Zola's Post Match press conference

Supa Frankie's Post Match press conference

 

Still unbeaten but think we should prepare ourselves for a game where it all goes wrong and we do lose...while we have played very well on the whole, we have ridden our luck too with teams somehow not taking clear cut chances.

derby were the better side last night and a lot of our fringe players did their hopes of playing in the league no good at all. 

Christensen will be lucky to attract any interest at this rate if he carries out his dad's threat to leave. Tomori played better than him even after scoring an own goal.

Edited November 1, 20187 yr by The Brit

6 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

I did enjoy nobody being able to remember what the Jody Morris song was.

Crap game, we were lucky to win.

 

There's a Jody Morris song?

What is wrong with these players nowadays? He plays sh*t and still moans. We all saw yesterday why Cahill and Christensen don't play, they are in terrible shape and not only that - the mentality is just as annoying as the plays. this autumn they will have probably just as minutes as the starters - Europa League, Carling Cup, Charity shield, some mid-week games. It's not like they are lacking minutes, doesn't it? Everybody on the bench, moaning or feeding the rumours of leaving. Except for Zappacosta and Emerson. 

And yet, you all saw they were the best players. 

I'd like to see Zappa getting more minutes in PL especially if the result is negative for us. He is a real threat offensively - great crosses, good pace, dribbling 1 on 1. Azpilicueta can't do that. 

Comfortably our worst performance of the season last night. 

Despite the two Derby centre backs scoring own goals it was Cahill and Christensen who come out of that game with their reputations dented. Cahill's wayward pass and then falling over himself for the their first goal was just a comedy of errors on his part. 

Christensen in general just looks lightweight. He's not played well for us for basically the entire calendar year and I'm not sure I see much of a future for him at Chelsea at this rate. Wouldn't rule out him leaving in January right now because Sarri doesn't seem to overly trust him, subbing him off not for the first time this season. 

Thought RLC did alright on the wing. I noticed he's using his frame a lot with his back to goal to shield the ball when receiving it meaning he's giving himself a lot of room to turn his man or give a simple lay off. Good hold up play for someone who typically plays in midfield. Given Moses seems to now be out of favour and that Pedro seems to have lost his mojo he might just find himself getting quite a few minutes out wide as the season progresses. 

Kovacic is starting to be a bit of an enigma to me. He's quality, no doubt. Passes the ball well, can beat his man, makes some nice runs but generally it just doesn't lead to anything. Doesn't get into scoring positions, isn't playing through balls or crosses into the attackers... I can see Barkley making that LCM position his own because he's contributing a lot more when it comes to end product. 

2-0!

Just now, ForeverCarefree said:

2-0!

That idiot may have been banned, but he left us as good a running gag as "I blame Kenyon".

2 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Comfortably our worst performance of the season last night. 

Despite the two Derby centre backs scoring own goals it was Cahill and Christensen who come out of that game with their reputations dented. Cahill's wayward pass and then falling over himself for the their first goal was just a comedy of errors on his part. 

Christensen in general just looks lightweight. He's not played well for us for basically the entire calendar year and I'm not sure I see much of a future for him at Chelsea at this rate. Wouldn't rule out him leaving in January right now because Sarri doesn't seem to overly trust him, subbing him off not for the first time this season. 

Thought RLC did alright on the wing. I noticed he's using his frame a lot with his back to goal to shield the ball when receiving it meaning he's giving himself a lot of room to turn his man or give a simple lay off. Good hold up play for someone who typically plays in midfield. Given Moses seems to now be out of favour and that Pedro seems to have lost his mojo he might just find himself getting quite a few minutes out wide as the season progresses. 

Kovacic is starting to be a bit of an enigma to me. He's quality, no doubt. Passes the ball well, can beat his man, makes some nice runs but generally it just doesn't lead to anything. Doesn't get into scoring positions, isn't playing through balls or crosses into the attackers... I can see Barkley making that LCM position his own because he's contributing a lot more when it comes to end product. 

Yeah, Kovacic doesn't look as effective when he doesn't have Hazard on the pitch to link up with.

