would liked to have seen dujon sterling. maybe next time start him over musonda and move willian/pedro out left. 

Cahill plays, Chelsea concede. 

In other news, water is wet.

Willians' goal was awesome. But IMO needs replacing/upgrading next summer. Still a good player and has his moments, but I definitely feel we can upgrade on him, in quality, creativity and attacking threat.

Ampadu looks very promising. Amazing he's only 17

Lucky. Everton pressured second half and it showed. 

I'd like to see the xG plot from that one. So many shots conceded. We're just not coordinated when we press or defend. How often did we leave the wingbacks one on one in that second half against Lennon or Mirallas?

That said a win is a win.  Solid work from Ampadu and Drinkwater. Nice to see Tony get a goal too.

A Chelsea second string, that have never played together and barely trained as a group i would wager just beat a full strength everton team desperate for a win....
I say well done the young lads and those who don't get regular starts.
Can't some just give some credit where it's due, on paper they should have battered us.

53 minutes ago, evissy said:

Bilic saves his job by beating Tottenham 2-3. I have always liked Bilic. As a player and as a person. Hope he finds success in managing.

Agree, yet think he needs to move on at the end of the season.

Most the team played well tonight, Christensen and Rudiger were both class. That last goal I think all 3 CB's were at fault in all fairness. Aside from that though, team did well! Hoping to get Bristol next round to have an easy game, because from now everything's going to get hard

I think Chelsea played well today, a lot different in style of play to how they was on Saturday. The defence were as whole s lot better just slipped at the end. Drinkwater played well for his first game, Ethan ampadu showed some good things to come from him and will only progress with more game time and batshuayi done a few things to answer his critics by holding the ball up but overall a good display, looking forward to the draw now 

game of two halves, etc.

Really glaring just how easy it is for teams to pressure us in our own half, and we will concede possession by either hoofing it up field, or misplace a pass to one of their players.  I think a lot of other teams will know that about us now, especially after Roma, Watford, and now this second half.

Strangely I never felt like we were going to lose this one.  I did feel like we would fail to keep the clean sheet, and that is a worry.  I think Rudiger and Andreas look fantastic, and I'd probably have them with Cesar as my back 3.  Not to slam Cahill any more that he gets on here, but i just think those 3 are better suited than Gary is.  He is one of the main culprits for losing possession when the pressure is on.

I thought that the Drinkwater and Ampadu partnership in the middle was a fine display of what our back ups could do in the middle.  I also thought that the Cesc and Ampadu partnership showed that Cesc isn't suited to play in the middle 2 of a 3-4-3 formation.  I like his creativity and he assisted beautifully for Willian's goal, but his defending again was exposed tonight.  In fact, he and Willian were wandering around teh middle at one point looking completely lost.

Musonda, it was a shame he was bullied of the ball so much, and it's fair to say he failed to take his chance.  I thought Kenedy and Zappacosta were both very good.  Kenedy showing that he's ample back up for Alonso, and in my opinion Zappacosta showed he offers enough to maybe start ahead of Moses.  I think that will all depend on the opposition though, as Moses is a better defender.

Willian was good but fustrating.  Same for Batshuayi.  Pedro as energetic as ever.

Mainly, i'm concerned about teams pressing us.

1 hour ago, The Don Antonio said:

Cahill plays, Chelsea concede. 

In other news, water is wet.

Willians' goal was awesome. But IMO needs replacing/upgrading next summer. Still a good player and has his moments, but I definitely feel we can upgrade on him, in quality, creativity and attacking threat.

Ampadu looks very promising. Amazing he's only 17

Lo lololol.

is that a joke?

9 minutes ago, didierforever said:

Lo lololol.

is that a joke?

???????

Overall I'm happy with the performance tonight. Our passing was getting to me but Everton didn't play as well as I expected.

Was good that we still won and was able to play some youngsters. Drinkwater got 60 minutes and actually the game got a little worse when he came off. Looking forward to the draw tomorrow. Bristol sounds nice!

Biggest concern is our struggle when teams press us, hopefully we fix that problem soon...

5 hours ago, chelseablueboy said:

A Chelsea second string, that have never played together and barely trained as a group i would wager just beat a full strength everton team desperate for a win....
I say well done the young lads and those who don't get regular starts.
Can't some just give some credit where it's due, on paper they should have battered us.

Fully agree, no idea why so many people are being negative, was a good performance given the circumstances. 

Edited October 26, 20178 yr by Slojo

The BBC football site has Willian as man of the match 

Overall i found the team instead well in the first half with lot control of middle, good perfomance from Drinkwater and mostly Ampadu, when you think that he is only 17, it's impressing. He plays relax, plays smart and it's already lot of for his age. 

