Nice of Leeds to give them a nice easy game. Shesh they are bad unless they play us cause we make everyone look good.

Our chances in this hinge on whether we stick with the mid-week line-up or whether TT brings Lukaku back. 

7 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Yeah that picture of him and Mason is telling. I don't know why TT and the club cannot just admit this huge error. What more does Rom have to do to make it clear he does not want to be involved at all with us?

According to tomorrow's La Gazzetta dello Sport Lukaku desperately want to return to Inter and have already called Inter president Steven Zhang to arrange a comeback. Sad at Chelsea, he's willing to reduce his wage just to leave..

it's the hope that kills you.

If true it's officially the worst transfer in club's history. We will never get the money we spent on him back but he's basically not needed since we'll get Broja next season so use the money of his wages to buy someone else.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

According to tomorrow's La Gazzetta dello Sport Lukaku desperately want to return to Inter and have already called Inter president Steven Zhang to arrange a comeback. Sad at Chelsea, he's willing to reduce his wage just to leave..

it's the hope that kills you.

Reduce his wages so he can go there on a loan to buy lol...

For all the noises Inter make about it they will take him back if the deal suits them. They are struggling in the league without him and Dzeko is not getting any younger.

As I said before anyone with eyes can see he is not happy here. He looked unhappy when he scored his goals in the CWC recently. Barley moved at Palace and could not must a smile when Havertz scored.

Always a close game, could go either way. If we can get behind their backline we have a chance.  Can't be playing Alonso he'll get crucified by Salah especially if he's caught up field.  I'd play Kova and RLC with Kante and tell RLC to drive forward with Kova and leave Kante sitting behind to mop up.  I think he'll stick with the front 3 from Wednesday, although if he does play Lukaku then he'll likely play CHO and bring in Mount if Ziyech is out.   The only reason I'd want to win this one is to stop those stupid Scouser's from saying they are going to win the quadruple.

9 minutes ago, CFCCAN said:

Always a close game, could go either way. If we can get behind their backline we have a chance.  Can't be playing Alonso he'll get crucified by Salah especially if he's caught up field.  I'd play Kova and RLC with Kante and tell RLC to drive forward with Kova and leave Kante sitting behind to mop up.  I think he'll stick with the front 3 from Wednesday, although if he does play Lukaku then he'll likely play CHO and bring in Mount if Ziyech is out.   The only reason I'd want to win this one is to stop those stupid Scouser's from saying they are going to win the quadruple.

Yeah some of their fans believe they have already beaten us for the cup and we just don't know it yet.

It’s a final so a tight game would be expected by both sides. Most finals we played in the recent years were pretty close part from Arsenal in the Europa League. The small details could be the deciding factors, I hope the ref won’t be involved in those... We must take our chances because Liverpool won’t miss the majority of theirs.

24 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

It’s a final so a tight game would be expected by both sides. Most finals we played in the recent years were pretty close part from Arsenal in the Europa League. The small details could be the deciding factors, I hope the ref won’t be involved in those... We must take our chances because Liverpool won’t miss the majority of theirs.

Stuart Attwell will be ably assisted by the equally incompetent Darren England on VAR. ' anything can happen in the next half hour'

Edited February 24, 20224 yr by charierre

Liverpool on form and we know it but TT will make us hard to beat and as others have mentioned it's a final so anything can happen. More needs to be made of our underdog status, will make our players even more hungry to show what they can do. Dealing with the scousers gloating afterwards if they win will almost be unbearable. I guess they would say the same about us!

1 hour ago, The Swan said:

Liverpool on form and we know it but TT will make us hard to beat and as others have mentioned it's a final so anything can happen. More needs to be made of our underdog status, will make our players even more hungry to show what they can do. Dealing with the scousers gloating afterwards if they win will almost be unbearable. I guess they would say the same about us!

Not sure how we can politically claim the underdog status while wearing the new badge of World Club Champions on our shirts.

Even though we also know they are currently on top form.

However we do tend to raise our game against them and that is a reason for hope.

We have so many injuries and other issues not sure we can put 11 on the field. Yet we usually turn up against Liverpool. 

If we are to have a real chance of winning TT needs to figure out a way to win the midfield battle and protect our left side.

