2 minutes ago, rooomage said:

We can now conveniently say Christensen has earned his place in the first team. We have an academy player now promoted. He is unbelievably calm on ball.

It's quite scary how him and Rudiger works so well with each other so quickly. 

2 minutes ago, ChelsaePirate said:

I don't think enough was said about just how good and difficult a finish that was from the angle.

 

The boy is different class and will become one of the best strikers in the world.

The Shed-End's reaction to Morata's performances this season in a single gif:

Chelsea fans unveil their new Morata chant. 'He comes from sunny Spain, he's better than Harry Kane...

2 minutes ago, Deino said:

It's quite scary how him and Rudiger works so well with each other so quickly. 

Christensen and Rudiger have been very solid. I don't mind them replacing both Cahill and D.Luiz.

A hattrick at Stoke. So, can he do it in the PL?

17 minutes ago, dkw said:

So reds for us are yellows for others, f**king these refs are a joke.

If we haven't done so already, we need to send the FA a video of all the horror tackles our players have suffered that have not been red carded. 

1. Arfield for Burnley quite late on. Not sure who the victim was but it was on our left side so maybe Alonso

 2. Vertonghen did  a studs-up shin- high challenge, not sure on who.

3. Gueye did a bad one on Fabregas

4. Crouch today on Fabregas.

We are SIX games in and refs have ignored Four blatant red cards against us.

They have, though, sent off four of our players so far, if you include the Community shield.

Pretty clear what's going on.

1 minute ago, Deino said:

A hattrick at Stoke. So, can he do it in the PL?

I believe he has to do it on a Wednesday night and it has to be raining before we can answer that.

4 minutes ago, Backbiter said:

If we haven't done so already, we need to send the FA a video of all the horror tackles our players have suffered that have not been red carded. 

1. Arfield for Burnley quite late on. Not sure who the victim was but it was on our left side so maybe Alonso

 2. Vertonghen did  a studs-up shin- high challenge, not sure on who.

3. Gueye did a bad one on Fabregas

4. Crouch today on Fabregas.

We are SIX games in and refs have ignored Four blatant red cards against us.

They have, though, sent off four of our players so far, if you include the Community shield.

Pretty clear what's going on.

When you look at that list it really is absurd.

Well, 4 new arrivals in the team and they all look good. Four goals, a hattrick for Morata and a rare clean sheet. It's all very good for confidence, particularly for the new charges.

 

Hazard and Fabregas are well rested for our upcoming games, which is important. Both looked a cut above when they came on. As others have said, Willian is so frustrating, today he was at his worst, always needing the extra touch always getting knocked off the ball. Pedro's goal was great but other than that he was completely anonymous.

 

A rare show of indiscipline from Alonso which was completely needless, though I didn't think the second foul was a booking, in fact I thought it should have gone the other way. Christensen looks class, in fact he oozes class, no doubt Luiz will be back for Atletico but it will be interesting to see how Christensen fares against City, who look to be in free-scoring mode.

 

Finally I'm very glad Conte preferred Rudiger to Cahill, which I didn't foresee. I thought Cahill would get the nod given his experience and the fact he knows Conte's methods well and the fact Stoke is traditionally a very difficult away game, but Rudiger deserves his spot and it's good to see the team being picked on merit.

 

If you look at our bench, with Cahill, Zappacosta, Hazard, Musonda, Batshuayi and Fabregas, we seem to have good options to call upon and that's with Drinkwater and Luiz out.

 

Signs are good. Well done Chelsea. Well done Morata. Tough coming into a very demanding league with a big price tag and a big player to replace but this boy looks like he can cope with the pressure, and more importantly it looks like he's a top striker. Hopefully this is just the beginning. He can finish, he's good in the air, he's got pace, he's got skill, he's got a good temperament, he links well with his teammates and his movement is good. I like him. I like the boy a lot.

5 minutes ago, Backbiter said:

If we haven't done so already, we need to send the FA a video of all the horror tackles our players have suffered that have not been red carded. 

