6 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

I think midfield has been the one place where specialists have still remained (and thrived). It is not so long ago that many midfielders had dedicated defensive midfielders, deep-lying playmakers, attacking midfielders etc. - we appear to be one of the few top teams who still rely on very strict pigeonholes. The 'Makelele role' or the 'Pirlo role' is dead, teams can no longer afford to have a midfielder acting purely defensively if they can't contribute to getting a counter-attack going, or relying on a midfielder to ping passes to the wings from deep. If you need a deep-lying stopper, then you play a back three.

 

Not really true though, those roles are clearly used. Kovacic always had some talent but the lack of him having a specific role made it harder for him to get a place as a regular at Real Madrid.

Our best player is the player we would miss the most if they don't play.

Mendy.

6 hours ago, coco said:

Our best player is the player we would miss the most if they don't play.

Mendy.

Hope you haven't jinxed him to go and have an absolute mare of Kepa proportions against United now @coco!!!

8 hours ago, coco said:

Our best player is the player we would miss the most if they don't play.

Mendy.

That can be true, last season at some point there was a huge difference from having Tammy on the pitch and not, later on a similar thing happened with Pulisic.

But we should consider the quality of the squad, Kepa has been terrible so it's a huge difference between him and Mendy. But when Kovacic doesn't play Kante/Jorginho are better quality players than Kepa and there was even Gilmour that won motm awards so the difference from them and Kovacic is less and thus we don't feel a bigger difference like we do in the Kepa-Mendy comparison.

2 hours ago, Gol15 said:

That can be true, last season at some point there was a huge difference from having Tammy on the pitch and not, later on a similar thing happened with Pulisic.

But we should consider the quality of the squad, Kepa has been terrible so it's a huge difference between him and Mendy. But when Kovacic doesn't play Kante/Jorginho are better quality players than Kepa and there was even Gilmour that won motm awards so the difference from them and Kovacic is less and thus we don't feel a bigger difference like we do in the Kepa-Mendy comparison.

Cech is our 2nd best player.

18 minutes ago, coco said:

Cech is our 2nd best player.

And i am our 4th

1 hour ago, coco said:

Cech is our 2nd best player.

I forgot about that detail! 

19 hours ago, coco said:

Our best player is the player we would miss the most if they don't play.

Mendy.

That's not a good metric, that's because we have two terrible options besides him. 

That's like saying Chilwell is our best player because we will truly miss him if he's injured since Emerson and Alonso are that crap. 

It's hard to really say who our best player is, if I had to put it on market value, potential and talentwise, I would go Pulisic. 

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

That's not a good metric, that's because we have two terrible options besides him. 

That's like saying Chilwell is our best player because we will truly miss him if he's injured since Emerson and Alonso are that crap. 

It's hard to really say who our best player is, if I had to put it on market value, potential and talentwise, I would go Pulisic. 

You forget this a team sport and your'e only as good as your weakest link. 

2 hours ago, coco said:

You forget this a team sport and your'e only as good as your weakest link. 

It's still not a good metric. You can't say Mendy is our best player just because Kepa is sh*t. 

Plus almost every team in the world will massively struggle without their number 1 keeper. 

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

It's still not a good metric. You can't say Mendy is our best player just because Kepa is sh*t. 

Plus almost every team in the world will massively struggle without their number 1 keeper. 

No player in the squad stands out as the 'best' player, you could make cases for some of them, but we have no Hazard level of player who stands out amongst the rest, not yet.

Mendy is probably the most important player to us at this moment in time, that's pretty clear.

35 minutes ago, coco said:

No player in the squad stands out as the 'best' player, you could make cases for some of them, but we have no Hazard level of player who stands out amongst the rest, not yet.

Mendy is probably the most important player to us at this moment in time, that's pretty clear.

I can't argue with that, I just mean quality wise. 

Like I said earlier it's really hard to say. For me, on talent alone, it's Pulisic, that's probably my fanboyism kicking in a bit but I have high hopes for him, if he can avoid getting injured. 

I think on his day, he's the best player in the blue. 

Wonder what happened to him. We could have used him in helping us break through the lines

2 minutes ago, Deino said:

Wonder what happened to him. We could have used him in helping us break through the lines

He's back to his usual self - warming the bench. I find it odd considering that he was our "best player" last season, which didn't end that long ago...

Kovacic needs to be aggressive when he plays as that’s his biggest strength. Breaking the lines with his dribbling and starting the attack. That’s what he did best last season at Chelsea as Frank gave him the green light to go unlike under Sarri. Maybe frank doesn’t want him to do that anymore as it leaves the team vulnerable to counters as there back line is weak as we all know. 

41 minutes ago, Kova17 said:

Kovacic needs to be aggressive when he plays as that’s his biggest strength. Breaking the lines with his dribbling and starting the attack. That’s what he did best last season at Chelsea as Frank gave him the green light to go unlike under Sarri. Maybe frank doesn’t want him to do that anymore as it leaves the team vulnerable to counters as there back line is weak as we all know. 

Not sure what the reason is, but if you’re right then our strengthened back line should theoretically bolster the case for reestablishing kova in midfield at the expense of Kante . I suspect we will see a Jorginho-Kova midfield tried out again before long, at least for one match.

5 minutes ago, Dean said:

Not sure what the reason is, but if you’re right then our strengthened back line should theoretically bolster the case for reestablishing kova in midfield at the expense of Kante . I suspect we will see a Jorginho-Kova midfield tried out again before long, at least for one match.

