1 hour ago, Londonisblue said:

this board did the same bullcarp after our legendary 2012 campaign.... And we became the first ever european champions to be knocked off the UCL in the group stages... These incomptent wnakers should be sacked !!!!,

The icing on the cake is when Matic comes back on sunday and Rapes baka and cesc

Can't believe there are people who thought we played well and were just 'unlucky'. We equalled our worst european result in 15 years.

Didn't see the match, but the results speaks volumes. Very pathetically inconsistent we are and we face United on Sunday. 

On the upside, no one here is this (see below) cringeworthy

It's suicide to play Bakayoko and Fabregas as our midfield pairing. 

Bakayoko doesn't look fully fit and Fabregas isn't suited.

I know Kante and Drinkwater were likely not ready, but did Conte really have no other options?

Why persist with something that just doesn't work and will demoralize the team?

It's just really poor management.

 

Well, just wow. What a flat performance tonight. Did not take one minute to see what kind of match it was going to be. I am not typically a member of the all-negative club as some are, even after wins, but this one tonight. Just oh, dear.

I know anyone that watches us half regularly can see the team seems disjointed 75% of the time. Not sure the cause, though I feel some of the recent matches and especially tonight, Conte may have the XI and tactics all wrong.

As for the players, we can start at the back. Luiz appears to be back to his normal self after a great season last year. The whiff of the midfield ball tonight that allowed a 3 on 2 break was met with a smiling Luiz. He appears only partially into it most nights. Alonso is just getting cut to ribbons at LWB defensively. He is sloooow. Still shows some skill going forward. Cahill just seems to be coming down the back side of his career and does not have the captain presence of JT. Rudiger can look good and bad, see the second goal tonight. I would like to see more of Christensen.

Cesc is still pretty darn good going forward but is like playing a man down in midfield as we have al known for years. Bakayoko is physical but lacks good ball skills and turns the ball over quite a bit. Desperately need Kante back and a chance to get Drinkwater in the mix.

As bad as we have looked at the back at times, I am more miffed at the poor possession we have had the past 4 - 6 weeks and lack of quality going forward as a group. I am not sure this is not on Conte. Playing with just Hazard-Morata up top or even with Pedro in there too, we just seem to struggle. Morata has fallen off the past three-four games. Bumped off the ball easily, cannot get free most of the time and is strugging, though a super nice guy. Are we missing Moses that much going forward. It makes me wonder of the 4-2-3-1 of Jose days would not be better for this year's team, with Kante and Baka/Drinkwater in midfield and Hazard, Willian/Cesc and Pedro behind Morata up top is not a better lineup.

There is time to turn this around, "if" the coach and players are interested. Conte has to find the right mix or Carlo will.

Sorry to be a little negative tonight, but just really disappointed tonight.

Come on you Chelsea!!

This formation may have won us the title last year, but I dont think it works without Kante

Wow, luckily I didn't stay up to watch this. 

I'm not sure why Conte insists on shoehorning Cahill into the XI. I dislike changing centre-backs in general because it disrupts the defense needlessly but Cahill has not performed particularly well this season. Also maybe time to consider Luiz's place because he often hasn't been that much better. 

I feel sorry for Alonso - he's been played into the ground and it shows. Not buying an acceptable back-up for him (at least) was a mistake. 

I can only assume (and hope) the tried-and-generally-failed Baka/Cesc duo stayed in because of injury/fitness concerns. 

Negatives: heavy loss, Conte got it all wrong, criminal amount of wasted chances, our defenders overplayed the whole game for some reason apart from Rudiger who switched off for 2-0.

Positives: Conte can fix it by playing Kante, Roma was not as good as the result seems, we didn't actually need to win.

Lets put the result behind us and concentrate on beating ManU.

I feel bad but Conte must be suicidal after that performance. With 9 of the players on the pitch at some stage, that took us on that 13 game run last season, we've regressed into a slow, ponderous outfit without the bloody mindedness and will -to -win -at -all- costs attitude, that befitted us last season. Players like Fabregas, Alonso, Cahill,Luiz and Willian have, in double quick time, become passengers and a liability to players such as Hazard and Pedro who are carrying the can for their ineptitude. These players look even worse because, with the exception of maybe Willian, none of them were ever blessed with pace and acceleration. Young players like Bakayoko are being affected because they are looking for leadership on the pitch which isn't forthcoming. Morata is struggling right now but that's quite normal because there has been no striker in the history of the Premier League  (and beyond), no matter how good they are, that doesn't have a barren spell. It doesn't help when Luiz fails to control the ball and grins like a Cheshire cat, when he gets outpaced to the ball. I'd bench him for the rest of the season. That'll wipe the smile off his face.

We were actually in the game until that howler by Rudiger. Did he get a shout? It looked likely that he did from someone. Then that Roma c**t treads on Hazard's ankle which put paid to his dynamism for the rest of the game. Roma are no great shakes to me but they certainly knew who to target to bring our game to a grinding halt. Conte has kept faith with his 'untouchables' for too long but they look stale and lifeless now, so I'm hoping that he will freshen it up and play Kante, Drinkwater with Christensen and some other vibrant youngsters with pace against United on Sunday. If he does that, I'm sure the Stamford Bridge crowd will appreciate this approach and lift the team.

 

We aren't a good team right now.

Schooled by Roma twice, City, Arsenal and even turned over by Palace.

Drinkwater has to start Sunday, enough of the Cesc/Baka combo.

