10 hours ago, saintquin said:

I knot it's a bit soon after the final whistle to get many (if any) congratulation but, I was quietly confident of getting a result today.

It would be interesting to know what you thought of us today. Did we play well or if you think it was just Chelsea having a bad day!

After watching today I think you chaps will stay up.

You contained us well and were good going forward.

Good luck with the rest of the season.

The last three home games against West Ham, Bournemouth and Southampton, sandwiching Everton away in between, were all totally abject performances.

I love Frank, he is my all time favourite player and I have been following the Blues for 48 years, but I am starting to get concerned about his tactical "nouse" (or lack of it) to the extent that we cannot beat any of the above or even manage to score a home goal in over 270 minutes of football. Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot remember the last time that Chelsea failed to score in THREE consecutive home games.

Putting Frank's inexperience aside for a minute, the  players were largely the same ones that annihilated Spurs 4 days previously, so what went wrong? I think it is a combination of  1. players not being able to get "UP" for the lesser opposition, believing naively that just turning up will suffice (Frank should be able to deal with this), culminating in virtually every player having an "off" day which given the earnings and performance bonuses that these lads have, should not even be a thing, but there it is, and  2. A good percentage of the players at Frank's disposal simply not being good enough (or intelligent enough maybe ??) to play the way Frank wants.

Kepa (bang out of form, to be honest have NEVER been convinced by him and if we had a decent understudy he would and should have been dropped)

Zouma (Only just good enough for Everton, has done NOTHING to convince me that he has what it takes to be a starting CB at the level we need to be at)

Emerson (Flatters to deceive, I am not convinced he is any better than Alonso, Chilwell is BADLY needed)

Dave (Has been a great servant to the Club, but regrettably his form, pace and leadership skills must all be questioned and Rhys James should be starting 100% of games when fit)

CHO (I think we may rue the day we turned down the Bayern cash - he reminds me of Torres after his Liverpool injury, looks scared and bereft of confidence, as others have said, probably needs to go out on loan ASAP)

Barkley ( simply too inconsistent to play at the top level, on his day he looks decent, but doesn't have enough of those days)

Alonso (cannot defend - enough said)

Pedro ( set to go in January, Frank does not fancy him although he has done well for us over the last 3 years)

Batshuayi, Caballero, Christensen, Giroud ( not playing, not in the Manager's plans and not good enough)

So summing up; We still have some quality players who would get into any side in the PL except the Scousers, but we need to add some fresh blood now if we have aspirations of Top 4 or progression in the Champions League, if we do not then we can probably wait until Summer. We need AT THE VERY LEAST, a RB & LB who can actually beat people and cross a ball, A CB of presence (like VVD) to partner Rudiger with Tomori learning as back up, A really good standard back up keeper so that we can confidently drop Kepa if his woeful form continues, a winger to replace Pedro and/or Willian, Sancho would be my choice but will Chelsea be his? Just NOT Saha please.  and obviously a striker who will guarantee 20 goals per season. We cannot skimp on this, we need a real top quality forward,  Timo Werner, Erling Braut Haaland, Robert Lewandoski, or Ciro Imobile would be my choice.

 

@coombsie I do agree that it's time to consider sending CHO on loan and it would need to be a division drop. First to try get him regular game time and secondly to put his attitude to the test.

People like Mount, James and Tomori went on loan and thrived through applying effort and understanding the opportunity. My concern regarding CHO is not that he reminds me of a post injury Torres and more that he reminds me of Carlton Cole. I could see his career going the same way, a series of loans, on none of which he applies himself or impresses with his career finally fading to nothing.

@coombsie  'Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot remember the last time that Chelsea failed to score in THREE consecutive home games'

You got me thinking on that one. I immediately went to the grim season of 78/79 and found that we didn't score against Man U , Leeds and Bristol City. There maybe other seasons since, it is  though alarming we at no time looked like hitting the back of the net in the last three home games.

CHO is in urgent need of a loan, it is such a pity they no longer allow short term 4/6 weeks loans like the old days which helped players recovering from injury or were lacking match practice. Personally I'd like to see him drop down a division or two and let him tear it up. Alternatively try to arrange a longer term loan into a deal for Sancho, though this would be risky if he didn't cut it.

10 minutes ago, loz said:

@coombsie I do agree that it's time to consider sending CHO on loan and it would need to be a division drop. First to try get him regular game time and secondly to put his attitude to the test.

People like Mount, James and Tomori went on loan and thrived through applying effort and understanding the opportunity. My concern regarding CHO is not that he reminds me of a post injury Torres and more that he reminds me of Carlton Cole. I could see his career going the same way, a series of loans, on none of which he applies himself or impresses with his career finally fading to nothing.

Loz, great to converse again - its been a while (Grandkids get in the way now). I think you may have a point with CHO's attitude. Does he even want to be at Chelsea? is he smarting from us turning down all Bayern's offers?? I agree that if he doesn't put this right, he may become a VERY expensive bench warmer or loanee who nobody will buy because of his salary level.

Loz, great to converse again - its been a while (Grandkids get in the way now). I think you may have a point with CHO's attitude. Does he even want to be at Chelsea? is he smarting from us turning down all Bayern's offers?? I agree that if he doesn't put this right, he may become a VERY expensive bench warmer or loanee who nobody will buy because of his salary level.

Damn families getting in the way of football! Contraception needs to up its game!

I can see it being a classic Chelsea loan much like the ones we gave the likes of Veron and Cuadrado. They get the player and we pick up a wedge of the salary.

Well, that was all a bit sh*t wasn't it?

25 minutes ago, loz said:

Damn families getting in the way of football! Contraception needs to up its game!

I can see it being a classic Chelsea loan much like the ones we gave the likes of Veron and Cuadrado. They get the player and we pick up a wedge of the salary.

I think Marina may be a bit too smart for that ?

Some of our players are very average, that's the truth. We have very few players that are world class, unfortunately, one of them is Kovacic, and yesterday, he was suspended. That affected us. Then, no need to rest Mount and I think James yesterday, they would have been handy.

Moreover, it became very clear yesterday that we need to sign a new striker in January, I hope we can. 

I'm still shaking my head at that performance last night. I shouldn't, not since this squad have shown us exactly what they are: young and mostly inexperienced. I think that this is exactly what a lot of us were saying how we thought this season would go. It has been absolutely frustrating but I like the direction and the ideals that Frank is trying to instill into the club and the connection that he has already brought to the academy. Hopefully we are smart in January and we don't make any panic buys

They had kept just one clean sheet all season before this game, including letting in 9, yes 9 goals, in one match alone. They are the same team, no new signings, same layers, same manager.

 

The fact they shut us down with ease is alarming. Is not like they needed heroic defending or amazing goalkeeping. Our defense and our keeper were tested more and failed those tests badly.

Some great discussion on here and many insightful comments.

If we reflect on the Villa game and speculate that if they had been less open and expansive the result might have been different.

Consider the Valencia home game. They defended deep and adopted a counter attacking approach.

We evidently struggle against teams who play defensively.

Mind you when we went to Ajax we did the same to them. Absorbed pressure and were efficient in converting chances into a goal.

The reality is that Super Frank is still learning and he needs to give more thought on how best to break teams down when they are happy for us to have the ball.

All in all I remain optimistic though. This is a venture which remains a work in progress and as cliched as it sounds we need to get behind the team and cheer them on because for the first time we are seeing some talented players beginning to exhibit low confidence and losing can become a habit and a self-fulfilling prophecy.