5 minutes ago, Deino said:

His hands were tied with the amount of injuries we had. 

His machine lost a couple of gears and he hasn't found suitable parts to replace it. 

I don’t agree. Today we had a good team available bar Chilwell. I think that the midfield of Jorginho and RLC has worked well before, the defence had a top line up, and up front was quality. We didn’t get overplayed by the spammers, I thought we dominated them especially in the first half. We were just unlucky with the mistakes. But it always happens around this time of the season, I just don’t know why.

I think the biggest difference between ourselves and City and Liverpool, is when we get in behind, we dont convert those openings into big chances. Whether that falls down to the movement in the box or the delivery, im not sure.  

You can pick the performance apart today and say we missed this player and that player, but we comfortable up until the 1st mistake, then 2nd half again we look comfortable, Rudiger has a great chance to make a pass to mount thay kills the game, we dont take it, 30 seconds later west ham get a decent goal. 

We then dominated the ball again, got to the byline behind West hams back line numerous times, but we dont have that killer instinct to the openings into chances. 

West ham grew mote dangerous on the counter as we pushed for a winner, and they ended getting a very fortunate goal.

I dont think its a question of personnel today, decision making and composure in both boxes is what cost us. 

Hopefully the result is just a blip, it might not be our year this year, but if we can improving, stay with the other 2 for as long as possible, and not get dragged into a top 4 battle, it will be another good season, and hopefully leave us with some clear ideas on what we need to make that final hurdle.

2 minutes ago, RMH said:

I don’t agree. Today we had a good team available bar Chilwell. I think that the midfield of Jorginho and RLC has worked well before, the defence had a top line up, and up front was quality. We didn’t get overplayed by the spammers, I thought we dominated them especially in the first half. We were just unlucky with the mistakes. But it always happens around this time of the season, I just don’t know why.

Moyes found the chink in the armor at half time. He turned our press against us, look at the spaces the 2 goalscorers had. We didn't have anyone to replace RLC or Jorgi who are athletic enough that can cover for Alonso's lack of mobility. imo Our game suffers when we don't have mobile WBs that can stretch teams and be a threat upfront. Alonso can't last more than 60mins in our current setup. 

Winter is a cursed season for us. That's all I can say

8 minutes ago, big blue said:

I think the biggest difference between ourselves and City and Liverpool, is when we get in behind, we dont convert those openings into big chances. Whether that falls down to the movement in the box or the delivery, im not sure.  

You can pick the performance apart today and say we missed this player and that player, but we comfortable up until the 1st mistake, then 2nd half again we look comfortable, Rudiger has a great chance to make a pass to mount thay kills the game, we dont take it, 30 seconds later west ham get a decent goal. 

We then dominated the ball again, got to the byline behind West hams back line numerous times, but we dont have that killer instinct to the openings into chances. 

West ham grew mote dangerous on the counter as we pushed for a winner, and they ended getting a very fortunate goal.

I dont think its a question of personnel today, decision making and composure in both boxes is what cost us. 

Hopefully the result is just a blip, it might not be our year this year, but if we can improving, stay with the other 2 for as long as possible, and not get dragged into a top 4 battle, it will be another good season, and hopefully leave us with some clear ideas on what we need to make that final hurdle.

A good post.

Maybe our expectations are too high. We haven’t got the clinical players that Liverpool and City have.

The difference for me is if Liverpool and City dominate you for a whole half of football then the game is over 9 times out of 10.

We can dominate for a whole half and we rarely have a 2 goal lead to show for it.

One goal leads are precarious in the Premier league.

We lack the killer instinct of the other 2 teams.

48 minutes ago, RMH said:

It’s annoying that we can go from stuffing Juve 4-0 to losing to the spammers after a horrible performance at Watford, all within two weeks. Hopefully Tuchel is more wised-up than Lampard and can revert this trend with three consecutive wins that are achievable on paper (Zenit, Leeds and Everton).

It happened to Conte, Sarri and Lampard, now it's happening to Tuchel. Even in our title winning seasons under Mourinho and Conte, we had to do some hard grinding in the winter. I just don't understand why this period hits our squad more than others, it's like all of our players cannot adapt to the climate.