Really enjoyable first half but VERY disappointing second half and we were fortunate to win in the end. Everyone seem to fade in that second half and our best player (RLC) got subbed and the substitutions were very uninspiring. I know we won, but if a player like CHO can't get any minutes in that sort of game, why is he wasting his time here?

  

Another good win, had a bit of luck. However, if we just look at stats, we clearly deserved it. It's hard enough to adapt to a new system with a couple of months, when making 8 changes it's impossible to expect the same standard of play. Just like the Europa league group games, as long as we are winning it, it's good enough for me. Some players played poorly, some just lacking match fitness and sharpness, I don't think it's worthwhile to scrutinize individual performance.

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

Yeah, Kovacic doesn't look as effective when he doesn't have Hazard on the pitch to link up with.

Really enjoyable first half but VERY disappointing second half and we were fortunate to win in the end. Everyone seem to fade in that second half and our best player (RLC) got subbed and the substitutions were very uninspiring. I know we won, but if a player like CHO can't get any minutes in that sort of game, why is he wasting his time here?

There's always been a bit of a question mark over RLC's stamina levels. 

I didn't see it but my Dad said that Hasselbaink reckons he needs to lose a little weight and get fitter if he wants to be a regular part of the team. 

I think a lot of us would like to see CHO getting minutes but I can't fault Sarri for making changes to the backline last night with his substitutions. We looked really below par defensively, just seems that the reserve players just don't understand what is asked of them as well as the first team players do. Cahill and Christensen look incapable of playing out from the back with any sort of confidence. 

Hopefully we can wrap up qualification from our Europea League group next week and then CHO might be given the last couple of games from the start. 

I think some posters just have a set of critical posts about their hated player of choice saved in a Word document and they just cut and paste them in every match.  I saw some prick comment about Willian's poor control.  This in a match when on 4 or 5 occasions, Willian pulled a long high ball out of the air with a single touch, and several posts about how poorly Willian was playing, when it was patently not true.

I think that a lot of people confuse "playing badly" with "not playing how I would  like".  They aren't the same thing people

OK, the Cahill comments I can't argue with.

2 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

There's always been a bit of a question mark over RLC's stamina levels. 

I didn't see it but my Dad said that Hasselbaink reckons he needs to lose a little weight and get fitter if he wants to be a regular part of the team. 

I think a lot of us would like to see CHO getting minutes but I can't fault Sarri for making changes to the backline last night with his substitutions. We looked really below par defensively, just seems that the reserve players just don't understand what is asked of them as well as the first team players do. Cahill and Christensen look incapable of playing out from the back with any sort of confidence. 

Hopefully we can wrap up qualification from our Europea League group next week and then CHO might be given the last couple of games from the start. 

I think we are in deep trouble at the back if Rudiger or Luiz get injured. 

Cahill, Christensen and Emmerson did themselves no favors playing like they did.

Dodgy as feck.

 

Morata invisible as well, but that's nothing new.

11 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

I think some posters just have a set of critical posts about their hated player of choice saved in a Word document and they just cut and paste them in every match.  I saw some prick comment about Willian's poor control.  This in a match when on 4 or 5 occasions, Willian pulled a long high ball out of the air with a single touch, and several posts about how poorly Willian was playing, when it was patently not true.

I think that a lot of people confuse "playing badly" with "not playing how I would  like".  They aren't the same thing people

OK, the Cahill comments I can't argue with.

But Willian was dreadful, offered nothing and by the end of the match when we were hanging couldn’t be arsed to work hard which is supposedly one of his strong points.

Ruben was more effective and should have stayed on over Willian. 

Edit: The one time he did get in behind to be able to put a decent ball on Morata ended up hiding at the back post. 

Edited November 1, 20187 yr by Munkworth

Opinions, mate, just like arseholes.  I didn't think he was bad at all.

19 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I think we are in deep trouble at the back if Rudiger or Luiz get injured. 

I think we can survive without one but not both. 

Rudiger has really impressed me this season with just how good he is at distributing the ball out from the back. Stick Christensen alongside him and we won't be as good as we are with Luiz but we'll be okay. 

That said, I beginning to understand why we were looking at the likes of Rugani in the summer. Big tall lad used to getting plenty of time on the ball... Seeing as he's only made 3 appearances so far this season I don't think you can rule out us going back in for him. 

