I hear both Skinnedy & Atomis arguments and do accept your points.
I don't think the club bought these players believing they were average though.
Some players bought for modest transfer fees do indeed turn out to be world class (Azpi a great example in my opinion).
Emerson for me actually hasn't had a proper chance yet and but has looked good when I've seen of him.
 
 

I'd like to see some of those deputies come from within. Kurt Zouma, Nathan Ake, Victor Moses, Reece James, Dujon Sterling, Ola Aina, Fikayo Tomori
seems a pair from that group could do the same job as Emerson and Zappacosta right now considering the competition, and that's 45M to put back into the squad. I understand the idea of loaning players out, but there seems to be some merit to having them stay home and play in a lot of the Europa/Domestic Cup games like you say. 
over paying for squad players while watching one of the most talented academy programs loan players out is one of the more frustrating aspects of the club to a lot of us.

Skinnedy is spot on........on top of that its still a huge amount to waste on average players who have added nothing to the team. We have just not bought quality and its a shame when the amount is so huge. Then you have the wages to consider. Filling the team with average players will only get you so far at this level. Sure we cant buy marquee everytime, we aint city, but some level of vision and long-term planning wont be bad.

It has been commented on a bit but what I hope is that Sarri doesn't continue to be too stubborn, as it could well end up costing him his job.
I am all for a coach sticking to his principals and it is still relatively early days, but the signs are when thinks don't work, he is struggling to find a solution. Now a lot of that is down to shockingly poor striker options and that will HAVE to be addressed. But what always get's me and has done with a whole procession of coaches we've gone through down the years, is how they will all ignore possible a alternative in risking a younger, untried player and continue to go with the tried & tested, same old, same old. I know as soon as a few bad results come folk shout "Play the Youth" and I am one of the worse culprits. But it does forever frustrate me that other sides are at least giving their young prospects a chance when we don't. I can recall back in the day having debates with @Chippy (whatever happened to you fella?). When performances & results went tits up, I would clamour for the youth whereas Chippy (and others) would argue the coach see's the players day in, day out in training and we have to accept his decisions. But look at some of the youngsters who have forced their way in to other PL Teams and are doing well - Alexander-Arnold & Gomez at Liverpool (although Solanke is probably regretting his move to Dipperland). Declan Rice at West Ham, Brooks at Bournemouth and a real choker last night seeing Wolves play Gibbs-White and him have a decent game. If we were looking as good as City, I could accept it. Foden has got some game time for them this season but it is going to be hard with the amount of talent ahead of him. So I just hope that if we do continue to drop points, Sarri will try alternatives and shake things up a bit. Guadiola has gone on record as saying even the very best (untouchables) still need to know their place isn't guranteed and there is always competition for places, otherwise players play withinin themselves and get too comfortable and unfortunately, a number of our players look that way just now.
  

Some people need to get a grip, we're trying to completely change our way of play yet we're still sat 4th in the table and have only suffered defeat twice. We've had Conte and Mourinho who were both fantastic for us, but they were both a lot more cautious in their approach. This approach is in some of our players DNA (because that's all they've been used to for the past 10 years), and it's going to take at least a season for that to change. 
I'm obviously so gutted about yesterday's defeat (especially as I somehow sit next to a huge Wolves fan at work - what's he doing in London!?), but I can still see the positives, and I believe the negatives are things that can be rectified with hard work and patience. I thought that we played very well for 60 minutes yesterday, I was really pleased until their 1st goal. We were playing good football and creating chances - we should also have had a penalty (how does this always go against us!!?). Their first goal was poor from us, individual errors cost us again. Fabregas should have taken the yellow card and brought Moutinho down once he got past him, and Kepa should have done better with the shot. As soon as it went 1-1 we showed our naivety and completely lost focus and another individual error cost us the 2nd (Willian), although I haven't watched this again it might have been a foul. I wouldn't be surprised.
Cannot believe that some on here are still criticising Jorginho when he's not even involved!
One thing I do think we're lacking is a nastiness to our game. We used to be a strong and nasty team in our heyday, no team would out battle us. For example, Son's goal against us should have been stopped by Jorginho pulling his shirt and taking a booking. And the same goes for Fabregas yesterday, he needed to do the same to Moutinho. That's what all the top sides do.. We're too nice a team. If we can get a nasty edge back I know we'll be OK.

He should be starting against City. Kovacic offers next to nothing in attack, Barkley has gone a bit flat, Loftus-Cheek looks full of confidence, has pace and power from deep and is adding end product to his game. He's looking the real deal at the moment and we should take full advantage of it.

I didn't see the game on Thursday but i'm pleased to hear he played well. He'll be 23 next month and still not started 3 consecutive league games for Chelsea. That = never been given a proper chance. He really can't afford to keep waiting and waiting for a fair run in the team. Time is right to giive him a run and see if he can really make it at Chelsea.

