ElTerrible

Your owners could never. One day in charge and already saving lives. 🙂 Btw seeing the United self-destruction over the last 48 hours, I wonder whether Pep should take full credit and say he never wanted Ronaldo. Ronaldo is almost 37 years old, self-centered player and can´t press to safe his life. He never made any sense whatsoever at Manchester City, but the move to United has un-done three years of United re-building. Even if Ole is not good enough of a manager, his idea/heart was in the right place. Don´t buy old washed-up names, build a cohesive squad that can actually match the workrate and legs of City, Liverpool and Chelsea. I bet Rashford, Greenwood and Sancho were super-excited to play with each other and Bruno was the clear alpha behind. Ronaldo destroyed the whole team chemistry in one move.

Never let Tuchel make transfers. It´s his main weakness. With the crazy loan scheme, you just bring them all back every summer. Tuchel can watch the 30-40 loan players in summer training and pick the best three to become squad members. Much cheaper and efficient transfer policy. 🤪

That´s what Apollo must have felt like when Rocky just kept coming. Damn. Huge three points. Mendy MOTM, but play of the game goes to Chalobah. The awareness to move onto the line from his position was unreal. That was the defensive equivalent of the Salah goal against City. Lost control when they introduced all the attacking players and Tuchel took off Kovacic for Mount, who was completely invisible.

If you want to win the league, the first thing you do is get rid of Pep, then worry about the rest. Nobody else can drive their team to trounce scrubs for 14-15 straight wins. All others like Liverpool or United will have slip ups and drop points to weaker teams.

Has anybody even mentioned that Ronaldo´s winning goal against Villareal was actually offside? When Ronaldo takes the shot some United player is literally laying right in front of the goalkeeper in an offside position....

Was smart that they only made it a loan, cause I agree.

Cause tactical fouls don´t exist in English football, it´s the 3rd line of defense of Liverpool and City. 1. Press the opponent. 2. Play defense. 3. If both fail, just foul to stop the counter.

I´ll wait till the official game report has been faxed to the league offices by the umpire before I believe a Werner goal stands. 😁

Spot on. The teams that have frequently beaten Guardiola in recent times were teams that matched his team cohesion and intensity on the pitch: 11 vs. 11, not 10 vs. 11. Inserting Lukaku hurts the Chelsea pressing machinery. That being said it wasn´t the only reason for the defeat. Alonso was frequently dispossessed by City, probably one of their main points of attack, therefore Chillwell was a big miss. Furthermore the introduction of the 3-5-2 left too much of a gap between the front two and the more defensive midfield. You can defend Werner/Lukaku with jsut Dias/Laporte 1 on 1 and with some tactical fouls, so the RB/LB could push forward. If you got Werner/Pulisic, Havertz and Mount playing up front, at least somebody else from City has to keep an eye on them. The question is whether Tuchel has the "balls" to sit the most expensive signing of the club for some major European/League games, especially when it means playing Werner, who has such a bad reputation.

This shows the difference between Italy and England. Lukaku is useless in this match-up, cause he can´t handle the pressing on either side of the ball.

If the UK produced a British Michael Jordan would you follow him or the London Netthrowers of the British Basketball Federation.? 😀

I pretty much called Tuchel not rating Zouma very early and I´ll tell you right now RLC will earn more and more minutes during the season. If one of Kovacic/Kante/Jorginho goes down for a significant amount of time, he´ll get a lot of games.

Another Tuchel masterclass. Always playing for penalties in the cup games to give Kepa more confidence. 😁

Can you have a substitute player warm up behind the opposing goal for 90 minutes or is that considering gamesmanship tactics of interference with the opposing goalkeeper? I say we just tell him that he should "pass" the ball to that teammate and suddenly they all end up in goal. 🤣

Call me crazy, but this team is missing what Werner brings to the table. His workrate offensively to occupy defenders, to drag players all over the pitch, to wear defenders down, to create imbalances in the opposing defense, the threat of his pace and his surprisingly solid assist contributions. Most importantly though I feel the whole team defends better as a unit with him relentless pressing from the front. Maybe my memory is just bad, but I don´t seem to remember the team giving up so many goal scoring opportunities last season. In a way he is Chelsea´s Firmino. Also he has always functioned best as a secondary striker, so I´m really surprised Tuchel´s hasn´t tried playing him with Lukaku. Especially with the injury to Pulisic as I just do not see what Ziyech does better than Werner.