11 minutes ago, BordeauxBlue said:

Morata invisible as well, but that's nothing new.

In fairness to him, he wasn't getting any service at all last night. The ball was ending up out wide an awful lot, when Morata was getting on the ball he played a few nice passes that opened things up a bit. 

There was a moment early in the second half where we broke away and Willian ended up with the ball on the left heading towards the corner flag and Morata was the only other player who had go forward and he was alone in box surround by 4 Derby players. He'd done the right thing, got forward and taken up a good position in the box but RLC, Kante and Kovacic were nowhere to be seen. 

1 hour ago, Nibs said:

Yeah, Kovacic doesn't look as effective when he doesn't have Hazard on the pitch to link up with.

Really enjoyable first half but VERY disappointing second half and we were fortunate to win in the end. Everyone seem to fade in that second half and our best player (RLC) got subbed and the substitutions were very uninspiring. I know we won, but if a player like CHO can't get any minutes in that sort of game, why is he wasting his time here?

  

To be fair, CHO was the second player to start warming up so I thought he was going to play. A couple of minutes and a few danger situations later, he went back to the bench and Pedro, Azpi and David Luiz were the ones warming up. I think Sarri thought he would be able to give CHO some minutes, but our mistakes and Derby's good game made him change his idea. We had to bring on some starters to try to gain control of the ball. For me the subs were correct, except that I would have kept Christensen and substituted Cahill and kept RLC and substituted William (to keep him rested for Sunday, to be honest). Unfortunate for CHO, but correct decision given how the second half was being played.

1 hour ago, yorkleyblue said:

Opinions, mate, just like arseholes.  I didn't think he was bad at all.

Old age has taken a horrible toll on your eyesight 

12 hours ago, Munkworth said:

Are there no highlight shows for the league cup anymore? 

Apparently now on some obscure channel called Quest which I believe is available on Freeview and Freesat.  It's getting nigh on impossible to even watch highlights of most games in any competition these days.

1 hour ago, Munkworth said:

But Willian was dreadful, offered nothing and by the end of the match when we were hanging couldn’t be arsed to work hard which is supposedly one of his strong points.

Ruben was more effective and should have stayed on over Willian. 

Edit: The one time he did get in behind to be able to put a decent ball on Morata ended up hiding at the back post. 

Willian’s played  ten games in a row, had the least rotation of any of the front six. I don’t always like how he plays but the coach sure seems grateful to have him. 

1 hour ago, RMH said:

To be fair, CHO was the second player to start warming up so I thought he was going to play. A couple of minutes and a few danger situations later, he went back to the bench and Pedro, Azpi and David Luiz were the ones warming up. I think Sarri thought he would be able to give CHO some minutes, but our mistakes and Derby's good game made him change his idea. We had to bring on some starters to try to gain control of the ball. For me the subs were correct, except that I would have kept Christensen and substituted Cahill and kept RLC and substituted William (to keep him rested for Sunday, to be honest). Unfortunate for CHO, but correct decision given how the second half was being played.

I kind of agree but do feel for Hudson-Odoi as it must be so frustrating for the lad.

He has had rave reviews and was arguably our best performer in pre-season. He probably accepts he won't get a huge amount of game time and looks at the League Cup and Europa Cup as best chance to get some minutes to try and stake his claim. Then every time a LC tie comes around there is always a reason why "it's best not to put him on". I would rather see someone have a bit of bollocks and say, "f**k it, this is Derby and they are playing a few youngsters (including 2 of our own) so let's just throw him on and see if he can cause them some problems, rather than play safe and put on a Pedro or Azpi.

1 hour ago, ozboy said:

Willian’s played  ten games in a row, had the least rotation of any of the front six. I don’t always like how he plays but the coach sure seems grateful to have him. 

Yes but I know better obviously. 

4 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

There's always been a bit of a question mark over RLC's stamina levels. 

I didn't see it but my Dad said that Hasselbaink reckons he needs to lose a little weight and get fitter if he wants to be a regular part of the team.

FYI: JFH was on the Sky Sports broadcast of the Carabao Cup