Ducavis - you don't need 2 wingers to play 2 up-front. 3-5-2 formation is nothing new, you get the width from 2 high quality wing-backs who are able to push on slightly more because they have both Kante and Bakayoko patrolling the midfield for them and covering where necessary. You've said that Morata likes it into feet and Batshauyi prefers to run in behind, which would also suit playing 2 up-front. As Morata likes it into feet, he can be the player to drop deeper. One of the best performances I've seen of Batshauyi recently was during a friendly for Belgium over the summer against Czech Republic. He was in a 2 man forward line with Lukaku and looked by far the better player - scoring the first goal and generally looking very good. This formation also gives Fabregas the freedom to do what he does best - control the tempo of the game, create chances with his superb passing. Just like Pirlo did so successfully in exactly the same formation. 

I'm not saying it's going to resolve all of our issues when Hazard isn't fit, but 3-5-2 needs to be given a chance.

Anther thing I like about having 2 up-front, is you can generally defend better from the front which which would suit our pressing game.

Not a bad watch. Red card did mess it up for us. No need to moan about our keeper stepping up. Especially so early in the shoot-out. For me there was a lot of things to be both positive and negative about. At the end of the day, It was just a glorified friendly. Arsenal will be having a open top bus to celebrate it though. I am more concerned about how we go on in this weekend. Oh and i do not like Clattenburg being on BT. Refs should be quiet. He always had a ego about him.

Worrying as the summer has been and as much as a massive fan of Conte as I am, I'm still a little bemused by his game management in this match.

This far eastern tour business shows the club up for their priorities. Clearly selling shirts is more important than football as the players again look ill prepared and frankly, totally spent after about 75 minutes.

Therefore I cannot work out why, with 6 subs being allowed, Conte continued to allow Pedro to play with a broken face and no football for several weeks.

Yes it was a glorified friendly, yes it wasn't a sending off, yes we probably would have seen the game out but for the sending off. However, surely with a bit better game management we could have been a bit cleverer than leaving Pedro on for so long when he was clearly knackered.

In my considered opinion!

And with who exactly Conte could change Pedro, just asking for one friend? Did you see our bench ?

 

15 hours ago, The Brit said:

I laughed when the presenter responded by saying bookies have made city favourites too and 'they rarely get it wrong'...instantly thought: well they got it wrong only last season you dick

That's a typical hackneyed phrase by people who don't bet.

1 hour ago, brakeit said:

And with who exactly Conte could change Pedro, just asking for one friend? Did you see our bench ?

 

Charly Musonda or Boga

I went to the match, both sides didn't look great. We weren't outplayed, we took the lead! unfortunately went down to 10 men and then drew the game! Really isn't that bad, I thought a bench full of youth is what us Chelsea fans were crying out for? Enjoy the ride....another season being the underdogs to the Manchester clubs....suits me perfectly! 

 

Season hasn't even started yet, if we lose to Burnley.......then we can all start to panic...a little 

11 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Conte surely though has a say in the overall playing style and strategy, and in ensuring the squad turn up motivated and energised for any game we play ? He is also making decisions on who to keep and who not to keep in his first team squad, and he could easily have kept any of Chalobah, Ake, Van Ginkel, Pasalic, Loftus-Cheek or Matic as additional central midfield options (even for short-term) if he'd wanted to. I don't buy the Matic transfer happening if Conte makes a serious play to keep him. I think he just fancied getting someone else in instead. Conte is also partly responsible (jointly with Costa) for the whole Costa fiasco.

He has also started making noises in the media that to me come across as unduly and un-necessarily negative and creating the possibility of dissention in the player ranks. He didn't do any of that last season.

Early days and the CS is a friendly and all that, but some warning signs for me ...

 

With Hazard out, the onus for creativity is pretty much on Fabregas so I would have played him in a 3-5-2 with a central midfield three, in front of Kante plus one other, with Bats and Morata up front and Fab pinging passes at them. Morata as our new £70M #9 man simply has to start for me ... he needs minutes on the pitch to get up to speed, and could always be subbed after an hour if tiredness kicks in. Not going to do much for Morata's confidence or fitness if he's sat on the bench.

He also needs to trust his bench players a bit more and give them more minutes. Tired challenges don't happen if he has a bit of faith in his bench to come on as replacements a bit earlier in the game for players who are flagging.

Let's see how we get on next Saturday. I am hoping for a good reaction and to come out all guns blazing.

 

You make a good point. Conte has no faith in the bench. He proved this last season but got away with it because we won the league.  You say we shud have played a 352 but who would have been the 3rd midfielder , Kyle Scott?

8 hours ago, brakeit said:

And with who exactly Conte could change Pedro, just asking for one friend? Did you see our bench ?

 

I'm not knocking your opinion because opinion is the whole point of this forum, but i think this is a strange comment. It's a warm up game and we have a bench of seven players. We have just won the league and are preparing the team for a full campaign challenging on all fronts. Ten minutes from the end and the player with the broken face is breathing out of his backside and we don't have a single alternative on the bench.

If this is the case god alone knows what we're going to do when the going gets really tough.

On 8/7/2017 at 04:46, Sexyfootball said:

Ok so let's look at it ...

Compared to our first team squad at 1st February, we've lost three senior players ... JT, Matic and Begovic ... ALL replaced by Rudiger, Bakayoko and Caballero. Leadership aside and based on current playing ability, that's not materially weaker in my book, though we need to see Bakayoko in action to say for sure.  Only Matic was a regular starter.

We've lost six young fringe players:

3 (Zouma, Aina and RLC) have all gone on Loan, replaced by Christensen, and probably Tomori and Baker/Scott. Christensen is more experienced. The other two are pretty much like for like replacements for me. Again, not materially weaker, and probably stronger (Christensen is a better CB than Zouma). Aina played 25 minutes of PL football last year, RLC played 31 minutes and Zouma played 247 minutes. Total 303 minutes. I think Christensen and Baker will have that covered !

3 (Chalobah, Ake, Solanke) have Left, with only Morata arriving to cover any of their positions (and you could say that none of them have been replaced, as Morata is on board to offset Costa). Between them they made 9 starts and 11 sub appearances last season, of which collectively just 257 minutes was in the PL (159 for Chalobah, and 98 for Ake; Solanke not selected at all last year - in anything). Again not much to be made up by new or existing players. All left because Conte didn't play them, not because of anything the Board did ... I dare say the Board are working hard to bring in replacements who Conte will actually want to use !

 

To sumamrise the players that have left and not been replaced so far were fringe players who hardly played, who were obviously not trusted or really wanted by the manager. The senior players have all been replaced.

We do need more depth, primarily because of the Champions League and for effective cover if we get injuries,  but we still have most of last year's first team intact, so there is no reason why they shouldn't perform again in 2017/18. 8 of the team that faced Arsenal were what we would consider our A-Team. Things are not as bad as people are making out ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two of those fringe players were essentially replacements for Ivanovic and Mikel who left in January, and were not fringe players - Ivanovic starting the first 7 games as first choice.  Even then Ake and Chalobah were more than good enough to start at PL level (as no doubt they will at the weekend).  
JT too was a full option and starter for the first 7 or so games.  

The point missed here is that Conte's reaction to 2 losses was a big change in the team - the traditional reaction of any manager at any level.  He could do that because he had options.  If he didn't do that again all season, that is mostly because we never lost 2 consecutive games again.

The squad really is 4 or 5 (actually 6 or 7) players short.  And only Christensen of all the young players has any credibility as a first team candidate

Losing against the scum always hurts, more than any other,, but I do feel we got what we deserved out of the game,,, nothing