6 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Dominate possession. 

They can't score if they haven't got the ball. As long as we keep it tight and disciplined in the midfield we should be okay. 

I think our midfield is much better than theirs and I think that's where we can win this game. 

 

5 hours ago, coco said:

I agree, possession and ball retrieval high up the pitch are our best attributes, and probably the reason our defensive stats don't look too bad.

 

Arsenal did well against us in both games as far as possession went though right?  We have lucked out they are missing Ramsey but their pace on the counter will roast our defense so we will have to sit deeper to counter that I feel, does not really support a possession based game. Either we press up and try and hold the ball like you lads have said and risk being torn apart on the break, or we sit deeper as we did against City at home and try and not give them space in behind. However am not sure defensively if we are able to absorb them and counter ourselves. Without CHO we only have Hazard who can use his pace effectively to counter them.

Shame we cannot just go with the old faithful of "oh it is Arsenal again, Didier you know what to do" lol

Something tells me that without Rudi we can't really defend against Arsenal so we will let in a goal or two, but the question is can we score a few goals ourselves?

Edited May 15, 20197 yr by Gol15

23 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Something tells me that without Rudi we can't really defend against Arsenal so we will let in a goal or two, but the question is can we score a few goals ourselves?

Not sure too many of us will be confident about that - we're hardly what you would call "Prolific".

I'm more expecting us to try and strangle the game and have 75% + possession and hope Hazard can score one of his individual wonder goals and we nick it 1-0.

 

3 hours ago, Nibs said:

Not sure too many of us will be confident about that - we're hardly what you would call "Prolific".

I'm more expecting us to try and strangle the game and have 75% + possession and hope Hazard can score one of his individual wonder goals and we nick it 1-0.

 

It's going to be really tough because our squad is not that disciplined to not allow any fast breaks for the whole 90 minutes. We lost 2:0 last time with Rudi playing and I don't remember if we actually had a shot on target so I'm not sure if this game can actually end with just 1 goal and us winning it, we need to somehow score more than just 1 goal.

Hopefully Hazard will be at his best and inspired, I've noticed that Aubameyang has been in good form recently and that's worrying.

Jesus looking at these comments you'd think we were up against prime Barcelona. 

In the last month they've been hammered by Wolves and Leicester and lost at home to Palace and drew at home to f**king Brighton.

Am I missing something here?? why the negativity?

Interestingly we are going to be having VAR in the final which makes you wonder why it wasn’t used at other stages. 

I have mixed feelings about it but coming from the perspective of a Chelsea fan who’s team who have seemed to get a disproportionate amount of sh*t decisions against us, an accumulation of which led to us missing a CL final, I have to say I’m all for it. 

No CHO and now no RLC for this one. So we get Pedro and Kovacic instead. Our chances just got a lot slimmer.

36 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

No CHO and now no RLC for this one. So we get Pedro and Kovacic instead. Our chances just got a lot slimmer.

Yeah, was watching the friendly tonight and it looked like a bad injury to his Achilles. Could not put much weight on it. RLC just getting untracked and now this. Sigh.

I can’t believe that we played that friendly in the US now we’ve lost RLC for the final. f**king joke!

Could be missing Rudiger, CHO, RLC and Kante for this game. 

Massive misses on the injury front and the midfield in particular doesn't look great with Barkley, Kovacic and Jorginho likely to start we wont have anyone on the bench in case of injuries etc. 

With the injuries possible we could look something like this:

Kepa

Zappa  Azpi  Luiz  Emerson

Jorginho

Kovacic     Barkley

Pedro     Higuain     Hazard

The bookies have us 5/4 and Arse 9/4, they are the underdogs, even if we see it different.

That's seems so funny to me.

4 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

With the injuries possible we could look something like this:

Kepa

Zappa  Azpi  Luiz  Emerson

Jorginho

Kovacic     Barkley

Pedro     Higuain     Hazard

Not great is it.

Obviously i know we have a different squad now and different characters, but we had key injuries and suspensions in Munich too, and we all know how that ended...

Oh fair enough, I don't gamble so I never know the odds, everyone I've spoke to keeps saying Arsenal are going to win it. 

I can see why many think it, they've got more to gain, it's a must win for them and we seem to very inconsistent. 

Same here, everyone I heard talking about the match feels Arsenal will win it.

Jesus looking at these comments you'd think we were up against prime Barcelona. 

In the last month they've been hammered by Wolves and Leicester and lost at home to Palace and drew at home to f**king Brighton.

Am I missing something here?? why the negativity?

Yeah, you are definitely missing something here. You missed the part where Arsenal prioritize the Europa league over top 4. They eliminated teams that will easily beat the likes of Brighton, Palace, Leicester and West Ham.

 

Even rival fans are baffled as to what were doing playing in USA at this time of the season. If the transfer market of recent years weren't bad enough now untimely friendlies sabotage our season. Nothing wrong with rightfully criticising the club for poor decision making. 

