Not a big source of panic but how about I want to feel good about chelsea going into a new season after a long summer of no football, is that wrong? Going in feeling underserved when our rivals have strengthened, not panicking is one thing wanting to feel good about something we follow for our enjoyment is something else.

I always slate glory boys with their teams but maybe Real madrid and Barca fans, previously UTD just want light entertainment and not to stress over a game, ok it's not a "real" fan but f**k it I want chelsea to be a gory team I'm tired of sweating over what the f**k the board is doing and having football ruin my day/week, I've been doing this to myself for over 20 years, spend a lot of time and money following this team, am I not allowed to get angry at a board that has benefited from that money if I feel they are f**king about? 

I grew up watching us turn from a team that I was expecting to finish 6th, but so what, live to do your rivals, less stress..into a team of elite level, beating Barca, Bayern, winning CL's being favourites in the league to accept that we might not be continuing on that level tbh is difficult, it's easy to be poor if thats all you know much harder if you've been rich.  

Edited August 6, 20178 yr by DonAntonio

32 minutes ago, PedroMendez said:

Does that really count as violent conduct.

Commentators said it doesn't count towards the season. 

The fellas I was  listening to said if it's deemed violent conduct he does. Regardless we'll have to wait and see

Just now, TheChelseaBlues said:

The fellas I was  listening to said if it's deemed violent conduct he does. Regardless we'll have to wait and see

Fair enough, could have an interesting squad next Saturday

How about this view,

we go into the match with less pre-season under our belts, a smaller squad, our two best attacking players missing and.............................

Arsenal cannot beat us in 90 mins!

Edited August 6, 20178 yr by Strider6003

So Pedro is suspended as it was a straight red? If it was two yellows he would have got away with it?

Poor performance, reminiscent of the FA cup final, if not quite as bad.

Awful refereeiung decision to send Pedro off, changed the game entirely. Typical they score immediately with the first touch after that, we switch off too easily when things go against us.

I hope Morata is mentally stronger than Torres, because that was a poor start.

 

And as an aside, this new penalty system is far far worse than the old one. They reckon the old one meant the 2nd team had more pressure, that's bullsh*t, the pressure alternated. If you score, pressure on the next team to level it up. If you miss, pressure on the next team to not blow the advantage. With this, if you have 2 in a row and you miss the first one, the pressure on you intensifies greatly, and I suspect we'll see a lot of this, where the team misses the first, then misses the next, and if you miss 2 in a row, well that's it, you're f**ked, you're not coming back from that barring a miracle. But as always, it's not broke, so they have to break it.

Bobby Madley is just f'ing awful.  Regardless we should never get beat on a set piece against a team as small as the gooners. 

6 minutes ago, brakeit said:

Like we d on`t have youth like Buga, Musonda, Tumori, Kenedy and Costa, who won`t play for us ? And 2 GK in the squad. Can you even calculate ?

18 players, from which 3 are GK, and 3 are injured/suspended, one of them is Loic Remy, who is 100kg, And for the our first match we will have exactly 13 players, without the 2 reserve GK.

Great Squad, great job work.

Even sh*** team like Arsenal have a lot more depth then us. They atleast have something they can rely, while we don`t. All of our young team is send on loan.

 

Musonda literally just played. I get your point and it's a valid concern but the bottom 6 of their squad on that list are probably 18 year olds who won't play a competitive minute 

Don't really care about the result, especially the penalties, but the performance overall I thought was poor despite missing a couple of key players I was expecting to see a more cohesive unit playing together given that the starting XI was more or less the first team from last year minus Hazard.   

Thankfully Pedro won't be banned and neither of the yellow cards count towards the season.  Based on this performance alone, regardless it being a so called friendly, I am not holding my breath for us to battle out for a CL place.  Conte has a lot of work to do with very little tools at his disposal to do a decent job.  Let's hope during the next 3 weeks  we can see new players coming to the club and to at least give him and us some hope.  

8 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

How about this view,

we go into the match with less pre-season under our belts, a smaller squad, our two best attacking players missing and.............................

Arsenal cannot beat us in 90 mins!

Weren't they missing Ozil, Sanchez and Ramsey? The smaller squad thing I agree with.

We've looked sluggish all pre-season so I wasn't expecting much but I did want us to nick this one especially as it's against that lot but we managed to cock it up in epic fashion.

 Let's hope we get the business done in our opening match. Muck that up and it would seem that that we are in for  a long and tortuous season. 

 

 

Edited August 6, 20178 yr by Sing the Blues

24 minutes ago, Raven8er said:

Agreed. Surely the board have/had a 2nd option... regardless, we're a week out from the start of the season and we look flat and a have lack of depth in the squad. Very worrying 

The other wing back we were in for was Danilo, and we dithered and lost out.

I can't believe that some are bashing Morata already. He is behind the rest of squad for match fitness and has only just started training with the squad so has to get used to the Conte system. Give the man a chance.

So how the new signing will help us, when they will also have to adapt to the system, style and probably behind in the fitness .....

