Geez, looks like both knees made contact with Pedro’s head.  Bad luck .

Wins a win always looked in control of the game and could have easily won by a few goals.

Onto the pikeys UTC.

for the people that missed out on all of the fun

The Spaniard is said to have picked up a shoulder problem, but Sarri insists it’s ‘probably not a serious injury’. ‘I spoke for a few seconds, but that probably it is not a serious injury.’

 

We need to move on morata in Jan and bring someone decent in! The guys absolutely bollocks! Done with this floozy constantly on the floor!

1 hour ago, mojo said:

 

Well a picture can say a thousand words, and in that top one it looks like the goalkeeper went out to hurt pedro by double kneeing him...

Watched the last 30 mins of the game and pretty disappointed. Expect to see some youth and RLC, but got the classic Fabregas and Morata...

A win is a win, but if we have plans to win the Europe League we won't achieve it with this performance.

UEL has become siht imo. I didn't remember it to be that atrocious in terms of football level circa 2010-2014. PAOK are not a football team. 3 pts for us. A win. I'm happy about that. And that's about it. Pedro being injured is going to be a real issue now ... Btw, Rangers drew on the road at villareal (2-2) and are in contention for a qualification for the Ro32.

Edited September 20, 20187 yr by Londonisblue

17 minutes ago, Londonisblue said:

UEL has become siht imo. I didn't remember it to be that atrocious in terms of football level circa 2010-2014. PAOK are not a football team. 3 pts for us. A win. I'm happy about that. And that's about it. Pedro being injured is going to be a real issue now ... Btw, Rangers drew on the road at villareal (2-2) and are in contention for a qualification for the Ro32.

That was our hardest game on paper and, judging by this thread as I did not see the game, it sounds like kepa had nothing to do and had we had a competent attack we would have won by 6 or more goals.

I guess I overestimated our opponents quality. No reason not to play the kids and back up in the other 5 games:

 

Willy

 

Zappa

Christensen 

Cahill

Emerson

 

Ampadu

RLC

barkely

 

Moses

Morata

CHO

 

should do the trick. Man how much of a piss off is it that we have no one but morata to pick aside for giroud. Do we have no have decent youth striker we could pick?

Decent start in our hardest game. Wasteful again though. Happy for Barkley,  great performance and assist.

The calls for youth are a bit misplaced in my view. It was a tough away game. Win this one and let the kids play in the easier home games after we've qualified. 

 

Hey lads, PAOK fan here, it was a honour playing with a club like yours. Chelsea is one of the most dominant clubs to ever play in Toumba Stadium and we faced lots of decent ones the last 5 years( Schalke, Ajax, Dortmund , Benfica, Tottenham etc.). I have never seen a club destroying us like you did today.  just another level of football.  You gotta respect the way Sarri's clubs control the game. Tactical masterpiece. I guess you are dissapointed by the incompetence of PAOK against such a strong rival, but you also have to take into account that our club plays with its 3 arch rivals in the next 10 days for Greek league and domestic cup, so our coach decided to play very conservative. People here are obsessed with those matches and losing them will be a disaster probably. Losing with dignity from Chelsea is not a big deal though..   Even full strength the difference of the clubs would be chaotic though, like 2-3 goals difference at least. Wish you luck for PL this year, it is a disgrace such a team not to participate in CL.  See ya in London.

11 hours ago, Phillip said:

Geez, looks like both knees made contact with Pedro’s head.  Bad luck .

That could be a good thing. The pressure is spread over a larger area than if there was only one knee.

10 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Well a picture can say a thousand words, and in that top one it looks like the goalkeeper went out to hurt pedro by double kneeing him...

Seriously? If a picture speaks a thousand words then a video speaks 100,000. It was clearly an accidental collision.

24 minutes ago, bluedave said:

That could be a good thing. The pressure is spread over a larger area than if there was only one knee.

