I’m going to cut some slack tonight. We look like we are playing on empty 

It’s interesting how Liverpool were given a hall pass for having a few injuries last season…chelsea have rarely been able to pick their best team all season and it is meltdown city.

15 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Mount was our best player by far. Again. 

Really. 

 

Better than Lukaku. Should have gone to specsavers. He has been but not today I'm afraid.

8 minutes ago, smileysmiles said:

Really. 

 

Better than Lukaku. Should have gone to specsavers. He has been but not today I'm afraid.

I agree..Lukaku the clear stand out. Mount actually wasn’t that great by his standards. A lot of them weren’t. 

You can complaints about player a,b,c but honesty right now that is not the problem. We have so many injuries in this packed period. You have players who need rest who doesn't get rest, you have player who has just comeback from injury and can only play 30 min played 90 for many games now.

This team is simply exhausted. 

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by Bob stark

A game too far for this squad. We almost got away with it. But despite the frustrating timing of their equalizer Brighton deserved something from the game.

Unfortunately that is 1 win from our last 5 league games, and mostly against teams in the lower half of the table too. Certainly not title winning form, and that target has probably gone now. The danger is we could get pulled into the battle for top 4 if we continue to slip like this.

Feels like we've had so many of these drab draws at home over the last few years.

In the end the lack of creativity has cost us. We built our recent success on keeping clean sheets and grafting hard fought victories. The odd thrashing of say a sh*te Norwich team aside, it's been pretty turgid and workmanlike but the ends justified the means.

Once the clean sheets disappeared we can no longer scrape the victories we did earlier in the season and last season. Tuchel needs to make sure the wheels don't truly come off now with the injuries piling up. 

 

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by Zagger

Brighton deserved that. After we scored we wilted away, whereas they were full of running and winning all the 50/50s.

Too many players could not control a ball, lost possession cheaply and could not pass it simply to each other. 

Like I have been saying for a while we are not in the title race, festive Chelsea have fallen away again. It was a rotten performance from far too many players. 

Credit to Lukaku who led the line well, scored a good goal and linked play pretty well. Mendy also performed very well. Everyone else was differing levels of poor.

21 minutes ago, The Brit said:

I agree..Lukaku the clear stand out. Mount actually wasn’t that great by his standards. A lot of them weren’t. 

Rom and rudi looked a different class today. Time to just fork out to keep rudi.

52 minutes ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

I’m going to cut some slack tonight. We look like we are playing on empty 

Brighton have played 4 games in December, we played 8. we played every 3 or 4 days continuous. They had a game on the 1st of december and the 4th,  they had 11 days off and played on the 15th, after that game they again had 11 days off and played on the 26th. They had 22 days of rest while the most days we had in between games was 5 days.

Edited December 30, 20214 yr by azpi28

40 minutes ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

I’m going to cut some slack tonight. We look like we are playing on empty 

Yeah if only more would do the same. funny how little this is taken into consideration. It’s damn unfortunate to lose 2 of your back line to injury in the first half on top of everything. But people “analyse” the game in the usual way, go on about how x can’t play in that position or how can we possibly challenge for a top 3 place with this dross, or typical Chelsea in December… as if the injuries/exhaustion/disruption aren’t the biggest factor right now. Also, we did nearly win and Brighton were/are pretty good. And liverpool lost to Leicester, looking not all that convincing in the process. Some really need to heed your avatar, calm down, support the team and stop being so fkin miserable. 

Another frustrating home draw. Had too many of these this season.

Pretty much given up on winning the title now. City will romp it in again. If we can finish 2nd or 3rd, I think that will be a decent outcome in the circumstances.

Can't blame TT for being frustrated. We've been through the ringer with a hectic schedule and injuries.

5 minutes ago, Dean said:

Yeah if only more would do the same. funny how little this is taken into consideration. It’s damn unfortunate to lose 2 of your back line to injury in the first half on top of everything. But people “analyse” the game in the usual way, go on about how x can’t play in that position or how can we possibly challenge for a top 3 place with this dross, or typical Chelsea in December… as if the injuries/exhaustion/disruption aren’t the biggest factor right now. Also, we did nearly win and Brighton were/are pretty good. And liverpool lost to Leicester, looking not all that convincing in the process. Some really need to heed your avatar, calm down, support the team and stop being so fkin miserable. 

Yep. Agree with this. It’s hard to judge chelsea right now because the team is constantly being changed due to injuries and covid, plus there are a lot of shattered players who are carrying the strain. Results and performances aren’t great but I’d be more worried if this was the case with a fully fit squad  

nice touch from Lamptey when Reece was being taken off.

4 hours ago, Petworth Chelsea Fan said:

To think in Franks first season, Pulisic looked like an almost decent replacement for Hazard. Since his injury he’s been more Jasper Gronkjer. 

None of our forward players have shined  in this system.. been repeating this like a broken record - our purple patch lasted for 2-3 games where we looked very good with Chilwell and Reece scoring for fun. Else this season has been very up and down in terms of performances.

we let a very average Juve team pip us for the top spot - the league form has been dire for 2 months now. 

3 hours ago, Jangz said:

None of our forward players have shined  in this system.. been repeating this like a broken record - our purple patch lasted for 2-3 games where we looked very good with Chilwell and Reece scoring for fun. Else this season has been very up and down in terms of performances.

we let a very average Juve team pip us for the top spot - the league form has been dire for 2 months 

It is immensely hard to find the right balance tactically in the PL. You give a guy like Pulisic freedom to express himself by playing 3 attacking midfielders and next minute teams are exposing our soft middle with only two at the back and a slow Jorginho covering them. 

