@wallosh your boy Iwobi really picked up his game

btw...did Chambers recovered from getting his ankles broke by Hazard? That was funny

 

Edited January 10, 20188 yr by robdog

6 minutes ago, RMH said:

Coming back from the game. What a bore sh*t Wenger is, parked the bus like a championship side, well, Bristol had more guts yesterday that the weirdos from the north of London. It looks like Wenger has learnt from Mourinho lately. In any case, we are toothless going forward this season, and we struggle to create against buses. At least they’ll have to open up at their sh*t hole and we’ll get better chances.

The VAR is the most annoying thing, how much time was wasted waiting to hear about god knows what?

NOT really, 6 or 7 first team players out. No Sanchez or Ozil, why would you go to Stamford bridge with half a team and open up in a two leg cup tie.

If Ozil and Sanchez start in the second leg, the game will play out like it did in the league, which, in my opinion wouldn't suit Arsenal in trying to reach the final. 

35 minutes ago, the special one said:

Away goals count after extra time

Ah I didnt know

37 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

NOT really, 6 or 7 first team players out. No Sanchez or Ozil, why would you go to Stamford bridge with half a team and open up in a two leg cup tie.

I understand that but, with 6-7 bench players Arsenal should still be better than Bristol, and they've produced less entertaining football than Bristol City at the Etihad. Had it been Chelsea that parked the bus we would have heard "boring Chelsea" and so on. Boring Arses.

By the way, quite weird going to the shed end where the away supporters usually stand.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

Please stick around, your wit is the only thing that cheers me up after performances like today 

Ah it's nice to be appreciated, thank you.
I'm not going anywhere, anytime soon. 

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

I'm sorry enigma, but this is just complete horsesh*t.

There was once a time when we weren't winning much at all, that time will likely come again one day and people like you will be begging for us to take this competition seriously. When i first became a Chelsea fan, we weren't winning much at all, we are now in the position to win these competitions and i want us to make the most of it.

How can you devalue these cups when some of the greatest days of our clubs history has been when we won them ? One of our greatest players ever (our greatest in my opinion) almost killed himself for this competition (that isn't an exaggeration by the way, he really could have died) and here you are devaluing it. If you was to share this opinion with the likes of Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Di Matteo and Wise, they would laugh in your face and question your passion for the sport and the club.

that's fair enough and if people care about winning the carabao cup that's fine. the carabao cup should be for the championship and lower division clubs to win, i think the FA cup should be the cup where premier league and lower division clubs should compete. the team could have had a week's rest this week, but now the added fixtures of this cup makes things even more difficult with having to play a premier league game in 2 and a half days.

i would much rather we had a team of vitalised players for the league so we can compete for top four rather than these ridiculous fixtures in a cup which, imo, is useless in the grand scheme of our season. even if we won it, it's a cup that will be quickly forgotten about. the FA cup has more prestige i will admit. no winter break and this competition is just added fixtures we don't need. city have a good second string, so to them it's easier (as well as being drawn against a championship side as opposed to us) but our second string is weaker than theirs and therefore conte is fielding our strongest side to face arsenal. 

1 hour ago, TomCFC85 said:

Ah it's nice to be appreciated, thank you.
I'm not going anywhere, anytime soon. 

I reckon you’ll have a heart attack if we signed Sandro...

Didn't know George Graham had taken over the Arsenal manager role while Arsene was suspended. They showed little to nothing. Always hard to break down a team who play like that especially with Xhaka fouling at will without cards.

That said we do look a bit bereft of ideas if Hazard doesn't create. Arsenal's strategy seems to be double mark Morata and Hazard and let everyone else play around the edges.

 It's clear for me we need more creativity and movement in the final third. That probably means another player and probably an expensive one for the right side. 

That said, the central question for me with our current team is Fabregas. His movement and ability to find space with clever runs in the box is amazing but he also lacks legs and requires an additional midfielder in the team to cover him. In my mind we need a player to come in with some of his clever movement (you can't replicate his passing) so that he can play a similar role to last year because I'm not sure he does enough to justify having a Drinkwater or Bakayoko in the team as well regularly to cover for his lack of speed.

