5 minutes ago, dkw said:

It confuses me too, I dont see why anyone thinks he`s an out an out DM. He`s never sat deep and patrolled a zone, he`s always been a hunter and very proactive rather than sitting deep.  Were now seeing him get in the box more too and he seems to have a knack of finding space as seen by the way he gets quite a few headers in.

He's always been a hunter but at the same time he's never been the one to make runs into the box to finish. Right now he seems to have that role in Sarri's setup and one big problem with that is that he's not a finisher at all. Yesterday he had a couple of chances a good finisher would have put away.

3 minutes ago, Sindre said:

He's always been a hunter but at the same time he's never been the one to make runs into the box to finish. Right now he seems to have that role in Sarri's setup and one big problem with that is that he's not a finisher at all. Yesterday he had a couple of chances a good finisher would have put away.

Your being a bit harsh on him, his header yesterday was an excellent attempt under pressure, and we dont really know if hes a finisher as he`s never really had many opportunities. He`s scored 3 goals for us I think, but how many chances has he had? We will know in a few months if he keeps playing this way.

2 hours ago, enigma said:

 If I remember rightly, Sterling had a very average first season under Pep, but then came into his own in the second season and was one of the top scorers in the league. I think it was the same with Sane too. In Pep's first season at City only Aguero scored 20 goals.

Which is the point I am making. City have at least 3 players in their first team you'd feel confident of ending the season in double figures... At the moment, we don't. 

Throw in Jesus, Mahrez and Bernardo Silva and you're looking at maybe another 15 league goals between them. Looking at our team I can't confidently say we've got goals in us like that. 

Similarly with Liverpool, Mane, Salah and Firminho are all capable for scoring double figures. 

I just think that in addition to not having a 20 a season striker, we don't have a lot of goals throughout the team. 

2 hours ago, enigma said:

We have the creativity available with Fabregas and Jorginho, so that's no excuse now.

 Agreed but unless you have players making the right runs, that creativity counts for little. Lampard was a master of making late runs into the box, we need one of the midfield three to start doing that and giving the creative players something to aim at. 

2 hours ago, enigma said:

I do think Morata will score goals too as the season progresses. He got 12 (?) last season, 

The hat trick Morata scored against a Stoke defence containing no recognised central defenders really bloated his record last season. From November onward he was as close to useless as a centre forward gets and I think they said on the commentary yesterday he only has 2 league goals in 2018. For a £60m forward, that's pretty embarrassing and that after only 4 games he's behind a 31 Giroud whose biggest goal return in England is 16 I think says more about the lack of confidence Sarri has in Morata than the quality Giroud is showing. 

33 minutes ago, dkw said:

Your being a bit harsh on him, his header yesterday was an excellent attempt under pressure, and we dont really know if hes a finisher as he`s never really had many opportunities. He`s scored 3 goals for us I think, but how many chances has he had? We will know in a few months if he keeps playing this way.

He's never really showed any attributes of a good finisher though.
He's scored 15 career goals over 280 games so it's clearly not where he thrives.

1 hour ago, icecoolguy22 said:

Sarri needs more time, the possession football could look pretty ordinary when the other team get the points with less than 30% of the possession. We only had to go back to Pep's first season to see how hard it is to play possession football in this league. Sarri will learn a lot from this game, most of us would have loved 16 points out of first 6 games before the season kicked off, let's not going overboard with keen jerk reactions, we don't need 5 new players everytime we drop points

This, a thousand times this. Seriously, is there a single person here who wouldn't have bitten your hand off for 16 points from 6 before the season started? I didn't think we'd get anywhere near that kind of start, we've had an absolutely dream of a season so far.

Thought he made his first mistake as Chelsea-manager when he hardly rested anyone against PAOK.
With Pedro in the side we would have won yesterday i believe and Jorginho and Kante both wasn't at their best either.

Need to learn to use his squad. Ampadu is a great alternative for EL for me along with Hudson-Odoi.

It shows how well we have started under sarri that a draw in a tricky away derby, is being treated like a defeat. 

We didn't learn anything new yesterday, we don't have enough match winners or goal scorers in the squad, we didn't last season, and we didn't bring anyone in the summer to rectify it. I'm not going to put too much blame on the board for that, it was a short and busy summer, and on the whole, we did okay. 

On the kante topic, regardless of what role he plays, yesterday was a rare bad game from him, he lost the ball a lot, and he lost a few duals that you would expect him to win. I think he should've come off for Barkley, and kovacic should've switched sides. 

Kante's best attributes are his interceptions, pressing, tackling, and recoveries. When the opposition have so little of the ball, he will naturally effect games less. That's not to say his position in the team should be in jeopardy, along with Jorginho and Kovacic, he provides us with a perfect platform to dominate the midfield. 

I'm pretty happy with the midfield options we have, Barkley provided something a little different yesterday, and maybe fabregas can play a role off the bench aswell.It would be great to have a lampard type in there, Sarri's napoli didn't really have a free scoring midfielder either. 

We need some fresh faces in attack, I think we will have enough to finish in the top 4 this season, but next summer we need to address it.