I fully expected injuries to have some impact on us, but I don't expect them to hurt us so badly that every player on the pitch drops a few levels. Injuries shouldn't cause players that were in the form of their careers to suddenly start making errors every game. Mendy and Jorginho look like mistakes waiting to happen, James has looked ineffective since Juve, Loftus-Cheek has stopped playing and has gone into hiding (although I thought he responded well today in 2nd half) Christensen and Silva no longer look composed, Alonso's early season good form is well and truly over. How does this happen to every player over night? They all seem to just check out. I have never seen this happen to a squad of players as often as it happens to ours.

1 minute ago, 2211 said:

A good post.

Maybe our expectations are too high. We haven’t got the clinical players that Liverpool and City have.

The difference for me is if Liverpool and City dominate you for a whole half of football then the game is over 9 times out of 10.

We can dominate for a whole half and we rarely have a 2 goal lead to show for it.

One goal leads are precarious in the Premier league.

We lack the killer instinct of the other 2 teams.

They have mature systems with players that are in the prime if their careers and tailor made to play in those systems. 

We have a lot of young players, and we have players that are still square pegs in round holes. Im so convinced we have the right man for job in Tuchel though, I just think we need to keep backing him, and eventually we will be unstoppable. 

At the moment I think we are short of quality wimg back option to back up and compete with James and Chilwell, Hakimi wouldve been great as he can play both sides. 

Centre midfield, i think we need either a Rice or Tchouameni, although it is interesting to see how RLC pans out. 

The rest looks good to me, as long as the contracts get sorted out. The young attackers will improve, and hopefully 1 or 2 of those square pegs can adapt over time.

 

Its easy to see that our Midfield apart from Mount don't have enough creativity, I love The skills that RLC has, but he doesn't play flat out for 90 mins, or we would have our own Yaya Toure, we are still searching for that prolific striker, and cos we don't have Hazard that could open the tightest space, our possession based 'tricky passing' sets up,  it doesn't allow any space for attackers, most teams apart from those with their own abilities don't play Defence based games, we really should just get the ball in the box, and let them defend, we look like, we are always looking for the perfect cross, onto a player, Beckham perfected the art of putting the ball into an area, and a decent striker would attack that space.....last few games you could sense a defeat like today was just awaiting, hopefully TT has the nous to sort it, or we could drop away......

A test now for Tuchel. We have been poor for a few games (Juve aside) and got away with a couple of results. We need to turn things around quickly and make sure this is a blip and not a pattern. I'm not sure we will be able to stay with City and Liverpool the way they are picking up points at the moment. But we need to ensure we keep a healthy gap between ourselves and the chasing pack at least.

31 minutes ago, 2211 said:

A good post.

Maybe our expectations are too high. We haven’t got the clinical players that Liverpool and City have.

The difference for me is if Liverpool and City dominate you for a whole half of football then the game is over 9 times out of 10.

We can dominate for a whole half and we rarely have a 2 goal lead to show for it.

One goal leads are precarious in the Premier league.

We lack the killer instinct of the other 2 teams.

While I do agree we have it all to do to beat both of those over 38 games they're both far from what they were 2/3 years ago.

Let's not forget Liverpool are only recently through a mini rut themselves which saw them draw 3-3 at Brentford, 2-2 at home to Brighton and lose by the same score we did today against West Ham.

City are like us having games where they struggle to score hence why Palace, Saints and Spurs have successfully picked up points vs them.

Two very strange goals from West Ham. A poor pass from Jorginho and West Ham took advantage from it. And the third goal was surely an error from Mendy but he saved so many points this season that things like this can happen.
Overall I have the impression that the injury of Chilwell is very bad for the defense because Alonso and later CHO are not so strong as Chilwell against the ball.

Normally 2 goals should be enough to win but somehow the stability of the defense is gone. Maybe the return of Kanté will help here a lot but I think the main problem will be the position of the left wing back.

1 hour ago, big blue said:

They have mature systems with players that are in the prime if their careers and tailor made to play in those systems. 

We have a lot of young players, and we have players that are still square pegs in round holes. Im so convinced we have the right man for job in Tuchel though, I just think we need to keep backing him, and eventually we will be unstoppable. 

At the moment I think we are short of quality wimg back option to back up and compete with James and Chilwell, Hakimi wouldve been great as he can play both sides. 

Centre midfield, i think we need either a Rice or Tchouameni, although it is interesting to see how RLC pans out. 

