And the ladies are now 4-0 down and heading out of Europe FFS ... 

Just now, The Don Antonio said:

Tuchel has to explain why he brought on Saul and why Kante is on the bench but can't come on

Kante has trained for 2 days. Never going to play him. We dont have anyone else for the bench, cant just bring up youth players because they are in their own bubble. 

Saying that, id rather play with 10 than Saul.

Everton, Burnley, Utd, Spam.

Every time we meet a team lacking confidence, we gift them a chance in life. 

Why? Charity FC 

1 hour ago, Snedger said:

The board have always made the manager responsible, never the players. It’s a lot cheaper that way.

That's not really true though is it? Luiz (twice), Costa, Cech, De Bruyne, Salah, Tomori, Abraham, Zouma (three times) off the top of my head were all sold/loaned out because the manager didn't fancy them/thought someone else was better.

1 minute ago, ducavis said:

Is the squad really small? Off my head 3 goalies,  9 defenders, 5 midfielders + Saul, and 7 up front. That is more than enough players IMO. 
 

Dosen't matter how big when the quality options are not there. Saul, Azpilicueta, Alonso, RLC, Pulisic, Ziyech are nowhere good enough. Just having Azpilicueta, RLC and Alonso on at the same time is a disaster for any team that wants to play at a higher tempo.

We literally could of played until midnight and we wouldn't of scored again.

Really poor, I'd be surprised if we ever see City again now they are a few points clear of us.

1 minute ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

I dont think it doesn't work per se, I think it is heavily reliant on our midfield and if we don't have the right balance the team struggles. That balance is usually Jorghi and Kante/Kovacic but since the latter have been injured, we've struggled. RLC, Saul, and Barkley are not good enough for me personally. 

Plan B? Surely at some point he has to be questioned for not having an alternative plan. I don’t think the Back 5 can ever work in a long season competing on all fonts. Klopp, Pep & even Mourinho used it for a short while but dropped it, it will be interesting to find out why. 

Dropping points every other game now. This one felt like the worst of the lot cause Everton looked like they had rolled over, we just declined the gift.

Had a feeling it was gonna be one of them nights when James put it wide early on. The last few weeks have been very reminiscent of the Chelsea for the 3 or so years prior to Tuchel arrived. 
 

The title is slipping away but I still think the team will turn it around. From a Chelsea point of view a postponement of the league for 10 days or whatever may not be the worst. 

Just now, Munkworth said:

Remember back in the day when we weren’t winning so we’d throw an extra player forward and everyone on the pitch busted a gut to go for it?

Now we just pass aimlessly along the back three until the referee finally puts us out of our misery. 

Exactly.. instead of our creative players our defenders keep passing the ball amongst themselves- when we should be pumping balls in the box.. we are doing nothing 

Hate to say it but what a sh*t show that was, AGAIN!

We are so frustrating to watch - it's starting to pee me off just a tad.

For the 58th time in three years we are looking at another squad overhaul. It's not just the quality of the players we have but also the lack of desire/hunger/commitment (call it what you like).  So few players on our squad who, when the chips are down, you look to for inspiration or to pull a win out of our arse.  Liverpool have them, City have them.  We are miles behind both of them.

Those playing tonight  like Pulisic, Ziyech, RLC, Barkley, Saul, are all mediocre talents with very limited drive. There is a few who were missing tonight in a similar camp. Can look ok when we are winning but when struggling they disappear. 

 

We were never a title challenging team this season. That was a daft thought. But now we are looking like a team who will struggle to finish top four. And, in all honesty, the players I've listed don't deserve to be a top four player.

1 minute ago, ducavis said:

Plan B? Surely at some point he has to be questioned for not having an alternative plan. I don’t think the Back 5 can ever work in a long season competing on all fonts. Klopp, Pep & even Mourinho used it for a short while but dropped it, it will be interesting to find out why. 

I just mentioned it in the manager thread but I think possible temporary solution could be playing 3 in the middle. I don't believe we should scrap the formation completely since it works with the right personnel but I temporary 3 man midfield could help out the defence.

Same old story. Tuchel must be ripping his remaining hair out watching these lads attempt to finish. I've not seen anything like it.

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

The thing is, I can't even say they have no bottle, because they clearly do which is why we won the Champions League. The problem is their attitude. It's like they think they are the dogs bollocks and then just stop playing and don't pick it back up again. I remember Chilwell making comments last season about feeling like we can beat anybody, then what happens after that? We go on a sh*t run of form and Lampard ends up sacked. Same sh*t is happening all over again. 

I think we won the CL because Tuchel found a system that the squad felt comfortable with. The same problems in attack still existed and our league form towards the end was not great. Now the players are settled in the system, they don't know what to do. I remember as a kid everyone wanted to be a striker and score goals, whereas all our players seem scared of such a responsibility. We need another recruitment drive sadly. Players that allow us to play with a back 4 and players that know how to attack and finish.

2 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Same old story. Tuchel must be ripping his remaining hair out watching these lads attempt to finish. I've not seen anything like it.

