9 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Didn't manage to watch the game as i was at a gig but saw their first goal on my phone. How did Pedro play? Thought he'd been the biggest passenger this season. If he was sh*te why are we not giving Charly a run about..

He is playing the same way he has played all his career. He is a decent player who was surrounded by the best midfield 3 to probably exist ever, the best player to ever grace the footballing field and the best team/system football has seen to-date.

He can make great 2nd/3rd man runs (United goal in the 4-0 win), score a screamer here or there, but his overall play has always been quite average in my view (and I have been quite vocal about it for some time, though last season his goals and assists outweighed his negatives). 

He IS a passenger, and he needs the others players to be at the top of their forms to get something good out of them, this should not be a surprise when talking about pedro. I simply hope we dont sell charly just to stick around with a pedro.

12 minutes ago, didierforever said:

He is playing the same way he has played all his career. He is a decent player who was surrounded by the best midfield 3 to probably exist ever, the best player to ever grace the footballing field and the best team/system football has seen to-date.

He can make great 2nd/3rd man runs (United goal in the 4-0 win), score a screamer here or there, but his overall play has always been quite average in my view (and I have been quite vocal about it for some time, though last season his goals and assists outweighed his negatives). 

He IS a passenger, and he needs the others players to be at the top of their forms to get something good out of them, this should not be a surprise when talking about pedro. I simply hope we dont sell charly just to stick around with a pedro.

If he's a passenger, what are Alonso and Moses? The pair of them try their best, but that isn't good enough as they lack the flair and class in important positions in the team.

10 hours ago, The Don Antonio said:

Anyone one Hating on Baka after todays game either didnt watch the match or has hatred for the lad

Don't think any of our side merit more than a 6/10. but he was one of the better ones. That said, if he was alert, he would have picked up the run of Xhaka for Arsenal's second - he just let him run past him.

It's a real shame that we didnt at least have Musonda on the bench to chose from. He would have slotted in perfectly to replace Willian to make sure we continued with a high front three and it would've been interesting to see how he played alongside Hazard and Pedro.

Massive oversight on the club's part. Who's call was that?

Whilst accepting we have a couple of injuries, the fact that one player going off caused so much disruption is scandalous for a club of our standing. Our only attacking options were a player who hasn't played for the best part of a year, and a striker who struggled to hold the ball up against Norwich.

Why exactly are we struggling against the worst Arsenal team this side of twenty years? I guess the only positive is Wenger stays with them for another couple of years and they're still generally impotent in the league.

Bloomin depressing seeing our results against them of late.

42 minutes ago, old git said:

If he's a passenger, what are Alonso and Moses? The pair of them try their best, but that isn't good enough as they lack the flair and class in important positions in the team.

Alonso and Moses are not "passengers". They are good players who in an ideal world would be squad players for us, or atleast thats what Conte envisioned by trying to get danilo/walker/mendy/sandro.

Pedro on the other hand is a supposed world class player. 

Moreover, I will be overlooking the flair and class for moses/alonso because I dont think thats the most valuable attribute corresponding to their positions. They need to be defensively good, provide width to stretch defences and run up and down the pitch all match long in doing this. Pedro and the fact that he is supposed to be one of our main attackers has the actual load of at the very least reducing some load off hazard in carrying all the attack.

11 hours ago, zes said:

....................some whingey bitch-whining and then............... Im done watching matches for now its the same crap every week. Got better things to do.................................

Every cloud has a silver lining, eh?

Neither team created many chances tbh. We deserved to go out, mainly because of our poor second half. Arsenal had the luck and I suppose we had it last weekend, so there you are, that's football. Thought our attack again looked blunt although Arsenal deserve credit for their defending. Baka and Kante had a terrific first half, I would even say Baka was a candidate for MotM. Barkley, who probably would have been given 15 or 20 minutes, tried his best but was off the pace. Azpi was like a ship turning in a harbour at times. I would have brought on Michy to replace Willian but I wasn't consulted.

44 minutes ago, didierforever said:

Alonso and Moses are not "passengers". They are good players who in an ideal world would be squad players for us, or atleast thats what Conte envisioned by trying to get danilo/walker/mendy/sandro.

Pedro on the other hand is a supposed world class player. 

Moreover, I will be overlooking the flair and class for moses/alonso because I dont think thats the most valuable attribute corresponding to their positions. They need to be defensively good, provide width to stretch defences and run up and down the pitch all match long in doing this. Pedro and the fact that he is supposed to be one of our main attackers has the actual load of at the very least reducing some load off hazard in carrying all the attack.