The rest looks good to me, as long as the contracts get sorted out. The young attackers will improve, and hopefully 1 or 2 of those square pegs can adapt over time.

 

I 100% back Tuchel as well.

I think keep with the process, a couple of transfer tweaks and next season we'll be even closer to a title winning team.

It feels horrible this weekend, especially with Liverpool's 94th minute winner but there will be plenty more twists and turns this season.

How we bounce back from defeats and dropped points will ultimately define our season.

Edited December 4, 20214 yr by 2211

16 minutes ago, TheGermanOne said:

Two very strange goals from West Ham. A poor pass from Jorginho and West Ham took advantage from it. And the third goal was surely an error from Mendy but he saved so many points this season that things like this can happen.
Overall I have the impression that the injury of Chilwell is very bad for the defense because Alonso and later CHO are not so strong as Chilwell against the ball.

Normally 2 goals should be enough to win but somehow the stability of the defense is gone. Maybe the return of Kanté will help here a lot but I think the main problem will be the position of the left wing back.

I agree with most of your post. What I disagree on is that our midfield is the crucial issue not the LWB position. With an athletic ball winner, ball carrier like Kova, that 2nd goal would have been prevented 9 times out of 10 and Kante will probably not allow that Masuaku shot. 

RLC and Jorginho is not the midfield for West Ham but we only had Saul as a CM option left. Barkley is best as an AM, he's not positionally savvy enough to be a CM. 

1 hour ago, Deino said:

I agree with most of your post. What I disagree on is that our midfield is the crucial issue not the LWB position. With an athletic ball winner, ball carrier like Kova, that 2nd goal would have been prevented 9 times out of 10 and Kante will probably not allow that Masuaku shot. 

RLC and Jorginho is not the midfield for West Ham but we only had Saul as a CM option left. Barkley is best as an AM, he's not positionally savvy enough to be a CM. 

And that makes the decision to bring our worst pressing forward on even more criminal.

Couple more months and festive Chelsea will have pushed him out and a new manager in. Who will it be?

On paper we have excellent attacking players but for some reason it is extremely difficult to score at Chelsea. Even if we had Salah back he would struggle to score for us same number of goals as he does for Liverpool! Its a puzzle!

Although, i do feel that Tuchel is a bit to blame for instance when finally Hudson Odoi is playing exceptionally well why stop his rhythm and bench him! Why has he not tried other formations as plan B! Why sign Saul instead of keeping Gilmour when played was motm and at the same time hinder his progress! 

Lots going against us right now. Not only do we have a lot of injuries, some of the so called "fit" players are also playing through pain.

I've seen people call this run a "crisis" and what not. We've got three wins, one draw and one loss in our last five games v Leicester, Juve, United, Watford and West Ham away. Okay, we probably won't keep the pace of Liverpool & City going forward but that was never realistic for this season anyways. Give Tuchel five years to build their squad and drill the team like they have had and it's probably another story.

1 hour ago, Gentian said:

On paper we have excellent attacking players but for some reason it is extremely difficult to score at Chelsea. Even if we had Salah back he would struggle to score for us same number of goals as he does for Liverpool! Its a puzzle!

Although, i do feel that Tuchel is a bit to blame for instance when finally Hudson Odoi is playing exceptionally well why stop his rhythm and bench him! Why has he not tried other formations as plan B! Why sign Saul instead of keeping Gilmour when played was motm and at the same time hinder his progress! 

I think the focus is far too much on working without the ball and not enough when it comes to actually getting things done when we have the ball.

It's not good when you see the bill: 100m for Lukaku, 75m for Havertz, 45m for Werner, 55m for Pulisic, 30m for Ziyech, which is in an approximately 305m war chest that has so far accounted for 60 goals scored in 272 appearances. Unless transfermarkt and wikipedia have the numbers a bit wrong.

Salah in comparison has scored so far 50 goals in his last 71 appearances, by the end of this season he might find himself toe to toe in comparison to 5 of our latests attacking players that we signed and his price was just over 40m, this is a puzzle that apparently nobody can solve.

Edited December 4, 20214 yr by Gol15

 

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

Lots going against us right now. Not only do we have a lot of injuries, some of the so called "fit" players are also playing through pain.

