Davey Baby

Without doubt our finest performance of the season. Totally outclassed them. Bossed them, from the first minute to the last. Son, Kane, Alli, Eriksen, did we even see them? Poor old Anthony Taylor, always been a c**t to us. Thank f**k for VAR today. How he called a foul by Alonso God only knows. We were aggressive, we were cool emotionally, we held our nerve, we played so well, we were rock solid and we were a real team. Every player deserves massive praise, our defence were excellent, Kova and Kante were sublime and took complete control of the game, and Tammy, Mason and Willy were all superb. Star of the show though is Frank. It's so good having him on the touchline, rather than that mercenary, narcissistic, washed-up old sourpuss in the other dug-out. We were in cruise control today. Brilliant.

He was brilliant. He's a gem. We've struck gold with this lad.

I know I've said this before but........... What. A. f**king. Player.

Absolutely magnificent. Well done Willy.

No we don't old chum.

Yup. Jose said on Sky, before he got the Tottenham job, that Frank needed to be more pragmatic when we played the big sides. At that point we were on our winning run. Next game, against City, Frank went more pragmatic, and put Kante in a 3 man midfield. Since that game we've lost 4 out of 5 in the Prem. Edit: Meanwhile Jose got the Tottenham job and they've nearly caught us up. Don't ever listen to him Frank. He's the enemy.

We let them keep him until they've played Tottenham.

Yesterday was really concerning. After the game Frank spoke about the lack of tempo and the need to switch the play faster and take risks, but that wasn't the problem, the problem was we were too keen to do those things, we didn't really play with a pattern or a structure and we lacked composure. Rudiger and Zouma were way too keen to hit those diagonals as fast as possible, to dire affect. Bournemouth let them have the ball as much as possible and sat deep, knowing neither could do anything with the ball. In their defence however, they lacked options. We were nowhere near cute enough to break them down, our movement has been poor for a while now, we are not giving our opponents enough to think about. It's not just about tempo, as Frank keeps saying. You can play too fast, with not enough thought. It's about coaching. Fact is, we're getting out-coached right now, by very poor teams. West Ham, Bournemouth, Everton, even City, all on dire runs, but they beat us. We were very lucky at home to Ajax and away at Valencia, and extremely fortunate to qualify. Worst of all, players are losing their form, Willian, Jorginho, Kante, Zouma, Tomori, Emerson, Pulisic, Willian, et al. They were all playing well but they've noticeably dipped, and that's where the manager earns his money. How do you get them to regain their form again? It's not all about hard work, as Frank keeps insisting. You've got to be good at this management lark, and it's not easy, and the people you're up against are no mugs. You have to be clever. Right now the indications are alarming, but I never expected top 6 in the first place, let alone top 4. Top 4 is totally out of the question for me, when you look at our fixtures. Almost every single one of our hard games is still to come, and we're not good enough. Frank has work to do and a lot to learn. I hope we give him enough time to find out if he's good enough. Regarding our players, it would be nice if Kepa made a save from time to time, you know, just for the bantz factor. We need a top notch CB more than anything in my opinion, and we need to play James, possibly even as a DM. Mount, Tammy, CHO and Pulisic will score and assist a lot of goals in the future, so I'm not too worried about that, but we need options, and right now we don't have any, none that fill you with confidence anyway. Honestly, I'd swap Pedro, Willian. Batshuayi and Giroud for one player such as Richarlison or Zaha, somebody that can play as a striker or on the flanks, and someone with a bit of edge. Sure, they wouldn't be my first choice, and they might not automatically get in the side, and their fees would be prohibitive anyway considering they would come at vastly inflated fees, but they would potentially improve us in the here and now and they would certainly be able to compete for a place. Oh yeah, and we also need a LB, obvs. Emerson is one of those players that doesn't quite take the bull by the horns. You want him to grab his chance, to make the spot his own, but there's something missing. Good player, I'd have him in the squad, but he strikes me as someone who's none-too-bothered whether he's first choice or not. It's definitely a position Frank will be looking to strengthen. Tottenham next. A win would be sweet. They're bang in form and we've really dipped. A win there would make us all feel a whole lot better. It might be just the game to revitalise us but I fear the worst. Thankfully there's no midweek fixtures this week. We could do with the rest.

Just saying.

Put it this way, Christensen excelled in the Bundi.

Well, now that the election is in, and Johnson has a clear majority, I wonder how this will impact upon Roman? Will he get his visa? Will the stadium redevelopment be resurrected? It was under Theresa May that his visa renewal was declined.

Any 1 can play any 2, unless they were in the same group and therefore already played each other, or unless they're from the same country. 1s play the second leg at home.

He was.