1. Arfield for Burnley quite late on. Not sure who the victim was but it was on our left side so maybe Alonso

 2. Vertonghen did  a studs-up shin- high challenge, not sure on who.

3. Gueye did a bad one on Fabregas

4. Crouch today on Fabregas.

We are SIX games in and refs have ignored Four blatant red cards against us.

They have, though, sent off four of our players so far, if you include the Community shield.

Pretty clear what's going on.

 

You've missed Dier on Luiz.

Very happy with how we played today.

 

Morata and Azi the best players on the park for me imo. Fabregas and Hazard when they came on were absolutely class as well.

 

This should give us massive confidence for the tougher tests against Atletico and City next week. We need all of our players playing at their best for this double header.

 

COME ON CHELSEA!!!!!!!!

 

Soccer Saturday on Sky said Crouch lucky to stay on the pitch.

Great result didn't watch the game, interesting going through the match thread with people having quite varied opinions on the performance. Will watch tonight and see how we played.

Courtious - 7 Little to do, but up to the task when needed

Rudiger - 8 Solid

Christiansen - 8 Barely put a foot wrong defensively, but ideally would have been a little more adventurous in posession

Azpilicueta - 8.5 Fantastic defensively as both a CB and LWB. What a player........

Moses - 6 Really quiet and offered little going forward. Will need to up his game if he wants to keep his place over Zappacosta

Kante - 7 Defensively good, won plenty of ball as usual. But tended to not make the right decisions going forward. 

Bakayoko - 7.5 Wasteful in possession, but really, he was there to win/hold the ball and he did it well.

Alonso - 5.5 Had a poor game really, bit lucky not to be sent off. With Stoke sitting so deep, this is the kind of game we really rely on Alonso with his crossing to create that penetration.

Willian - 5 Dribbled okay but made so many poor decisions on the ball. It felt like he put so much pressure on himself to be the main creator that he'd overplay on the ball when he should have gone more direct. That said, maybe the forward option wasn't on. Either way, I think it's becoming clearer that him and Pedro aren't great together. 

Morata - 8.5 Hattrick, enough said

Pedro - 5 Also really poor. Took his chance well, but apart from that was very quiet. Feels alot like him and Willian seem to want to play similar games and just aren't that good as a partnership

 

Cahill - 7 Helped us settle defensively in a period of the match we needed it. Underrated

Fabregas - 7.5 So much class. Granted he came on once we were going into a period of dominance, but geez he's great to have on the ball. Big improvement over Willian and Pedro

Hazard - 7.5 God he's good. Again, came on as we were going into a period of dominance against an opposition needing to a goal (or two) to get back into the game. But immediately you could see how good he is. 

 

Conte - 7 Was surprised Hazard didn't start. In the end it didn't cost us despite the fact Willian and Pedro were really poor. Apart from that, I was pretty happy with his decisions. Taking Alonso off when he did was the right decision. As was the decision to bring on Cahill and move Azpi to LWB where we was very good.

 

MOM - Azpilicueta - Great in central defense. Moved to a semi unfamiliar role and great there too. What a player..........

1 minute ago, Backbiter said:

If we haven't done so already, we need to send the FA a video of all the horror tackles our players have suffered that have not been red carded. 

1. Arfield for Burnley quite late on. Not sure who the victim was but it was on our left side so maybe Alonso

 2. Vertonghen did  a studs-up shin- high challenge, not sure on who.

3. Gueye did a bad one on Fabregas

4. Crouch today on Fabregas.

We are SIX games in and refs have ignored Four blatant red cards against us.

They have, though, sent off four of our players so far, if you include the Community shield.

Pretty clear what's going on.

You know what would happen though, the F.A would laugh it off. You would have the media saying we are being ridiculous and opposition fans would laugh at us, the F.A would then use that reaction against us. Basically, it's us vs the rest of the country and we have no hope of getting the F.A to see it from our point of view.

7 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

 

You've missed Dier on Luiz.

Not just Dier, pretty much the whole Tottenham team that day.