I think Frank likes the extra insurance Kante gives so I can understand him being reluctant to play that pairing in a game like United away. Kante was frustrating going forward today with a lot of mis-placed passes, but the flip-side was how many times he got a foot in and nicked the ball off Utd. With so many games I can see the Kovacic / Jorginho combo getting some game time and hopefully they can give us more going forward without costing us defensively.

3 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I think Frank likes the extra insurance Kante gives so I can understand him being reluctant to play that pairing in a game like United away. Kante was frustrating going forward today with a lot of mis-placed passes, but the flip-side was how many times he got a foot in and nicked the ball off Utd. With so many games I can see the Kovacic / Jorginho combo getting some game time and hopefully they can give us more going forward without costing us defensively.

Until we stop pissing goals when we play four at the back I can see the three centre  half option bring here to stay. 

Then we should stop fannying around playing Kante on front of Jorginho. Put Kante on front of the 'back three', play Kovacic in front and drop Jorginho. 

I wish Arsenal had put in a serous offer for Jorginho helping us get rid of this daft desire to play a f**king quarterback who looks nice in a clothes catalogue for middle aged woman but sh*te when under pressure. 

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I think Frank likes the extra insurance Kante gives so I can understand him being reluctant to play that pairing in a game like United away. Kante was frustrating going forward today with a lot of mis-placed passes, but the flip-side was how many times he got a foot in and nicked the ball off Utd. With so many games I can see the Kovacic / Jorginho combo getting some game time and hopefully they can give us more going forward without costing us defensively.

I think you’re right. It was games like Burnley away where the Kova-Jorghy partnership really thrived last year. 

3 minutes ago, loz said:

Until we stop pissing goals when we play four at the back I can see the three centre  half option bring here to stay. 

Then we should stop fannying around playing Kante on front of Jorginho. Put Kante on front of the 'back three', play Kovacic in front and drop Jorginho. 

I wish Arsenal had put in a serous offer for Jorginho helping us get rid of this daft desire to play a f**king quarterback who looks nice in a clothes catalogue for middle aged woman but sh*te when under pressure. 

I’m not Jorginho’s biggest fan, but this is way too harsh. I think he had a decent game today and last few games, even winning most of his one-v-ones. I confess I’m never particularly excited when I see his name  on the teamsheet but he does have some qualities. Also, wasn’t it 4 at the back vs Sevilla?

I love Kova, but I can see why Kante was picked for the game. 

Look, there are many more games to come, Kovacic is going to play, he's a great player. I wouldn't start worrying about anything just yet. 

59 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I think Frank likes the extra insurance Kante gives so I can understand him being reluctant to play that pairing in a game like United away. Kante was frustrating going forward today with a lot of mis-placed passes, but the flip-side was how many times he got a foot in and nicked the ball off Utd. With so many games I can see the Kovacic / Jorginho combo getting some game time and hopefully they can give us more going forward without costing us defensively.

Have to agree with @loz on this one Nibs. Kante isnt the one who should be stepping out for Kovacic. Games like tonight are built for Kante.

Challenge remains Jorginho. I personally would have liked to have seen Kovacic come on after about 65 minutes. Was clear we couldn't pass through them, so Kova's ability to carry the ball would have been valuable. 

13 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

Have to agree with @loz on this one Nibs. Kante isnt the one who should be stepping out for Kovacic. Games like tonight are built for Kante.

Challenge remains Jorginho. I personally would have liked to have seen Kovacic come on after about 65 minutes. Was clear we couldn't pass through them, so Kova's ability to carry the ball would have been valuable. 

Kante has now 0 duels won in 2 games in a row with horrible passing in the final third. Kovacic in 15-20 min had 6/6 duels won against Sevilla.

People should let it sink in, Kante isn't the same as he was for Conte years back, it's just the truth, and last season nobody was quite happy watching the Kovacic/Kante duo, they played together last time against West Brom, 3:0 after 45 min for West Brom...

So no thanks, Jorginho-Kovacic duo actually WORKED last season, stop trying to reinvent the wheel just because you personally never liked Jorginho...

Zero duels? 😂😂😂

Was it pistols or broadswords? 

So I am clear. Are you claiming Kante hasn't won a single tackle in 180 minutes of football? 

I think this boils down to ambition and expectation. If we see Chelsea as a qualify for CL at best team (i.e. Arsenal) then Jorginho is what we should be happy with. However if we have any ambition to get back to being a title challenging side then playing Jorginho is like treading water. 

If we listed both Jorginho and Kante only one would attract interest from teams with an intent to win the top trophies and it would be the fella from Different Strokes. 

7 minutes ago, loz said:

Zero duels? 😂😂😂

Was it pistols or broadswords? 

So I am clear. Are you claiming Kante hasn't won a single tackle in 180 minutes of football? 

I think this boils down to ambition and expectation. If we see Chelsea as a qualify for CL at best team (i.e. Arsenal) then Jorginho is what we should be happy with. However if we have any ambition to get back to being a title challenging side then playing Jorginho is like treading water. 

If we listed both Jorginho and Kante only one would attract interest from teams with an intent to win the top trophies and it would be the fella from Different Strokes. 

Yes, 0 duels won in 180minutes of football which is 2 games that's exactly what I said.

You keep pointing at Jorginho but you got no ammo, the biggest argument against Jorginho is that he is the reason for our bad defending yet here we are getting clean sheets now with him still playing  

Even if Jorginho had been sold this last transfer window, he has already succeeded in transforming the way we play, he played in 3 different Cup finals already so it's time that you change your narrative a bit, nobody at the club has any problems with Jorginho...