Chelsea Vs Arsenal (FA Cup Final) 27/05 2017 KO 17:30 GMT

[spadefx]

Well done Arsenal, they wanted it more and in all fairness it should've been over by half time.

There's actually one positive in this defeat - it reinforces the need for improvements in the squad, and will wipe out any over-confidence before it had a chance to grow.

Cahill had a good first half. Pedro and Kante put shifts, although the quality was missing. Costa had moments of fire-in-the-belly raw bulldozing, but also disappeared for the majority of the match.

Our wing backs were very poor (I'm just going to skip over that dive), Welbeck ran Luiz and Azpi ragged, Hazard & Matic's effort levels were apalling.

A sour end to a very good season, and a cup final gifted. 

[EdinburghBlue]

Just now, Sexyfootball said:

First red card of the season ... shame it had to be today ...

Second, JT got one earlier in the FA Cup, but I agree, sh*te time to get the second of the season.

[Chelsbear]

Better be done transfer news in the coming days to rid us of this feeling. It's gonna be a loooong summer 

[Womble]

Tbh I think conte should have started with the same team that started against spuds...oh well you win some you lose some...stand up for champions!!!

[strider6004]

Almost karma with Moses if you remember Spurs.

[Scott Harris]

17 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

I know mate but he was awful today, Pedro was the best out of our attacking trio, that should he Hazard especially in big games, you need to be a big game player, Hazard drifts in and out of them too much for me.

I agree that Hazard was poor today, but in the big games this season he has been excellent. Against Tottenham at home and in the cup, City home and away, United at home, Arsenal at home, Liverpool away, Everton at home. He was either brilliant or very good in these games.

I do agree that he needs to control games more though, he does tend to drift in and out. Maybe that will come later. Sanchez never used to control games at Hazard's age either.

Edited May 27, 2017 by Scott Harris

[Sexyfootball]

1 minute ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Second, JT got one earlier in the FA Cup, but I agree, sh*te time to get the second of the season.

Ah yes you're right - vs Peterborough !

Glad someone is awake today ... :-)

[magichat]

based on today's match you can clearly say Arsenal deserves it. fair play to them, they had a much better performance than us today.

however when you look at the bigger picture, the team fielded today should really had no problem handling Arsenal. we know they have the capability to do that, but somehow they were able to pull off one of the worst performance this season. i don't think it was a case of Arsenal having a better strategy (unlike United when they beat us at Old Trafford). i guess the sh*tshow was down to the players. most of them didn't turn up today.
you can't really blame Conte for the selection. let's be honest, nobody would have thought the starting XI would pull off such crap, they were the team that enjoyed 13 match winning streak ffs. the only fault from Conte was the fact that he let Matic on the pitch for 60 minutes, and the fact that he subbed Pedro off when he was our only constant threat.

special mention to Matic who pulled of his worst performance in Chelsea shirt, deserves a 1/10. then again, the biggest idiot today wasn't him, it was no other than Moses. we were building momentum and on our way to an equalizer when he decided to sent himself off, effectively putting us at disadvantage - and effectively handing Arsenal the cup. well done Moses, you deserve 0/10

Edited May 27, 2017 by magichat

[TJB]

It's not a season defining day by any means, but it is a sh*t way to close it. Such a disappointing perfromance all round. Arsenal were so much better today and should have won by 3 or 4 at least.

[MTF]

1 minute ago, EdinburghBlue said:

If you're happy to accept that level of effort in cup finals be my guest, but losing to Arsenals B team with a wimper is a disgrace however you want to dress it up.

not sure where it says in my post that im happy with the level of effort

the exaggerated reaction by some people on here to the result is embarrassing, mostly from the usual suspects.

im keen on some discussion about what went right and wrong today, but ive got no interest in reading rubbish like 'x player should go f**k himself' or 'conte is a f**king idiot'

[Huttsey]

Well that was bitterly disappointing. Arsenal deserved to win, even if their first goal should have never stood. 

In any case, if you told me at the beginning of the season that we will win the league and get to the FA cup final I would of never believed you. It's been a great season on the whole. 

[CFCCAN]

When you needed the stars to show up they disappeared..this appeared to be a bonus to end the season..but not a 'must have' like it was for Arsenal.   Anyway I guess we can get our revenge in the Charity Shield and hopefully we will see a lot more effort and many different players that really give a sh*t when it comes to Cup Finals....anyway next season is only a few months away..

[Sexyfootball]

1 minute ago, magichat said:

 the biggest idiot today wasn't him, it was no other than Moses. we were building momentum and on our way to an equalizer when he decided to sent himself off, effectively putting us at disadvantage - and effectively handing Arsenal the cup. well done Moses, you deserve 0/10

Maybe Moses thought we needed a wake up call ? We did draw 1-1 with 10-men after all .. lost 1-0 11 v 11 :-)

#clutchingatstraws

[EdinburghBlue]

Just now, Scott Harris said:

I agree that Hazard was poor today, but in the big games this season he has been excellent. Against Tottenham at home and in the cup, City home and away, United at home, Arsenal at home, Liverpool away, Everton at home. He was either brilliant or very good in these games.

I do agree that he needs to control games more though, he does tend to drift in and out. Maybe that will come in later. Sanchez never used to control games at Hazard's age either.

United away, a cup final he's been woeful. I don't necessarily agree that he was 'brilliant' in those games that you've listed, but hey ho we all have our opinions. 

 

Hazard isn't a young kid anymore. Sanchez was in the shadow of the best attackers in the world, slightly different IMO.

