9 minutes ago, charierre said:

This may be true, we do have four home matches left ( 2 who will be probably relegated by the time we play them and 2 who will be thinking of their jollies) and an away match against a West Brom side that were atrocious today. Those matches alone should give us the title with a saver against Everton. I maintain that 87pts will definitely get the title this year, we now need to regroup and play a six game season. 

On paper you are absolutely right. Southampton are decent but city showed yesterday certainly beatable. The rest we should beat and beat well. As you said west brom are not that great of late either. 

However palace are not that good either and we lost to them, so any game is a possible Banana skin and Spurs look ruthless. 

Gutted about the result today.

So many of our players never showed up.

How the ref never spotted the hand ball in the build up to their first goal,is beyond me.

Their second goal was also very poor defending by us.

 

Will ignore the Spuds media love in over the next few days...

1 hour ago, just said:

The injuries didn't help for sure but we have mostly been unaffected by losing players to injuries this year. Besides, apparently Alonso reported feeling unwell this morning so Conte must have planned for that.

The one thing I am certain Conte didn't anticipate in any shape of form was Mourinho leaving out Ibra. It proved to be an astute move as Lingaard and Rashford exposed us with their movement, especially Rashford. The man-marking of Hazard was a gamble from Jose as it is incredibly hard to do perfectly for 90 minutes. It takes a  certain type of player and an exceptional level of concentration. In a situation where there is a 60/40 ball and you are the closest player, the instinct is to go for the ball. Most players will just react instinctively in that situation and leave their man. A player like David Luiz could never do a man-marking job like Herrera did on Hazard today.

As in any football match there are so many variables and all a manager can do before the start is try to predict them and plan accordingly. I thought that was the old Jose today, gambled a bit, nullified our key strengths in Hazard and Kante, and definately, 100% definately, had them tracking back far quicker than they have done in our previous games.  I have refused to criticise Conte for anything he has done so far this season, but is becoming clear Costa is a problem he seems reluctant to tackle.

herrera was very very good today- total sacrifice and focus from him. I felt before the game this was all set up for us to have a difficult day, many similarities to our win at anfield a couple of seasons ago. the conditions were right for the classic mourinho big game job. he's still the best when it comes to coming up with a specific plan to neutralise a team.  after the game jose basically said this match confirmed his approach in the fa cup was correct. I'm unsure- they started well but even before the red card we were creating the chances and hazard was in the game.

costa is a real issue, but I don't see a solution until the end of the season. I don't know what he can do given he obviously wants a no.9 on the pitch and he doesn't trust batshuayi. and it is possible that dropping costa at this point would destroy him as an option. it is hard for me to draw new conclusions from this match. we already know we need more options at wingback, we need a good alternative to the striker next season (whoever the main one is) and we need a central defender who is natural playing out from the back.

 

14 minutes ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

Aside from personnel how different were the tactics from the FA Cup match? Herrera marking Hazard instead of Jones? The opening goal changed the game and we had no ideas how to attack them for the rest of the half

According to the Mourinho interview, the tactic was the same  except instead of multiple players marking (read: fouling Hazard) only Herrera gets to foul him, that is why this time he almost got away without a yellow card (IMO it showed how poor the referee was as he should have gotten a yellow much earlier.). 

With Costa completely off form and Hazard manmarked out of the game and our attacking wingback replaced by a defensive player, our offense was pretty much Pedro. In hindsight it makes sense why we struggled. Add to it the fact that when fouled our player go down and are waiting for the referees to blow the whistle and end up being caught off position when they realize that the referee has no intention of giving the foul (To be clear, there was a lot of fouls committed against us that was not given and shame on the referee).

 

The big takeaway for me from this game and one that i am looking forward to see next week is, now that we know for a fact that with Costa off form man marking Hazard can really hinder Chelsea's attacking prowess, how do we set ourselves up to tactically score ? I am pretty sure, every team from now will try to man mark Hazard seeing how effectively it has worked.

Let them continue doing that. Conte will figure out a way around it and not everyone will do a good job or be allowed to nip and nip at Hazard without a card coming early. 

you need to be very good to man mark like that for 90 minutes. if we had gone with Haz in a false 9 alongside Pedro and Willian that tactic would have fallen flat on its face. I think we should have got Cesc on much earlier if not started the game with him.