Tonight showed just how much Frank has to learn, but we got through a difficult group, so he deserves a pat on the back, albeit we were very lucky. Very lucky to get away with a point at Valencia and at home to Ajax. Next round we'll probably be playing one of the big boys and we'll need all the luck we can get. I don't fancy our chances much. We are too soft and there is not enough structure to this team, not enough of a pattern, that's the problem, it's all a bit random with this side, which makes for excitement but it won't lead to a happy ending for Frank if it continues. I look at Leicester and I see a team that is well coached, from the beginning. I'm not sure I see that with our side. We do not control football games as well as we should, we do not manage games as well as we should. No matter how much possession we have, we are easy to score against, even against Lille's second string, who had us biting our nails in the final minutes, simply because it's all a bit haphazard. It's a little too Uncle 'Arry for my liking. Tonight, Frank made a terrible error and nearly paid for it. He thought the game was won. He was guilty of complacency, and so were our side. He can hardly blame them when he made calamitous mistakes with his subs. He took off Pulisic and Tammy with plenty of time left, trying to save their legs, forgetting that a goal for Lille and we're in very real danger of going out, forgetting that we were still very much involved in a football game even if it didn't seem like it. As soon as those guys went off everything changed, and Lille came right back into it. It was good to see Rudiger back, a bit of physicality and passion. Jorginho brings a bit of leadership, which is sorely missing in this team. Pulisic is a fine player and only going to get better. He was our best player for me. Frank took him off way too early and needs to learn his lesson. Make no mistake, Lille were sh*t, the poorest side we've faced this term by a long shot*. They could have kicked us out of the CL at the end, when we were inexplicably caught on the break and our defenders were scampering back. Luckily Remy did us a favour for old time's sake. As for Callum, he's lacking in confidence. It will come. He's a special talent, of that there's no doubt. He's young he's back from an injury. A lot of it is to do with physicality and stamina. For my money, there are signs he may be too individualistic, but he's going to play at a high level for a long time. One or two people on here writing him off were writing off Tammy a few weeks ago. He's barely got out of nappies in professional terms. He's a baby with practically zero experience, playing in the big time, in the big league. People just need to hold back a little bit. Edit: * Grimsby were probably worse I guess.

There is nothing worse than seeing your team get bullied as we were on Saturday. Nothing worse. I don't mind losing, well obviously I do, but losing is part of football, without losing the wins wouldn't feel so good. Being bullied however is a totally different thing. They wanted it more than we did, they were prepared to get their hands dirty and fight, and we didn't fancy it, simple as that, and that's unacceptable. In all my days watching Chelsea that hasn't happened often, thankfully. No matter how bad we've been at times in our past, Chelsea teams traditionally play with pride. We looked like your archetypal Southern softies side on Saturday, a Tottenham or an Arsenal or a Fulham or a West Ham. It's not something I associate with Chelsea and it has to stop. The first thing you have to do in the Prem is compete. We deserved nothing and no wonder Frank looked pretty livid. If he's got anything about him he won't tolerate it. If I had to single out anyone it would be Christensen. He didn't know what had hit him. He just didn't want to be out there. Their CF will never get an easier game in his life. If Christensen gets another game this season he can consider himself extremely lucky. That is just not what you want from your centre-half.

Frank spoke about this problem in his press conference today. He said we lost too many "contact" moments against Everton. I was hoping he would use the term Larry Lightweight. Rudiger's back tomorrow, which should help us a bit.

We have to think of Tomori's development in all of this. We would get Ake at a good price, considering the buy-back clause, and yes he may be better than Zouma and Christensen, but we really need a CB that will be better than all our others, so that Tomori finds himself vying with Rudiger to be his partner, therefore the standard gets elevated to a level closer to what we need. Ake would represent a small upgrade, yes, but it seems a waste when what we need is a far higher upgrade. Rudiger is good but he's not great. We shouldn't be relying on him so badly at centre-half, particularly as he's injury prone. I say we look elsewhere.

Keep writing the long posts mate.

Fair enough, I thought Tomori was poor against West Ham and his form had dipped generally, but he's better than Christensen, so you're probably right.

He's Spain's number one. A decent Spanish team will take him. WE'll get decent money but we'll have to take a hit, obviously. If he doesn't want to leave he can sit on the bench, once we've signed a replacement. He'd be a top back-up keeper, albeit a very expensive one!

Singling him out would be saying he's solely responsible for our woes, which nobody is doing. All they're doing is saying he's having a sh*t season, which I agree with. Evidently you don't.

How was he the main man today, but not against Palace and Villa? Please allow my simple brain to understand.

Nothing I said above was a repetition. It was claimed we don't win games with Kovacic and no Jorginho. I was just fact-checking. Go away and leave yourself if you don't like it.

I don't understand posts like these. Who's singling him out for the entire defence being bad? Zouma and Christensen are getting loads of stick, and Dave is a little. Kepa is having a sh*t season. Should we all pretend different?

Of our last 5 league games, Jorginho has played in 2. We lost both. In the 3 games he hasn't played, we've won 2.