I'd have snatched your hand off for a point with 55 mins gone so I'm content with that really.

No complaints. Lack of spark was as we've seen recently and as most of us expected. And let's be honest, both our goals had an element of luck to them. We simply are not creating chances.

So long in the season to go but I'll be willing to bet we don't win the league by 8 points again! Don't like the look of some of the fixtures we've got coming up either.

I still blame our pre season setup and plans. Think it's been a royal f**k up.

 Totally agree with this. The close season is a week shorter so we drag the players halfway across the world at the end of last season and bring the players in late for this one, again dragging them across the world. Play a match 3 days before the season begins and dragged our heals in the transfer market. Not sure who planned it but it is baffling.

Surprised by the positivity in here after that, Swansea are a great side but with the amount of chances they had they should have won that. We all laughed at City's defending against Stuttgart but that wasn't much better, they just weren't as clinical as they would have liked.

I'm very concerned with Ivanovic, I know Montero played very well but it just looks like his age has really caught up with him. If we sign Baba then Azpi has to be moved over to right back, and then go from there. Attacking wise the goals will come, the players just aren't as sharp and Swansea's defending was great

With a player like Baba you can keep defenses honest as his pace and crossing ability have to be accounted for. Ivan just looked terrible today

Can't complain about the result. They had the better chances and we were lucky Gomis was rusty first half. 

 

Thought it was a penalty. Silly foul by Courtois. 50-50 whether it was red as we had a man over.

 

Take a point after going down to ten men.

 

Biggest worry was how open we looked at the back. How poor Ivanovic was against Montero. How many times we got caught ball watching.

 

Am really not sure about Matic and Fabregas as a defensive unit. I can see why we were in for Koke.

 

Would like to see this addressed in the transfer window as well as a left back to allow Azpi to move to the right.

Short preseason, lack of fitness, zero activity in the transfer window. I hope both the performance and the result will be a wake up call to the CFC higher-ups who thought we're going to walk the league just because we were the best team last season.

I think Falcaos tame effort was the only shot on Target from our strikers??

William did nothing positively offensively on the pitch. Just terrible

 

Willian spends way to long thinking about what he is going to do and he lacks vision of where his teammates are. He also have positioning problems, wich causes us to think he works hard when he has to run back. What annoyes me the most though is the lack of initiative to make off the ball movements in attack.

I thought Willian played well.

 

edit: aside from playing Gomis onside.

Only problem was that he broke down attacks, did well otherwise.

Very frustrating. Lost two valuable points on personal errors here. That and Ivanovic being completely, excuse my language sh*t. You would have thought it was Messi on his best day he was up against. It wasn't..

 

Otherwise a good game from many. Oscar and Willian especially. Shame Oscar had to be sacrificed because he was our best player up until then.

Swansea targeted our right side, which is a worry as it worked well,that needs worked on. Which is why José is so desperate fora left back I presume, move Dave their. Some big mistakes all over the pitch though, they are going to get a dpgging in training this week. Red was a 50/50, can see why he gave it but out could have been a yellow as we looked to have cover .

I think Falcaos tame effort was the only shot on Target from our strikers??

 

I remember DC had some in the first half & forced Fishfingerhands into a save or two

Ran his socks off after we went down to 10...

Really?! A player of his position should be able to create chances and shoot on target in which he was unsuccessfully today

At least we didn't lose. The first half was perfect for us, the game was played by our rules but the second half didn't go like we and Jose wanted to. Swansea were very motivated, they didn't afraid to attack and at the end they got their result. Personally I think Jose made a mistake when he replaced Oscar with Begovic, Oscar was our best player on the pitch and with 10 players we still could win. But we should learn from the mistakes and clean our head to be ready for Manchester City.

 

This was our first game, I'm not worried because I believe in Jose and in our players. We've have to fix our mistakes and get ready for the next week, we got a serious battle. This is football, everything can happen and today was an example of it. 

 

Heads up and focus on Sunday! We're still the champions and that was only one game, we still have a long way.

Well, not the start we wanted. Even before the sending off, Swansea were getting through us with ease, defensively we looked all over the place. The way we started the 2nd half was poor, it's like we weren't concentrated at all. Ivanovic at RB is getting worse in my opinion, he was ripped apart all game. I know he was voted best RB in the league last season but's it's clear for everyone to see that the opposition are creating chance after chance after chance against him. I think he holds us back going foward too, he isn't mobile enough and has a good cross in him after 100 attempts. He get's some important goals but i think we would look so much better with an actual RB playing at RB.

 

Courtois has a habit of charging off his line and i personally am not a fan of it. I think he could have trusted Cahill and Terry to get back at Gomis. Gomis doesn't move or finish well, even when he get's a yard of space our defenders can catch him. Courtois messed that up in my opinion.

 

Oscar was great in the 1st half and shouldn't have been the player sacrificed after going down to 10 men. Fabregas was the one who should have gone off, the game was passing him by and he doesn't look ready for the season at all. It's far too early to really say but it looks like Fabregas has been found out when playing next to Matic. His reactions aren't quick enough and he is getting closed down and losing the ball too easily. I liked seeing Oscar play deeper in midfield this season, i hope to see that against City personally.

 

I thought Willian was pretty good, i think he should have stayed on too. He was breaking up their attacks and helping us counter really well.