13 minutes ago, g3.7 said:

herrera was very very good today- total sacrifice and focus from him. I felt before the game this was all set up for us to have a difficult day, many similarities to our win at anfield a couple of seasons ago. the conditions were right for the classic mourinho big game job. he's still the best when it comes to coming up with a specific plan to neutralise a team.  after the game jose basically said this match confirmed his approach in the fa cup was correct. I'm unsure- they started well but even before the red card we were creating the chances and hazard was in the game.

costa is a real issue, but I don't see a solution until the end of the season. I don't know what he can do given he obviously wants a no.9 on the pitch and he doesn't trust batshuayi. and it is possible that dropping costa at this point would destroy him as an option. it is hard for me to draw new conclusions from this match. we already know we need more options at wingback, we need a good alternative to the striker next season (whoever the main one is) and we need a central defender who is natural playing out from the back.

 

I agree with almost all of what you said but, The underlined i am not sure. If you look throughout the season, Luiz has been phenomenal or guilty of turning off. Cahill is guilty of being consistently being average but not poor and Caesar is very good, but unfortunately not tall. Also we still have Zouma in the ranks whose form in the beginning of early part of last season before injury was very good. Also we ave Nathan Ake who has been amazing for Bournemouth. If we find a way to bring these 2 players in game shape then we may not need to buy a defender. If we do need someone, then a replacement for Matic is of the bigger order. He was woeful last year and this year too he has not looked good. I would prefer we buy a DM than a central defender.

 

Based on what i see we need to let Costa goto China, Loan or sell Michy and buy both Lukaku and Moratta. We also need to explore different formations. We cant afford to be caught out like this. 

Just now, carrickblue said:

you need to be very good to man mark like that for 90 minutes. if we had gone with Haz in a false 9 alongside Pedro and Willian that tactic would have fallen flat on its face. I think we should have got Cesc on much earlier if not started the game with him.

 

I think one of the commentators was echoing your same thought. Hazard just playing in the attacking and staying between the striker and the defensive midfielder also helped make Anders job easier. Had Hazard played as a false 9 or dropped very very deep like next to the DM, that would have forced Ander to also be drawn off position-ally and as you said, made things a lot more tougher for Jose. Pity we could not use that to our advantage.

2 minutes ago, brownindian said:

 

I think one of the commentators was echoing your same thought. Hazard just playing in the attacking and staying between the striker and the defensive midfielder also helped make Anders job easier. Had Hazard played as a false 9 or dropped very very deep like next to the DM, that would have forced Ander to also be drawn off position-ally and as you said, made things a lot more tougher for Jose. Pity we could not use that to our advantage.

so part of the trouble today was Conte didn't react to Costa's poor contribution and we didn't try a tactical shift of our own to shake off Herrera - hindsight is a great thing, I'd love to know if Conte is thinking anything like this?

1 minute ago, carrickblue said:

so part of the trouble today was Conte didn't react to Costa's poor contribution and we didn't try a tactical shift of our own to shake off Herrera - hindsight is a great thing, I'd love to know if Conte is thinking anything like this?

I hope he is. We will know next game. I fully expect Spurs to deploy someone to chase us down and pressurize us and hit us in the counter as well as have someone man marking Hazard. If we are in the same situation next week where we are 2 goals down with Costa not doing anything and Hazard marked, I fully expect him to be dropped for Willian else I will be crying.

1 minute ago, brownindian said:

I hope he is. We will know next game. I fully expect Spurs to deploy someone to chase us down and pressurize us and hit us in the counter as well as have someone man marking Hazard. If we are in the same situation next week where we are 2 goals down with Costa not doing anything and Hazard marked, I fully expect him to be dropped for Willian else I will be crying.

I'm likely to be crying before that if we find ourselves 2-0 down five minutes into the second half. Just as interesting will be whether we have a plan to stop Spurs.

The worst performance since the Arsenal loss. We were just not at it. Costa is contributing nothing at the moment. We still have a small cushion with 4 points ahead and it's fortunate we play our next match against Southampton before Spurs play theirs. We will have to regroup and these players will have to show more hunger and desire than they did today if we want to win this title. That said Spurs will still drop points no matter how good they look at the moment.

1 minute ago, carrickblue said:

I'm likely to be crying before that if we find ourselves 2-0 down five minutes into the second half. Just as interesting will be whether we have a plan to stop Spurs.

