Hope he gets to start against Watford so everyone has a chance to say goodbye to him.

12 hours ago, Nibs said:

I played 5 a side in a proper league up until I was 55 but all the joints are on that downward spiral, especially the knees. Like you, I thought I can't play football at walking pace, but it isn't actually walking. Players do run a bit or at least jog and there is tackling. Probably varies depending where you play it, but I would recommend it to any over 50's, who still feel that urge to kick a ball about. I will carry on until the joints say NO MORE!

 

I packed in 5`s and 6`s about 44, the day after a game of 6`s I got to work and literally couldnt get out of my car, I had to lift my legs out ha ha....with me its my Achilles, I had tendinitis in both and it ruined me...

Might give the walking game a go then, watched a video of it last night and its more contact than I expected.

I thought Jorgi had an excellent game 

He’s always been a great cup final player. 
 

Unfortunately he can’t maintain that form for more than 60% of the season

Great performance today, probably our best player on the day.

6 hours ago, Dubair said:

Great performance today, probably our best player on the day.

I thought Alonso was our best player but I'd agree Jorginho played well. Probably his best performance for Chelsea for well over a year. Too few and far between for me though

 

Yeah Jorginho was brilliant yesterday, my MOTM.

He deserved to win the Cup with that performance. He was brilliant.

 

4 minutes ago, Sindre said:

He deserved to win the Cup with that performance. He was brilliant.

 

Yep, phenomenal game by him. Voted MOTM for him (although Alonso did made a great game either..can't believe I'm typing that :D). To bad the season went like it did because we did have a very special squad that could have a much better round than it did and I do think that most of the reasons they didn't weren't in their hands as well. Too bad, seems to break apart now and it remains to be seen whether the new formation has the same unique potential than the current one. Would have loved to see them playing one more round together with a resolved ownership, a proper rest and pre-season, hopefully a different corona-reality. 

Credit where its due, had probably his best game in a Chelsea shirt. Such a shame he can't play like this more often because we'd be challenging for the title if so. 

Yeah he had a great game, he did exactly what he does best.

But sadly his best doesn't involve producing goals./chances.

He doesn't have the capability to unlock defences. Away from home he looks much better. But at home with high possession/territory and compressed opponents, he is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

 

1 minute ago, coco said:

Yeah he had a great game, he did exactly what he does best.

But sadly his best doesn't involve producing goals./chances.

He doesn't have the capability to unlock defences. Away from home he looks much better. But at home with high possession/territory and compressed opponents, he is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

 

It's not really a surprise our attackers struggle to get high goal scoring numbers like at City and Liverpool when we have Jorginho and Kante trying to start attacks. 

Mount seems to be the only player capable of going out and creating something for himself and forcing a goal. 

26 minutes ago, Sindre said:

He deserved to win the Cup with that performance. He was brilliant.

 

Those fouls that he managed to win were so huge, he single handedly brought us into the game there because he stopped the pressure and the intensity of the Liverpool players and we grew into the match from that point on. The fact that the whole squad combined was fouled only a few times more than Jorginho speaks for itself, Jorginho is the most stable option for us, the rest simply rotate around him, Kante/Kovacic/RLC but when all said and done we have been worse without Jorginho, it's all in these details that make up for an important job that someone needs to do.

Basically Tuchel must be given the 100m to spend on Rice in the summer if we want to keep this level of competitiveness once Jorginho leaves, regardless of what happens with the rest.

13 minutes ago, coco said:

But at home with high possession/territory and compressed opponents, he is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

 

Definitly something that needs to be addressed. Not an isolated Jorginho problem in my opinion as most of our players are useless against low blocks. And replacing Jorginho with someone like Rice, Kamara or Sangare is definitly not going to do anything to solve that particular problem. In theory it's fine that your DM isn't who you depend on for creativity as we've seen at this club previously with Maka, Mikel, Matic. Difference was that they were actually partnered with creative lads in midfield who did the creating while they sweeped up. I think that creativity is what we first and foremost need against those low-block teams.

17 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Jorginho is the most stable option for us, the rest simply rotate around him, Kante/Kovacic/RLC but when all said and done we have been worse without Jorginho, it's all in these details that make up for an important job that someone needs to do.