Pool have a numbers advantage and we have no Kova in midfield, and either Alonso or Sarr vs Salah is a nightmare for Rudiger and Silva to cover, like Salahs goal at the Bridge.

We just need to stay in the game. Pool is the type of team that is ruthless when given the opportunity but has moments of fragility in them as well

Will be a tough match. Always is when its 15 v 11.

Against team like pool and city, it is all about can you break their press. Spurs did it using Conte patented pattern football. Team like burnley will do it by just long ball.Tuchel does not really play circuit football and pumping long ball to kai against vvd is useless so we need other way.

Last time we played pool we had kante and kova masterclass but right now no kova,no james and no chilwell which mean it is all about kante. If Kante does not play his A game then it is going to be a long game. 

 

Edited February 24, 20224 yr by Bob stark

any news from kova and ziyech? 

Pool are on a 9 match win streak, averaging 3 goals a game and lost only 2 games all season. 

1 hour ago, Mário César said:

any news from kova and ziyech? 

They are fine. Impact injuries apparently.

Edited February 24, 20224 yr by Scott Harris

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Pool are on a 9 match win streak, averaging 3 goals a game and lost only 2 games all season. 

We will win 3:0 because we are on a multiple final win streak

Getting a ticket for this game has been more difficult than getting into Boris Johnsons garden party. So that leads me to; where are people without tickets going? 

Belgium assistant coach Thierry Henry on Romelu Lukaku:

"Right from the start I raised a question to myself, would he fit into this team? For Rom to adapt to the way #Chelsea play, it takes time, it’s not an easy". 

"They like to press, to be active and to change the front three. He likes to stay in the middle so it makes it very difficult for him to adapt to the situation. But again, why did you go and get him?" [via CBS Sports].

Good question, why did you go and get him? 

When people complain about Lukaku, then I ask myself, when people watch football, don't they see that each player is different? That each player has his own strength and his own weaknesses? For me it is negligence of duty for a manager to be complaining about Lukaku, it is the job of the team to play to his strength. 

And it was so annoying what happened last week when some people put out the statistics that Lukaku only had seven touches in a whole match. This kind of thing is not necessary. A striker is not expected to have numerous touches in a match. His job is to score goals. It is not his job to think about possession.

When we got Lukaku, I think we wanted Haaland. But Haaland was not available. And I'm surprised that many people have not moved on from the issue of Haaland. There are many big clubs in the world and Haaland could end up in Man City. So we have to move on.

4 hours ago, hephzibah said:

Belgium assistant coach Thierry Henry on Romelu Lukaku:

"Right from the start I raised a question to myself, would he fit into this team? For Rom to adapt to the way #Chelsea play, it takes time, it’s not an easy". 

"They like to press, to be active and to change the front three. He likes to stay in the middle so it makes it very difficult for him to adapt to the situation. But again, why did you go and get him?" [via CBS Sports].

Good question, why did you go and get him? 

When people complain about Lukaku, then I ask myself, when people watch football, don't they see that each player is different? That each player has his own strength and his own weaknesses? For me it is negligence of duty for a manager to be complaining about Lukaku, it is the job of the team to play to his strength. 

And it was so annoying what happened last week when some people put out the statistics that Lukaku only had seven touches in a whole match. This kind of thing is not necessary. A striker is not expected to have numerous touches in a match. His job is to score goals. It is not his job to think about possession.

When we got Lukaku, I think we wanted Haaland. But Haaland was not available. And I'm surprised that many people have not moved on from the issue of Haaland. There are many big clubs in the world and Haaland could end up in Man City. So we have to move on.

Agreed. We all want to move on from Lukaku.

I'm positive on this one. Domestically, in the cups, we tend to have their number, even when we were s*** in the 70s and 80s.  The only time I recall us losing a domestic cup game was when Kerry got injured and was never quite the same.  We are to Pool what the Arse are to us in cups, they always beat us in domestic cup games, apart from the Drogba years, but we have their number in Europe regardless of if we, or they, are better...  If we were playing Pool in a euro cup final, my pooper would be going, but this is domestic, we've got this!!!!!

Lot of noise Reece James will start this one. Would that mean Dave switches side and gets to take on Salah rather than Manes elbow?