Seriously? If a picture speaks a thousand words then a video speaks 100,000. It was clearly an accidental collision.

Keepers always come out like that yo protect themselves, I don't think he meant to do Pedro, it was an accident as you say. 

8 hours ago, karson39 said:

Hey lads, PAOK fan here, it was a honour playing with a club like yours. Chelsea is one of the most dominant clubs to ever play in Toumba Stadium and we faced lots of decent ones the last 5 years( Schalke, Ajax, Dortmund , Benfica, Tottenham etc.). I have never seen a club destroying us like you did today.  just another level of football.  You gotta respect the way Sarri's clubs control the game. Tactical masterpiece. I guess you are dissapointed by the incompetence of PAOK against such a strong rival, but you also have to take into account that our club plays with its 3 arch rivals in the next 10 days for Greek league and domestic cup, so our coach decided to play very conservative. People here are obsessed with those matches and losing them will be a disaster probably. Losing with dignity from Chelsea is not a big deal though..   Even full strength the difference of the clubs would be chaotic though, like 2-3 goals difference at least. Wish you luck for PL this year, it is a disgrace such a team not to participate in CL.  See ya in London.

Hey mate, just wanted to say that you guys had a great atmosphere, as usual and as expected, Macedonia was and still is in Greece mate, cheers!

11 hours ago, axman2526 said:

That was our hardest game on paper and, judging by this thread as I did not see the game, it sounds like kepa had nothing to do and had we had a competent attack we would have won by 6 or more goals.

I guess I overestimated our opponents quality. No reason not to play the kids and back up in the other 5 games:

 

Willy

 

Zappa

Christensen 

Cahill

Emerson

 

Ampadu

RLC

barkely

 

Moses

Morata

CHO

 

should do the trick. Man how much of a piss off is it that we have no one but morata to pick aside for giroud. Do we have no have decent youth striker we could pick?

You understimatr the importance of continuity for a team. You can’t change eleven players. Anyway, RLC, Ampadu and Odoi will have their chances, but not in a completely new team.

2 hours ago, Raff_Sarrista said:

You understimatr the importance of continuity for a team. You can’t change eleven players. Anyway, RLC, Ampadu and Odoi will have their chances, but not in a completely new team.

Ive always thought you would do more harm than good putting in 8 or 9 young players, whats it going to achieve? They need to get used to playing with 1 or 2 of them with the first team players as thats the realistic possibility, if they get into the first team it will more likely be with a team full of experienced players.

6 hours ago, dkw said:

Ive always thought you would do more harm than good putting in 8 or 9 young players, whats it going to achieve? They need to get used to playing with 1 or 2 of them with the first team players as thats the realistic possibility, if they get into the first team it will more likely be with a team full of experienced players.

I agree. Playing young players should mean integrating 2 or 3 of them in the starting XI and potentially subbing in 1 or 2 more during the course of the game. Otherwise, it bascially means playing the U21 then. As I said, we should definitely do that in the UEL. No disrespect to the other teams, especially when PAOK had a better atmosphere than the so called best public in England who got ruled by the PSG fans throughout the whole game btw, but clearly, Chelsea are 3 or 4 classes above the rest of the group. And when you look at how dross city and spuds were in their first UCL games and how dippers were close to even lose at the end of the game vs PSG with Draxler's shot at the 87th minute despite dominating them, one can only feel regrets as to our siht finish in the league last season ... Because with Sarri, Chelsea would have done much better than this lot in the UCL ! I don't mention manure since they played against a modest team from switzerland (I mean, apart from Basel, the rest of the swiss league is far from being impressive...).

Edited September 21, 20187 yr by Londonisblue

Interesting tactical analysis. 

 

Giroud is our #1 striker on merit at the mo but to say he did more in 15 mins than Morata's 75 is just not true. Morata can't buy a goal but he played super stuff. Unfortunately he didn't score, which is his job, but neither did Giroud.