2 hours ago, Ash blue said:

For people who are slating conte are wrong. He tried something a bit different here and I for one applaud him for doing so. We dominated Arsenal for large parts of the game but they just defended very well. Something which is usually the other way round. I couldn't remember courtois making any saves the second half. 

On another day we beat them 1 or 2 nil. There are still plenty of positives to take from this. I particularly enjoyed the introduction of bakayoko and hope that conte plays him more regularly. 

No he didn't he played the same team we lost to them with last time out what do you mean a bit different, Tottenham was a bit different worked wonders, he should know by now cesc in a 2 man midfield with no hazard and slow on the ball garry at the back is not a recipe for sucess I called that soon as the team sheet cane out, he made poor selections and had a poor game plan which is his weakness in big games this far he will hopefully adapt because it's very disheartening, you can win the leauge but can't truley say your the best unless you can beat the best teams 

6 hours ago, big blue said:

can't believe anyone can defend the Luiz red card. If that was the other way round, everyone would have wanted a red. 

Also what on earth was Luiz even going into a challenge like that already on a booking. 

Not the end of the world. Need to do a bit more in these big games in my opinion. 

Problem isn't the red card in and of itself, it's the blinding inconsistency. How many fouls have we watched that were worse so far receive nothing let alone yellow? Plenty. 

We're getting the rough end of the stick and that annoys me. Bloke got booked for a bicycle kick. I mean really?

2 hours ago, Luca Vialli said:

When Arsenal have put up a 'gritty defensive display' you know something went horribly wrong.

This is exactly the point.

both Liverpool and Arsenal are deemed to be serious contenders and both have exremely fragile defences. Once again i just couldn't understand the slow slow keep ball tactics when a high pressing game and running at them with the ball would probably have seen them crack. You can see that Mustafi can't help himself from f***ing up as soon as he is under pressure. Constantly going out short to a donkey like Cahill is asking for trouble. I don't know why we insisted on starting all of our moves from the only bloke on the pitch that can't play football.

Definitely two points dropped and a poor tactical performance imo.

1 hour ago, dan_cfc said:

Boils my blood when we play those short passes from corners and end up passing all the way back to Tibo.. aswell as Cesc' floaty high paceless balls in very frustrating. 

 

 

completely agree, those short corners hardly ever work, whats the point if the percentage of success is so low. i dont think they are ever worth doing as the odds are so against them

 

2 hours ago, Valerie said:

You forgot to work Emenalo into your rant calling him a c**t.  So only 5/10 for this one, points given for effort. Futile, but still an effort.

Emenalo gave the referee the red card to show Luiz. He's trying to get all our central defenders suspended so he can take their jobs, the c*nt. 

Watching the back three pass it to one another for five minutes before playing it to courtois who would hoof it up pitch was borderline embarrassing. Cahill wasn't to blame of course for the result but it's so glaringly obvious he just isn't the level of player we need back there. We were style over substance for the start of the game and the style quickly wore off. Not panicking though,  arsenal will take points off other top teams. Tough schedule coming up so hopefully pick up some momentum in the next game. 

MOTD2 - all about Arsenal being so wonderful and then only a short chunk re Luiz.  Predictable Beeb!

^ naturally...don't even analyse where chelsea struggled, what went wrong, just focus on Luiz...what a pisstake to hear so many fans and pundits suggest that Luiz's overhead kick foul was worthy of a red like mane's...what the fcuk is happening to the game? 

Funny how there is still debate that mane was hard done by, yet every red card chelsea get is a great decision and they even moan about reds we don't get!

It's a straight red all day long. Idiocy from Luiz.

42 minutes ago, Bloo said:

MOTD2 - all about Arsenal being so wonderful and then only a short chunk re Luiz.  Predictable Beeb!

The way they are going on, you would have thought Arsenal won the bloody game. It was a 0-0 draw and they did not win. They had just under 10 mins to snatch a victory against 10 men and did not. Talking about all their defenders played a brilliant game. If Pedro scored that goal in the first half from the ball Fabregas did, whose fault would that have been? All three of Arsenal's defence for playing a high line but did not pick up on that. Morata was great nor poor and eh caused them problems. The most biased post-match reaction ever. Just because we were favourites they are going OTT with Arsenal's performance.

1 hour ago, The Brit said:

^ naturally...don't even analyse where chelsea struggled, what went wrong, just focus on Luiz...what a pisstake to hear so many fans and pundits suggest that Luiz's overhead kick foul was worthy of a red like mane's...what the fcuk is happening to the game? 

Funny how there is still debate that mane was hard done by, yet every red card chelsea get is a great decision and they even moan about reds we don't get!

No complaints about the red. Yes, as Conte said, he was fouled by Sanchez immediately before but Oliver ignored that, but that's no excuse. It was, though, a similar challenge to the ones by Gueye and Vertonghen that only earned yellows. It seems players are allowed to tackle like that against us, but we get properly punished for it. Correctly, but the inconsistency is blatant.

The comparison with the yellow for the overhead and Mane's kick to the face last week is ridiculous. Neither the BBC commentator, nor Ian Wright nor Souness, who all felt Luiz should have gone for the overhead, made reference to the fact that one was a dangerous studs-up challenge, and the other wasn't.

 

10 hours ago, Topico said:

pedro didnt play in second half

Yeah my bad. I lost track of the play. 

