3 minutes ago, the special one said:

Not jumping to conclusions quite yet but we haven't looked much better than Perth Glory this second half.

He brought on the sh*t players.

Musonda, Bakayoko, Kalas, Aina, Piazon, Pasalic and Fabregas won't start for us. The first half team is much closer to our first team.

Nice to see Bakayako has picked up where he left end of last season

Still need lots of work to be done. However we had a lot of fringe players

the thing I didn’t like was how we don’t convert our chances

2 minutes ago, Imran_CFC said:

Nice to see Bakayako has picked up where he left end of last season

His hair looks worse

Jorginho looks like he's been playing for us for 10 years, looks sharp and ready.

Bakayoko absolutely nowhere, such a shame. 

Morata also his usual uninterested self, Tammy did more and was more of a threat.

Zappacosta & Barkley the biggest surprises for me, both were involved in a lot of the play and had great games.

Callum seemed confident and the assist for the goal was brilliant.

Emerson much better than Alonso on the left side.

I'd give MOTM to Pedro, was our main attacking threat and looked lively all game.

 

All in all, nice introduction to Sarri's style of football in the first half, later on it faded. Pressing was our strong point, short passes obviously need some work, as does the defensive positioning. 

Final 30 minutes was utter toss but that's what you expect for a first pre-season game, especially when the pitch is littered with players who won't play a minute of competitive football for us this season. 

I thought Barkley looked good, was aggressive and positive going forward. 

Hundson-Odoi again showing promise, if Willian goes we need to bring in another winger but Hudson-Odoi should still get minutes this season as 4th choice, especially in the Europa League and if he continues to impress he'll be pushing for regular minutes. 

Morata is still a man baby. 

Bakayoko still looks like he's won a competition to play for Chelsea. 

Pedro looked sharp, always does when games are quite open. 

Ampadu continues to show maturity in central defence, shame he probably won't get much playing time this season, I think he's a real talent. 

Initial impressions of Jorginho are positive. 

I look forward to the likes of Rudiger and Moses joining up with the first team, might get a better impression of how we're going to play. 

Jorginho completed 98 passes that first half.

Hard to get a measure of the match when it poured rain and we've been working together for a week. 

There was however, a clear difference between the 11 we started with and the fringe players who came on later.  

What we also saw tonight is that the key for this system is the high press when you lose the ball. If you don't press well enough teams are into space in a flash. The players who came on were slower to press which created opportunities for Perth.

Standouts for me: Barkley, Pedro, Jorginho, Luiz and Fabregas. All superb. Happy for Barkley in particular. We saw him properly for the first time tonight. Hard not to like what we saw. 

49 minutes ago, Total-Football said:

That was a penalty on Abraham 

I was a bit disappointed with Tammy tbh, he get's into good positions but is so wasteful. It was the same for the England 21's this summer, he had 2 or 3 "easy" chances but missed them all. He needs to become more clinical if he's going to make it.

Edited July 23, 20187 yr by the special one

Impressed with Barkley and Jorginho. The rest needs to get rid of the rusts and get back to work

Morata incredibly poor against an incredibly poor opponent. I imagine Giroud and Michy will both find themselves ahead of him in the pecking order shortly. 

Also find it interesting that D.Luiz’s injury has disappeared with Conte and looks fit as a fiddle. Definitely more behind that than we know. 

I agree with the other assessments, the only thing I would add on Bakayoko is, whilst it might be a good idea to have a big midfield unit in the squad, Ruben is just as big and offers a whole lot more.

I like Ampadu a lot, he’s physical, but technically solid and suits Sarri’s system, he’s more ready than Kalas. Hudson-Odoi is a brilliant talent and I hope he gets some game time in the cup competitions, I think he’s already better than Musonda.

The main concerns for me were the full backs and the striker, there is no problem with Azpi, but there is a problem playing wing backs as conventional full backs. I thought Zappa had a good game, but Alonso is slow and couldn’t get back quick enough. Morata was his usual self and Abraham showed a lot more desire, he lacks composure but I thought he was unlucky.