Who the hell thinks Pedro is world class lol

Well that was bloody frustrating - I can’t stand the Arse! 

I thought we started off brilliantly and deserved to go 1-up, we were playing a much higher line than usual which is what I think we should be doing every week. We got very unlucky with both of their goals, which completely changed the complex of the game. It allowed them to play more of a possession game, and we just didn’t have it in our legs to keep the intensity up, especially in the second half. If they hadn’t been so fortunate with their goals I’m positive that there would have been a different outcome and we’d have been able to pick them off. We didn’t look great in the second half but Arsenal aren’t actually a bad team. They’re 6th in the league and have only lost once at home all season, their struggles have been away from the emirates. Which is why I’m really disappointed that we didn’t really go for it against them in the 1st leg - we were way too cautious and that’s where this tie was lost.

Baka gets a lot of stick on here, but it was his best match for us by a mile last night. Our best player by a distance.

It’s not all doom and gloom, we’re still a much better team than the Arse! Up the Chels!

Reality check

Conte is apparently an aggressive bully, who is hated in the dressing room. Morata would play because his mate died and his head wasn't in the right place ( bet he picked up his £250k wages ).

Courtois is site seeing in Madrid, Baka, Drinkwater, Zappacosta, Batman, Rudiger, Moses, Cahill all mediocre at best.   Peter Crouch and the Pikey was actually fact ( contract discussed ).

Another day in the life of a frustrated Chelsea supporter.

 

We always get a few after a bad loss.  Won't be here long.

I'm not losing sleep over this, it is a mini-mouse cup whether we win it or not. The most annoying thing is we had to play 180 minutes to get knocked out, to be honest I don't think either side fancy playing City in a month time, who should have a 10-12 points lead by the game day  and could afford to risk a league game to win this. We didn't find out anything we haven't noticed already, the shooting is still erractic, without the first choice Gk the defence is shaky, midfield is not dominating, and we run out of attacking players even on the bench. I don't think under normal circumstances Barkley wouldn't have played, he got thrown into the deep end, but life will get better for him. I thought it was a mistake starting Pedro, he's been awful this season up to date, and does anyone seriously believe Batshuyai would save the day? He should have started, at least he'd have space to run into when the game is even. Lastly, f* Arsenal, they can take all the winning selfie they want, they won't even win this mini-mouse cup and we will finish ahead of them in the league.

8 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

I'm not losing sleep over this, it is a mini-mouse cup whether we win it or not. The most annoying thing is we had to play 180 minutes to get knocked out, to be honest I don't think either side fancy playing City in a month time, who should have a 10-12 points lead by the game day  and could afford to risk a league game to win this. We didn't find out anything we haven't noticed already, the shooting is still erractic, without the first choice Gk the defence is shaky, midfield is not dominating, and we run out of attacking players even on the bench. I don't think under normal circumstances Barkley wouldn't have played, he got thrown into the deep end, but life will get better for him. I thought it was a mistake starting Pedro, he's been awful this season up to date, and does anyone seriously believe Batshuyai would save the day? He should have started, at least he'd have space to run into when the game is even. Lastly, f* Arsenal, they can take all the winning selfie they want, they won't even win this mini-mouse cup and we will finish ahead of them in the league.

Yes. We will finish above them and it’s Citys all day long. I still want us to get back to dominating games from start to finish.

chin up guys!! they'll never win the UCL anyway and will finish below us this year. Plus we can still win the FA and they won't win against City. they won't get any PL title anytime soon so really that's not an elmination in the league cup that should bother us. However, we should focus on improving our domination of the game much more than we've done lately as this is clearly a flaw that has already cost us on many games this season. Anyway, Up the chels!

 

But I think it has become universally accepted by the majority of fans that our youth policy is not in line with our first team model. Its a separate product line altogether, in the same way that merchandising is.

It appears that Chelsea use the Youth Development scheme as a completely separate income stream and with first team managers constantly on the brink of losing their jobs who really is going to have the guts to try and develop a youngster and integrate them into the team. I think few and far between will make it and those few exceptions should be lauded by us fans for their perseverance because they may well have reached our first team despite our first team management set up and not because of it.

I just hate us losing to Arsenal. That is all.

Short rant over!

 

 

 

Thinking about the game again, it does seem Arsenal have that indian sign over us at the moment and it just wasn't going to be our night.

Thought all of the defence were not as good as usual - probably not helped by having no Courtois behind them. Rudiger was so unlucky with the deflections for the goals, but Dave in particular was well below his usual standard.

