36 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Talent wise, its one of best squads a team could hope for.......but mentally its one of the worst. I have never seen a group crumble as often as our lot have.

Is it fair to say Spurs, United, Liverpool and City play a 4-3-3, if not full time, than at times? if we did 2 First XIs, who gets in either team from Chelsea, Spurs might be a reach formation wise, but they are stronger man for man in virtually every position. 

Kante and Hazard?

Not sure you could get Liverpool fans to do a straight swap of Mane for Hazard, or City to swap Sane for Hazard, but I think most people would still give the nod to Hazard.

Kante playing next to Eriksen, Silva, Pogba, Alli is a 1st pick, but playing next to Chelsea's center mids, you would probably pick someone more attack minded.

Apologies in advance for the spelling.

GK - De Gea, Allison, Ederson, Lloris, Kepa

RB - Azpi, Walker, Young, Trippier, Alexander Arnold

CB, Rudiger, Luiz, Alderweld, Vertongen, Bailly, Smalling, Lindelof, Van Dyk, Gomez, Lovren, Stones, LaPorte, Otamendi, Kompany

LB - Alonso, Aurier, Davies, Shaw, Robertson, Rose, Mendy 

Mids - Ruben, Kante, Barkley, Kovacic, Jorginho, Alli, Eriksen, Dier, Pogba, Herrera, Matic, Fabinho, Keita, Milner, Shaqiri, Fernandinho, Gundogan, De Bruyne, D Silva, B Silva, 

Forwards - Willian, Pedro, Higuain, Hazard, Son, Kane, Lucas, Rashford, Sanchez, Lingard, Lukaku, Martial, Sane, Salah, Firmino, Auguero, Sane, Sterling, Jesus

giving the nod to Azpi... not a lot of great choices at the fullback position.

so 3 out of 22? I'd argue for some of the other players I left off before another Chelsea player... Like, Sane, Martial, Vertongen, Gomez, Kompany, Allison, etc...

I think defensively we are  currently built to be a back 5 with three CBs.

We lack pace in attack and a lack of attacking midfielders.

If Sarri was out of the picture perhaps we could go back to a back 5.

                                       Kepa

              Azpi              LUiz / Christensen    Rudiger 

Zappacosta                                          Alonso / Emmerson

                 Knate                   Kovacic

CHO                  Higuaín                Hazard / Willian 

 

It wouldn't be perfect as last season team sussed this out by playing two big strikers up front 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Zola said:

That's embarrassing. 

This squad is good enough to compete for the top four spot, but it has to be used properly. Spurs are overachieving currently, grinding out results  with key players out, United looked doomed only a few weeks ago and look at them now, while we threw away ridiculous amount of points in winnable games. Even Arsenal are looking a more solid team at the moment.

As for next season. Ideally, we need new fullbacks, new wingers, a midfield playmaker and a striker, and those players have to be top quality, not the last minute bargain bin discount deals 'two Zappacostas for the price of one' we've been doing last few years. I'd keep Kepa, Azpi, Rudiger, Kante, Hazard (yeah, I know), Higuain, RLC, CHO and Christensen. Ampadu needs to play regularly, maybe a loan.

OUT: Willian, Pedro, Giroud, Morata, Batshuayi, Zappacosta, Bakayoko, Moses, Cahill, Drinkwater, Alonso, Barkley.

Then there's a group of players I'm undecided about. Luiz, Emerson and Kovacic could be useful squad players, but they need to be more consistent. 

Overall, we have to spend a significant amount of money and bring in at least 4-5 top class players that are ready to be starters. That's a huge investment, but I don't see any other way.

Didn`t i told you last season, that Pedro and Willian are not good enough anymore? But you attacked me that i know nothing of football, and how good they was for us.

The problem is people are looking too much in the past and think that if the player perform well in x year, he can still perform that well now. This simply ain`t happening. I said it many time you can act smart on the market. If you see player/s start fading, and can`t keep going on the high level they perform so far, you should change them, while you can.

We have 30m offer for Pedro if i remember right. And we have big, big offers for Willy, arround 60-70m. if i`m not wrong, and this was official offers.

For two absolutely usless player that was finished with the big football, and that was happening last season, we give them new contracts, instead of selling them and get fresher recruitment, who will play with high motivation and will listen to the manager.

You also have Cahill, that is finish with the big football.

Christensen is so so. So many mistakes, that cost us a lot last season. Obviously not good enough this season.

I say it year ago - Barkley, Drinkwater, Zapacostta, Emerson - not good enough. Told you Luiz is finished.

And why in the blue hell you will want to keep trouble makers like Luiz and Willan in the team, if they was doing sh**** during previous manager ????

Olivier Giroud was decent backup striker, but for last year. He should have been gone.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek, while have some very good quality, his finishing product is really bad. Hes shooting is bad as well.

This team is washed and play on high level/motivation when they wanted. If the things don`t go their way, it`s over. They just stop playing, sh*** starting to happen, and it`s a manager fault.

They are use to that.

 

Marina is in charge for the transfers, and she`s done a terrible job so far. Missed good opportunity to sell washed players for good price, and refreshen the squad.