[Barrettinator]

Moses is a f**king idiot. All he needed to do was poke the bloody ball to Cesc who had been calling for it for ages. Cost us this match.

[Stas1]

3 minutes ago, fitz said:

Poor team performance, poor refereeing, poor individual brainf**k from Moses (he's never done anything remotely like that all season - WHY pick the Final?). But still delighted with our season overall. The only good thing I can think that might come out of this Car Crash of a match is that it will give Conte plenty to think about when looking for new players in the Summer.

The thing is that this game is not a revelation of which players are not of required quality (attitude) that need to be replaced in the summer. We all know from watching them all season who is a passenger, and who carries the game.

So, there is no good thing coming out from this match. We lost without trying in a sloppy uncaring way. Full stop. And both players and the manager (for not firing up the players) are at fault.

[STATS]

What can I say? The best team on the day won. We were so below-par. We just did not get a foothold in the game and this game will defo prove to Conte that despite our title win, reinforcements are still needed. We were all over the place. It could have been 5-0 to them in first half bar 2 Cahill clearances and their lack of quality in final third. Kante has been brilliant this season but for someone who is PFA player of year and so on, I expect more than simply chasing down players all the time. I want to see more use of the ball. Xhaka for example was dominant on the ball and showed me what you want from a DM today. Exceptional passing, tackling, calmness. Oh well, been a brilliant season but just so annoyed at the performance. Mertasacker who has not kicked a ball all season was the best player on the pitch. Holding was brilliant too. We failed to take advantage and maybe it was just a case that Arsenal waned this more and complacency hit us.

[Peckham Blue]

One of those days.

New contract for Mr.Bean hopefully.

BBC comentary was terrible, usually Danny Murphy is Ok but today so biased I thought Wenger was giving him a reach around.

Ref was a c**t

Well done Arsenal, deserved it on the day despite a dodgy descision.

Seasons over, been a long one.

CHAMPIONS

 

 

[goose]

Was looking forward to the match because I thought we'd go out and boss them. To get bossed by arsenal is embarrassing with the likes of Ozick in the team. Terrible ref decision on goal and that sort of set the tone of the match. Although that does not excuse our lethargy, and when you start like that it's hard to pick it up again. 

Just so disapointing not to turn up at a fa cup final.

[Scott Harris]

10 minutes ago, Chelsbear said:

Take note Roman and Antonio. 

This squad need rejuvenation we cannot stand still as we saw today that our small squad was mentally shattered.

folk say Hazard can't do I t himself but how many times did Drogba dig us out of holes in these finals? That's a world class footballer for you, Eden just isn't that yet and I fear he never will be. He lacks leadership and balls IMO.

moses should be fined for his dive that helped kill us, to cheat is bad enough but to cheat when on a yellow was a disgrace. He needs a rollicking .

we won the title and that's huge, clearly bigger and more important than this cup but this is the game that will stick with me all summer and grate at me like no other. I'm just majorly pissed off. It's not like Arsenal were great it was us who played. It like a friendly.

 

Drogba's don't come around that often, i can't think of any other player that scored so often in cup finals, he also had much better players to play with in his time with us. Lampard, Terry, the two Cole's, Essien, Makelele, Ballack, Mata. It's a dream for any striker to play with these types of players. Outside of Lampard, Hazard has been our most consistent player for goals in years. We rely too much on him in the big games and i think it's a bit unfair. We used to be a team that never had to rely on the brilliance of one player, now we are constantly demanding it. Even Barcelona and Real Madrid can't rely on that one superstar player, that is why they have a team full of them. That is what we used to have.

[DELBY]

I agree with mostly all of this, bit harsh on Pedro for me, bar his miss I thought he done OK.
 
Other than that, spot in.

I agree. Poor sloppy attitude from the start apart from Pedro. It's difficult to take losing to a team that simply wanted it more from the off. Does the double not mean enough for some of these players? Next season when we are playing Champions League football we need to be at it in every game and not think we can just turn up. We had such a good opportunity to win the double against a make shift defence bit forgot that complacency wins you nothing. I hope the players learn from this. Disgraceful decision from the officials for Arsenal's first but at the end of the day we had too many players either thinking they could just turn up to win the game or thinking the FA Cup is not important enough.

[EdinburghBlue]

3 minutes ago, MTF said:

not sure where it says in my post that im happy with the level of effort

the exaggerated reaction by some people on here to the result is embarrassing, mostly from the usual suspects.

im keen on some discussion about what went right and wrong today, but ive got no interest in reading rubbish like 'x player should go f**k himself' or 'conte is a f**king idiot'

Not sure anyone said 'Conte is a f**king idiot' if I'm missed that please point me to it? I think Conte made mistakes today no doubt about it, but I never seen anyone call him an idiot.

 

Also it's a bit spur of the moment, I'm not going to patronise and ask if you've ever been to football or played t because I know you will have, we all say things in the heat of the moment that we wouldn't normally say, it happens. Especially when you're discussing life events in a game.

[Barrettinator]

Bet Drogba is wishing he could have been on the pitch.

[strider6004]

4 minutes ago, Barrettinator said:

Moses is a f**king idiot. All he needed to do was poke the bloody ball to Cesc who had been calling for it for ages. Cost us this match.

Yes he got it wrong. I talked about Lady Luck before the match started and we had it in the first half to stay just at 1-0 down.

I agree we may well have equalised with Moses still on the pitch but we'll never know.

[Bobbywoodhogan]

So f**ked off with that we were sh*te