Moses and Alonso were both ineffective. Alonso's night was summed up with that late free-kick. Even if he doesn't score, he usually hits the target but it was a really poor effort - typical of the night. Hazard was okay without being great. They doubled up on him and made it very difficult but he would still usually cause more problems than he did. He wasn't helped by Willian going off early and Barkley did nothing of any note. Have lost patience with Pedro - just doesn't offer enough and I would let him go at the end of the season.

When a game is going like that one was last night, you are crying out for a couple of "game-changers" on the bench. All the other top sides have at least one, City have f**king too many to count. We had zilch.

 

Another kicker to it is, like the last game, Arsenal didn't even play well. It shows just how bad we were. Both of their goals were gifted too.

They have no chance in the final if they play like they did against us.

The most depressing thing is that Conte is off this summer but we are lumbered with Drinkwater and Barkley for the next five years. Journeymen players at best, players that will get you top five or six in the league at best.

8 minutes ago, pamery said:

The most depressing thing is that Conte is off this summer but we are lumbered with Drinkwater and Barkley for the next five years. Journeymen players at best, players that will get you top five or six in the league at best.

He hasn't even started a game for us yet ffs.

15 minutes ago, pamery said:

The most depressing thing is that Conte is off this summer

Why is that depressing ? He's been decent enough, but we have had great success in rotating managers over the last 15 years, as soon as it goes flat they are gone. 

 

25 minutes ago, coco said:

Why is that depressing ? He's been decent enough, but we have had great success in rotating managers over the last 15 years, as soon as it goes flat they are gone. 

 

Yeah, but Coco, we have always been one of the top dogs over that period with a quality squad and looking to replace quality with quality. Now it seems times have changed and it doesn't look like we can compete for the top players so are signing inferior players. If Conte goes and we carry on with the same policy, I honestly fear where we're heading.

@Nibs and @coco you've both been round long enough to know that it comes around and it goes around.  No club is top dog forever, and sh*t happens.  We were sh*t, then we got good again, and, one day, we will be sh*t again.  All these new fans with their "expectations" and their "that's unacceptables" will eventually come to learn this, or they will schlepp off to the next top dog, or start watching snooker or something.

I've said this many times in here and everywhere, each season get enough points to avoid relegation and anything else is a bonus.  A good run in the FA Cup is an extra good thing, because of that cup, its importance and our history with it.  I don't care how rich we are , or how the game has changed, or how blah, blah, blah. I have no right to "expect" anything but that the team that goes out on the pitch in Chelsea Blue do their best, given the circumstances and opposition they find in front of them.

And, anyway, someone said previously, it will sort out the fair-weather fans and the tourists and there will be at least 3 benefits of us declining. 

Firstly, tickets will be that much easier to get, secondly, the away days will be great fun again, thirdly, the media will find a new hate figure and the papers won't be full of CFC "sourced" crap on a slow news day.

4 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

@Nibs and @coco you've both been round long enough to know that it comes around and it goes around.  No club is top dog forever, and sh*t happens.  We were sh*t, then we got good again, and, one day, we will be sh*t again.  All these new fans with their "expectations" and their "that's unacceptables" will eventually come to learn this, or they will schlepp off to the next top dog, or start watching snooker or something.

I've said this many times in here and everywhere, each season get enough points to avoid relegation and anything else is a bonus.  A good run in the FA Cup is an extra good thing, because of that cup, its importance and our history with it.  I don't care how rich we are , or how the game has changed, or how blah, blah, blah. I have no right to "expect" anything but that the team that goes out on the pitch in Chelsea Blue do their best, given the circumstances and opposition they find in front of them.

And, anyway, someone said previously, it will sort out the fair-weather fans and the tourists and there will be at least 3 benefits of us declining. 

Firstly, tickets will be that much easier to get, secondly, the away days will be great fun again, thirdly, the media will find a new hate figure and the papers won't be full of CFC "sourced" crap on a slow news day.

I know @yorkleyblue. When I typed that out, I was well aware that only a few days previous I was saying we are bigging up our rivals too much and we shouldn't be so pessimistic now I've gone back to being suicidal doom & gloom merchant! You're only as good as your last game and frankly we're sh*t!!

Trouble is mate, the game has moved on so much in even the last few seasons and continues to move on. We let things slip, lose a great coach and don't re-invest, we are in danger of becoming the next Leeds (let's hope we keep our badge!). 

Got to admit, I still love football but I don't love it quite as much as I used to.