Agreed with everything, but #3. The amount of times I have seen these moronic referees take hours to not overturn/confirm the simplest and most obvious of decisions, I don´t need him to look at this from all angles. I need them to get it right. I think this was actually done perfectly. The VAR room will have looked at the whole situation (game went on for a while), given their assessment, ball goes from body to hand, in a reflex James swipes at the ball to deny it going over the line, but go look for yourself to make sure you agree. Tee him up the correct replay and the correct decision (assuming the rules call for penalty/red card) was reached. That´s how this should be done. Also well done to hold the draw. Some great saves from Mendy from long range shots in the first 15 minutes of the 2nd half. After that Liverpool didn´t have much except for a lot of corners. Though I might add: Isn´t that ball kicking away rule, one of the dumbest in the whole sport? This rule was introduced, when they used one ball on the pitch. Now there are like a dozen balls all around the pitch. There are like 100 of other situations like stepping in front of the ball/carrying the ball away to stop quick execution of freekicks that would call for a similar time-wasting yellow card that is never given. Either extend the rule or scrap it, because otherwise it seems completely arbitrary.

Since Loew is trying to break every positive German tournament myth/record with his idiotic selections and substitutions, I´m going with an unheard of penalties loss and there couldn´t be a more fitting opponent to do it against than England. 25 years after Southgate missed at Wembley. Story writes itself.

What are his numbers contributions though? He takes a lot of corners/indirect freekicks and his overall numbers read 1G/4A in 56 PL games. Reece is a dynamic player, but that doesn´t automatically make him a good attacking player. One of the reasons Chelseas struggle to break down deep-sitting teams is the lack of attacking thread from the wings. I think Tuchel views Reece/Hakimi as perfect complementary player. You can play them together in a 3-4-2-1 or it´s simply match-up dependent whether you need a shutdown defender (Reece) or an attacking menace (Hakimi) against a specific opponent.

CHO´s wages are likely too inflated for Dortmund due to the the interest of Bayern Munich, therefore it´s probably Bayern Munich again. Unless you find a model, where Chelsea subsidize some of CHO´s Dortmund wages as part of a Haaland deal. In that case CHO + Abraham as dealmakers for Haaland makes sense for all parties involved.

Hello everybody, Long-time glory hunter reader decided to make an account after the CL victory. As much as I rate Tuchel as one of the best tacticians and in-house talent evaluators, I´m not 100% convinced about his transfer input in the past, whether it´s BVB or PSG. Actually I think this was the perfect situation for Tuchel and Chelsea. He had a set and willing (*cough* Mbappe/Neymar*) squad of high-quality and depth to follow his ideas, thanks to the recent transfer window and youth development. I don´t think Tuchel rates Zouma, but I´d just replace him 1-on-1 with Tomori and be done with it. Furthermore I think Reece James is an excellent player, but his attacking contributions are sometimes lacking, especially against weaker teams, when trying to break down the defense. Therefore I´d consider shifting him inside more often in a 3-5-2, which provides enough CB squad cover, but also opens a spot for Hakimi, who is the one name on the list that I actually do love, specifically for his attacking skills. As far as midfield is concerned I´d also bring back RLC/Barkley and give Tuchel some time to evaluate there, too. When it comes to the attack, I would not rush into Lukaku, but rather stragetically look at Haaland long-term. I´d try to figure out how close Sancho and Haaland are. On the pitch they work perfectly. We all know Sancho prefers a move home to London over Manchester or Liverpool. Tottenham/Arsenal are at best at the same level as Dortmund. Then you got Tammy Abraham, who could be the medium-term replacement for Haaland at Dortmund, so I´d offer Dortmund €80M + Abraham for Sancho right now. It´s a slight overpay, but establishes a relationship for next summer. That´s when I move for Haaland in 2022. Goalkeepers: Mendy, Kepa Defenders: Hakimi, James, Rudiger, Christensen, Tomori, Silva, Azpilicueta, Alonso Midfielders: Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic, Gilmour, RLC, Barkley, Attackers: Pulisic, Sancho, Havertz, Mount, (Haaland), Ziyech, Werner, CHO The foundation at Chelsea is so good, I think you only buy absolute quality (Hakimi, Sancho) and stay patient.