But they score lots of lovely goals in training!

The pack are closing, we could be chasing the fourth place again. The signs are worrying. Imagine finishing behind the Gooners.

2 minutes ago, comtrend said:

Dosen't matter how big when the quality options are not there. Saul, Azpilicueta, Alonso, RLC, Pulisic, Ziyech are nowhere good enough. Just having Azpilicueta, RLC and Alonso on at the same time is a disaster for any team that wants to play at a higher tempo.

Every team has average players though, the days of keeping 2 £50m players for the same position are long gone. You strip away the 1st 11 from Liverpool and you have Minamino, Ox, Milner and a bunch of Kids. Even City have Fernandinho and Ake, and actually have a smaller squad than us this season. Somehow Pep & Klopp have integrated their youth players, but Tuchel has ignored his. 
 

3 minutes ago, loz said:

For the 58th time in three years we are looking at another squad overhaul. It's not just yet quality of the players we have but also the lack of desire/hunger/commitment (call it what you like).  So few players on our squad who, when the chips are down, you look to for inspiration or to pull a win out of our arse.  Liverpool have them, City have them.  We are miles behind both of them.

Those playing tonight  like Pulisic, Ziyech, RLC, Barkley, Saul, are all mediocre talents with very limited drive. There is a few who were missing tonight in a similar camp. Can look ok when we are winning but when struggling they disappear. 

 

We were never a title challenging team this season. That was a daft thought. But now we are looking like a team who will struggle to finish top four. And, in all honesty, the players I've listed don't deserve to be a top four player.

So true Loz. Think we all got carried away - majority of expert pundits too. All were tipping us to win the PL this season and for a while it seemed whatever side TT picked got the result. But in a short space of time we have lost form and confidence and now those players who were looking okay, look a million miles away from City and Liverpool quality.

TT has been brilliant up to now but this is the time we get to see just how good a coach he really is (or isn't).

 

We actually the chances in the first half to win this game but our finish was Norwich standard.

Everton didn't even try tonight and it only took them 4 minutes to equalize!

I'm tired of making excuses.

We should be title challengers and for two good reasons. Two weaknesses in our rivals that we have used as an excuse for not challenging in the past.

City - no striker. We signed Lukaku so can't use that excuse anymore

Liverpool - 1 major attacking signing in 2 years (Jota) - we've spent 300m on attacking talent so cant use that excuse anymore

These players we have are pathetic.

Just now, Scott Harris said:

Don't know what the f**k is wrong with this lot, but every year you can guarantee this mid season slump. No manager has cracked it(...)

Not true. In 2016-17 we won 10 out of 11 games from the beginning of November to mid-January (and if I remember correctly equalled a record for best league winning run in the process).

 

To start with, well f**king done Everton. With literally half of their squad missing they came to Stamford Bridge and got a point. And to be completely honest, beyond the first half an hour when we pissed away three or four chances, never really looked particularly threatened. In the last ten minutes they looked more likely to score than we did.

This is one of the problems you have to face when supporting a 'big' (and particularly rich) club. You may well experience a Champions' League trophy with the winner scored by your "generational" £70m star forward, masterminded by your trendy continental manager, but you are also going to have nights like this when you look like complete f**king idiots. (Without checking) I think the loan fee for Saúl, who has been a particularly huge flop, was more than double Everton's entire budget for the past transfer window. For every £30m genius like Kanté, you're going to have three £30m disasters like Drinkwater, or Bakayoko, or Shevchenko. How can you whine about your £90m forward, £50m forward and £70m forward not being available being the reason for your team's attacking incompetence, when the opposition side were missing their entire first-choice front line, were forced to start one of more or less all youngsters (including one debutant), and still managed to score the same number of goals as us?

Abramovich has been in charge for over 18 years. Realistically, for any Chelsea fan who was born in the past quarter-century, this is all they've ever known. Even Chelsea fans who are maybe 10-15 years older (such as myself) would have experienced us winning FA Cups, Cup Winners' Cups, and players like Gullit, Vialli, Desailly, Zola before they're old enough to drink.

I suppose this is the long way of saying that we can have no excuses and can't really complain. Everton have and had it much worse and we still didn't beat them. We probably won't win the title this season, but we are still building something very impressive, and we shouldn't panic because of one bad run of form, or a couple of particularly irritating results. It was less than a month ago that we were thrashing Juventus and wondering whether this was the best we had ever been.

And perhaps the saddest thing of all... Benitez really did a number on us tonight.

2 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Same old story. Tuchel must be ripping his remaining hair out watching these lads attempt to finish. I've not seen anything like it.

We have been like this for years now, but it was less noticeable when Hazard was here because he would pull out something from nothing. Without him, these past 3 years have been so painful watching us in attacking areas.

How many times have we seen situations like James chance in the first few minutes? Any other club and those chances are taken 99 times out of 100, but with us, it always seems like 50/50.

We didn’t even play badly just one useless twat losing his man on a set play, and a manager stupid enough to keep playing him