I've seen people call this run a "crisis" and what not. We've got three wins, one draw and one loss in our last five games v Leicester, Juve, United, Watford and West Ham away. Okay, we probably won't keep the pace of Liverpool & City going forward but that was never realistic for this season anyways. Give Tuchel five years to build their squad and drill the team like they have had and it's probably another story.

Need to recall Broja, Maatsen, Gallagher, Gilmour etc.

He must be very frustrated.  The number of chances we need to score a goal is borderline criminal, yet the gifts or ease other teams score against us from so few chances.  This is all too reminiscent of Frank's tenure to me.  TT did a great job of stamping out that nonsense, but it is creeping back in.

Injuries have hampered us big time.  That results in forced changes, but the other amount of rotation is concerning.  We have no attacking fluidity, and I'm not sure he knows his best 3 attacking players yet.  Not sure any of us do as they're a bag of mixed apples on their best day, but goodness me, he has to start coaching the output of the attacking side.  We need a lot more end product, and that will ease the pressure on what now looks like a nervous defence and a misfiring/absent midfield.

People know how to play us now.  Hit us hard, fast and early.  Get in our face and disrupt us.  That is no surprise.  We need to find a few tricks once again.

9 minutes ago, PhilH930 said:

He must be very frustrated.  The number of chances we need to score a goal is borderline criminal, yet the gifts or ease other teams score against us from so few chances.  This is all too reminiscent of Frank's tenure to me.  TT did a great job of stamping out that nonsense, but it is creeping back in.

Injuries have hampered us big time.  That results in forced changes, but the other amount of rotation is concerning.  We have no attacking fluidity, and I'm not sure he knows his best 3 attacking players yet.  Not sure any of us do as they're a bag of mixed apples on their best day, but goodness me, he has to start coaching the output of the attacking side.  We need a lot more end product, and that will ease the pressure on what now looks like a nervous defence and a misfiring/absent midfield.

People know how to play us now.  Hit us hard, fast and early.  Get in our face and disrupt us.  That is no surprise.  We need to find a few tricks once again.

Yes it is indeed just like the end or franks time with us. Poor festive attitudes and performances and expensive duds pulling him down. For Frank it was Werner, for TT it is Lukaku.

TT can probably hear Marina getting Roman's axe sharpened.

Midfield is a mess and we need it sorted, I believe we need to move Reece in to the center. 

Jorginho is shot, his hip is bothering him.

Play James with RLC until we get back a fit Kova, Jorgi or Kante.

5 hours ago, Deino said:

Moyes found the chink in the armor at half time. He turned our press against us, look at the spaces the 2 goalscorers had. We didn't have anyone to replace RLC or Jorgi who are athletic enough that can cover for Alonso's lack of mobility. imo Our game suffers when we don't have mobile WBs that can stretch teams and be a threat upfront. Alonso can't last more than 60mins in our current setup. 

Winter is a cursed season for us. That's all I can say

Moyes didnt do sh*t. The injury to Kai and him being replaced by a lazy Lukakau meant we couldn't defend from the front with the press, hence Westham could progress the ball from defense and over run our midfield of Jorginho and Rlc. 

22 minutes ago, The Don Antonio said:

Moyes didnt do sh*t. The injury to Kai and him being replaced by a lazy Lukakau meant we couldn't defend from the front with the press, hence Westham could progress the ball from defense and over run our midfield of Jorginho and Rlc. 

Agreed. We basically gifted them 2 goals, and even the third could have been prevented. That had nothing to do with Moyes

I sincerely hope Tuchel can turn it around because whenever things go wrong for us, they really go wrong. If he manages to keep us near the top,  he should be safe.  The league is so tough and he's been in the job for no more than a year.

Edited December 4, 20214 yr by TheSage
Typo

The injury crisis is fast ruining his effort up to date,  the last CL group game we may just play the kids, Kepa and Lukaku, every game we are losing players. I think people gave Moyes way too much credit, they did not get a kick in the game until we gifted them a goal. They put some balls behind us like Watford, we had 3 defenders in front of Bowen when he scored, somehow none of them stepped up and Mendy let the routine shot go in. Don't tell me the last goal was some special training ground drill. With the way we play, 2 goals away usually win the game, it just happen our GK had a shocker, and best forward been taken out for the angry ex-player.

13 hours ago, axman2526 said:

 

Need to recall Broja, Maatsen, Gallagher, Gilmour etc.

Definitely agree ,if we don't we will find even more teams behind us getting closer.