More fumbling from week to week.

Issues with the manager aside, we have to be honest and say that the large part of this squad is not good enough. Providing the ban is frozen (which I think it will be), we need a clear out in the summer (alongside Hazard, as it's obvious that he's going) along with getting rid of some of the sh*t out on loan like Bakayoko etc, so that we can pool our money and buy a few top drawer players. I'm talking 3-4 players that will really make a difference. After that, if there are any remaining gaps in the team, use the youth players to back up the squad.

Alonso, Luiz, Drinkwater, Zappacosta, Higuain, Giroud, Kovacic, Emerson, Cahill should all be let go, as ultimately, they are not good enough for this club to step up a level.

17 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

Maybe, but if you're trying to build a better team, you gotta take some lumps sometime and not always try to scheme to hide players

But we're not better defensively...……..

Indeed. We have tumbled from the third best defense in the league to fourth best.

Hopefully spurs ship the required 3 goals tonight to put us back joint third.

17 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

Think this is more about the players and less about the manager, we have a lot of 2nd options on D, but we need a top class defender imo.

What one thing this season has the manager done in a game to change it and try to win?  What has he done with a lead to try and protect it?  What has he done on the training ground to improve the defenders individually, and as a defending unit?  The two goals we gave up yesterday were schoolboy stuff.  These are defenders who know how to defend, but were standing around looking like they didn't know what to do, or who to cover.  The looked surprised at what Burnley were doing on set plays.  What preparation was done?  If proper prep was done and the players did not carry out the instructions, then those players need to be dropped.  Where is the coaching and man management?

Struggling to break down teams that pack it in defensively has not been something we have been able to do successfully for a long time now.  What makes it seem worse now is that we have a manager that doesn't change anything when what we are doing isn't working.  More of same tactically, like for like substitutions, nothing that gives a defense a different look, or something different to deal with.  We allow a defense to continue doing what they set out to do.  

I hate all these "Anti-Football" comments / accusations. Makes us sound like Arsenal under Wenger. "Sir, Sir, it's not fair, they won't let us play our pretty (but ineffective) passing game".

When you play sides like Burnley, Stoke, Cardiff you know they will always be battling for points and fighting for their lives and using every trick in the book. You need to do your homework and counter it. No excuses, we should be beating sh*t teams like Burnley and if you fail to beat them, accept it with a bit of class and stop the whingeing.

 

12 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I hate all these "Anti-Football" comments / accusations. Makes us sound like Arsenal under Wenger. "Sir, Sir, it's not fair, they won't let us play our pretty (but ineffective) passing game".

When you play sides like Burnley, Stoke, Cardiff you know they will always be battling for points and fighting for their lives and using every trick in the book. You need to do your homework and counter it. No excuses, we should be beating sh*t teams like Burnley and if you fail to beat them, accept it with a bit of class and stop the whingeing.

 

Totally agree with this.

If you have 65 minutes to score one goal against a team that isn't even attacking, then the problem is obviously an inability to score goals.

1 hour ago, Nibs said:

I hate all these "Anti-Football" comments / accusations. Makes us sound like Arsenal under Wenger. "Sir, Sir, it's not fair, they won't let us play our pretty (but ineffective) passing game".

When you play sides like Burnley, Stoke, Cardiff you know they will always be battling for points and fighting for their lives and using every trick in the book. You need to do your homework and counter it. No excuses, we should be beating sh*t teams like Burnley and if you fail to beat them, accept it with a bit of class and stop the whingeing.

 

I agree too that some of the comments don't reflect well on us. I do believe the ridiculous time-wasting is right to be called out though. Nothing wrong with sh*t teams putting 11 men in the six yard box (even though it's awful to watch), but the time wasting on throw-ins, goal kicks and 'cramp' was simply cheating. It's not really even about the time as such, it's the breaking up of any momentum that is the objective.

Half the Burnley team getting cramp from around the 57th minute was laughable. I didn't even know cramp was still a thing in professional football. I certainly haven't seen scenes like that since extra time in the later stages of World Cup games in the 80's played at altitude and 38 degrees Celsius (Mexico 86?)

Im not even saying any of that is why we f**ked up, because it wasn't really. We were just sh*t as usual. That doesn't however make Burnley's antiques ok. God knows what's it must be like watching that kind of bollocks every week.

I went to watch my mates lad play a couple of months back and he wasn't up to much unfortunately. However, as he and his dad have season tickets at Burnley, it might go some way to explaining why he seemed a bit clueless about the game.

