1 hour ago, coco said:

We should have this summers budget, plus the winter budget, plus next summers budget, plus the stadium budget, and on top of that, the money from the ten tickets i purchased last season, along with the money i spent in the shop. We are truly minted.

Now the bit that worries me, who we invest/waste it on ??

Probably waste £160m on Coutinho, £100m on some CB from Serie A and then a big name 26 year old striker with a dodgy strike rate for about £100m.

The joys of being a Chelsea fan.

16 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Probably waste £160m on Coutinho, £100m on some CB from Serie A and then a big name 26 year old striker with a dodgy strike rate for about £100m.

The joys of being a Chelsea fan.

RM will be involved somewhere in the fleecing.

On 14/08/2019 at 07:16, WhiteWall said:

Surely, too late now. He's been in the system since he was 8. He'll never be comfortable on the ball now.

How would you rate his play vs Liverpool ? He did not try anything stupid. He still did not look comfortable with the ball at his feet, but did enough to quickly get the ball away to the next person before he gets pressurized and did the basic mop up when the attack came his way. Good enough for a squad defender , right ?

1 hour ago, brownindian said:

How would you rate his play vs Liverpool ? He did not try anything stupid. He still did not look comfortable with the ball at his feet, but did enough to quickly get the ball away to the next person before he gets pressurized and did the basic mop up when the attack came his way. Good enough for a squad defender , right ?

Spot on. As i said elsewhere i believe he has value defensively in clearing his lines and defending the position. The issue is more Zouma's comfort on the ball. I actually think he went some way to redeeming himself against Liverpool and played pretty well. For me, i think Tomori is the one that Lampard will eventually go for. In the samll cameo we saw you canalready see that he is a player as well as a defender, with pace, time and comfort in possession of the ball.

Credit when it's due. I thought he was our best player today.

30 minutes ago, Dixons said:

Credit when it's due. I thought he was our best player today.

He is quality, never understood why people got on his back after the 1st game.

It's an improvement on the last league game ( couldn't have been much worse really ) but I still think he never really looks composed. I look at Christensen next to him and I see more maturity in his game, but Zouma seems to constantly be running around everywhere and doing more work than he should be doing. Everything Zouma attempts seems to require more effort than it should do, it's like everything he does is pushing him to his limit to the point where it looks like a there is a mistake waiting to happen.

Needs to follow the example set by his manager, stay behind after training and work on his long balls out from the back. 

We were crying out for a few Luiz Hollywood passes (or just generic JT passes) at times today and Kurt doesn’t have it in his locker. 

52 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Needs to follow the example set by his manager, stay behind after training and work on his long balls out from the back. 

We were crying out for a few Luiz Hollywood passes (or just generic JT passes) at times today and Kurt doesn’t have it in his locker. 

Definitely not his forte, nor Christensen’s, but Rüdiger should be able to ping a few long balls when needed.  Not to the standard of Luiz of course, but better than the others.

Thought Zouma worked hard today and put in a good shift.

1 hour ago, Dixons said:

Credit when it's due. I thought he was our best player today.

Funny how people see the game, I didn’t even think he was our best CB. Christensen is a level above, our first choice CB’s will be Rudiger & Christensen I would guess.

 

i actually thought Zouma could have done more for the goal, he got caught under it and misjudged the flight of the ball, although, I don’t blame any player overly for it as I think it was more down to the zonal marking - it’s asking for trouble letting an attacker get a running start on meeting the ball 

1 minute ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Funny how people see the game, I didn’t even think he was our best CB. Christensen is a level above, our first choice CB’s will be Rudiger & Christensen I would guess.

