What a rollercoaster of a ride mainly on a severe downwards trajectory, Mason & Zyech save the day after TT got the right players on the pitch,

less said the better TT must have had one of these up his sleeve today , still top of the league but can’t play like that if we expect to remain , shame about Trev 

6 minutes ago, wizardous said:

Well, that was hard fought to say the least. Not many positives to take out from tonight, except for the result. We certainly had more luck than brains. However I think we deserved a little bit of it after Burnley and Man Utd

In the end, the result is all that matters. Champions win these games even when they're not playing well! Roll on Saturday! 

Too many changes in the line up plus midfield of RLC and Saul was a "Bakayoko" level disaster. Ranieri is an experienced fox knew from our line-up where the weak link was and they completely outplayed us in the first half. I think TT is done experimenting with Saul. It's good we stabilized the ship in the second half and scraped through this match.

Edited December 1, 20214 yr by rocker_joker

Liverpool score another 4.....shocking how many teams roll over for them.   We got lucky today and had to dig deep in the end but we will get punished sooner or later by a mid table or bottom feeder if we put these performances in...there are no easy games in the EPL, ever...this game certainly exposed our weaknesses when a large number changes are made; we really haven't got the quality to put out a 2nd string.   Really need to look at the squad in the summer and strengthen in the LWB position and midfield for sure.  If Kepa was in goal tonight this might have been a different result... Saul is likely not play another league game and can only see him in cup games against lower league teams...surprised Ross never got a run out.  

A game write out of the text book, how to win when not playing well. Great to see Mount getting back to form.

Anyone thinking the likes of Jorginho, Kovacic, Kante don't matter to the team or don't add much this is the game for you.

Saul just doesn't cut it with us, that's obvious.

I expect teams are going to press us and be physical in the future. Although it didn't work for Watford in the end, its typical of what they and Brentford and others are doing.

Ziyech has started to really adjust to life at Chelsea. He is looking more and more like he deserves a starting spot.

Take the points and get out of there. Another game coming up.

Mini blip avoided so far, December off to a winning start, still top.

But we are stuttering badly, not surprising with all the changes, especially in midfield.

Mendy MOTM.

 

That was a bit of an old school football match. Lots of tackles and niggly incidents and lacking finess and any real quality.

We rode our luck and that's a massive 3 points that many will say we didn't deserve. 

TT will have seen tonight that some of the fringe players just aren't up to it. RLC and Saul in midfield can never happen again (in fact Saul, should never be seen again). The balance was just not there tonight, not helped with both James and Chilwell being out. 

Just hope we have a few more available for the Spammers on Saturday as that will be another tough one.

 

Christ we got away with one there. So many players who would have started were either injured or not fit

The ref was sh*t tonight, not biased at all but gave a foul for anything. It was like watching Spanish football. 

 

 

 

A real let off tonight, scrapping a barely deserved win. Outright disaster of a game at times, without any apparent football ability.

My takeaway thoughts:

1) Some awful decisions from TT recently. (Werner shouldnt have played against utd, but would have suited this. Saul - self explanatory)

2) Saul as a starter as part of a 2 man midfield must NEVER happen again.

3) RLC doesnt have my trust. Too many poor decisions.

4) Pulisic is not a starter for me. Useful super sub to run at tired legs, so I would start him off on the bench, and let him impress from there.

5) Lukaku looks so slow. Need to have some legs next to him. Would like to see more of a 2 man up top with Kai or Timo next to him.

6) If we play like that against the pikeys, we will get smashed.

 

KTBFFH

RLC looks better coming on as a sub if we already control the game, and he has to play next to Jorginho. I also can't wait till Kovacic is fit again

Jim Rosenthal looks like he needs medical attention. I wonder if I’d watched Burnley v Wolves I’d have seen Dickie Davies presenting… he’s only 88.