Now we are in a big, big trouble.

We need some of this old busy summer we have.

You can`t change all of them in one season, but i think 6-7 players leaving with even more coming IN is what we really need.

 

Right now we are miles behind City, we are behind Liverpool, behind United, behind Tottenham, because they stick with their manager for long time, and all are use to him.

And i think we are infront of Arsenal. They are usless and with such a managers, they won`t do a s**** in the future.

We can easily go infront of Tottenham, we just need Real Madrid to steal them Pochetino and we are straight infront of them.

With the right players OUT and IN, and if Liverpool failed to get the title this year i think they will regress and the next season they won`t be as good, as they are now or last year for example.

The case with United it`s complicated. It`s depend if they keep Solskjaer and if they spend big again in the summer. I don`t think he is much a manager and probably in the next season he will have the same problem Jose has.

So it`s debatable, but in the start of the next season if we do everything right, we could start with a lead compare to them.

As far as go for City, as long as Guardiola is there, we will behind.  We have the manager that could rival him, and we sacked him.

 

7 hours ago, Zola said:

Disgraceful. Imagine if we spent £75m on 3 elite players. We’d be top of the league.

9 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Disgraceful. Imagine if we spent £75m on 3 elite players. We’d be top of the league.

You mean £75m each, I presume?

12 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Disgraceful. Imagine if we spent £75m on 3 elite players. We’d be top of the league.

That's what we needed to do. Then we could have filled out the squad with some of our talented youngsters.

This squad is 5th best arguably. I would say Arsenal has a better mentality. Utd actually have a damn good team, maybe not on paper but mentality and ability they do have throughout it. Rashford, Martial, Pogba, Lukaku, Young, Lingard, De Gea, Sanchez, Valencia, Shaw, Hererra, Bailly, Matic, Pereira, there's actually some talented players, but they also have the right mindset. 

10 minutes ago, DannyVblue said:

That's what we needed to do. Then we could have filled out the squad with some of our talented youngsters.

And this is what we should be doing. Reece James should be starting or back up for Azpi. Jay Da Silva should be back up to Emerson. Tammy Abraham should be back up to Higuain. Mason Mount should be back up to Loftus-Cheek. Then we have Hudson-Odoi and Ampadu. We have Christensen. We would have even had Ola Aina (who ironically was sold to Torino and plays in their first team, while we took Torino's cast off in Zappacosta). The clubs youth policy has been awful, and the crazy thing is we have youth players suited to this system more than the current ones. 

14 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Disgraceful. Imagine if we spent £75m on 3 elite players. We’d be top of the league.

We spent about £75m on a goalkeeper, not far short of that on a winger who despite the signing, remains an unused substitute for the side we bought him from and we spent £75m on a Spanish striker who is now failing to score back in Spain. We couldn't spend any amount of money well any more. We could spend £75 billion and we'd cock it up.

Imagine our board on BBC's Bargain Hunt. They'd take the £300 pound and blow £295 on a broken clock (that would at least be right twice a day) and the rest on a couple of cracked pots (one of which the seller can hang on to anyway). They're absolutely useless. The only thing they had going for them was somehow finding other muppets to overpay for Dilibloji and Luis (before promptly buying the second one back).

And as for all the putting 6 youth players in the squad, it sounds wonderful but it strikes me as a bit Roy of the Rovers or something. None of the top sides in Europe plays a side with half the team averaging 19 years old. It'd be madness.

52 minutes ago, Snedger said:

And as for all the putting 6 youth players in the squad, it sounds wonderful but it strikes me as a bit Roy of the Rovers or something. None of the top sides in Europe plays a side with half the team averaging 19 years old. It'd be madness.

6 youth players in a 21 man squad is easily achievable. Especially when they're coming from an academy as good as ours. Do you think Rashford, AMN, Sancho, Winks etc. were half as good as the youngsters we currently have at the same age? They just got their chance.

17 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

6 youth players in a 21 man squad is easily achievable. Especially when they're coming from an academy as good as ours. Do you think Rashford, AMN, Sancho, Winks etc. were half as good as the youngsters we currently have at the same age? They just got their chance.

We're not far short of having 6 in the squad now are we? The issue is, being in the squad to make up the numbers versus being in the squad to be regularly rotated through the starting eleven, or at least regularly being a used substitute (and not in from the 87th minute). Which is it for our youth players?

I was getting the impression that there's a belief that 4 or 5 in the starting 11 and one or two on the bench is believed to be the answer to the deadwood among the senior players.

As for the players you mentioned not being even half as good as those we have, I couldn't possibly say as I've barely seen any of ours play a meaningful amount of football in a meaningful fixture against meaningful opposition. So how good they are remains a mystery. It does look as though Sarri, Conte and Mourinho don't rate any of them very much. But if they are twice as good as those you referred to, then I'd say that our youngsters are actually better than half of our current seniors. It's pretty confusing really.

Edited February 12, 20197 yr by Snedger

11 minutes ago, Snedger said:

But if they are twice as good as those you referred to, then I'd say that our youngsters are actually better than half of our current seniors. It's pretty confusing really.