 

i actually thought Zouma could have done more for the goal, he got caught under it and misjudged the flight of the ball, although, I don’t blame any player overly for it as I think it was more down to the zonal marking - it’s asking for trouble letting an attacker get a running start on meeting the ball 

Zonal marking, which will be the death knell for our defence as it is for most others, and the fact that 5 foot 10 Dave was stood stock still on the penalty spot. If we must mark zonally let's at least have somebody with aerial presence in the kill zone, even if it's Tammy.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

It's an improvement on the last league game ( couldn't have been much worse really ) but I still think he never really looks composed. I look at Christensen next to him and I see more maturity in his game, but Zouma seems to constantly be running around everywhere and doing more work than he should be doing. Everything Zouma attempts seems to require more effort than it should do, it's like everything he does is pushing him to his limit to the point where it looks like a there is a mistake waiting to happen.

This assessment made me chuckle.

I think I know what you mean, it’s like everything he does he just about gets away with, until the next time.

Or one of those players who makes you nervous every single time he touches the ball.

But TBF he’s improved the last 2 games.

7 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Zonal marking, which will be the death knell for our defence as it is for most others, and the fact that 5 foot 10 Dave was stood stock still on the penalty spot. If we must mark zonally let's at least have somebody with aerial presence in the kill zone, even if it's Tammy.

I can’t remember the last time we’ve tried zonal marking and it’s been effective the majority of the time? Every time I think we’ve tried using it, we’ve conceded really soft goals from set plays.

19 minutes ago, mwblue10 said:

Definitely not his forte, nor Christensen’s, but Rüdiger should be able to ping a few long balls when needed.  Not to the standard of Luiz of course, but better than the others.

Thought Zouma worked hard today and put in a good shift.

But it’s a technical skill they can work on, I’m sure early in his career Lampard himself said he spent the time before pre-season and pre-season itself working and working on it because he felt it was a flaw in his game. As for Christensen, he pinged a lovely little assist over the top for CHO last season 

13 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Funny how people see the game, I didn’t even think he was our best CB. Christensen is a level above, our first choice CB’s will be Rudiger & Christensen I would guess.

When he’s playing well Christensen is often overlooked. People (especially the media) seem to forget he came through our academy too. 

Well played Kurt, our best player today imo.

Well done Kurt. Best player against Leicester.

Good performance for him. Pinged a few pass and even dribbled through Leicester's midfield.

 

Zouma was our best player yesterday imo. He saved us so many times despite the defense being horribly exposed by our non-existent midfield. He was even spraying long diagonal balls perfectly with both his left and right foot - it's the best I've seen him on the ball by a mile! I'm not sure if he could have done better with the corner, it as hard to see from where I was sat. I know the fans around me all seemed to really appreciate Kurt's performance.

Emerson was also very good, as were Mount and Pedro before they seemed to really tire in the second half.

Our man Kurt gets called up for Le Bleus again

2 hours ago, robdog said:

Our man Kurt gets called up for Le Bleus again

Never in doubt.. interesting Deschamps has finally called up Laporte.

14 hours ago, ducavis said:

Never in doubt.. interesting Deschamps has finally called up Laporte.

Happy for Kurt (see what I did there?)

What’s the story with Laporte again?  I know he rarely gets a call up.

Go Kurt!

52 minutes ago, mwblue10 said:

Happy for Kurt (see what I did there?)

What’s the story with Laporte again?  I know he rarely gets a call up.

fell out with didier for being a stroppy sod I believe

47 minutes ago, mwblue10 said:

Happy for Kurt (see what I did there?)

What’s the story with Laporte again?  I know he rarely gets a call up.

He keeps using his left feet as an excuse but I reckon there is something personal- think it might be because Laporte picked up a Spanish citizenship & made remarks about opting to play for them if France wouldn’t pick him. He has Zero caps! and Kimpembe has 7 which is ridiculous.

Lacazette is another one he has personal issues, I don’t care what anyone says he is a better player than Giroud is but he never picks him. He was gladly picking Pierre Gignac who plays in the Mexican league ahead of him.

His marking is atrocious, he always seems to be a yard behind the attacker, even when he has a couple of yards of a head start. It was a really strange call from frank to drop Christensen over him for the game today. I wonder what the thinking was as I’m sure I read that it wasn’t an injury.