Rotated 4-5 players, played sh1t for 2/3 of the game, yet still won, it's progress. Tuchel gives everyone a chance, it's just a pity the likes of Saul just not good enough to take it. We got completely over run in the midfield, this could happen when you lose top 3 midfielders. I have never seen Sissko so good. Defensively we were too slow, especially in wide areas, and the route 1 approach directly upset our rhythm. We should have been trailing by HT, but Mendy did his thing. Tuchel made the adjustment, that Thiago guy is like a defender and deep midfielder made into 1, and a good coach on the field. Ziyech did a good job again, think the transfer rumor definitely helped him. Lukaku is still a myth, he's a good finisher, but the way he plays, he's not going to get many chances. Mount was outstanding, he should be playing every game if he's fit.

West Ham will look like 2019/20 Bayern at the week end if we show up the way we did tonight. f**k me we were w**k. A moment of brilliance bailed us out and thankfully we have a proactive manager in charge that knows if he's made a mistake he will rectify it.

IMHO this match has made it clear that unfortunately Azpi does not have the legs anymore for such a demanding position as a rwb and he is a rcb AT MOST in the current setup, Saul is utter dross and he should beg his agent to make a miracle and get him one last big paycheck at Newcastle otherwise he will spend the next 6-7 years playing for Getafe or Sampdoria. Alonso is just average and only thrives during some moments in the season and RLC has all the physical and technical attributes, but he is so frustrating to watch and he loses the ball in the worst areas on the pitch. The goal today was solely on him, stupid decision to make that move there in the middle of the park when all his teammates were ahead of him. 

Chilly, James, Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic plus the defence - that is our engine. I know it is a busy period but Tuchel must know and I am sure he knows this, that if one or two are missing, others must play, this line up tonight was a Carabao Cup type of line up and thankfully we got a result, but next time I am not that sure if we'll get that lucky again.

Top of the table though! Up the Chels!!!

Send Saul packing in january and bring in Theo Hernandez. I can't see us winning the title while giving lots of minutes to Alonso and a few minutes for Saul.

Great result in a difficult game. I’ve gone through the match thread and am surprised about the complaints on the changes.

Silva (age) Jorginho needed a rest. Reece, Timo, injured. Changed two front players for fresh legs.

we are now light for the two central midfield positions hence resting Jorginho. we now know Saul doesn’t look good enough so keeping the players fit is important.

At least with Silva only playing a half will be fresh for Saturday with A C coming in for Chalobah probably. Changes up top were ok and gives people minutes that were needed.

Can't have too many of these games if we want to win the league. City and Pool are absolute class capable of racking up 10 straight wins and we need to follow suit.

23 minutes ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Can't have too many of these games if we want to win the league. City and Pool are absolute class capable of racking up 10 straight wins and we need to follow suit.

We are one injury in defense or Mendy from dropping out of the top 4. 

Definitely need some strengthening in January! 

18 hours ago, axman2526 said:

I would have rested Cech for Carlo once in a while sure.

And no chance, you are being ridiculous there @Argo. Rafa looking to do harm to his beloved Liverpool. What's next, Gerrard will try to beat them? Lol

City are just too good for Villa, won't even be close.

Us, City and Pool all will win imo. We will drop to 3rd over the weekend with a loss at West ham.

Well aside form City taking it easy on Villa I was right tonight, hopefully wrong on Saturday.

Job done, poor old Saul.

Did a record for the amount of players down for treatment in a match?

Poor performance, good result. Completely understand why TT made these changes, we need to keep the squad fit and rested to make the most of this period. What better game than Watford to do it.

21 minutes ago, ashwin said:

Poor performance, good result. Completely understand why TT made these changes, we need to keep the squad fit and rested to make the most of this period. What better game than Watford to do it.

Some are saying he made too many changes, but I don't think he had much choice.

The injuries to Jorginho, Werner and James meant he had to make 3 at least.

Hudson-Odoi has started 7 in a row for us so could do with a game off to keep fresh. 

Thiago Silva is 37 years old so can't play every game.

Ziyech was terrible against United so he was rightly dropped to the bench.

 

Even without the unforced changes, it still would have been hard for us because we lost the midfield battle and couldn't get our wing backs into the game.

Spammers are no pushover but didn’t beat brighton either