Well, I am getting out in front of this one. The scheduling for this match is a complete screw job. Saw it when the CL group matches were announced. We fly 3,000 miles to Baku, Azerbaijan to play an evening match Wednesday the 22nd, then fly home to London arriving early Thursday morning the 23rd to then travel to Liverpool on Friday the 24th for the match the next day the 25th. Brilliant.

Meanwhile, Liverpool plays their CL match Tuesday evening the 21st in Liverpool, giving them three full days to train, etc with NO travel.

I realize Qarabag has improved and we may not be able to send youth squad, but we need to keep a lot of people home or send the youth squad to Anfield! 

 

1 hour ago, Chelsea Buzz said:

Well, I am getting out in front of this one. The scheduling for this match is a complete screw job. Saw it when the CL group matches were announced. We fly 3,000 miles to Baku, Azerbaijan to play an evening match Wednesday the 22nd, then fly home to London arriving early Thursday morning the 23rd to then travel to Liverpool on Friday the 24th for the match the next day the 25th. Brilliant.

Meanwhile, Liverpool plays their CL match Tuesday evening the 21st in Liverpool, giving them three full days to train, etc with NO travel.

I realize Qarabag has improved and we may not be able to send youth squad, but we need to keep a lot of people home or send the youth squad to Anfield! 

 

Yeah based on that scheduling we have zip all chance of a result at Anfield unless we do send the kids to the Qarabag game and then risk getting knocked out of the CL lol

6 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Yeah based on that scheduling we have zip all chance of a result at Anfield unless we do send the kids to the Qarabag game and then risk getting knocked out of the CL lol

I wonder if we could split the team a bit and win in Qarabag, for example send a lot of the guys that did not start today. Put Charly, Batshuayi and Pedro up top, Drinkwater and Apsu in midfield, etc. Maybe? I just cannot see sending the likes of Morata, Hazard, Kante, Courtois, etc 3,000 miles for that game with Anfield 72 hours later.

Yeah the scheduling's a joke. Although sending a full strength team over there could've been avoided if we'd got a result in Rome. Now we need to play our full strength team in both matches. It's going to be tough getting a result in this match.

On 11/5/2017 at 23:02, dynamite said:

Yeah the scheduling's a joke. Although sending a full strength team over there could've been avoided if we'd got a result in Rome. Now we need to play our full strength team in both matches. It's going to be tough getting a result in this match.

Worried more about Injuries . Hopefully Conte learns his lesson from the Athletico Mancity ties and rotates his team heavily, or we will lose to liverpool and probably get injuries. I wont mind a few players like morata , Alonso and Hazard not even travelling to Azerbaijan 

3 minutes ago, The Don Antonio said:

Worried more about Injuries . Hopefully Conte learns his lesson from the Athletico Mancity ties and rotates his team heavily, or we will lose to liverpool and probably get injuries. I wont mind a few players like morata , Alonso and Hazard not even travelling to Azerbaijan 

We should still be able to win this match without Hazard and Morata, as long as we're focused and not think the game's already won.

wud  happily take a draw here.
With mane and coutinho back they will cause all sorts of problems and we might not cope if they click.

Rest hazard, Kante, Morata, Bakayoko and maybe Christensen for Qarabag.

Two very tough matches. Could possibly define our season (we need to more consistent in the league).

It's a real dilemma for Conte. Win on Wednesday and we're through, so he can rest players v Athletico, so he's likely to pick the strongest team he can to try and get the three points. But it's just three games before the Liverpool game, which is another must-win game. I'll be happy with a first half like yesterday, and then make changes!

i think azpilicueta should go lwb vs pool. i fear salah's pace will be too much for alonso. 

ROTATE THE SQUAD:

We need a fully rested, not a jet lagged team for Liverpool. Pedro, Willian/Bats, Luiz, Rudiger, Drinkwater ampadu are good enough to beat Qarabag. 

