How do you sceptical guys usually do it? Downplay your own players til the whistle blows, wait a few minutes and then get either hopes up / forks out depending the first couple of situations or does it depend on intoxication?

23 minutes ago, The Don Antonio said:

        Add to that Peps record of winning 14 out of the 15 major finals he has competed in. lol

Yikes what a record! Half of those must be league cup finals based on city winning it for the past 100 years lol.

17 minutes ago, weetee said:

How do you sceptical guys usually do it? Downplay your own players til the whistle blows, wait a few minutes and then get either hopes up / forks out depending the first couple of situations or does it depend on intoxication?

Personally I still go in to the game and during the game expecting to lose. Even if we are 2-0 and the 90 has hit I still expect it to go wrong lol.

It is better than the alternative. Go in with high Hopes of a win only to lose the cup final to Arsenal and be bitter about it and in a foul mood weeks later. I will get over our loss on Saturday better this way, unlike 2008 when I went in full of belief, even in the shoot out. That was devastating.

Men will literally food a Chelsea supporters forum with negative commentary instead of going to therapy.

2 hours ago, Stim said:

As long as no one here is giving the pre match talk

Yep, if it was me we wouldn't have a team talk. I'd phone UEFA and say that the entire squad has caught the Indian variant and that we now can't make it. There's nothing worse in sport than a foregone conclusion (unless you're a City fan in this instance).

2 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Personally I still go in to the game and during the game expecting to lose. Even if we are 2-0 and the 90 has hit I still expect it to go wrong lol.

It is better than the alternative. Go in with high Hopes of a win only to lose the cup final to Arsenal and be bitter about it and in a foul mood weeks later. I will get over our loss on Saturday better this way, unlike 2008 when I went in full of belief, even in the shoot out. That was devastating.

It wasn't meant that serious but when reading all those threads over here one must think quite a lot of posters here almost despise most our players, lol. Just saying, I coudn't understand how rooting for them during a match like this would work - or how I'd feel in case they'd lift the cup against all odds after downplaying them for weeks before.

The alternative to being overly sceptical could also be trying to approach it rather level headed and make peace with oneself beforehand that a defeat wouldn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things 🙂  and rather enjoy it as much as possible - it's what those guys fought for the complete season (qualification to play it and when playing it to reach the final). But that depends a good deal on the level of intoxication I guess too.

It is quite difficult to asses this game. We played city 3 times this season yet we can't use any of them for reference. 

1st one we had different manager. 

The last two were kinda a joke especially the last one, the quality of that game was pure garbage,almost pre-season level. 

In general city is the clear favorite both in term of player quality and form. However city tend to "struggle" against back 5 team due to their offensive structure. Plus we have been pretty good against press which is extremely important against city. However we can't make mistake in our short build up. If we concede first, it is almost game over for us, chasing game is one of our biggest weakness under Tuchel. 

Defensively, 3 player in midfield is probably a good idea to help our wb against foden and especially mahrez. Plus it will reduce the amount of space that can be used by kdb and b silva. 
Offensively, james was great against mendy, but he won't play against mendy. It is going to be either cancelo or Zinchenko. Offensively it will be probably all about us breaking their press with kova, kante or mount and bringing the ball forward to release Werner.

This is important we need Werner to play well. He need to be great at one on one. I remember against pool, he had two one on one chances in free space against Fabinho that led to nothing before Chris red card. This simply cannot happen. 

Last but not the least, Fernandinho will make many foul to prevent counter so we need to swarm the ref everytime he or anyone make tactical fouls. 

 

 

 

 

 

43 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Yep, if it was me we wouldn't have a team talk. I'd phone UEFA and say that the entire squad has caught the Indian variant and that we now can't make it. There's nothing worse in sport than a foregone conclusion (unless you're a City fan in this instance).

Good thing the phone wasn't working in 2012

6 minutes ago, Stim said:

Good thing the phone wasn't working in 2012

And then we were much, much bigger underdogs than we are this time around.

Can we start Drogba?

It’s starting to feel real!!!!!

Is it the same for those who say what an achievement it is to reach a cup final, a pre tactic to lessen the blow if we lose said final?

Cause I dont feel any achievement in reaching the past 2 fa cup finals only for us not to show up and get beat.

13 minutes ago, Stim said:

Good thing the phone wasn't working in 2012

Whilst even then we were underdogs for sure, their stadium and not exactly our finest league season, injuries and suspensions and manager change mid season and all, but just look at the lineup that night...

Petr Cech; Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Jose Bosingwa; Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel; Ryan Bertrand, Juan Mata, Salomon Kalou; Didier Drogba and Essien on the bench.

There was quality, experience and serious mental strength in that lot.

 

You can't compare that side with the current bunch of milksops.