He won't be allowed to leave on loan unless he signs a new contract (he has refused so far).
We either need to give him minutes or face a Solanke situation in the last year of his contract.
His deal runs until the end of next season so the player holds the cards here.

If it was my choice, he would never go out on loan. I would rather have him here. From what I have seen of him, he looks ready right now. Obviously he isn't ready to play every week in the first 11, but I would have him available for every game. He could come off the bench for Hazard or Pedro and even start a few games here and there. Not every youngster needs to be loaned out, every so often you get special players that come through and are ready straight away, I think Hudson-Odoi is one of those players.

I don’t totally agree with his justification for CHO not getting minutes. It sounded as if he picks players on reputation/age/wages. He said it’s hard to find a space for him in the team or on the bench because you have players like Moses on the bench.
 
moses was never good enough for us as a winger, a very good wing back yes but not a winger. It’s no surprise that our young players get disillusioned at the club with things like that.
 
i did like that he said he wants to create a space for him in the team/squad regularly but it’s hard because we have 28 players, maybe we’re going to cull the squad a bit in January to create more room for our youngsters.
 
Players should be picked on performance not their wages or what reputation they have, hopefully Sarri sticks with what he said and tries to create a space for him.

Have just about got over the disappointment from Saturday, so I've been catching up with everyone's views/thoughts on the game. Obviously, we had a shocker. We were way off the pace in every department and deserved to lose - it didn't help that we had to play against 12 men though, the ref was shocking.
I knew there would be a lot of talk about the Kante/Jorginho positions, but I actually thought Kante was our best outfield player. Kepa was our MOM. Jorginho got absolutely ruined for pace against Son, but that doesn't mean that he should be swapped for Kante, far from it. Sarri's style is to defend as a team in a block which in theory should restrict the space our opponents have between the lines (similar to city). To do this you need to be brave and play with a very high line as the defenders need to be as close to the midfield as possible. This completely went out of the window against spurs. Our defense was pushed way too deep by Kane and Son, then they'd both drop deep to pick up the ball unopposed and in acres off space and allowed to run at our back-line.  When this happens you're in trouble. This happened countless times, it was painful viewing. I don't think there's a problem with Sarri's tactics, it's just the players didn't follow them. we are however still getting used to this system. It seems our default way of defending is to drop deep (which creates the space between the midfield and defense), rather than press forward in a line and try and catch their attackers offside. I'm sure that Sarri is working on this.
Sarri said when he joined Napoli that he might lose his first 10 games of the season, but then things would start to improve. We've been lucky that we've managed a very good start whilst trying to change our whole playing philosophy, but I personally believe that you can only fully learn a new style and improve once you've made mistakes and suffered defeats. Saturday was a learning curve - I'm backing our players to step up to the challenge and improve a lot over the next couple of months. 

Carragher is spot on. I rarely think going into a game that we have a star player in Kante in the new position. And I don't see that changing because I don't see him ever being that type of attacking player. This is me scrutinizing virtually every game we have played. He looks really ordinary. I love Kante too but he looks far from a player whose earning a near £300k p/w. And while I agree he is no way near the same quality due to a shift in position I think he needs to adapt more and have more influence on the game. Especially when he is earning the amount he is.

Think defeat was a wake up call for the club.
All well and good being unbeaten but if you’re not winning against the best teams what’s the point?
We’ve been playing a bunch of part timers in Europe and only drawn against Liverpool, United, Everton and now lost to Spurs.
We finished 10th a couple of years back and 6th last year... the title win with Conte was the anomaly.
Make no mistake, Sarri’s got his work cut out if he wants to finish top 4 and stubbornly picking the same players and the same system over and over even when it’s not working isn’t going to help his cause. 
You've got to go back to the Burnley game for our last really good performance, we’ve not played well for the whole of November and it’s starting to feel like you’re watching the same performance on repeat.
Sarri has to address the midfield, it isn’t working. It’s offering little to no defensive cover. Jorginho’s influence has started to be completely nullified. Kovacic isn’t really doing much of anything of note and Kante still has a question mark over him whether he would be better off back at the base of midfield.

Agree completely with the above.
Cannot be trusted in big matches where good defending is required. Against weaker opposition where we are on the front foot, I understand his selection.
With Christensen not trusted and Cahill deemed surplus to requirements and allowed to leave there are major problems at centre back.

Agree completely.
Barkley always on the bench for big matches such as today (look to the United/Liverpool games at the Bridge too).
Kovacic seems to have automatic selection in these matches and I'm really struggling to see what he is bringing to the team.

Agree completely with the above.
Cannot be trusted in big matches where good defending is required. Against weaker opposition where we are on the front foot, I understand his selection.
With Christensen not trusted and Cahill deemed surplus to requirements and allowed to leave there are major problems at centre back.