the thing with city is they have always been known as the attacking team. us and utd have been the defensively strong teams (at least for the majority of seasons since roman took over) so city do have somewhat of an identity as they have an easier time identifying the style of football they want to play. honestly, i wanted pep at chelsea as soon as i heard he left bayern, but i knew deep down it just wasn't going to happen (although i clung on to some hope).

pep is the only coach i can think of who has his unique way of playing football and has been so successful from it. most other coaches fail after a good season or two, but he's never really had a poor season with a team. i was surprised he went to city as they weren't really a big name club in europe and didn't have the players he needed, but kudos to him he took the job, got the players he wanted and came 3rd last season and maintaining 1st spot this season after implementing his ideas. even carlo has poor second seasons and mourinho still plays the same way and doesn't really adopt an attacking style. so i would certainly say city know what they're looking for when signing players and coaches, whereas with us it's been a bit scatter gun. we bring in different managers with different ideas and it can be a bit frustrating. 

39 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I'd say they're one of the only teams in the league that do have an identity. They're known for going out and attacking teams and playing beautiful football, that certainly is an identity. Its teams like us and Utd that don't really have a specific 'identity'. 

That's what they are doing at the moment.  I hardly think they are known for it or have been known for it for any large parts of their existence.

I'm not trying to turn this into an identity conversation, as I think every team from the bottom leagues to the top have their own and that may change and evolve but that there is nothing wrong with that.  Certainly nothing wrong with ours. The match day football plays a big part but it's not the only part either.

42 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I get what you're saying, but many label City and ourselves the same - until the foreign money came in we were a million miles away from winning the league.

City have just done what we did when Roman took over back in 2003. They have spent sh*t loads of money on quality players and got a manager they are confident will win them trophies. Of course the way the market has gone means that players are now in region of £100m rather than the smaller millions we spent on the likes of Crespo, Veron, Duff, Robben etc but City have no more lost their identity than any other club striving to be successful in football today. And it's great - it's what annoys Liverpool and Arsenal fans all the more!

 

I think we also developed players into big characters and perhaps players they wouldn't have been had they gone to another club though.  That's just my opinion because we will never know really.  I'm also by no means having a dig at city for spending on those players as you rightly point out we've done it before and every club tries to improve their playing list to some degree or another.  My thought's generally are that that is a proven way to success, not 100% of the time, but it has been done, however also there are other ways to success.  So the general thought about us not having any vision, or not wanting to spend big on certain players shouldn't actually rule us out from competing.  I also like following my club, my team and my favorite players and I enjoy the fact I get to see 3+ years out of them without calling for an upgrade and seeing that group of players win.

6 hours ago, enigma said:

the thing with city is they have always been known as the attacking team.

Do you remember City under Mancini?

What happened to all the chat about the world class Eden Hazard?

10 minutes ago, ssuth1991 said:

What happened to all the chat about the world class Eden Hazard?

You trolls come and go . . don't be so naive. 

Edited October 19, 20178 yr by Fendieta

3 minutes ago, Fendieta said:

You trolls come and go . . don't be so naive. 

Legit. I came on to read a bit more about him and it’s full of chat about City. 

13 minutes ago, ssuth1991 said:

What happened to all the chat about the world class Eden Hazard?

Your on page 265 of "all the chat about Hazard". 

 

6 minutes ago, coco said:

Your on page 265 of "all the chat about Hazard". 

 

I thought there might have been a bit more after last night. Thought he was tremendous personally. Rescued us big time. Seems to have stepped it up a notch in the champs league this year. 

Funny I thought Hazard was a bit of a luxury for large chunks of last night's game. I know he scored two great goals and saved our bacon but with him and to a lesser extent, Fabregas, we are two down when it comes to serious midfield skirmishing.

Emeraldblue if you thought eden was luxury yesterday imagine how we would have fared without him!  Oh my

Emeraldblue if you thought eden was luxury yesterday imagine how we would have fared without him!  Oh my

I think I acknowledged that. Morata's deflected assist was fortunate and Pedro's pass was sublime. Like the Romans what else did he do for us?

On 19/10/2017 at 10:17, Nibs said:

I get what you're saying, but many label City and ourselves the same - until the foreign money came in we were a million miles away from winning the league.

City have just done what we did when Roman took over back in 2003. They have spent sh*t loads of money on quality players and got a manager they are confident will win them trophies. Of course the way the market has gone means that players are now in region of £100m rather than the smaller millions we spent on the likes of Crespo, Veron, Duff, Robben etc but City have no more lost their identity than any other club striving to be successful in football today. And it's great - it's what annoys Liverpool and Arsenal fans all the more!

 

We were in the Champions League when we got bought, City were getting hammered 8-1 by Middlesbrough. There is a difference. 

On October 19, 2017 at 21:27, TheChelsRVA said:

Emeraldblue if you thought eden was luxury yesterday imagine how we would have fared without him!  Oh my

Forget yesterday, he has been carrying us as an offensive unit since he got here half a decade ago. 

So now he has just 20 months left on his contract?

he needs to start working on his consistency. you look at Messi.ronaldo.bale.neymar they tear defences apart week in week out.

Eden does it maybe once a month when he can be arsed.

that defeat to roma we could have done with him at top form and i don't think i seen him do anything near what he should have been doing.

12 minutes ago, Scottish_mike said:

he needs to start working on his consistency. you look at Messi.ronaldo.bale.neymar they tear defences apart week in week out.