Basically Tuchel must be given the 100m to spend on Rice in the summer if we want to keep this level of competitiveness once Jorginho leaves, regardless of what happens with the rest.

Don't really agree with that and I rate Jorgi extremely high. He was quite unstable this season and seemed overplayed hence not fully concentrated in the process more often than not. If anybody from our midfield was rather stable in his performances it was Kovacic this season - unfortunately riddled with injuries / infections just as half the squad. 

Also not sure what Rice has to do with a Jorgi replacement. He's not a playmaker at all or did I miss that? Although I could see us switching to a back 4 with Rice and I could imagine him being the marquee signing by a new ownership I personally think we would fare better with someone who would allow us to play a back 5 and 4 both equally well (ideal: Marquinhos). Rice to me seems a bit like a Lukaku signing up front (in general terms, provocative I know): we would have to re-structure our whole setup and approach to accommodate him and I really don't see the need to do that this drastically. But that's just my opinion. 

Edited May 16, 20224 yr by weetee

21 minutes ago, weetee said:

Don't really agree with that and I rate Jorgi extremely high. He was quite unstable this season and seemed overplayed hence not fully concentrated in the process more often than not. If anybody from our midfield was rather stable in his performances it was Kovacic this season - unfortunately riddled with injuries / infections just as half the squad. 

Also not sure what Rice has to do with a Jorgi replacement. He's not a playmaker at all or did I miss that? Although I could see us switching to a back 4 with Rice and I could imagine him being the marquee signing by a new ownership I personally think we would fare better with someone who would allow us to play a back 5 and 4 both equally well (ideal: Marquinhos). Rice to me seems a bit like a Lukaku signing up front (in general terms, provocative I know): we would have to re-structure our whole setup and approach to accommodate him and I really don't see the need to do that this drastically. But that's just my opinion. 

Well yes some of the times when Jorginho played poorly this season was due to the fact that he was overplayed so there's a correlation there but overall he brings more stability to the whole team, it really doesn't matter who his partner has been because he does his role well which can't be said to Kante and Kovacic, both of them have much more problems when Jorginho isn't there.

I agree that Rice isn't the Jorginho replacement per say but when Jorginho leaves he would be the default option to sign in a similar way to how Lukaku became the default option for us in due time. Rice would be the anchor in the midfield which is a little bit of a different role in comparison to Jorginho but practically it's not such a big deal that would need the rest to adapt to him, Rice can hold on to the ball and he'll have either Kovacic or Gilmour close by for the transition and he can do the job defensively.

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

Definitly something that needs to be addressed. Not an isolated Jorginho problem in my opinion as most of our players are useless against low blocks. And replacing Jorginho with someone like Rice, Kamara or Sangare is definitly not going to do anything to solve that particular problem. In theory it's fine that your DM isn't who you depend on for creativity as we've seen at this club previously with Maka, Mikel, Matic. Difference was that they were actually partnered with creative lads in midfield who did the creating while they sweeped up. I think that creativity is what we first and foremost need against those low-block teams.

I don't expect the DM to be creative but he is meant to be the conductor in the team, he is the genesis of most of our attacks, he creates the tempo.

We all know we won't win the league with him, just go on decent cup runs.

13 minutes ago, coco said:

We all know we won't win the league with him, just go on decent cup runs.

”with Rodri we can win the league” or “with Henderson we can win the league” said noone ever.

It’s not the responsibility of them when Salah complicates too much, when Diaz takes 5 shots with none being on target, when G.Jesus or Grealish fail up front... The same way not Jorginho’s fault when Pulisic can’t score from inside the box either...

18 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

”with Rodri we can win the league” or “with Henderson we can win the league” said noone ever.

It’s not the responsibility of them when Salah complicates too much, when Diaz takes 5 shots with none being on target, when G.Jesus or Grealish fail up front... The same way not Jorginho’s fault when Pulisic can’t score from inside the box either...

Imo Jorginho would not get in either of those teams because he is nowhere near reliable enough to turn up every game. That's why i don't ever consider him good enough to win the league. 