I think we immediately get better with these moves

Christensen for Luiz
Hudson-Odoi for Willian/Pedro
Loftus-Cheek for Barkley
Reece James for Alonso (move Azpi back to LB, James at RB)

Reserves - Abraham for Giroud

that's not half the starting 11, but it's more than a third. 

At the very LEAST, it promotes competition in the Starting 11... something we have sorely lacked all season.

 

Can't argue with any of that (well maybe Luiz as I'm not convinced by AC, but I'd be willing to give him a chance).

6 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Can't argue with any of that (well maybe Luiz as I'm not convinced by AC, but I'd be willing to give him a chance).?

I think with Christensen vs. Luiz, you're going to get a steadier hand. You're not going to get the David Luiz of EITHER Manchester City games this year. 

and at 23 years old, Christensen should be improving as he gains experience. Can't say that with Luiz.

I've said before, that's what's so frustrating... why is Sarri hell-bent on living and dying with players who have no future at Chelsea? If we were fighting for a title and they were putting in 8 out of 10 every week, so be it... but this lack of rotation is naive at best and awful man management at worst.

 

4 hours ago, enigma said:

Utd actually have a damn good team, maybe not on paper but mentality and ability they do have throughout it. Rashford, Martial, Pogba, Lukaku, Young, Lingard, De Gea, Sanchez, Valencia, Shaw, Hererra, Bailly, Matic, Pereira, there's actually some talented players, but they also have the right mindset. 

That group of players stopped playing under Mourinho and were only going backwards. That's not a right mindset.

1 hour ago, Skinnedy said:

I think we immediately get better with these moves

Christensen for Luiz
Hudson-Odoi for Willian/Pedro
Loftus-Cheek for Barkley
Reece James for Alonso (move Azpi back to LB, James at RB)

Reserves - Abraham for Giroud

that's not half the starting 11, but it's more than a third. 

At the very LEAST, it promotes competition in the Starting 11... something we have sorely lacked all season.

 

Rather not see Dave at LB again. The rest looks alright though.

On 11/02/2019 at 08:50, Skinnedy said:

obviously no one expected us to get beat 6-0, so I'll try and refrain from the "how could it have been worse" talk... 

but..

CHO in for Pedro
Christensen in for Luiz
RLC in for Barkley

That's 3 youth players, and I think the team would have been stronger for it.

Is it any wonder why the left side of the defense is attacked if you have Barkley and Alonso on the outside with Luiz and Jorginho in the middle?

forget Kante centrally, what's wrong with flipping him to the other side to provide a bit more defensive cover to the guys known for not being able to defend?

 

Sarri uses the left side of his teams for attacks. It's odd but go look at Napoli under him, always attacking down the left.

3 hours ago, Snedger said:

And as for all the putting 6 youth players in the squad, it sounds wonderful but it strikes me as a bit Roy of the Rovers or something. None of the top sides in Europe plays a side with half the team averaging 19 years old. It'd be madness.

The thing is, there's absolutely no reason we cannot have five youth players in the squad. We need to rebuild and invest in youth. We have young players who are already too good for championship like Jay Da Silva, Tammy and Reece James.

We also bought Zappacosta from Torino, a club who then invested in one of our own in Ola Aina to pretty much replace him. Why couldn't Aina be a back up to Azpi? 

These youngsters are plying their trade in the league below PL and doing well. With that experience they can then come back to Chelsea and we can put faith in them.

Tottenham did exactly that with Kane and Alli, now look at those two. Man Utd invested the time into Rashford (who apparently wasn't even the best of the bunch at youth level) and now look at him. 

We have become such a short termism club, so it's inevitable that eventually the success won't continue with other clubs around us being run smarter with more patience. 

17 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Rather not see Dave at LB again. The rest looks alright though.

Yeah... just thinking internally... what would be available at our disposal with no purchases?

Can we agree that Dave would probably be better at LB than Alonso?

So what's the best Pairing if you were to include James in the Mix?

Dave/Emerson
James/Dave?
 

1 hour ago, Luca Vialli said:

That group of players stopped playing under Mourinho and were only going backwards. That's not a right mindset.

Mourinho didn't help his cause. Neither did Utd's board by not backing him. People always talk about the money for players but sometimes the club have to spend to remain successful.

I mean City went out and bought Mahrez ffs while we continued with Willian and Pedro for RW. Liverpool went out and bought VVD and Keita, as well as Fabinho. VVD has improved their defence exponentially. We were reigning champions ffs. 

Edited February 12, 20197 yr by enigma

5 minutes ago, Skinnedy said:

Yeah... just thinking internally... what would be available at our disposal with no purchases?

Can we agree that Dave would probably be better at LB than Alonso?

So what's the best Pairing if you were to include James in the Mix?

Dave/Emerson
James/Dave?
 

Jay Dasilva. The problem is the club couldn't look past his height. He's about as tall as Alba and Roberto Carlos, but would suit Sarri's system

1st team beaten by youth squad

Count me as one of those for a role reversal. Start the whole lot of them on Thursday and let that "senior" crew earn their way back. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chelsea-first-team-beaten-by-youth-players-in-practice-match-cq7539wrq