Never said he was worried. Clickbait title.

What kind of idiotic title is that?

also, it's clear as day conte still struggles with understanding and speaking English.  Not a condemnation, just a bit of context for anything he says that may be taken out of character.  Like learning any new language it takes time, and it's probably easier for him to understand it rather than speak it.  You can see he was puzzled by a few questions 

Reporter: are you worried?
Conte: yes, we have to be worried which is good so that we can work hard

 

 

Edited September 6, 20178 yr by mojo

Tekkers...

 

He's a shrewd fella, plays it so so cool

Conte didn't really confirm the window was good. He actually dodged the question by saying it is impossible to say at this point. You could see he wanted other targets than what we got.

DeBoer sacked by Palace after 4 games in charge. I thought Roman was triggerhappy...

He's doing pretty well for a manager that's destined for the sack this year The 3 earlier signings have settled nicely and all look like starters for the rest of the season,  I expect him to give the 2 new signings game time before the end of the week. An exciting month of football to come, I think the transfer doom and gloom is behind him, he's full focused on football matters.

4 hours ago, evissy said:

DeBoer sacked by Palace after 4 games in charge. I thought Roman was triggerhappy...

Media keeps twisting it for us. The lower table clubs have sacked managers once a season or in some cases twice a season. 

Not saying bias or anything just that there's this ingrained notion that Roman sacks managers left right and centre but tbf to him, he only sacks managers when they've lost the dressing room. Carlo's and Ranieri's however did came as a shock but it was Roman's early days for Ranieri and Carlo's team was awful in his last season

I suspect this is the first time I've criticised Conte but absolutely criminal decision to recall Cahill. It's not a question of who is better, Cahill or Rudiger, it's a question of selecting the team on merit. Rudiger has the spot, it's his to lose. He played well, we won all three games he started, he didn't deserve to be dropped. Last year Conte continually told JT he couldn't pick him because we were winning without him, that's according to JT who often said he appreciated Conte's honesty. Well what does Conte tell Rudiger? It doesn't matter if you play well, it doesn't matter if we win games, you'll still be dropped? It's just a bad, bad decision. The way things stood, Cahill couldn't complain, it's not like he'd been dropped, he was suspended and we started winning games without him. Now however if Conte wants to bring Rudiger back in he has to drop Cahill, so he's created a problem where there wasn't one, and if he keeps him in the team, Rudiger has a legitimate compliant. Of course if Cahill had scored the winner we'd all be hailing Conte as a genius but fortune favours the brave and I felt it was a decision that wouldn't get rewarded because it was the safe choice. He should have been braver and he should have been fairer in my opinion.

 

Like Cahill, Fabregas also played 90 minutes midweek, strange given he started today and played the full 90 again. Rudiger and Bakayoko were the fresher players yet they didn't start, despite performing excellently at Leicester. I think he got the rotation all wrong.

That being the case: did Cahill do anything in the game that was outrageously bad?

We didn't concede, albeit with Arsenal sh*tting the bed twice.

 

I also believe Rudiger should have been in, but likely because of Gaz's experience at the club and current situation (captain and only English player in the starting lineup) that might explain it.

 

I think the blatantly obvious misstep of not playing 3 in midfield or at least two defensive mids is a far greater concern. Just looking at the team sheet is was obvious how the game would pan out and we're lucky Arsenal couldn't finish their dinner.

Got his tactics wrong today, starting from the lineup. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. In 4 games, Kante-Cesc got overrun and beaten by Arsenal's midfield 3 times and he started them both AGAIN despite Bakayoko being the only choice that made sense. I mean if you were REALLY going to start a 2 man midfield (which should have been 3 from the start) then it should have been Kante-Bakayoko ffs! No reason Willian should have started. No reason Cahill should have started either.

We get an Arsenal low on confidence with a midfield that got overrun by the likes of Wijnaldum and Can and we completely bottle it. They were there for the taking and we bottled it. I'm not sure if Conte shows Wenger too much respect or if he just doesn't know how to crack Wenger tactically but it's really annoying. Imagine Arsenal not being scared of playing us anymore. Imagine having to be worried about playing Arsenal, a more often than not guaranteed 4-6 points every season. Even the worst Chelsea managers of the Roman Era have made light work of Wenger and Arsenal. AVB was the only one to truly bottle it iirc.