We have very sh*** matches early in the season, so on what exactly we should rely?

 

So what did I take from today's game.

GK: Tibo was great in the 90 but is sh!t at penalties.

CB: Luiz still looks like a boss as a central CB, Azpi and Cahill round out a solid if not spectacular back 3. Rudiger is ahead of Christensen.

WB: Moses and Alonso look good going forward and work well with the high press although both lack something to their game to take them up to the great level of player. Azpi is currently our WB cover.

CM: Fabregas ad Kante also leave a bit to be desired they looked good in the parts of the game we were on top but they will never dominate a team on a similar level to us. That said a midfield 2 never will. Baker is not considered a back up CM option.

AM: Seem to be a little disconnected from the midfield, whilst i thought Willian and Pedro did play quite well despite the bullsh!t sending off neither were stretching Arsenal enough for me. Musonda is ahead of Boga.

ST: Bats was ok but is not on Costa's level, Morata looked off the pace.

Overall we were ok with out being spectacular 

 

 

27 minutes ago, brakeit said:

Like we d on`t have youth like Buga, Musonda, Tumori, Kenedy and Costa, who won`t play for us ? And 2 GK in the squad. Can you even calculate ?

18 players, from which 3 are GK, and 3 are injured/suspended, one of them is Loic Remy, who is 100kg, And for the our first match we will have exactly 13 players, without the 2 reserve GK.

Great Squad, great job work.

Even sh*** team like Arsenal have a lot more depth then us. They atleast have something they can rely, while we don`t. All of our young team is send on loan.

Players like Boga and Mousanda are far from academy players both by virtue of their home grown club trained statues will almost certainly be around next season. In one breath many moan we don't have players coming through the ranks and when they appear in the squad people moan about not having players.

Aginst Burnley as things stand in terms of outfield players we have, Dave, Christensen, Luiz, Cahill, Rudiger, Alonso, Willian, Pedro ( he isn't banned) Bats , Fabregas, Kante, Morata, Kennedy, Boga, Mousanda, Rahman, Remy, and possibly from reports Bakyoko.

Look I know the squad is light but there is still the best part of a month left of the window let's just wait and see before we pass too much comment about the quality of people who work behind the scenes who clearly have delivered more often than not

23 minutes ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

Musonda literally just played. I get your point and it's a valid concern but the bottom 6 of their squad on that list are probably 18 year olds who won't play a competitive minute 

From Arsenals bloated squad 4 keepers and at least 6-7 like Carzola, Campbell and Chambers  who will not feature and probably another 7 or so who were there to make up the numbers.

Could tell we were missing Hazard today - no cutting edge in the final third. Just seemed to play at such a slow pace; whenever we won the ball there was rarely any urgency to get forward. I think Batshuayi is no way near the quality needed to lead the line on his own, especially when he's so isolated upfront. Thankfully Bakayoko is full of energy so I imagine for the season a lack of energy in the middle wont be too much of a persistent problem, but getting Willian and Pedro on the ball in meaningful positions today looked like such an effort. That Arsenal side is poor, we should have beaten them in all honesty.

12 minutes ago, Osgood is Good said:

I can't believe that some are bashing Morata already. He is behind the rest of squad for match fitness and has only just started training with the squad so has to get used to the Conte system. Give the man a chance.

But he's wearing the cursed number 9 shirt. Career over.

Mildly disappointed about the outcome, but no more than that. Always see the shield as nothing more than a high profile pre-season warm up game, but looking on social media the Gooners are absolutely ecstatic and wetting their pants BIG TIME!! You would really think they had just completed the quadruple. Those poor misguided saps............

I thought arsenal were the better team the opening 15 but we got on top after that and created more chances, and deserved the lead. Pedro was maybe unlucky to see red (if it's red then so was Bellerin) but can see why the ref sent him off. Very odd penalty line up, was Conte making a point, taking the piss or just not bothered?

Edited August 6, 20178 yr by dkw

Kante was very good, but we still leave way to much space in the middle on counterattacks because of Fabregas. Our wingbacks are in poor form and we don't have good backups, Moses did well on the goal and a clearance, but overall I found him average at best. Alonso was poor and have been poor though pre season. Biggest dissapointment was Willian and Batshuayi, who were among our best in pre season, but delivered a very poor performance today. Our defence seemed nervous when put under minimal pressure by Arsenal as well, makes me worried.

Some excellent saves by Courtois and a well taken goal by a lively Moses, otherwise a forgettable game.

I thought this match reinforces the fact that Eden Hazard makes everyone around him so much better. Do we need another run at Juve to snatch Alex Sandro ? 

1 hour ago, Strider6003 said:

How about this view,

we go into the match with less pre-season under our belts, a smaller squad, our two best attacking players missing and.............................

Arsenal cannot beat us in 90 mins!

Arsenal had Ozil and Sanchez missing also, with Ramsey and Koscielny also out. They played better than us and cant be blamed for us having a sh*t Pre season. I thought we wud have learnt after our shambolic defense of a league title but seems like the board want a deja vu