_Ilya_

Fair. Though Maddison and Odegaard are just different players. Playing a distinct number 10-like creative type is a tactical change and whenever Pochettino toyed with this (by playing Palmer there) Gallagher still ended up on the pitch, just further back. So wanting a successfully integrated Maddison-like player is less a “replace Gallagher” thing and more a “tactical change, generally need to have a 10” thing. May totally be a reasonable desire, just not really anything to do with Gallagher. 🙂

I feel “player X is not good enough” needs to be very explicitly qualified with “for what” and/or “relative to whom”. I suspect that some criticising Gallagher do so imagining KDB or Bellingham in his place, or some such… He is very much good enough for this team. If we rank this season’s regulars “by how much we’d benefit from an upgrade” he’s not even in top 5. Maybe not in top 8. 🙂 So what’s the point of having a go at a decent footballer, who loves the club and is giving everything? But sure, once we have a better striker, two defenders, left wide-forward and manager - and still not quite winning everything - we should totally look into Conor…

I know we still have quite a bit of the transfer window left and that Euro's only just finished, but ... this is looking fairly weird. We are about to sell Giroud and there has been enough noises about Tammy being offered round to make it fairly awkward to keep him. So either all of those noises are complete bollocks - could be, but ... but ... so many noises... Or we don't have any backup options right now and the market is a little dry. I mean leaving aside all the heated debates about whether or not Werner / Kai / Pulisic (?) are a good enough combo as a 1st choice - we are going to play 4 competitions. There will be injuries. We need somebody, don't we? If not the all-conquering mega-star, then at least somebody to play Swindon in the FA cup.

He was certainly the best German player yesterday and *whispers* possibly the best player on the pitch *runs away, hides*. He could walk the ball out of a locked closet.

Interesting. They’ll keep Kane. They’ll buy him a couple of cheap-ish squad players. What can he make from them eggs? He won’t win them the league (lol) but he’ll make them better. The league will be tougher.

Seems like fittIng all of Werner, Havertz, Mount and new CF requires: - 4 at the back - attacking width from full backs Which in turn seems to require a really solid DM.” Possible and people here have been talking about just that. But also - while I do not wish to join Werner-slagging - I don’t really see why he is so obviously a nailed-on first choice. He has been quite important under current circumstances, but who’s to say that the new CF will not be able to do some of the good things Werner does and then, suddenly, Werner is less important.

Oh wow. I thought people here were too negative about Tommy and/or our players on occasion. Those guys are ready to lynch Pep…

But how how fresh will Fernandinho be for Community Shield? Ooof… Lime and mint fresh!

We only won ‘cause they played their second team. Pep is saving their strongest team for the more important occasion.

That was amazing, wasn’t it.. 😍😍😍

Havertz: 10

I reckon he’s not getting fired…

f**king hell…

Man City are playing with 6 false 9s…

He likes to shoot too. 🙂

A surprisingly high proportion of his (open play) goals here are him receiving the ball somewhere around the penalty spot with no defender anywhere near him. On the one hand - Werner on Chelsea form would miss … etc On the other - there might be some truth to all the comments about Seria A not being a good barometer. I really wanted to see him “bully defenders” as someone put it. He seems to have bullied them so effectively that they prefer to stay the f**k away from him. 🙂

He is walking in the direction of Madrid. You heard it here first.

Men will literally food a Chelsea supporters forum with negative commentary instead of going to therapy.

Just a couple of banal points. Assist =/= Goal Sometimes one is the greater/harder part, sometimes the other - but, imo, on average, the actual scoring is the bigger deal. For every genius defense-splitting pass that left the striker with a tap-in - there are two goals where the last pass was a nothing and left the striker with all the work to do. (I picked this proportion out of thin air, so happy to be convinced I am wrong 🙂 ) Also, the ranking would look very different if they did contributions per game. I know the overall impact over season matters as well, but e.g. Drogba's 24/26 is way more impressive than Werners 26/50. And finally, I don't think a lot of people are saying Werner has been useless. I think the point being made more often is that he is not doing the center forward's job of scoring goals and we need somebody who will. (Cue discussion about systems, Firmino, false 9s and all that) My point being is that I am not sure it's true that fans don't see the bigger picture. Sometimes it's the metrics that are misleading and the intuitive perception is the better reflection of the bigger picture.

Afaiu Reguilon scored one and made one. We're only gonna score/make one goal for them, we won't do two. 🙂

We should arrange for her to meet John Terry. "How are *you* doing?"

My baby, my firstborn, my pride and joy, the apple of my eye ... WITH A SPURS PLAYER?!?!?

I too wish we lost to Luton - you know, as a fan - but that one is not on Tommy, that's Frank's fault.

We most certainly should not rely on any favours from anyone, but Liverpool winning everything doesn't really look all that nailed-on either. WBA was probably their easiest game of the last three - and they didn't exactly walk it. Both Burnley and CP can ... on their day ... very occasionally 🙂 ... put up a bit of a fight. If I had to predict how the last two rounds will turn out - I'd go for a lot of dropped points, by everyone, at least expected moments. We'll do something weird like beat Leicester, but then draw with Villa, Liverpool drop points, Leicester ... dunno. Point being - whoever qualifies will not do so having won the last two games.

You know that extra pleasure you take, as a fan, from your team winning/scoring when somebody from the opposition had been a bit lippy before the game? Like they bad-mouth Chelsea and then we win and it's like "Suck on on that!". It's a bit surreal that after reading the forum for the last few days my "suck on that" when Chelsea wins will be largely addressed at ... Chelsea fans. Weird...