Conte needs to get his head sorted out. We can't keep performing like this against Arsenal. In my opinion, we dropped points here mainly because of Conte. Very disappointing as we've lost 2 points on the Manchester clubs.

1 hour ago, Davey Baby said:

I suspect this is the first time I've criticised Conte but absolutely criminal decision to recall Cahill. It's not a question of who is better, Cahill or Rudiger, it's a question of selecting the team on merit. Rudiger has the spot, it's his to lose. He played well, we won all three games he started, he didn't deserve to be dropped. Last year Conte continually told JT he couldn't pick him because we were winning without him, that's according to JT who often said he appreciated Conte's honesty. Well what does Conte tell Rudiger? It doesn't matter if you play well, it doesn't matter if we win games, you'll still be dropped? It's just a bad, bad decision. The way things stood, Cahill couldn't complain, it's not like he'd been dropped, he was suspended and we started winning games without him. Now however if Conte wants to bring Rudiger back in he has to drop Cahill, so he's created a problem where there wasn't one, and if he keeps him in the team, Rudiger has a legitimate compliant. Of course if Cahill had scored the winner we'd all be hailing Conte as a genius but fortune favours the brave and I felt it was a decision that wouldn't get rewarded because it was the safe choice. He should have been braver and he should have been fairer in my opinion.

 

Like Cahill, Fabregas also played 90 minutes midweek, strange given he started today and played the full 90 again. Rudiger and Bakayoko were the fresher players yet they didn't start, despite performing excellently at Leicester. I think he got the rotation all wrong.

Criminal? Unnecessary hyperbole. The merit argument is understandable but circumstances are a bit different this year aren't they. Obviously last year Conte was initially given the brief to make the top 4 so as to get us back into Europe. Then, when it became evident that we could really push on so as to challenge for the title, Conte left nothing to chance & hence, even JT - as captain - was sacrificed to achieve that end. This year we have european games unlike last year & we've got a smallish squad so rotation, unlike last year, will come to the fore. And Cahill was not the reason why we drew with L'Arse.

As far as the decision to start Fab - I totally agree with your points: this was the wrong decision & especially against L'Arse.

That being the case: did Cahill do anything in the game that was outrageously bad?
We didn't concede, albeit with Arsenal sh*tting the bed twice.
 
I also believe Rudiger should have been in, but likely because of Gaz's experience at the club and current situation (captain and only English player in the starting lineup) that might explain it.
 
I think the blatantly obvious misstep of not playing 3 in midfield or at least two defensive mids is a far greater concern. Just looking at the team sheet is was obvious how the game would pan out and we're lucky Arsenal couldn't finish their dinner.

Oh he definitely did. Slowed down okay multiple times. Made the negative pass back to Luiz or Courtois in a lot of situations where he could have passed it progressively into midfield to Kante or Cesc. Always took forever to actually make a bloody pass. That extra 1-3 seconds makes a lot of difference in whether we succeed in catching Arsenal out of shape and/or breaking their press or not. Rudiger was a lot better at this. Much better.

In fact, there was a sequence where he was by the throw-in line and told Kante to stay clear of the ball as if to indicate he was about to punt it forward, then proceeded to faff about until the Arsenal players decided to press him and then he made a stupid back heel pass to Kante who he had told to stay away and who clearly wasn't prepared to receive a pass. Of course Kante rushed to kick the ball back to Cahill to prevent turning it over to Arsenal. Cue a mix of chaos with the ball deflecting back to Cahill and then instead of eventually punting it back up the pitch, he punts it into row Z.

If anyone had a clip of it, please post it. Just an utterly brain dead sequence. It was baffling. Had to have made Conte cringe.

This was not Conte's finest game ever. 

I couldn't really understand why he started Cahill and Cesc. He must have thought that he could exploit Arsenal's weakness in the air and that Arsenal would simply play their usual pretty possession-based style without actually bothering to press. He was wrong on both counts - we didn't receive enough set pieces whereas Arsene clearly expected Cesc to play given that Arsenal pressed more aggressively than usual. 

