Spurs crumble when they have to play an above average side away from home, comfortable 2-0 win.

Why don't we play JT instead of Costa - couldn't be any worse and he'd give Vertongen a rough time. It'd be great to see 

I think we will lose this semi... It will work in our favour to win the prem.. Spuds will be too excited about playing in the final esp if its against le arse. I believe they will worry in their prem matches of injury probs psychologically working against them in some difficult last games

On ?18?/?04?/?2017 at 11:11, chi blue said:

Worryingly it seems a bit low key on here about Saturday, its a Saturday 5:15 ko at Wembley v our most despised enemy, surely we can give a good showing in and around the old stadium, in my opinion we are under dogs on current form, so that means we as fans have to raise our game, we are Chelsea for f**k sake, our little north London friends with there inferior complex will try their best, but let's not give the tossers any encouragement. After the Carling cup 2 years ago the y*ds were impressed with all our flags round the stadium, so let's make sure there isin't a spare space for a flag to be draped at our end, I know Wembley is not the best for atmo, but no excuses let's give it large Saturday, we might not win Saturday, but let's make sure spurs and the millions watching on TV, know what our Chelsea is all about, sing up Saturday, carefree

this sounds great and ill agree with you BUT spurs songs are naturally louder than ours...apart from DIEGO DIEGO... Their fans are more ASONE rather than our many smaller groups...I hate spuds more than you can imagine..but it is what it is nowadays

39 minutes ago, Mike Carefree said:

I think we will lose this semi... It will work in our favour to win the prem.. Spuds will be too excited about playing in the final esp if its against le arse. I believe they will worry in their prem matches of injury probs psychologically working against them in some difficult last games

I was talking to a Spurs fan today who more or less said this - he felt the Prem was still a little out of reach for them but the Cup was really on this year whether it's Arsenal or City in the final.

4 hours ago, Nibs said:

 

We'll do what we can although as you can see, a lot of us are just as pessimistic as you are right now and we are relying on you lot to take some points off them on the 30th April!!

Thanks for the optimism about the end of the month but as much as I want to sound positive about it, Arsenal are not the team they were, we've been in decline for almost a decade and this is by far the worse team I can remember under Wenger. Sanchez is amazing, world class, and Ozil against smaller teams looks world class, but that's it. The rest of the team needs to be sold and start again. I am realistic about how terrible we are. I don't know if you have seen any Arsenal games lately but we cannot defend. And Spurs have the best attack in the league. There is no way we will get anything out of that game. I honestly would take a 3 nil loss right now if i was offered it. I've been watching their recent games hoping they'd slip up, but the way they play is not something the likes of Xhaka and Ramsey or our defense can deal with. Everyone focuses on how good their front four are which I understand as they score the goals but it's their central midfield that worries me. Wanyama and Dembele are dominating teams from what I can see. You can't take the ball off Dembele so you can't control midfield. And Wanyama cost them something like £10 in the summer and I can't for the life of me understand why Wenger didn't buy him. He is exactly what we lack, a midfielder who is calm and strong in midfield who can stop attacks before they get going. We won't sign anyone like that while Wenger is here. You at least have Kante so you can hopefully stop them controlling the midfield.

 

We are gonna get slaughtered. 0-5.

On 4/18/2017 at 11:18, RMCM said:

Going to say that we should play a front three of Pedro, Hazard and Willian, they play a high line, and while their full backs are very good offensively, they can be gotten at one on one. I also think we should start Cesc alongside Kante in the middle, we need someone who can control the game, and Matic, while I think he gets an unfair ribbing on here, isn't up to scratch in that regard. We have to hope Courtois is back for this, and I'm sure Alonso will be fit anyway. This will be a tough game, going to say we'll score two late goals to win 3-1 though. Pedro, Cahill and Hazard to score. 

Fully agree. Gameplan to have those 3 buzz in front of their backline and have massive workrates, bring on Costa and start pounding them once one of the starts losing effectiveness. We've tried it before with Costa and he just doesn't bother their defense enough when he has the ball.

Hopefully he is bothered by being dropped and it lights a fire under him. Sooner or later we're gonna need him to start scoring and if thats what it takes then so be it. I'd be comfortable with Pedro, Willian and Hazard as our front three from here out. We're gonna see a lot of parked buses in our next 6 league matches

I honestly think we will win 1-0 and we will score late. The goal will come from an unexpected source like Zouma or someone.