With Ruben and Hazard i was confident on winning this final but it's all up to Hazard now. Fullbacks wont learn to cross the ball overnight and this team doesnt inspire anyone. Can only hope playing in a final is a big enough incentive to for them to turn up for once. 

37 minutes ago, wallosh said:

Yeah, you are definitely missing something here. You missed the part where Arsenal prioritize the Europa league over top 4. They eliminated teams that will easily beat the likes of Brighton, Palace, Leicester and West Ham.

What a genius move by their manager

RLC is a massive, massive loss for this game.

I don't want to overplay it, but I just get the feel he could have been the difference from winning and losing this game.

He has been one of our best players in recent weeks, and his goal threat & all round physical presence in midfield would have been an asset against a weak Arsenal midfield, and one that we have no replacement for.

Kovacic or Barkley I guess, but at most they "do a job", I can't see either of them being potential match winners in the way RLC has been in recent weeks.

It's such a shame that I feel the momentum and feel good factor following achieving our third place finish has dwindled as a result of losing RLC, and suddenly confidence is at an all time low.

Truly great work by all at Chelsea FC to make this happen.

What I’m about to post on the shed end forum thread about the ELFinal 

 

Hi Everyone. 

 

As I’m sure you can tell by my username, I am not a Chelsea fan. But I’m sure you’ll agree that what I’m about to say resonates across both sets of fans to a point that something needs to be said. 

 

As I’m sure those who are arranging travel to Baku are realising, UEFA’s treatment of both sets of fans for this years Europa League Final has been nothing short of disgusting. The travel arrangements to try and get to this years final is almost impossible for most fans and combine that with the pricing for some of those options are staggering. UEFA then use this as an excuse to provide both clubs with the least amount of tickets possible to then accommodate as many of their sponsors as they can fit in the ground. This is simply not on. We cannot allow the powers that be to not hear our collective voices on this front. As we have all seen over the last few years “Football without fans is nothing”. This is why a group of us arsenal fans are asking would any Chelsea fans travelling to Baku be interested in standing together with us in a joint statement holding banners to tell uefa exactly what we think of them infront of the watching world. This is a serious problem that could see any major contests in the future being played in other areas of the world infront of fewer and fewer real fans. Thanks for your time and I look forward to collaborating with some of you in the future. Cheers. Jack.

2 minutes ago, northbankgooner said:

What I’m about to post on the shed end forum thread about the ELFinal 

 

Hi Everyone. 

 

As I’m sure you can tell by my username, I am not a Chelsea fan. But I’m sure you’ll agree that what I’m about to say resonates across both sets of fans to a point that something needs to be said. 

 

As I’m sure those who are arranging travel to Baku are realising, UEFA’s treatment of both sets of fans for this years Europa League Final has been nothing short of disgusting. The travel arrangements to try and get to this years final is almost impossible for most fans and combine that with the pricing for some of those options are staggering. UEFA then use this as an excuse to provide both clubs with the least amount of tickets possible to then accommodate as many of their sponsors as they can fit in the ground. This is simply not on. We cannot allow the powers that be to not hear our collective voices on this front. As we have all seen over the last few years “Football without fans is nothing”. This is why a group of us arsenal fans are asking would any Chelsea fans travelling to Baku be interested in standing together with us in a joint statement holding banners to tell uefa exactly what we think of them infront of the watching world. This is a serious problem that could see any major contests in the future being played in other areas of the world infront of fewer and fewer real fans. Thanks for your time and I look forward to collaborating with some of you in the future. Cheers. Jack.

Probably worth contacting Chelsea Supporters trust (@ChelseaSTrust) and @Weare_theshed on twitter. I know both groups have been campaigning about this as well.

All the best mate.

2 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Could be missing Rudiger, CHO, RLC and Kante for this game. 

 

God is clearly racist.

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

With the injuries possible we could look something like this:

Kepa

Zappa  Azpi  Luiz  Emerson

Jorginho

Kovacic     Barkley

Pedro     Higuain     Hazard

I don't think Higuain starts. Giroud has started all of our Europa League matches this season and it would be extremely harsh for him to not start the final, especially as his goals were a big reason for our progression. 

Plus, Higuain is a massive pile w**k. 

3 minutes ago, PloKoon13 said:

God is clearly racist.

If ever we needed a sign to recruit Andy Carroll this summer, surely this is it? 

6 minutes ago, PloKoon13 said:

 

God is clearly racist.

#CancelChristianity

2 hours ago, wallosh said:

On 14/05/2019 at 18:32, Slojo said:

Oh fair enough, I don't gamble so I never know the odds, everyone I've spoke to keeps saying Arsenal are going to win it. 

I can see why many think it, they've got more to gain, it's a must win for them and we seem to very inconsistent. 

Same here, everyone I heard talking about the match feels Arsenal will win it.

Don't worry Wallosh lad, we're in it to win it, Eden's final game, he wants some of that glory.