Whilst I’m at it I really don’t see what all the fuss is about with James. He got into good crossing areas in there area twice in first half and played two poor balls with his head down when he was about Five yards outside the 6 yard box and really should have out at least one of them on a plate. I love the idea of him but he’s nowhere near the player I thought he was going to be from being Wigan’s player of the season, not asking him to be Trent Alexander Arnold but he’s not added anything in any game I’ve seen to make us more dangerous down that right hand side. 

3 minutes ago, Deino said:

This is the weird part for me. We have Willian, Kante and James on the right yet Kante has to cover so much ground?

On the left we essentially have Pulisic/CHO alone as Azpi sits deeper than James but they don't really cover as much ground as the guys on the right.

 

Its a bit strange. Mount does do more of the pressing work on that side but he starts higher up the pitch. Kante was literally having to come 20m out of position to press at some points.

20 minutes ago, I Am Gay 4 Diegod said:

Mount was dreadful too today if we’re being honest for a number 10 it feels like he creates next to nothing and we’re all just so great full for his pressing. Funny that we all scratched our heads when Oscar made the team ahead of mata for his work rate. You have to realise we play 4 attackers : Abraham,Mount, Willian and Pulisic/CHO

 

Abraham is class imo 

Mount is offering nothing but pressing

Willian is Willian and has one good game in 4 

Pulisic is so frustrating because he gets in good positions but his finishing and passing is so inconsistent 

 

and then there’s CHO that offers literally nothing can’t even get into the positions Pulisic can. 
 

so we have one decent attacker out of the four we play, I’d go big on Isco and Sancho, keep mount but sell CHO. 

 

 

Is that the same Isco who has been more inconsistent than Willian throughout his whole career and that's in an easier league than the PL. He is exactly the sort of player we want to avoid at all costs.

Agree on the rest although a bit harsh on Mount. His goals have dried up a bit but he was fantastic against Spurs. All these young players will struggle to perform well every game - even Tammy isn't great every game (but is pretty much our only striker option right now).

 

 

 

That 3 on 2 overload that Abraham messed up in the first half was costly.

The less time Tammy has to think the better his decisions.

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

With the amount of times he was charging at players, he should have been the highest for tackles and interceptions. But stats don't tell you the whole story. From what I was seeing, his tackles weren't really breaking up attacks, they were just 50 50's that ended bobbling around and back into Brighton's possession. Nothing was clean from Kante, none of his tackles and interceptions were resulting in us winning the ball back and breaking forward in attack. He looks weak, and he looks easy to play against this season, something that you could never say about Kante two seasons ago.

The injuries have probably caught up with him a little, but I don't think it helped today that he was trying to essentially defend as a 6 (and often cover behind Jorginho) and press as an 8/10 at the same time. He is only one man. For me the problem remains systemic rather than an issue with Kante. 

After watching that and previous games it’s now starting to sink in with me that a top four slot this term is a big ask and only way cfc will land a top four finish is if the chasing pack teams are just as iffy as us which I doubt .

cant make out why when we go one goal up that the team can’t put said games to bed or even look like putting them to bed ffs,

we was sh*te against arsenal tbh and after a better looking start today BHA came back into the game just before HT and cfc were playing to hold onto the 0-1 

 

Just now, ddrblue said:

After watching that and previous games it’s now starting to sink in with me that a top four slot this term is a big ask and only way cfc will land a top four finish is if the chasing pack teams are just as iffy as us which I doubt .

cant make out why when we go one goal up that the team can’t put said games to bed or even look like putting them to bed ffs,

we was sh*te against arsenal tbh and after a better looking start today BHA came back into the game just before HT and cfc were playing to hold onto the 0-1 

 

I think the chasing teams are also iffy just like last season too.

One factor that has to be taken into account is fatigue. This was the fourth game in 10days, two being hard fought London derbies. We looked a little leggy. Brighton had an extra 24 hrs rest time.Tired minds make poor decisions which ultimately cost us the win.

I've just had a scoot round player ratings on a number of different newspapers from tabloids to broadsheets. Not one of them has Kante as having a poor game and a few rare him higher than Jorginho (which I agree with)

Now I'm not saying that proves anything definitively but it does suggest that people judging the performances of players without as much emotion or more impartially don't seem to agree Kante was poor today. I think there were many players worse than him today.

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

Is that the same Isco who has been more inconsistent than Willian throughout his whole career and that's in an easier league than the PL. He is exactly the sort of player we want to avoid at all costs.

Agree on the rest although a bit harsh on Mount. His goals have dried up a bit but he was fantastic against Spurs. All these young players will struggle to perform well every game - even Tammy isn't great every game (but is pretty much our only striker option right now).

 

 

 

I completely agree with you, Isco is a player we should avoid at all costs. I'm sure people think that just because a player is playing for Real Madrid that must mean they are good. Every time we are linked with a player from them, some fans make out that it will be an amazing signing. Isco hasn't been good for a long time now, and even when he was good, it was more like a one season wonder kind of thing.

Lampard has to do his job as a coach and tell Kante to be a. Defensive midfielder and just sit next to jorginho or go to the f**king bench.. he plays as a defensive midfielder when he plays for France but once he puts on the Chelsea jersey he thinks he can play ,,3 positions at the same time.  There were so many times when Kante was ahead of William and practically disrupting our attack by being in the space mount and William wanted to occupy..

 

The less said about CHO the better

10 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Let's just forget that without Kante we were 3rd place in the league and steamrolling all the sides we are massively struggling against now... 