Eden does it maybe once a month when he can be arsed.

that defeat to roma we could have done with him at top form and i don't think i seen him do anything near what he should have been doing.

Those players have the luxury of playing in MUCH easier leagues and and Bale certainly doesn't do it every game - have seen him have some shockers.

I have questioned Hazards consistency as well and he can be frustrating. But last night he was head & shoulders the best Chelsea player. In the first 45 he was a constant threat and the Roma players couldn't get near him until that bad tackle when he had studs raked down the back of his heel which did effect him after that. 

If we have ANY chance of getting a result against United on Sunday, we need Hazard to be on fire.

1 hour ago, Scottish_mike said:

he needs to start working on his consistency. you look at Messi.ronaldo.bale.neymar they tear defences apart week in week out.

Eden does it maybe once a month when he can be arsed.

that defeat to roma we could have done with him at top form and i don't think i seen him do anything near what he should have been doing.

Messi fair enough although as insanely good as he is he also has poor games. 

Ronaldo is well past his best and nowadays is just a goal poacher relying on the top quality players he's surrounded with at Madrid to get him chances. 

Bale and consistency . Really ?  He's been injured half the time and he's been poor for the majority of the last 2 seasons and look this season injured again. 

Neymar is a massively wasteful player. The amount of times he loses the ball is pretty crazy. He needs several good opportunities. 

Eden unfortunately doesn't have that luxury here. 

1 hour ago, Scottish_mike said:

he needs to start working on his consistency. you look at Messi.ronaldo.bale.neymar they tear defences apart week in week out.

Eden does it maybe once a month when he can be arsed.

that defeat to roma we could have done with him at top form and i don't think i seen him do anything near what he should have been doing.

Look at the players that those are playing around. Neymar has Mbappe to link up with, Ronaldo has Bale, Messi has Suarez whilst Hazard is stuck with Willian. 

he doesn't beat his man enough on the wing, i get the cutting in on his strongest foot, but i think he lacks that directness we need on the wing. it's why we need a pacey wing back assist him with the directness in attack. i also don't like when eden often slows the game down when he receives the ball instead of going at his man or making the pass asap, it's frustrating to watch at times. 

13 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Look at the players that those are playing around. Neymar has Mbappe to link up with, Ronaldo has Bale, Messi has Suarez whilst Hazard is stuck with Willian. 

Its possible to talk about a player WITHOUT shifting blame onto everyone else. Eden has shown what he can do regardless of who is around him. Willian wasn't even on the pitch for over half of last nights game.

22 minutes ago, Stim said:

Its possible to talk about a player WITHOUT shifting blame onto everyone else. Eden has shown what he can do regardless of who is around him. Willian wasn't even on the pitch for over half of last nights game.

Point still stands about having world class players around you though. I could have named Pedro instead of Willian. Last night Hazard was a frustrated player, as could be seen towards the end of the game when taking a shot because everyone else is stood around not making runs for him. As a club we haven't done enough to get the best out of Hazard, we just expect him to win us every game.

He deserves better.

25 minutes ago, Stim said:

Its possible to talk about a player WITHOUT shifting blame onto everyone else. Eden has shown what he can do regardless of who is around him. Willian wasn't even on the pitch for over half of last nights game.

It could be argued as to whether he actually appeared at all.

My main man hazard looks a bit plumper than past seasons too.  I think he doesn't like playing on the wing too and Conte has given him freedom to roam and limited his defensive responsibilities.  Last year he was so much more free and dangerous.  This year, he is coming back from injury and is a targeted man.  Pedro right now is the only player that can provide relief.  Morata has shown his flashes but needs to get better.  And to top it off, we haven't had a dynamic midfielder in a long time.  Someone who isn't a one trick pony.  Fab can spray but isn't worth a lick in defense.  Kante can run and win the ball back, but isn't very convincing going forward.  Bakayoko is a tank but is struggling with passes and awareness.  Drinkwater is the closest thing I think we have to an all around dynamic midfielder...DRINKWATER!  We get almost 0 goal contributions from our midfield.  

Point I'm trying to make is we're essentially asking hazard to be our one creative player in the opposition's half.  And teams last year started kicking him out of games late in the season, and are doing so again this year.  Press high and swarm eden.  That's the gameplan.  How can he be direct when he literally has to take on three people just to create an inch of space.  Messi is the only othe rplayer in the world that deals with this type of attention but he's a damn magician.  And even if they do kick the golden boy Messi out of a game Barca will still win because of the quality of their side.  ATM we do not have the luxury of relying on other players.  

4 hours ago, Stim said:

Its possible to talk about a player WITHOUT shifting blame onto everyone else. Eden has shown what he can do regardless of who is around him. Willian wasn't even on the pitch for over half of last nights game.

It's not about shifting blame. It's just that when you start comparing our squad to other top teams you notice that those teams have several game changers. Here we have 1, Hazard. 

Also if you look at City, Madrid, PSG, they all have several players that handle the build up and creative side of things. Here we only have Fabregas, Hazard. 

Also when you look at the top teams there's a genuine abillity across the team to hold the ball and pass it around.

Neymar, Ronaldo, Messi all three of them could stand around doing absolutely nothing and their teams would still be pinging the ball around effortlessly

 

It's actually pretty weird why "scottish_mike" is complaining about Hazard not tearing the Roma defence when we were struggling to string along 3 passes. 

Instead of wondering why Hazard doesn't save our ass on a consistent base we should be wondering why we need Hazard to save us all the f**king time.