1 minute ago, big blue said:

I'm pretty happy with the midfield options we have, Barkley provided something a little different yesterday, and maybe fabregas can play a role off the bench aswell.It would be great to have a lampard type in there, Sarri's napoli didn't really have a free scoring midfielder either.

I actually feel a bit spoiled with our midfield this year, after what we went through just last season. Feels like we've got good options everywhere now.

16 minutes ago, Kentonio said:

I actually feel a bit spoiled with our midfield this year, after what we went through just last season. Feels like we've got good options everywhere now.

Me too, I think we have a bit of everything, just maybe lacking in attack, but sarri has done brilliantly so far, and I'm expecting us to improve even more as the season progresses.

48 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Thought he made his first mistake as Chelsea-manager when he hardly rested anyone against PAOK.
With Pedro in the side we would have won yesterday i believe and Jorginho and Kante both wasn't at their best either.

Need to learn to use his squad. Ampadu is a great alternative for EL for me along with Hudson-Odoi.

And then just think, for a moment, of what the melt-down in here would have been if he had rotated a lot and we'd drawn, or,  even worse, lost our first Europa League match, leaving us bottom of our group.

A strong team only just scraped a win, what on earth makes you think that a weakened side with two teenagers in it would have done any better, or even as well?

3 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

And then just think, for a moment, of what the melt-down in here would have been if he had rotated a lot and we'd drawn, or,  even worse, lost our first Europa League match, leaving us bottom of our group.

A strong team only just scraped a win, what on earth makes you think that a weakened side with two teenagers in it would have done any better, or even as well?

I personally couldn't care less about the EL.
I think the focus should be entirely on the league this season and Thursday-evening football is a destroyer for your league-form.

 

 

58 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Thought he made his first mistake as Chelsea-manager when he hardly rested anyone against PAOK.
With Pedro in the side we would have won yesterday i believe and Jorginho and Kante both wasn't at their best either.

Need to learn to use his squad. Ampadu is a great alternative for EL for me along with Hudson-Odoi.

Sarri's said he wants to get the group won as quickly as possible in the Europa League and it was important for us to start off with a win. Get the group won and the likes of CHO and Ampadu will get a chance. 

I can't fault his team selection against PAOK, he gave a complete rest to Luiz, Hazard, Kovacic and gave reduced playing time to Alonso, Azpi, Jorginho, Giroud. So there was plenty of rest and rotation going on. 

The team's flight was delayed coming home from that fixture and given the short turn around between games I think that hampered our preparations for the West Ham game but that's not Sarri's or anyone else's fault. 

It was a lesson to be learned yesterday, I've seen comments from a couple of players since the match saying what we should/could have done better to have got the win so it tells me Sarri's in their ear telling what needs to change and improve which gives us reason to be hopefully. 

13 minutes ago, Sindre said:

I personally couldn't care less about the EL.
I think the focus should be entirely on the league this season and Thursday-evening football is a destroyer for your league-form.

 

 

AND I want us to win every match, regardless.  Just an old-school fart, I suppose.

7 hours ago, Kev56 said:

Tell that to Roman.

Let me have his email address & I will tell him of my concerns, but then again think it is to late as he has been so successful doing it his way. 

IMO the problem against West Ham was that for the first time this season we took loads of touches on the ball. 

Sarri has had us popping the ball about really quickly, even in pointless areas. It has a knock on effect of everyone being on the move, everyone having to be alert, and everyone having to take responsibility. 

Maybe it was tiredness. Maybe it was lacking Pedro. Maybe it was just players doing what they thought was best. Maybe a mixture of all three. 

But for the first time this season we look laboured. Players were arriving where they were supposed to in order to receive a pass, and the pass didn't come. So they stood there. And when the pass did come, they were marked up and we were trying to force things.  

I don't think you can blame Sarri for that. I think the players didn't do what he wanted them to. 

8 hours ago, Kentonio said:

I actually feel a bit spoiled with our midfield this year, after what we went through just last season. Feels like we've got good options everywhere now.

A midfield of Kante. Kovacic and Jorginho is just way too short of real creativity in the final third and even shorter on goal power. Lamps on his own would score more goals and have more assists in a season than those three combined will give us. Mata was another who gave us huge end product!

We are getting too obsessed about possestion and pass completion percentages.

 

14 minutes ago, Dixon said:

Lamps on his own would score more goals and have more assists in a season than those three combined will give us.

I think it’s unrealistic to expect as many goals from any amount of midfielders combined than Lampard scored during his career. The man was just a machine. 

10 hours ago, Dixon said:

A midfield of Kante. Kovacic and Jorginho is just way too short of real creativity in the final third and even shorter on goal power. Lamps on his own would score more goals and have more assists in a season than those three combined will give us. Mata was another who gave us huge end product!

We are getting too obsessed about possestion and pass completion percentages.