Edited January 11, 20188 yr by Spiller86

1 hour ago, Munkworth said:

I reckon you’ll have a heart attack if we signed Sandro...

Can't decide if that'd be tragic irony or poetic justice.

So glad I missed this game. I bet this thread was a world of laughs!

1 hour ago, bluedave said:

So glad I missed this game. I bet this thread was a world of laughs!

Dont think the game was that bad, we had tons of chances, just failed to take them.

Wenger parked the bus.

Hope it bites him on the ass in two weeks, one of the biggest misconceptions in football is how 'good' a result a first leg 0-0 is for the away team. We don't even need to win the game at their place now.

2 hours ago, didierforever said:

Dont think the game was that bad, we had tons of chances, just failed to take them.

Very few clear cut 'we should have scored there' ones though.

The Fabregas header was one, the rest were mostly snapshots and potshots that were dealt with reasonably comfortably. 

There is something wrong with Antonio when it comes down to Arsenal. Why, for God's sake, do we need 3 midfielders? It's bloody Arsenal with bloody Welbeck and Iwobi. He totally discredited Kante's position. Why do we need Kante when we can put extra men there and solve the problems. We rely on the numbers, not on the quality. That pretty much makes Ngolo useless. When we are facing a battling opponent with strong midfield, or a really strong side like Atletiko - fine, go with 3-5-2. But Arsenal, Stoke H, Everton Away, Huddersfield away - please man. I thought Jose's desperation is the most boring football I'll see in this club but some halfs recently have been an absolute rubbish. 

And these bloody substitutions drive me crazy. Last week when Hazard was ripping them apart, he switched him. Yesterday Eden was below 0 and he left him for almost 90 minutes. And at the end? Bakayoko? Really, Bakayoko? We tried to hold the result and turn on the panic mode. 

There's gotta be something because all this nonsense has been played only against this opponent. 

For this 3-5-2, we need a good offensive player that can offer something in defense. We don't need guys like Drinkwater and Bakayoko that are defensive players and can offer something in offense in very rare circumstances. It's just painful to watch this formation. 

 

And I spoke of it in Christensen's topic - he has to score goals. He couldve done this twice yesterday. Absolutely shocking headers. 

Edited January 11, 20188 yr by Pendergast

19 minutes ago, Blue Exile said:

Wenger parked the bus.

Hope it bites him on the ass in two weeks, one of the biggest misconceptions in football is how 'good' a result a first leg 0-0 is for the away team. We don't even need to win the game at their place now.

Very true about the 0-0, also the way teams plays these days, theres not much or any advantage playing at home, added to that we are playing at the Emirates which has the most quiet and tepid home supports in the country and we will have 5k Chelsea away support making a load of racket then advantage us I say.

1 hour ago, Blue Exile said:

Very few clear cut 'we should have scored there' ones though.

The Fabregas header was one, the rest were mostly snapshots and potshots that were dealt with reasonably comfortably. 

The cesc header

2 Andreas headers

Hazard, Morata and another player running on a counter. All Hazard needed to do was put a decent pass to morata.

The list is not exhaustive. Point being, we got into some really good situations only for hazard/morata to play a poor pass or lose possession. You are right in saying that there were not any "clear cut chances", but I feel we should have and could have won that easily. 

Looked like Hazard was still carrying a knock as he clearly wasn't at his best. And when he's not at his best we struggle. Few chances but we have to do better at breaking teams down. Of course it would help if we had a striker in any kind of form. Slightly depressing that there doesn't appear to be a great deal between us and Arsenal at present 

 

Christensen should have scored at least one out of two easy headers. 

10 hours ago, ivorycoast said:

Where are the Conte apologists?

In a thread absolutely jam packed with sh*ttery, this is easily the worst post. Conte apologists? You blithering idiot.

We looked tired and bereft of ideas, arsenal parked the bus which led to a garbage game where both teams just wanted it to finish.

Even against an arsenal reserve side Conte can't beat them, this is beginning to get worrying. 

Was a whole portion of the stand behind one of the goals empty last night? Maybe some people had a premonition of what was in store!

We play dead football. Cant even tuck away a reserve arsenal side.