Mane and Salah scare me to be honest. Alonso will be ripped apart down on the left by Salah. If Hazard/Morata/Kante/Cesc are rested then I'm confident they will perform vs Liverpool and get a win. 

Always enjoy beating the dippers.

 

Even more fun is going on RAWK after the game and seeing all those jolly scousers playing victims and going on about rent boys...

8 hours ago, enigma said:

i think azpilicueta should go lwb vs pool. i fear salah's pace will be too much for alonso. 

Should we play a 4-3-3? I feel like with Firmino dropping deep, it might cause us problems with Salah and Mane running into space against our defense. 

How good would it be if they were winning 1-0 and their crowd in full voice.

Then,we get two late goals and the winner is a penalty to win 2-1 !

We can easily rest some of our players fron the weekend like Christensen, Baka, Morata and maybe even Alonso.

replace them with Rudiger/Luiz, Drinkwater, Batsman, Kenedy

 

we should still be able to take Qarabag with relative ease, but they have looked a lot better since the 6-0 game

Rotation is key. 

It's going to be a tough game.

Salah will be on a mission to score and he's bang in form.

 

Going to be tough but any misery we inflict on the scousers is always the best.

I'm hoping Sevilla kick the absolute s**t out of Liverpool in Spain tonight. A few injuries to Mane, Couthino, Salah would be also very welcome.

One of my favourite Chelsea moments ever was Demba Ba running through to stop Liverpool winning the league, I celebrated that result like Munich 2012.

I hate the Scouse c**ts.

Beat these rat munchers and I really do believe that we're gonna go on a nice winning streak...

4 hours ago, Delnino said:

I'm hoping Sevilla kick the absolute s**t out of Liverpool in Spain tonight. A few injuries to Mane, Couthino, Salah would be also very welcome.

One of my favourite Chelsea moments ever was Demba Ba running through to stop Liverpool winning the league, I celebrated that result like Munich 2012.

I hate the Scouse c**ts.

Sevilla must be the only team in Europe worse at defending than Liverpool. They're making the scousers look amazing. I think we will pose a very different challenge for Klopp, especially now Kante is back. Win the midfield, sit deep enough to stop them pinging the ball over our back 3 for Salah or Mane to run on to and we get a result. Oh - and defend properly at set pieces!  

going by the toxic tweets from LOLpool supporters, I guess playing them this weekend isn't that bad after all

I think we rotated the team quite nicely tonight.  Hopefully Morata got all his misses out the way tonight as he could have had a hattrick.

I expect us to line up with the 3-5-2 formation, just not sure of personnel.  I think Cahill coming on for tonights match showed that Conte wanted him to get a run around prior to Saturday.  I'm not sure with Luiz playing the full game if that means Christensen is in at the weekend.  I also wonder if Dave at LWB and Rudiger in toward the end shows how Conte is thining for Satruday.

If Liverpool showed us anything on Tuesday, it's that they can score, but also concede  

If there is a game in the PL I enjoy us winning the most, it is this fixture. Beating these at Klanfield is always a delight, so I'm hoping we can do it again on Saturday.

I am cautiously optimistic about the game. I think our attack is developing quite nicely and we will cause them problems. Also, Conte isn't tactically naive to set us up for them to exploit, so I hope we win or at least draw. I just hope our defense doesn't sh*t the bed when they come up against their skillful players like they did against Wilfred f**king Zaha. 

Four PL wins in a row now and 8 winnable (on paper) fixtures after this game until Arse away. If we don't f**k up, we can consolidate 3rd place or even overtake Utd for 2nd place. 

Come on Chelsea!!!!

Just now, TheSage said:

If there is a game in the PL I enjoy us winning the most, it is this fixture. Beating these at Klanfield is always a delight, so I'm hoping we can do it again on Saturday.

I am cautiously optimistic about the game. I think our attack is developing quite nicely and we will cause them problems. Also, Conte isn't tactically naive to set us up for them to exploit, so I hope we win or at least draw.

Remember last season? Would have won that match if DC would have converted his PK at the end of the match

Referee: Michael Oliver