15 minutes ago, coco said:

Imo Jorginho would not get in either of those teams because he is nowhere near reliable enough to turn up every game. That's why i don't ever consider him good enough to win the league. 

Proved it in Italy to when they couldn't get over the line for the title.

Summed it up well by saying he's a player good for cup runs, not the length of a season. 

20 minutes ago, coco said:

Imo Jorginho would not get in either of those teams because he is nowhere near reliable enough to turn up every game. That's why i don't ever consider him good enough to win the league. 

He’s not really that much worse than the counterparts in the 2 teams above us. I heard the argument that Werner would be great if he was in Liverpool...

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

Well yes some of the times when Jorginho played poorly this season was due to the fact that he was overplayed so there's a correlation there but overall he brings more stability to the whole team, it really doesn't matter who his partner has been because he does his role well which can't be said to Kante and Kovacic, both of them have much more problems when Jorginho isn't there.

I agree that Rice isn't the Jorginho replacement per say but when Jorginho leaves he would be the default option to sign in a similar way to how Lukaku became the default option for us in due time. Rice would be the anchor in the midfield which is a little bit of a different role in comparison to Jorginho but practically it's not such a big deal that would need the rest to adapt to him, Rice can hold on to the ball and he'll have either Kovacic or Gilmour close by for the transition and he can do the job defensively.

I don't disagree with him bringing stability into our play - which he does of course but imho he also clearly suffers without a Kanté or Kovacic next to him that carry the ball. 

 

But what I really don't get is this "default option to sign" part. Not sure about Lukaku being one before but that was not a good way to spend that kind of dough. Not with our whole backline being questionable due contract situations (Christensen, Rüdiger, Azpi) or age (Thiago) and not having decent back-up options for our midfield trio (although RLC did ok overall) or wingbacks. So just because Rice has a nice history with the club I personally don't think that it would be worth paying an absurd amount of money for this one position while we still have lots of others unsolved or at least not the depth in quality that we need for say 15-16 players. 

 

 

1 minute ago, Gol15 said:

He’s not really that much worse than the counterparts in the 2 teams above us. I heard the argument that Werner would be great if he was in Liverpool...

We don't know for sure if Jorginho would get in those teams to be honest with you, but i can give you my opinion which is not a blind guess (like saying Werner would do well in Pools team), based on watching Jorginho for the last 4 seasons, no chance he would ever be a regular first team player.

I feel the team has outgrown Jorginho. 

He played his part in helping us play more progressive football, but ultimately, we need to now be aspiring for greater. 

27 minutes ago, weetee said:

I don't disagree with him bringing stability into our play - which he does of course but imho he also clearly suffers without a Kanté or Kovacic next to him that carry the ball. 

 

But what I really don't get is this "default option to sign" part. Not sure about Lukaku being one before but that was not a good way to spend that kind of dough. Not with our whole backline being questionable due contract situations (Christensen, Rüdiger, Azpi) or age (Thiago) and not having decent back-up options for our midfield trio (although RLC did ok overall) or wingbacks. So just because Rice has a nice history with the club I personally don't think that it would be worth paying an absurd amount of money for this one position while we still have lots of others unsolved or at least not the depth in quality that we need for say 15-16 players. 

 

 

Well yes but that's the thing, anyone will do, a similar thing happened in Napoli so it really doesn't matter who you put in front of Jorginho it just works.

It has been a pretty long time since Rice is somehow linked to us though. I'm not saying that the club will manage to sign Rice with all the other issues, it's probably unlikely and in that sense you're right about him not being our default transfer target in the summer, but signing him would mean that we're not really caring about the price as long as it's what the club wants, it would be a huge statement.

Even if Rice wouldn't solve our lack of finishing or creating chances he would solve maybe some other issues once we lose some of our key players. After all, our backline can look pretty clueless and Rice could be a good extra man there when needed, though a cheaper DM that would do that would be the best option but these days it doesn't look like we can steal a player like we did when we signed Kante right after he won the league. If he really is loving CFC though, he could make it easier for us, in a similar fashion like Matic that simply wanted to play for Mourinho.