As soon as I saw the team sheet and saw Cahill's name I thought 'here we go, slow sideways and passing along the back four' .  I thought the first 10-15 minutes we were OK and we looked threatening....from then on it was downhill, utter dire dross. Willian looked totally disinterested every time he lost the ball, we couldn't put two passes together, Kante was doing all the work in the middle, Cahill was intent on slowing the game to England walking pace, etc, etc.  I thought we were lucky to hang on for a point in the end.  Fair play to Luiz for trying to inject some momentum going forward but then he lost the ball then his head...stupid red but I don't think it would have changed the result; Arsenal clearly learned their mistakes from the Liverpool game. 

Lets get back to the winning ways in midweek to carry us into the Stoke game, which is not going to be a walkover by any means. 

One positive from the game was that Hazard is back. He was taking on and beating players with ease. Bakayoko entered the fray and immediately instilled some pace and power into our play. The first three names on my team sheet would be Hazard, Kante and Bakayoko. Three world class players who we are fortunate to have at the club.

Still can't understand how people are complaining about Luiz's overhead kick. The argument that someone could get hurt is a load of sh*te. Someone could get hurt going for a header. Why not give yellow cards anytime someone goes up for a header. Why not ban blocking shots? That could also hurt someone.

I thought football was supposed to be a contact sport?

10 hours ago, Viper said:

completely agree, those short corners hardly ever work, whats the point if the percentage of success is so low. i dont think they are ever worth doing as the odds are so against them

Well they've done research and normal corners hardly ever work either.

A top class manager like Conte knows the strengths and weaknesses of his players I assume. If he wants the team to play out from the back like we've seen yesterday and vs Leicester, surely he knows Cahill isn't suited for this type of role as passing and composure isn't his forte. Why pick the one CB that is not good on the ball over the other, better options we have available on the bench?

44 minutes ago, zes said:

A top class manager like Conte knows the strengths and weaknesses of his players I assume. If he wants the team to play out from the back like we've seen yesterday and vs Leicester, surely he knows Cahill isn't suited for this type of role as passing and composure isn't his forte. Why pick the one CB that is not good on the ball over the other, better options we have available on the bench?

because he is the freakking captain. i dont understand why dave or luiz cant be captain. Cahill plays bcoz he is english

Alonso looks half the player he is with Cahill playing behind him. Stick Rudiger there and Alonso can confidently go forward knowing he has a capable defender behind him. Hopefully it doesn't take Conte too long to work this one out like last year with Ivanovic and Terry. 

With all the matches coming up perhaps Conte tried to be too clever by resting using the squad rather than first XI and underestimated Arsenal.

Hate to say it, yet when I see Bakayoko muscling through midfield, I imagine him laying it off to RLC. I just seem to think they would work on the same wavelength.

A frustrating and underwhelming day, especially given how well we have done against Arsenal at home in recent seasons. We just couldn't find any real fluency in our game, several players weren't 'at it', so to speak. Credit to Arsenal though, for once Wenger decide to apply some pragmatism to his team selection and formation, and as a result they were able to stifle many of our attacks. To be fair they  created more than we did as well.

A draw isn't terrible but it does feel disappointing. Hopefully we can bounce back against Stoke which will be a tricky one too.

34 minutes ago, Celery1989 said:

A frustrating and underwhelming day, especially given how well we have done against Arsenal at home in recent seasons. We just couldn't find any real fluency in our game, several players weren't 'at it', so to speak. Credit to Arsenal though, for once Wenger decide to apply some pragmatism to his team selection and formation, and as a result they were able to stifle many of our attacks. To be fair they  created more than we did as well.

A draw isn't terrible but it does feel disappointing. Hopefully we can bounce back against Stoke which will be a tricky one too.

Unfortunately for us, Ozil was injured so Wenger had little option than to play Ramsey instead. With Xhaka and Ozil in midfield, I'd have been very confident of getting the win.

6 minutes ago, old git said:

Unfortunately for us, Ozil was injured so Wenger had little option than to play Ramsey instead. With Xhaka and Ozil in midfield, I'd have been very confident of getting the win.

Ramsey would have played full stop, Ozil doesn't play CM. Ozil would have taken Iwobis place. What helped Arsenal was having Wellbeck and Iwobi running around pressing till they was taken off.

Very disappointed with the way we handled the game, they were their for the taking and we almost managed to lose the game. Playing Cesc/Kante as 2 in the midfield was the obvious mistake, the half time changed proved that. Once they survived the early scare, they easily over-ran our midfield, we can't really expect Kante to play as 2 players. Everytime they had the ball they were going at our last line of defence, and lost just about every midfield phsyical duel against them, it never happened in the last 10 years ( par that game last September). Unless Rudiger was injured, the change for Cahill was completely unnecessary, his inclusion added nothing apart from some scary moments playing out from the back. Pedro/Willian were wasteful, Morata was isolated for most of the game and being called foul everytime he won a duel, no wonder he was losing it towards the end. The red car was insane, they were under the pump and I feel that injury time goal was coming, until Luiz did a Cahill. Losing Luiz will harm us more than losing Cahill in the next 3 games.

The only positive is Hazard is getting back, just a class above even when he's not fully fit. I expect another cameo in the cup game, hopefully he will start next Saturday.

I have been defending Fabregas playing in a midfield 2 for a while now but it was clear to see it doesn't work yesterday. He looked really poor and out of place to me. The pass to put Pedro through is exactly what he can do the other end though and he is the only player who can see them passes. I would still play Fab before Pedro and Willian.