In the first half, i think that we can to have more of hazarding situations, but the forwards (Michy, Musonda, Willian) were quite average.

The most important is the win, we go on with 2 wins in row, it's good for the confidence. 

Thought Christensen was class bar the one mistake for their goal. His composure under pressure and distribution is just fantastic and reads the game better than any of our other CB's. 

Certainly does. He doesn't possess the passing range of Luiz which is the only downside of him in that role. 

He's homegrown and he'll be here a decade at this rate. All the Academy should be proud to see what he is doing. Now if only we can get a few young English lads to the same stage he is, we'll be doing well. Looking at you JCS, Sterling and DaSilva... 

Just on youngsters. Last night's Ampadu display gave me cause to look back on McEachran's debut against Newcastle. What a player he looked that night. What a waste...

Edited October 26, 20178 yr by Spiller86

9 hours ago, The Don Antonio said:

???????

The fact that somehow you are insinuating that Cahill was responsible for the goal. Cahill played and we won and him in the team was the right decision to give azpi and luiz time off.

1 hour ago, Spiller86 said:

Certainly does. He doesn't possess the passing range of Luiz which is the only downside of him in that role. 

He's homegrown and he'll be here a decade at this rate. All the Academy should be proud to see what he is doing. Now if only we can get a few young English lads to the same stage he is, we'll be doing well. Looking at you JCS, Sterling and DaSilva... 

Just on youngsters. Last night's Ampadu display gave me cause to look back on McEachran's debut against Newcastle. What a player he looked that night. What a waste...

I couldn't care less about domestic talent quite honestly. 

Obviously, it's a good thing to have because of FA regulation, but we can get that with any youth player because they'll be homegrown either way. I just want good players with a bright attitude. 

Also, McEachran was one of the biggest wastes of talent we've had in a quite a while, this is what I'm saying about "bright attitude" as soon as McEachran got that contract he drastically changed, he went out with that lass from Corrie and we never saw the same McEachran. Nevermind the Newcastle game, remember his actual debut against Marseille when he was 17? He looked superb, had fantastic vision and composure at such an age. 

Edited October 26, 20178 yr by Slojo

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

I couldn't care less about domestic talent quite honestly. 

Obviously, it's a good thing to have because of FA regulation, but we can get that with any youth player because they'll be homegrown either way. I just want good players with a bright attitude. 

Also, McEachran was one of the biggest wastes of talent we've had in a quite a while, this is what I'm saying about "bright attitude" as soon as McEachran got that contract he drastically changed, he went out with that lass from Corrie and we never saw the same McEachran. Nevermind the Newcastle game, remember his actual debut against Marseille when he was 17? He looked superb, had fantastic vision and composure at such an age. 

I agree. He looked fantastic under Carlo. Not sure if it was the change of manager, the contract, the girlfriend, the attitude, the loans or his physique that meant he never developed. Probably a combination of all those. Whatever, his failure to kick on was a massive let-down. 

He did nothing against us for Brentford in the cup last year.

Glad we won, expected a difficult game but we got through it without any injuries, Drinkwater made his debut, and the 17 year old midfielder looked promising. Any win is a confidence booster any moment, and put us in good shape ahead of the next 3 games in 7 days. I still don't understand why Willian couldn't score more goals, he scores 4-5 absolute beauties every season like that, yet in most games he's so reluctant to take a shot. Defence is still a problem, the crossing has been killing us lately, wingbacks haven't been pressing the attackers well, and the 3 central defenders did not deal with crosses with much confidence.

Quite pleased with the win. With Spuds losing, even better.

13 hours ago, JJP said:

Most the team played well tonight, Christensen and Rudiger were both class. That last goal I think all 3 CB's were at fault in all fairness. Aside from that though, team did well! Hoping to get Bristol next round to have an easy game, because from now everything's going to get hard

Bristol City knocked us out of the FA Cup in the 90's in a very eventful match both on and off the pitch. I think these days nearly every match has to be treated with respect unless you want to slip over the proverbial banana skin. 

Didn't know about David Unsworth being in charge until just before the match. Will be interesting to see how their manager search continues or whether they let him have a go first. 

14 hours ago, The Don Antonio said:

Cahill plays, Chelsea concede. 

In other news, water is wet.

 

Are you suggesting Cahill was at fault for their goal? 

2 hours ago, didierforever said:

The fact that somehow you are insinuating that Cahill was responsible for the goal. Cahill played and we won and him in the team was the right decision to give azpi and luiz time off.

No one is arguing that we should have rested luiz and azpi. I honestly dont care if Cahill starts our carling cup games. We should protect the important players. I never insinuated he was responsible for the goal just saying I cant be suprised  we concede with him in the team