Clearly it was Kepa who made the difference today. 

Or better still, rather than singling out any individual players when the team as a whole have put in another rancid performance, perhaps we should be trying to identify the root cause of such poor quality performances.  Any team that fails to beat West Ham, Bournemouth, Southampton and Brighton shouldn't even be entertaining the thought of european football. Its just a marker of the lack of quality in the game currently.

4 minutes ago, charierre said:

One factor that has to be taken into account is fatigue. This was the fourth game in 10days, two being hard fought London derbies. We looked a little leggy. Brighton had an extra 24 hrs rest time.Tired minds make poor decisions which ultimately cost us the win.

Bullsh*t they all had a day off against Southampton

Maybe we over-celebrated again after the Arsenal win.

We need to change our mentality on our matches against the lesser teams to how it was earlier in the season.

Just now, WhiteWall said:

Or better still, rather than singling out any individual players when the team as a whole have put in another rancid performance, perhaps we should be trying to identify the root cause of such poor quality performances.  Any team that fails to beat West Ham, Bournemouth, Southampton and Brighton shouldn't even be entertaining the thought of european football. Its just a marker of the lack of quality in the game currently.

It's not really hard to see though. The opponent's gameplan was easy. Target Chelsea's weakest LB/RB, when that happens, the midfield (Jorginho) will go deeper to become a passing option, which leads to the RB/LB passing to Jorginho. You then press Jorginho so he'll have to pass it back to one of the CB who'll pass it to each other. The whole team will drop deeper so as to give space to run into which then the CB will try to play long. What happens is because Chelsea's wingers are weak in the air, you only really need to be careful of Tammy. You mark Tammy out when there's an aerial ball then it's almost guaranteed to be your ball. Then you launch a quick counter since the whole Chelsea team are out of position already.

7 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Or better still, rather than singling out any individual players when the team as a whole have put in another rancid performance, perhaps we should be trying to identify the root cause of such poor quality performances.  Any team that fails to beat West Ham, Bournemouth, Southampton and Brighton shouldn't even be entertaining the thought of european football. Its just a marker of the lack of quality in the game currently.

Obviously, that goes without saying. But saying we would've lost without Kante when we have a better win % without him in the side is pretty illogical, especially after he just had a bad game to top it off. 
 

1 minute ago, Deino said:

It's not really hard to see though. The opponent's gameplan was easy. Target Chelsea's weakest LB/RB, when that happens, the midfield (Jorginho) will go deeper to become a passing option, which leads to the RB/LB passing to Jorginho. You then press Jorginho so he'll have to pass it back to one of the CB who'll pass it to each other. The whole team will drop deeper so as to give space to run into which then the CB will try to play long. What happens is because Chelsea's wingers are weak in the air, you only really need to be careful of Tammy. You mark Tammy out when there's an aerial ball then it's almost guaranteed to be your ball. Then you launch a quick counter since the whole Chelsea team are out of position already.

Its so obvious to us all, isn't it. Still we have great possession of the ball!

1 minute ago, The Don Antonio said:

Bullsh*t they all had a day off against Southampton

I can understand where this fatigue bollocks comes from ,I don’t recall it ever been mentioned back in the 80’s 90’s as teams just got on with it and now that football has all these sports sicentists etc etc the term fatigue comes into it.

they run around for 90 mins and if they are asked to run about for another 90 mins 2 days later and they are lacking the term fatigue is

used by all and sundry .

fcuk me I work 6 days a week 9 hrs a day with various hrs on the Saturday ,have Sunday off then iam back and ready for another 6 days on the Monday ,and my workrate is allways acceptable .

getting sick to my back teeth of all these pampered football players today 

Well played Kepa,a points a point.....UP THE CHELS !

39 minutes ago, gazza said:

We all know that the only player we will be signing is Zaha , would Liverpool or City buy him ? 

so yet again we fall behind those teams, we never learn

I know no such thing   Did the club fail to inform me again?

8 minutes ago, Hemel Blue said:

Well played Kepa,a points a point.....UP THE CHELS !

Careful, you'll hurt yourself being chipper 

9 minutes ago, ddrblue said:

I can understand where this fatigue bollocks comes from ,I don’t recall it ever been mentioned back in the 80’s 90’s as teams just got on with it and now that football has all these sports sicentists etc etc the term fatigue comes into it.

they run around for 90 mins and if they are asked to run about for another 90 mins 2 days later and they are lacking the term fatigue is

used by all and sundry .

fcuk me I work 6 days a week 9 hrs a day with various hrs on the Saturday ,have Sunday off then iam back and ready for another 6 days on the Monday ,and my workrate is allways acceptable .

getting sick to my back teeth of all these pampered football players today 

And they immediately have massages and nutritionists who make sure they are properly looked after. Fatigue shouldn't ever be an issue. 

1 hour ago, Albert_The_Dog said:

Too average in attack again! I don’t think teams fear Tammy, Pulisic or Willian, we need to invest in a top quality striker. Just my opinion.

Mine too from the start of the season 

6 minutes ago, Deino said:

And they immediately have massages and nutritionists who make sure they are properly looked after. Fatigue shouldn't ever be an issue. 

I wish that they would just take the term/ excuse fatigue out of the reason/s for a bad 90 mins and just replace it with ‘ they was sh*te’ and move on ,it seems as thou society is looking far to deep into the question WHY  today . 

Ah, the old players should never be tired argument is back, what fun....