Edited November 1, 20178 yr by Blue Exile

Although as I say I turned it off after 5 minutes when I realised we'd lost 3-0. Pedro doesn't fall over his own feet or Hazard scores from Fabregas' perfect through ball right after Roma went 1 up and it's a completely different game.

9 hours ago, Beerqueen said:

It wouldn't surprise me. He looked gutted in the last quarter of the match every time they showed him. 

I should think he was embarrassed, I was. Oh well bring on utd, got a feeling it's gonna be a depressing Monday morning next week though

Defense wise we are terrible, the 3-4-3 has been exposed to that extent that we even made Roma look good. All three goals maybe apart from the first were defensive errors. The second one was pub level defending by Rudiger who basically gifted a goal, the third was an error by Cesc who just can't be dropped no matter how sh*t he plays. The bench made no impact at all, Conte should reconsider returning to a back four since this isn't working. After a big defeat we usually bounce back, but as the bus is coming on the weekend and the team failed to break a sweat for the loud away fans who spent their well earned money to see little to no effort at all. In the first half we missed a few sitters which could have brought us to life but in the second we just waited for the 90 minutes to end. I can accept a defeat but not a one in which the team didn't even try. We will probably have Kante back for United, shame we won't have a solid back three too.

Beat Utd and all will be forgiven!

the passing was nothing short of brutal.

I've said this for 3 or 4 seasons now hazard needs to take a look at himself. he can tear defences apart but that's only when he feels like it.

take last night the amount of times i seem him recive the ball on the edge of the box and he would do nothing but walk with it then pass. 

 

The result seem heavy, because in first half we can score easy 2 goals, we have had more occasion to score. So Roma score on its first occasion, and score the second with a mistake... 

The problem isn't scored the goals, the problem is when we haven't the ball, the middle is erased easily.. especially due to Fabregas, because he can't play in middle with 2 players. So there often are counters where the opponent is lot of more numerous than us... 

Personally I remain convinced that with another middle like Kante - Drinkwater, all will go very well !

Btw, we probably lost the first spot so that means we'll face Besiktas, Barcelona or PSG + Real Madrid if they beat Spurs. So much with the deep run. We should focus on PL. 

11 minutes ago, Pendergast said:

Btw, we probably lost the first spot so that means we'll face Besiktas, Barcelona or PSG + Real Madrid if they beat Spurs. So much with the deep run. We should focus on PL. 

Can't escape the good teams in the CL.

I think we deserved to lose but I am one of the people who think the game could have gone very differently in the first half.  The second half however was particularly poor and was tough to see us without the right-to-the-very-end commitment we usually show.

Was El Shaarawy at Roma last year?  Seems like Rudiger got a shout on that second goal.

Azpi probably his worst game ever for us.

 

26 minutes ago, Van Butsen said:

Can't escape the good teams in the CL.

 

yeah ask manure

4 minutes ago, mojo said:

yeah ask manure

If they get to the final they would have played 2 if not 3 absolutely elite teams to do so.
 

it's frustrating to come away with nothing when we dominated the first half, but could not score. i genuinely sat there thinking we are going to score soon as we were that dominant. on another day the first goal wouldn't have gone in and maybe hazard's shot would have crept in under the keeper or pedro would have gone through in those first 30 seconds and scored, but it is what it is. they took their chances and defended well, so we were beaten by the more clinical side. go back to the drawing board and get better tactically, that's all we can do. no point crying over spilled milk now. 

Edited November 1, 20178 yr by enigma

Thought Gerrard was bang on when he said you have to have defenders playing in the same positions every week and not swapping and changing them around every game.

It's not as if we've had injury problems with defenders and been forced to mix it up.

When we had one of the best defenders in the modern game, for over a decade, look at the defensive records we broke and still hold. 

We now have 5-6 center backs, but none of them are what you would call reliable center backs. Azpilcueta is about is reliable, but he's shoehorned into a back three.

I think we need to either go all out with Christensen and fast track his progress or failure, either way lets find out quickly.

Or we go out and spend big money on a center back of the highest quality. In place of Luiz and Cahill who i think have just about ran their course with Conte.

 

From Conte's post match comments and those made by a number of players, there is no one pretending that this wasn't a pretty crap performance. That's a good thing, it'd be more worrying if they were not all accepting the failures made last night. Problem as I see it now is that Conte has to stop using Cesc/Bakayoko when he seems very reluctant to do. Almost looks as though the players are not confident with the way they are being set up for matches, if so, I'm hoping there will be open and honest discussions at Cobham before Sunday. We must change in midfield, if Kante is fit great, if he's not we have to play Drinkwater (instead of Cesc for me) 

20 minutes ago, coco said:

Thought Gerrard was bang on when he said you have to have defenders playing in the same positions every week and not swapping and changing them around every game.

It's not as if we've had injury problems with defenders and been forced to mix it up.

When we had one of the best defenders in the modern game, for over a decade, look at the defensive records we broke and still hold. 

We now have 5-6 center backs, but none of them are what you would call reliable center backs. Azpilcueta is about is reliable, but he's shoehorned into a back three.

I think we need to either go all out with Christensen and fast track his progress or failure, either way lets find out quickly.

Or we go out and spend big money on a center back of the highest quality. In place of Luiz and Cahill who i think have just about ran their course with Conte.

 

This is what some supporters forget when they call for two more centrebacks before the window closes.  It's a really fine line between having a deep squad while having a content squad.  They've all seen game time but are any of them happy with where the team is at?