 

Hazard disappointed today. He only turned up when we went down to 10 men and when he got forward he was doing too much fancy work when he should just be going for goal. 3 or 4 times he could have got in but instead he would just try taking another man on.

 

Costa looked decent. He was running well and creating problems. Going down to 10 men made it 10x harder on him though.

 

We could do with a result against City next week. We could potentially be 5 points behind already if we lose to them.

they've had an even worse pre-season than us, if they dont win on monday would you still be saying the same thing or is this just a typical knee jerk, world about to explode reaction

It's a bit of a knee jerk reaction, the world explodes in my mind and then I calm down. However, I still think it'll be very hard to gain three points against them, a draw would make it a fairly poor start.

Mate, I'm throwing my toys out of the pram, stop ruining it! :D

LoL fair play

Jose is too loyal to drop Ivanovic, remember Ashley Cole's last season when it was obvious he was done.

BTW the subs were bizarre; what does Zouma offer in the middle of the park exactly, he is a defender and surely Ramires offers a little more. As for the Falcao sub, Has the two forward option ever worked out whenever we are chasing a game? Teams like City & Liverpool that use it have/had Aguero & Suarez who could drop deep and make use of the ball. We didn't have that last season & Falcao can't do it. Surely going 3 at the back & bringing on Moses for Azpi was a better option?

It's so easy to say that now. Courtois made a decision in a split second in an intense match to prevent a Swansea player scoring a tap-in; if you honestly expected him to consider the consequences of a potential red and how it would effect the following 40 minutes in an instant, you have clearly never played in a football team.

He shouldn't have been put in that position, if chelsea can't defend they are not chelsea, we got left exposed far too many times, Ivan was utter crap, balls were getting played in between our centre backs..it was terrible defensively, we saw how much we miss hazard, when he livened up a bit at the end things started to happen 

Jamie Redknapp attempting to make tactical observations, there's 15 minutes I'll never get back.

 

Worse yet that he appears to think his little digs at Chelsea are subtle. It's not even bad punditry, it's just an idiot with a microphone.

How long do we reckon before Bluemoon call us sh*t, overrated, not going to win the league and theyll walk it? I'd say its already happened.  The inbred mongs have to beat WBA first

 

I think its quite embarassing that they're judging sides already. The MOST biased forum ive ever encountered. Actually, they do think Sterling is worth £49m so most deluded too

Edited August 8, 201510 yr by RickUK

can't say i'm not dissapointed, but it's a fair result

excellent first half, shame the red card cost us the game, blatant penalty but never a red

shambolic performance from ivan, cesc too, hazard turned the engine a little too late, and jose subbing oscar off is a massive head scratcher

ugh not the best start but i'll take it, still a long way to go, COYB

How long do we reckon before Bluemoon call us sh*t, overrated, not going to win the league and theyll walk it? I'd say its already happened.  The inbred mongs have to beat WBA first

 

I think its quite embarassing that they're judging sides already. The MOST biased forum ive ever encountered

Most likely to happen on here than it is bluemoon if previous match threads are anything to go by.

Jamie Redknapp attempting to make tactical observations, there's 15 minutes I'll never get back.

 

Worse yet that he appears to think his little digs at Chelsea are subtle. It's not even bad punditry, it's just an idiot with a microphone.

The only thing he said that was right is when we want a player we would go and get them even if we played a little bit more, this summer we did f**k all, imagine sterling and aguero against todays back line

Jose is too loyal to drop Ivanovic, remember Ashley Cole's last season when it was obvious he was done.

BTW the subs were bizarre; what does Zouma offer in the middle of the park exactly, he is a defender and surely Ramires offers a little more. As for the Falcao sub, Has the two forward option ever worked out whenever we are chasing a game? Teams like City & Liverpool that use it have/had Aguero & Suarez who could drop deep and make use of the ball. We didn't have that last season & Falcao can't do it. Surely going 3 at the back & bringing on Moses for Azpi was a better option?

 

Agree with your comment about Ivanvoic but I disagree with the sub comment, I think the best choices that could've been made were made.

 

Zouma was our third best option in the pivot last season - and his height would be an obvious asset for set pieces, which with us being down to ten men was likely our best chance of a goal.

 

And Willian had ran himself into the ground - Costa was still fighting, and you don't bring off your main goalscorer when you need a goal, so it was either going to be Moses or Falcao. That's a tougher call, but I probably would've went with Falcao in that scenario too.

 

Three at the back was probably too big of a gamble with a man down, and Azpi's pace is vital with the lack of pace elsewhere in the defence, I think Swansea would've punished us if we'd done that.

Edited August 8, 201510 yr by spadefx

How long do we reckon before Bluemoon call us sh*t, overrated, not going to win the league and theyll walk it? I'd say its already happened. The inbred mongs have to beat WBA first

I think its quite embarassing that they're judging sides already. The MOST biased forum ive ever encountered. Actually, they do think Sterling is worth £49m so most deluded too

Was just thinking that, there is no bigger hive of cocky fans on the internet than that place. They've dismissed our chances next week like we're a local old folks home side, forgetting just how well their pre-season went

Courtois - 4

Ivanovic - 2
JT - 5
Cahill - 4
Azpi - 6

Cesc - 3
Matic - 6

Hazard - 7
Oscar - 8
Willian - 8
 

DC - 6