This goes back to our title winning season under Mourinho. Tons of odd decisions going against us, the worst of the lot being Barnes tackle on Matic. It's clear that in some cases, refs are letting players off when it comes to tackles against our players. It's not just missed red card decisions either, the amount of missed handballs and penalties not given in our favour is ridiculous. I have never seen anything like it. Us getting a penalty is a rare thing to see these days. City, United and Liverpool players just need a touch and they get a penalty.

Morata's 2nd

A potentially tricky game turned into a comfortable Chelsea win due to Stoke's makeshift defence. 

Morata was terrific; his first and second goals were expertly placed into the right corner. His movement was really something too. The surprising thing though is that he has looked rather less potent against Top 4/5 teams than the rest, whereas with Juventus/Real Madrid he was at his best against the big teams. Maybe it's the way we set up against those sides plus Hazard's lack of availability because he didn't receive a great deal of service vs either Arsenal or Tottenham. Maybe a 3-5-2 with Cesc/Drinkwater would do the business (with one subbing for the other; both are capable playmakers although Danny is better defensively while Cesc is clearly more creative).

I notice that Azpi is more of a threat going forward this season than last. He has been more willing to drive forward and deliver long balls/crosses than previously whereas last season he was largely content to cover for Moses (very effectively though). He's also been a bigger threat at set pieces (versus Qarabag). 

Pedro scored a classy goal but he's clearly not all that effective with Willian. The problem may be that Pedro's movement sucks defenders out of position, which gives Hazard license to create havoc against defenders one-on-one. Willian has the technical ability and the pace to do the same, but instead he often just stops play by playing chicken with the defender - so this allows the other defenders to come back into position and thus the moment to score is lost. Plus Willian lacks Hazard's vision and so can't pick out passes the way Hazard can whenever Pedro is in a good position to score. Just my thoughts...

Moses was OK; I don't remember him having an outstanding game since last year. I expect Zappacosta to replace him at some point. Alonso wasn't great. The back three plus the goalie performed well, with Azpi (as per usual) the best. 

EDIT: Bakayoko didn't impress me as much as he did against Arsenal. He drove forward well and provided energy but was dispossessed a little too often. Are these the concentration lapses that he suffered while playing for Monaco?

 

 

Edited September 23, 20178 yr by DaRick

31 minutes ago, Deino said:

It's quite scary how him and Rudiger works so well with each other so quickly. 

Maybe just maybe in training, Conte is making sure they connect with each other. 

8 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

You know what would happen though, the F.A would laugh it off. You would have the media saying we are being ridiculous and opposition fans would laugh at us, the F.A would then use that reaction against us. Basically, it's us vs the rest of the country and we have no hope of getting the F.A to see it from our point of view.

It's down to the MOTD pundits to make sure they point out that it should of been a red card today, and also include we have been punished three times this season for dangerous tackles, and as such we should expect similar tackles to be red carded, this tackle from what i have seen was a lot worse than Cahills and Luizs, both of those tackles whilst stupid at least they were going for 60/40 balls, Crouch had zero chance of getting the ball and went in high on a standing player with possession of the ball.

OMG, I don't know what to say.  f**king hell!!!!   f**k yeahhhhhhhhhh.... 

Christensen!   Way to go man!! Rudiger - beast, And when Hazard came on - Morata suddenly had a lot of space.  Bakayoko + Ngolo - the best!  Bring it.  We are Chelsea and we will kick ye arses!  f**k Yeahhhhhhhhhh

Just now, coco said:

It's down to the MOTD pundits to make sure they point out that it should of been a red card today, and also include we have been punished three times this season for dangerous tackles, and as such we should expect similar tackles to be red carded, this tackle from what i have seen was a lot worse than Cahills and Luizs, both of those tackles whilst stupid at least they were going for 60/40 balls, Crouch had zero chance of getting the ball and went in high on a standing player with possession of the ball.

Yep, they should and they probably will point out that today's tackle from Crouch should have been a red card, but you can guarantee they won't go into detail and show just how many of these tackles against us aren't punished in the correct way. 

Leicester goalie is rubbish !