It's even harder to successfully change your set-up once teams understand how to play against you. Look at Ancelotti and Conte. Looked like geniuses in year 1 and then struggled after their systems were countered in year 2. It is particularly hard to change anything mid season when you are playing 3 times a week and there is little time on the training ground. 

We'll bounce back, but I wouldn't expect wholesale change to the system.

9 hours ago, Munkworth said:

@Valerie this is on you. No ice cream? Are you mad?

I know, I feel bad 😪

If ever there was a game where all the signs going into it aligned negatively that was it.

 

As someone said earlier double the number of games , two substitutions forced through injury, Mike Dean the signs were all there.

 

Its pretty obvious why the 5 sub rule wasn’t voted through. I used to shake my head when people talked about footballers playing too much but it’s abundantly clear to me now that the football authorities haven’t a clue or perhaps should I say don’t give a damm about players welfare.

 

Ignoring every other fact it was clear that Brighton deserved something from the game so well done to them but my anger isn’t going to be directed to the players but toward the PL itself.

I just hope that when it comes to re arranging al those cancelled games they will be required to play every 3-4 days because it’s abundantly clear that clubs that have had significant rest between games have been handed a massive advantage 

Alas January is going to stretch things even further the only saving grace should be that the game against Chesterfield should afford  the opportunity to rest significant numbers of the 25 man squad and enable some of those  talented under 21 s to be be played 

Well... seems about right

2 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

It is immensely hard to find the right balance tactically in the PL. You give a guy like Pulisic freedom to express himself by playing 3 attacking midfielders and next minute teams are exposing our soft middle with only two at the back and a slow Jorginho covering them. 

It's even harder to successfully change your set-up once teams understand how to play against you. Look at Ancelotti and Conte. Looked like geniuses in year 1 and then struggled after their systems were countered in year 2. It is particularly hard to change anything mid season when you are playing 3 times a week and there is little time on the training ground. 

We'll bounce back, but I wouldn't expect wholesale change to the system.

Other teams manage to do it though. The manager made an error by not having a plan B going into the season, and not planning his personnel accordingly. 
I questioned before the beginning of the season how he expected to compete on 4-6 fonts depending on his wingbacks for creativity. He has a glut of options upfield he isn’t using, & hasn’t figured out what do with because he was dependent on his WBs. It was never going to work. 
If he had a back 4 Plan B, he would have kept Emerson, and gotten rid of Alonso, kept Ampadu as a DM option in a back 4, and gotten rid of Barkley.

Still disappointed about this, really lowered my mood last night after that depressing result - not just of itself being unable again to hang on to a close win and instead to suffer another draw that felt like a loss, but as others have said, because we've been underperforming for about two months since the start of November.

It's been a long dreary winter so far for Chelsea, and with the increasingly heavy toll of injuries and the tough upcoming fixtures in the next couple of months, it's looking like a difficult road ahead in the near future too

35 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Didn't catch this before now but that's a clear handball by the Brighton player. And it's an obvious penalty that was not given.

 

2 hours ago, ducavis said:

Other teams manage to do it though. The manager made an error by not having a plan B going into the season, and not planning his personnel accordingly. 
I questioned before the beginning of the season how he expected to compete on 4-6 fonts depending on his wingbacks for creativity. He has a glut of options upfield he isn’t using, & hasn’t figured out what do with because he was dependent on his WBs. It was never going to work. 
If he had a back 4 Plan B, he would have kept Emerson, and gotten rid of Alonso, kept Ampadu as a DM option in a back 4, and gotten rid of Barkley.

Do they though? Beyond Pep and his tinkering and zillions of dollars, I'm not convinced many teams have multiple tactical approaches. Little tweaks around the edges but not a wholesale "plan B". Even at Liverpool with their squad there is the gengenpressing 4-3-3 and not much else if that doesn't work.

I think this is a question of patience. This is the first time Tuchel has been really tactically challenged or under any pressure so far. Let's see how he handles it and what emerges. For me, I think we are still very well placed to finish top four and if we have some luck can still mount a challenge. 

9 hours ago, Jangz said:

None of our forward players have shined  in this system.. been repeating this like a broken record - our purple patch lasted for 2-3 games where we looked very good with Chilwell and Reece scoring for fun. Else this season has been very up and down in terms of performances.

we let a very average Juve team pip us for the top spot - the league form has been dire for 2 months now. 

For me, I've been saying it that he should change this our formation to 4231. I've said it that as long as we play Jorginho in front of the defense, we will be a weak team, and we will keep conceeding goals. I didn't watch yesterday's game, but if Brighton played better than us in the midfield, it is because they know Jorginho cannot handle them in the midfield.

I have said we have a very good player in Reece James in that team. And that we should allow the guy to help the team better. Let's play Reece James as a defensive midfielder with Kante or Kovacic. Aspi can still be playing at RB for now maybe until we get another defensive midfielder so that James can return to RB, or we get another RB, and leave Reece James as a defensive midfielder.

Then play 4231, then we will have more attackers on the pitch and this will allow our attackers to perform better. I don't want to see Jorginho in that team.

 If Tuchel does not know this, then it's Tuchel out.

There's been some outstanding performances this season, especially at Anfield. . Now injuries, covid and the schedule are hurting us, 

I can't get too critical of our team,  and anyway closing the gap was the main aim of this season wasn't it ?. Can't remember now,, so we are still on course with that hopefully.

a win on Sunday , and I'm a happy fan !