Edited May 26, 20215 yr by Snedger

I think we must be rank outsiders for this match, we score very few and have recently struggled defensively and are up against one of the best attacking teams that are also strong all over the pitch.

In saying this I have that nagging feeling that we are still going to get a result.

 

49 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Whilst even then we were underdogs for sure, their stadium and not exactly our finest league season, injuries and suspensions and manager change mid season and all, but just look at the lineup that night...

Petr Cech; Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Jose Bosingwa; Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel; Ryan Bertrand, Juan Mata, Salomon Kalou; Didier Drogba and Essien on the bench.

There was quality, experience and serious mental strength in that lot.

 

You can't compare that side with the current bunch of milksops.

Even some that you have not highlighted mate, Cahill was/is a trule leader, playing injured and throwing himself in the way of everything. David luiz was one leg but had one of those rare games were he was near perfect and he is also a leader.

And Mikel likewise had a superb game and was a calming influence. That team had so much leadership and personality. 

46 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

I think we must be rank outsiders for this match, we score very few and have recently struggled defensively and are up against one of the best attacking teams that are also strong all over the pitch.

In saying this I have that nagging feeling that we are still going to get a result.

 

It is very simple. We need 3 things to happen for us to be able to win.

1. The pressure needs to get to City and we need to add to their pressure by being calm and composed and not rush anything.

2. We need to make no big mistakes, I.e  no Jorginho backpass brainfart, cheap corners given away and lack of awareness like for villas first goal. Also not to miss any good chances.

3. The biggest thing we need. Luck. Lots of luck.

Without those 3 elements we lose. If City show up with their tales up we dont have to make a mistake they can lash in from anywhere in our half.

If we make stupid errors and miss easy chances we get punished.

If we have bad luck then we can do everything right and KDB can whack a shot for 40 that hits 4 of our players and goes in off Dave's a$$.

Simply put we need all of those things going for us.

Luck can happen in all sorts of ways, Red cards, deflections and a player slipping at a vital moment.

7 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

Luck can happen in all sorts of ways, Red cards, deflections and a player slipping at a vital moment.

It sure can and we need all that luck, just like we had in 2012.

All the blocks that deflected well for us, bayern missing the final ball and several good chances. All those corners they wasted, pur 1 finding Drogba and Neuer reacting a millisecond too slow.

Robben taking a poor pen, and that last huge bit of luck, Bastian and his pen not rolling back in to Cech and going in.

That is exactly the luck we need.

1 hour ago, Frawdulant said:

It’s starting to feel real!!!!!

So we are wearing the unlucky ziggy zaggy shirt after all...

5 minutes ago, sonic90 said:

So we are wearing the unlucky ziggy zaggy shirt after all...

City are classed as the home side and based on promotional material I believe we are wearing our Crystal Palace kit.

They will also have more fans there than us as @DonAntonio stated so really will be turning the Dragon den in to their second home.

Edited May 26, 20215 yr by axman2526

Just now, axman2526 said:

City are classed as the home side and based on promotional material I believe we are wearing our Crystal Palace kit.

It shows the shirt in the promo material there but I guess it's subject to change. I can't find any real info on what we're going to wear, the UEFA site says both teams can wear home kits if they don't clash, which in the PL they don't so who knows?

It would be a good omen if we were to wear the pink kit though as the colour theme of the 08 final was red was Utd won it, in 2012 it was blue and we won, now it is pink/blue which is the same as our third kit.

1 minute ago, sonic90 said:

It shows the shirt in the promo material there but I guess it's subject to change. I can't find any real info on what we're going to wear, the UEFA site says both teams can wear home kits if they don't clash, which in the PL they don't so who knows?

It would be a good omen if we were to wear the pink kit though as the colour theme of the 08 final was red was Utd won it, in 2012 it was blue and we won, now it is pink/blue which is the same as our third kit.

Petr Cech is big on things like that.

16 minutes ago, sonic90 said:

It shows the shirt in the promo material there but I guess it's subject to change. I can't find any real info on what we're going to wear, the UEFA site says both teams can wear home kits if they don't clash, which in the PL they don't so who knows?

It would be a good omen if we were to wear the pink kit though as the colour theme of the 08 final was red was Utd won it, in 2012 it was blue and we won, now it is pink/blue which is the same as our third kit.

Away pinky kit, away black socks = easy win on penalty shootout incoming?

 

Did anyone hear Lee Sharpe on Radio 2 this morning?  He thinks we'll get beat comfortably.  I must say....I'm very worried.

29 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Away pinky kit, away black socks = easy win on penalty shootout incoming?

 

I've done the maths and yes, maybe.

I'm expecting everything that can go wrong, to go wrong. So conceed several early goals, get a player sent off. Have some sh*t VAR decisions. Goals disallowed. The whole shebang.