Judging by their form, I dont know what we can do. WE sadly need our defense and our DMs to be fully focused. That will atleast help us prevent the from scoring. Considering how good teir defense has been and how poor Costa is and the fact that Costa always starts, we will need a moment of magic from Hazard or Pedro or Willian. Heck even a header goal from a corner. All I know if next year we really need to upgrade the squad.

14 minutes ago, brownindian said:

Judging by their form, I dont know what we can do. WE sadly need our defense and our DMs to be fully focused. That will atleast help us prevent the from scoring. Considering how good teir defense has been and how poor Costa is and the fact that Costa always starts, we will need a moment of magic from Hazard or Pedro or Willian. Heck even a header goal from a corner. All I know if next year we really need to upgrade the squad.

flip sake! sounds so grim you're putting me off even watching it

Courtois got injured while shooting a chelsea/nba commercial.. let that sink in. I dont think these guyz are serious

11 minutes ago, carrickblue said:

flip sake! sounds so grim you're putting me off even watching it

Hey, you never know, we might be in for a pleasant surprise. I am just shell shocked after seeing this game.

1 hour ago, g3.7 said:

herrera was very very good today- total sacrifice and focus from him. I felt before the game this was all set up for us to have a difficult day, many similarities to our win at anfield a couple of seasons ago. the conditions were right for the classic mourinho big game job. he's still the best when it comes to coming up with a specific plan to neutralise a team.  after the game jose basically said this match confirmed his approach in the fa cup was correct. I'm unsure- they started well but even before the red card we were creating the chances and hazard was in the game.

costa is a real issue, but I don't see a solution until the end of the season. I don't know what he can do given he obviously wants a no.9 on the pitch and he doesn't trust batshuayi. and it is possible that dropping costa at this point would destroy him as an option. it is hard for me to draw new conclusions from this match. we already know we need more options at wingback, we need a good alternative to the striker next season (whoever the main one is) and we need a central defender who is natural playing out from the back.

 

What he can do is bench Costa. Play a false 9, gamble on Bats and tell him that this his chance, man manage him, big him up. Gamble. There is always an alternative. If it fails at least he will have done the right thing, sent out a message that big names mean nothing. It's what you do on the pitch that matters.

Antonio came with a reputation of not respecting reputations. It was the team first, second and last. He needs to show that to Costa.

if you think fans here are fickle take a look at this thread

http://www.redcafe.net/threads/ander-herrera-vs-ngolo-kanté-thread-has-gone-well.427163/page-14

i remember them lots complaining "what a stupid thread" when we beat them last month, now a win and suddenly herrera back to being god midfield emperor and kante is a dogsh*t pile of w**k

 

i wish man u come 5th. Mourinho pointing at his man u badge just shows how much of a prick he is. Like we dont know u are the man u coach

on the bright side 4 of spurs last 6 matches are away while 4 of ours are at home if it makes anyone happy.. I guess i am just clutching at sraws

Today was a bloody disaster. Woke up with a bad head, Mrs was nagging me about pretty much anything that crossed her mind, had a bunch of Man Utd & Spurs fans in the bar at lunchtime (and again tonight, Surprise, surprise!!) and to top it all off, the result from hell !!!!  All this when I'm trying to pack up the smokes!!!!!! fat chance of that happening today. I reckon all merchandise in the club shop should carry a health warning like this from now on.

Thank you and goodnight!!!!!!!

Edited April 16, 20179 yr by Fansince65

8 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

It's not that thin, especially when we don't have any European football. The fixtures have been very kind on us this year, we can't use that as an excuse. A lot of the United players that played today, played on Thursday. We just haven't been good enough today.

In important areas like Striker and midfield we've zero options to change things. Cesc vs Matic is about the only regular swap, and only one of them can run. 

Losing is obviously disappointing but it was the way we lost that really shocked me. They outplayed us from start to finish and we didn't appear to have a clue how to deal with it.

 

 

20 minutes ago, WeatherMan said:

Losing is obviously disappointing but it was the way we lost that really shocked me. They outplayed us from start to finish and we didn't appear to have a clue how to deal with it.

 

 

yes, exactly my sentiments. we were completely outclassed and had no answer to anything that was thrown at us.

a truly truly pathetic performance and not something you'd expect from the league leaders.

now, if we go on like like this in our FA and remaining PL games, this season will have come to naught. don't really care if we have the CL next season at this point.