I assume he didn't start Hazard because of concerns over match fitness but with hindsight maybe he should have taken the risk. 

To his credit he did realise his mistake and sub on Bakayoko but by then Arsenal I think were content to hold on for a point. 

 

5 hours ago, DaRick said:

This was not Conte's finest game ever. 

I couldn't really understand why he started Cahill and Cesc. He must have thought that he could exploit Arsenal's weakness in the air and that Arsenal would simply play their usual pretty possession-based style without actually bothering to press. He was wrong on both counts - we didn't receive enough set pieces whereas Arsene clearly expected Cesc to play given that Arsenal pressed more aggressively than usual. 

I assume he didn't start Hazard because of concerns over match fitness but with hindsight maybe he should have taken the risk. 

To his credit he did realise his mistake and sub on Bakayoko but by then Arsenal I think were content to hold on for a point. 

 

You know what's frustrating? He admitted that he took Pedro off at halftime because he was struggling after the knock he took in the 28th minute or so. In other words, if Pedro was alright, he may not have subbed on Bakayoko until maybe the 60th-65th minute around when he usually brings on his first sub. This was really a game to forget for Conte. Lost us 2 points here.

1 hour ago, Barrettinator said:

You know what's frustrating? He admitted that he took Pedro off at halftime because he was struggling after the knock he took in the 28th minute or so. In other words, if Pedro was alright, he may not have subbed on Bakayoko until maybe the 60th-65th minute around when he usually brings on his first sub. This was really a game to forget for Conte. Lost us 2 points here.

I don't think, because if Pedro was get out for the knock he took, Hazard would have substitute Pedro

9 hours ago, BordeauxBlue said:

That being the case: did Cahill do anything in the game that was outrageously bad?

 

8 hours ago, Barrettinator said:

In fact, there was a sequence where he was by the throw-in line and told Kante to stay clear of the ball as if to indicate he was about to punt it forward, then proceeded to faff about until the Arsenal players decided to press him and then he made a stupid back heel pass to Kante who he had told to stay away and who clearly wasn't prepared to receive a pass. Of course Kante rushed to kick the ball back to Cahill to prevent turning it over to Arsenal. Cue a mix of chaos with the ball deflecting back to Cahill and then instead of eventually punting it back up the pitch, he punts it into row Z.

If anyone had a clip of it, please post it. Just an utterly brain dead sequence. It was baffling. Had to have made Conte cringe.

 

4 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

 

 

Our captain.

Literally think i gave up on Cahill once and for all at that moment. Don't think i have ever seen such clumsiness.

Massive fail from Conte starting him and Fabregas yesterday for me. Have no idea what he was thinking.

I just honestly want to know what he thinks Kante could have done with it in that position even if his sh*t back heel had worked. In danger like that just get rid.

11 hours ago, Barrettinator said:

Oh he definitely did. Slowed down okay multiple times. Made the negative pass back to Luiz or Courtois in a lot of situations where he could have passed it progressively into midfield to Kante or Cesc. Always took forever to actually make a bloody pass. That extra 1-3 seconds makes a lot of difference in whether we succeed in catching Arsenal out of shape and/or breaking their press or not. Rudiger was a lot better at this. Much better.

In fact, there was a sequence where he was by the throw-in line and told Kante to stay clear of the ball as if to indicate he was about to punt it forward, then proceeded to faff about until the Arsenal players decided to press him and then he made a stupid back heel pass to Kante who he had told to stay away and who clearly wasn't prepared to receive a pass. Of course Kante rushed to kick the ball back to Cahill to prevent turning it over to Arsenal. Cue a mix of chaos with the ball deflecting back to Cahill and then instead of eventually punting it back up the pitch, he punts it into row Z.

If anyone had a clip of it, please post it. Just an utterly brain dead sequence. It was baffling. Had to have made Conte cringe.

Then I stand corrected.

 

As I said, I'd have played Rudiger on merit alone. Though cahill's time at the club and the fact he's english/captain probably played a role in his starting ahead of Antonio.

Hopefully it'll be Christensen and Rudiger in every game now that Luiz is out for 3.