I hope conte watches the game when spurs beat us and also the man u match. pedro has been incredible but we need willian for the end of the race. It is a physical league and although i appreciate pedros ability to press we need willlians phsicality and play making abilities especially with no fab in the team. Pedro is not a creator... never was . In barca messi and eto did that while pedro was the third wheel and chipped in with goals. We need a ball carrier from midfield which willian has shown he can do instead of putting all creativity in the hands of hazard. Pedro will make a great impact sub

4 hours ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

Fully agree. Gameplan to have those 3 buzz in front of their backline and have massive workrates, bring on Costa and start pounding them once one of the starts losing effectiveness. We've tried it before with Costa and he just doesn't bother their defense enough when he has the ball.

Hopefully he is bothered by being dropped and it lights a fire under him. Sooner or later we're gonna need him to start scoring and if thats what it takes then so be it. I'd be comfortable with Pedro, Willian and Hazard as our front three from here out. We're gonna see a lot of parked buses in our next 6 league matches

I like this, just to elaborate on Willian's inclusion a little; he gets a fair bit of stick on here for not being creative enough and not doing enough with the ball in the final third, which to an extent I agree with, however what he does offer is ball retention. He's brilliant at retaining possession under pressure, it's very rare you see him get tackled or lose the ball without being fouled, which will be invaluable in games against high pressing teams like spurs, since he can skip away from defenders. That's in stark contrast to Costa who is a very poor dribbler and always runs straight into defenders, losing the ball. We need to control the game, so having players like him and Fabregas in the team would really help us set a tempo

I can't see us keeping a cleansheet, we just look dodgy at the back again. Spurs are playing good attacking football so I can see them scoring several times. We'll need 3 or 4 goals to win this one I think, and with Costa up front we don't look like getting any.

Spurs press high and hard, these kind of games would have been brilliant for Drogba, an out ball for a side under pressure that can hold it up and bring others into the fold.

Hopefully Costa can get his touch up to scratch, its been sh*t for weeks now as hes going to be pivotal for us if Spurs play their usual game.

We know how they'll press and that they'll probably target Azp/Moses again, we have to be up to the task and start on fire, we've started to slowly in too many games of late.

What i'd like to see:

                      Courtois

              Azpi     Luiz    Cahill

Moses    Chalo   Cesc  Kante   Alonso 

                                  Hazard

                    Diego

What i think we'll see:

                    Courtois

           Azpi   Luiz   Cahill

  Moses   Kante   Matic   Alonso

         Pedro                 Hazard

                     Deigo

 

As @General said a few posts back, if we drop Diego for this he's gone for the rest of the season then. Just need to hope he actually shows up for this.

 

I'm hoping for an incredibly defensive game by us with Spurs having 70% possession then us knicking a goal in the 97th minute after only 4 minutes were added on, followed by an absolute Spurs meltdown. Diego to run over to the Spurs fans and celebrate in front of them all. Dele Alli crying in the centre circle, Vorm trying to fight people on the bench. One can dream. 

On 4/18/2017 at 20:21, mojo said:

Referee: Martin Atkinson
 

Wasn't he the referee when we spanked them 5-1 in this fixture back in 2012. Just saying..

History to repeat itself..?

Fact for you all i've just found that might be of interest:

-Tottenham have lost each of their last six FA Cup semi-final appearances (1993, 1995, 1999,2001, 2010 and 2012). Should they lose this, they’ll set a record for consecutive FA Cup semi-

final defeats

-The Blues have only lost one of their last five FA Cup semi-final ties, but it was in their last such appearance in 2013

-The last time these sides met in the competition was in the 2012 semi-final, with Chelsea runningout 5-1 winners en route to lifting the trophy.

-In all competitions, Spurs have won just two of their last 16 meetings with Chelsea (D7 L7)

-Tottenham have won just one of their eight games at Wembley (D2 L5)

-This will be the fourth meeting between these sides at the new Wembley, making it the joint-most played fixture at the ground since it re-opened in 2007 (Chelsea v Man Utd also four).

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Fact for you all i've just found that might be of interest:

-Tottenham have lost each of their last six FA Cup semi-final appearances (1993, 1995, 1999,2001, 2010 and 2012). Should they lose this, they’ll set a record for consecutive FA Cup semi-

final defeats

-The Blues have only lost one of their last five FA Cup semi-final ties, but it was in their last such appearance in 2013

-The last time these sides met in the competition was in the 2012 semi-final, with Chelsea runningout 5-1 winners en route to lifting the trophy.