20 minutes ago, Snedger said:

I agree too that some of the comments don't reflect well on us. I do believe the ridiculous time-wasting is right to be called out though. Nothing wrong with sh*t teams putting 11 men in the six yard box (even though it's awful to watch), but the time wasting on throw-ins, goal kicks and 'cramp' was simply cheating. It's not really even about the time as such, it's the breaking up of any momentum that is the objective.

Half the Burnley team getting cramp from around the 57th minute was laughable. I didn't even know cramp was still a thing in professional football. I certainly haven't seen scenes like that since extra time in the later stages of World Cup games in the 80's played at altitude and 38 degrees Celsius (Mexico 86?)

Im not even saying any of that is why we f**ked up, because it wasn't really. We were just sh*t as usual. That doesn't however make Burnley's antiques ok. God knows what's it must be like watching that kind of bollocks every week.

I went to watch my mates lad play a couple of months back and he wasn't up to much unfortunately. However, as he and his dad have season tickets at Burnley, it might go some way to explaining why he seemed a bit clueless about the game.

I know it's wrong - I hate time wasting tactics. But we all do it. We've done it plenty of times. Kep has been booked at least once for doing what the Burnley keeper was doing. It's a tactic everyone uses when under the cosh by a stronger opponent. It used to wind me up more but last night I felt quite indifferent towards it and I really wasn't that arsed and I put that down to how boring we have become. If we were really going for it and had the Burnley goal under siege and they had been doing that I'm sure I'd have felt different but we could still be playing now and we wouldn't have scored another, so it really doesn't matter.

 

2 hours ago, Stim said:

Indeed. We have tumbled from the third best defense in the league to fourth best.

Hopefully spurs ship the required 3 goals tonight to put us back joint third.

If that is the 4th best defence in the PL, then it really does underline how standards have slipped. Our defence was f**king awful.

 

Another rant. Do we actually practice corners? Most fans natural reaction is to raise a small cheer on winning a corner. Last night I was cursing when we were winning corners towards the end. We used to be a powerful team from those sort of set plays.

 

25 minutes ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

Another rant. Do we actually practice corners? Most fans natural reaction is to raise a small cheer on winning a corner. Last night I was cursing when we were winning corners towards the end. We used to be a powerful team from those sort of set plays.

 

Agree and Cahill was actually quite handy at converting corners into goals.

2 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

Agree and Cahill was actually quite handy at converting corners into goals.

Remember Ivanovic!

Remember Ivanovic!

Terry!

3 minutes ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

Terry!

Also! 

4 minutes ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

Terry!

Also! 

14 minutes ago, Dean said:

Remember Ivanovic!

Cahill was more recent yet both Ivanovic and Terry were also prolific too.

Disappointed, obviously.

How many times have we lost cheap goals tis season.

I thought both Burnley's on Monday night were  cheap goals'.In other words poor defending fom us.

I also very much accept we had time 65 minutes or so. to score another .

 

8 hours ago, erskblue said:

Disappointed, obviously.

How many times have we lost cheap goals tis season.

I thought both Burnley's on Monday night were  cheap goals'.In other words poor defending fom us.

I also very much accept we had time 65 minutes or so. to score another .

 

We've seen a number of goals where the opposition overloads us on the back post, frustrating as hell and I kind of blame our M/Fs for not sprinting back and helping the defence or all going towards the ball instead of marking the player.

drogba was great at corners also, especially defending against them when needed

18 hours ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

Another rant. Do we actually practice corners? Most fans natural reaction is to raise a small cheer on winning a corner. Last night I was cursing when we were winning corners towards the end. We used to be a powerful team from those sort of set plays.

 

Yes, having Terry and Cahill and Ivanovic; they were all strong in the air and when their heads met the ball they were able to put the damn thing on target. Idk how many times this year Rudi and Christensen* had open headers and just missed the target. I know it isn't easy (I have always been awful at headers when I played) but as a professional footballer at a top club, you should bury the majority of your headers when you aren't marked.

*I know AC not playing as much as Rudi can skew that, but I seem to remember last season he struggled to get headers on target

I don't think we're particularly bad at corners, but at wide freekicks where the ball is clipped up to the far post, we are awful, as we usually have 1 defender there against 2 or 3 attackers, and they just win the ball easily. It happens a lot and frankly I can't understand why Sarri doesn't do something about it.

1 hour ago, Zeta said:

I don't think we're particularly bad at corners, but at wide freekicks where the ball is clipped up to the far post, we are awful, as we usually have 1 defender there against 2 or 3 attackers, and they just win the ball easily. It happens a lot and frankly I can't understand why Sarri doesn't do something about it.

I think they are both terrible. Our corners more often than not seem to go towards the near post, hoping for a flick on. I don't see why we find it so hard, just whip it in with pace into a dangerous area.