I just posted this in the Kante thread, but here's an article about why Sarri probably isn't expecting either Kante or Jorghinho to score many. Apparently in his Napoli system, Jorginho and Allen were there to act as a conduit for the front guys, and Napoli scored a lot of goals.

https://theprideoflondon.com/2018/09/25/chelsea-napoli-midfielders-jorginho-ngolo-kante/

Rather than pressuring Sarri to change his system, perhaps it would be better for us to give him time to either get the system working properly with the new players he has, or to bring in players that fit his system. Kante is a considerably better player than Allen (to be fair pretty much all our players are better than the Napoli versions that Sarri inherited before he turned them into an incredible unit), so it feels like we just need to be patient and appreciate the fact he's working quicker than any of us seriously expected.

So much negativity about Sarri's team selection after 1 draw, I'm expecting #sarriout if we lose to Liverpool on Saturday. He only had the team for about 2  months, can't expect the team to function as well as his well-drilled Napoli. How long did take Pep to perfect his possession football at City? Took him a full season and some big signings on top of a pretty good team

2 hours ago, Kentonio said:

I just posted this in the Kante thread, but here's an article about why Sarri probably isn't expecting either Kante or Jorghinho to score many. Apparently in his Napoli system, Jorginho and Allen were there to act as a conduit for the front guys, and Napoli scored a lot of goals.

https://theprideoflondon.com/2018/09/25/chelsea-napoli-midfielders-jorginho-ngolo-kante/

Rather than pressuring Sarri to change his system, perhaps it would be better for us to give him time to either get the system working properly with the new players he has, or to bring in players that fit his system. Kante is a considerably better player than Allen (to be fair pretty much all our players are better than the Napoli versions that Sarri inherited before he turned them into an incredible unit), so it feels like we just need to be patient and appreciate the fact he's working quicker than any of us seriously expected.

I think there's a significant difference between the squads that Pep and Sarri inherited.

Pep already had a squad that was full off pace, movement, creativity and goal power. It was just a matter of time for the players to adjust to his style.

Sarri inherited a squad short of many of those qualities. Far too reliant on one player  in the final third - Hazard. Hopeless main strikers. Little creativity or goal power from midfield. Defence vulnerable to pace. 

Although we fully deserved our recent titles, if we are being honest they were partly down to City under performing those seasons. That ain't going to happen under Pep! And now we have a Liverpool in top gear as well who are also full of pace, creativity and goals.Our current squad will not be able to compete with them playing the way they are no matter how much time Sarri has!

Its taken Klopp 3 years to get the squad he wanted and needed to get to the level they are now. We shouldn't be kidding ourselves we are only a year behind them when we need at least another 5 quality players as first team choices.

 

Edited September 25, 20187 yr by Dixon

3 minutes ago, Dixon said:

I think there's a significant difference between the squads that Pep and Sarri inherited.

Pep already had a squad that was full off pace, movement, creativity and goal power. It was just a matter of time for the players to adjust to his style.

Sarri inherited a squad short of many of those qualities. Far too reliant on one player  in the final third - Hazard. Hopeless main strikers. Little creativity or goal power from midfield. Defence vulnerable to pace.

You might want to remember how much of the team Pep inherited which is still part of his starting 11. He changed that team massively, bringing in countless new players, then dumping some of them and bringing in more replacements until he found a solution that actually worked.

I think people massively under-rate our squad personally, but even so I'd still expect us to need to add a number of new players until we click as a really tight unit. Striker and RW probably being the main ones.

Unlike Pep however, Sarri hasn't just inherited hugely talented sides and had an open wallet to make them world beaters. The squad he inherited at Napoli were basically pretty trash, and he still managed to turn them into one of the best sides in Europe, despite losing his main goal source and having to find a solution. Right now we just don't know what he can bring out of our players.

We need a proper striker I'd have taken higgy over that puff morata Oliver is a good backup but not someone you want leading the line

On 24/09/2018 at 13:16, Sindre said:

Thought he made his first mistake as Chelsea-manager when he hardly rested anyone against PAOK.
With Pedro in the side we would have won yesterday i believe and Jorginho and Kante both wasn't at their best either.

Need to learn to use his squad. Ampadu is a great alternative for EL for me along with Hudson-Odoi.

I agree with this. Although i would not want to criticise Sarri becuase he is deliverign everything i have ever wanted from my team, but i do think we were good enough to beat PAOK without Pedro. Not playing Pedro in that game and i think we probably win both matches.

For me the disappointing thing about Sunday was the lack of movement in the final third and Pedro's movement off the shoulder of teh final defender would certainly have helped us. I think Pedro could have won us the game on Sunday.

Of course hindsight is easy, but there could be a lesson here in regards teh two upcoming Liverpool matches

I must admit that I prefer our club to managed by the likes of Sarri than I did with Jose. We are back to being Chelsea FC  managed by Sarri, rather than being second to the Jose circus who happens to manage Chelsea. 

1 hour ago, Dixon said:

I must admit that I prefer our club to managed by the likes of Sarri than I did with Jose. We are back to being Chelsea FC  managed by Sarri, rather than being second to the Jose circus who happens to manage Chelsea. 

Yes it's been great to have someone who doesn't f**k about with the dark arts. Conte was cool too.