-In all competitions, Spurs have won just two of their last 16 meetings with Chelsea (D7 L7)

-Tottenham have won just one of their eight games at Wembley (D2 L5)

-This will be the fourth meeting between these sides at the new Wembley, making it the joint-most played fixture at the ground since it re-opened in 2007 (Chelsea v Man Utd also four).

f**k then hopefully its not lucky number 7 for them

anytime someone gives a stat as above one can guarantee the opposite happens. Spuds are still just 14 players... What they have is belief and no fear... Their confidence is a match winner... They are a team that know and trust each other.... AT THE MOMENT we are not.... Come on Chelsea team... Don't let these words ouze from my lips...speaking well of the unts burns my tongue....pull out the stops and kick them to the curb... I also expect all Chelsea fans to walk tall. Sing loud n proud and make sure our flag is flyin igh......

Paul Merson has predicted that we will win.

We're gonna lose...

I have a feeling we will lose this also.......  i dont care about this match but i care about the league. Them clawing back a ten point lead after what we did to them last season ( help leicester win) will be heartbreaking

I really hope Conte drops Costa to the bench and puts Hazard up front for this.

The spuds defence will relish Costa, they can handle him all day long. Hazard is a different matter, they would sh*t themselves if Hazard is between them, just think about it, when Costa recives the ball when up front, he either loses it or the defenders just coach him to a quiet spot, but if Hazard is up front recieving them balls on the Spuds back line, he has those quick tap and turns, but instead of them being in midfield they are up front where they will do all the damage, in between defenders, the spuds defence would hate Hazard up front. Aguero is the only other player in the league who can scatter a defence, when he's on form anyway.

If we do drop Costa for Hazard, the bonus is we get an extra midfielder to join Kante and Matic, RLC or Cesc.

And if all else fails we can turn to Diego on the bench and give him a golden chance to become the hero, tired defenders after handling Hazard for 70 minutes should help him.

Whatever Conte goes for I will be behind him and the players, but i do think he needs to be dynamic with his selection/tactics for this.

 

16 minutes ago, coco said:

I really hope Conte drops Costa to the bench and puts Hazard up front for this.

The spuds defence will relish Costa, they can handle him all day long. Hazard is a different matter, they would sh*t themselves if Hazard is between them, just think about it, when Costa recives the ball when up front, he either loses it or the defenders just coach him to a quiet spot, but if Hazard is up front recieving them balls on the Spuds back line, he has those quick tap and turns, but instead of them being in midfield they are up front where they will do all the damage, in between defenders, the spuds defence would hate Hazard up front. Aguero is the only other player in the league who can scatter a defence, when he's on form anyway.

If we do drop Costa for Hazard, the bonus is we get an extra midfielder to join Kante and Matic, RLC or Cesc.

And if all else fails we can turn to Diego on the bench and give him a golden chance to become the hero, tired defenders after handling Hazard for 70 minutes should help him.

Whatever Conte goes for I will be behind him and the players, but i do think he needs to be dynamic with his selection/tactics for this.

 

Good shout seeing as Costa is on holiday already. Alternatively, play 3-5-2 with Pedro and Hazard or Costa and Hazard up top against their back 3. As long as we don't get served up the same dish as last OT outing, in terms of committment, I will be fine with it. Whatever the line up, it's going to be a tough game.

Edited April 20, 20179 yr by Osgood is Good

On 4/16/2017 at 00:59, axman2526 said:

While the immediate prize is a place in the final I doubt anyone does not see this being about more than that. A win here could have a real knock to Spurs confidence and push us on to winning the league. 

Meanwhile a loss on the other hand.... 

Feel like crying with worry here.

8 hours ago, Delnino said:

Spurs press high and hard, these kind of games would have been brilliant for Drogba, an out ball for a side under pressure that can hold it up and bring others into the fold.

Hopefully Costa can get his touch up to scratch, its been sh*t for weeks now as hes going to be pivotal for us if Spurs play their usual game.

We know how they'll press and that they'll probably target Azp/Moses again, we have to be up to the task and start on fire, we've started to slowly in too many games of late.

Problem is Costa is no drogba, its like comparing a rusty old mk 2 Cortina and a jaguar e type!! 

How do I find out what pubs we've been allocated?  Need to know where to meet @yorkleyblue and @liamseden!