Also, I’d consider keeping Aina. 

Edited July 23, 20187 yr by Floyd25

Considering the players we have yet to come back, Tbo, Caballero, Cahill, Rudiger, Christensen, Azp, Moses, Kante, RLC, Willian, Hazard, Michy, Giroud.

I think we're in a good place, 3 or 4 of the above will slot straight into the first XI and give us a huge boost with their technical proficiency and use of the ball in a quick and evolving system.

First game of the PL season assuming theres no movement in the market, I'd start with 

Tbo

Azp Christensen Rudiger Emerson

Kante Jorginho Barkley

Pedro Morata Hazard

7 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Morata incredibly poor against an incredibly poor opponent. I imagine Giroud and Michy will both find themselves ahead of him in the pecking order shortly. 

I don’t think there’s that much between Michy and Morata right now, if anything Michy is the more natural goal scorer.

Jorginho and Cesc looked great together in the first half. The level of passing was incredible. You could also clearly see that Pedro comes from la Masia. That quick short passing football is right up his ally. He did really well. In the second half Cesc was clearly tiring and without Jorginho the passing wasn't half as good. Jorginho didn't only impress with his passing. I also really liked his defensive positioning.

Hudson-Odoi did pretty well too. Showed his great talent, but clearly isn't as good at movement and game intelligence as Pedro yet. Which is only normal considering he's only 17. I'd like him to stay as backup to Hazard, but people here need to slow their horses. He's a great prospect, but far from the finished article.

Barkley was pretty lively. Had some good chances and really should have got a goal. Some untidy moments, but improved as the game went on and really came into his own in the second half.

Luiz did very well apart from that yellow card. Loved his build up play.

Ampadu looked like a seasoned pro. Rock solid defensively and tidy in possession.

Alonso was decent but could have been better.

Zappacosta looked really good, especially in attack.

Morata was pretty poor.

Pasalic did reasonably well. Combative player, very two footed, but not that great technically.

Bakayoko did well in the beginning, but became his sloppy self as the game went on.

Emerson was very energetic on that left flank. Love his pace and technical quality. Not that great defensively though.

Abraham was an improvement on Morata. Much more of a physical presence.

Kalas was decent, Piazon, Musonda and Aina didn't really do too much.

Lets hope Sarri will spot very quickly what we already know about several players. I would pay a good fee to know his real thoughts on some of them.

http://hoofoot.com/?match=Perth_Glory_0_-_1_Chelsea_2018_07_23 good lengthy highlights. www.hoofoot.com is a good site for highlights in general. In case you were looking for one!

What did people think of the game? Barkley looked lively (what i've seen from him in the highlights), already saw some of that sweet vertical tiki taka passing!

 

 

8 minutes ago, robdog said:

 

 

Amazing, thanks for posting this!

Interesting that Bulka was wearing #12 ... Giroud had that one last season ... the only other change in the starting lineup was CHO with #20 instead of #70 ...

13 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Interesting that Bulka was wearing #12 ... Giroud had that one last season ... the only other change in the starting lineup was CHO with #20 instead of #70 ...

Wasn't Giroud #18 last season?

14 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Interesting that Bulka was wearing #12 ... Giroud had that one last season ... the only other change in the starting lineup was CHO with #20 instead of #70 ...

Someone other than Rüdiger was wearing #2, but I couldn't makd out who it was.

Pre-season they just wear any old number.

I think it's way too soon to make any judgement on players. Sarri has improved players at Napoli. No reason he can't do the same at Chelsea. Sarri hasn't even been here two weeks, and half of it has been pre-occupied with a pre-season game in Australia. It sucks there was a world cup this year otherwise most of our first teamers would have returned and they could start getting adapted to the tactics. We still have Moses, Christensen, Rudiger, Cahill, Azpi, Kante, Hazard, Willian (?), Batshuayi and possibly RLC to return. That's half our original first team who will have to catch up.