For the optimists who think we are not a million miles from pool, we are lightyears behind them, let alone City. We are in the same bracket as North London and Utd and have been marginally better. If not for our title winning start, we would be in massive trouble right now. It was the same under Sarri, early points in the bank to secure top 4. 

The whole idea that we need a few tweaks would be correct if at least half the big money signings Lukaku, Werner, Havertz, Ziyech, Pulisic were performing to the world class level that we paid world class money for. Unfortunately they are all to put it simply, not title winning material and need to be replaced.

So many wrong signings has literally put us back 5 years in terms of catching city. We don't have roman to replace them all with new big money signings.

Very disappointed.

Just can’t believe we’ve lost to them on penalties in two Cup Finals this season.

This makes me so so angry. Reporting of fan’s booing, not Liverpool fans but fans in general. Total Bolox from the media

9 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 What did Lukaku do wrong exactly? He has his faults but the performance was there. 
 

I also disagree entirely to the notion Tuchel did everything right. Why was Lukaku taken off? Why wasn’t Werner brought on to give us a more direct element against a tired Liverpool back line? Salah, Diaz, Robertson, VVD, and Fabinho were all out of the game by ET. Why did we opt for more midfielders instead of strikers? 
 

For a chance at revenge and actual silverware I felt we didn’t take the initiative at all. And be careful what you wish for with ‘young and hungrier players’ because what you get is much of the same. No leadership and inexperience at the highest level. 

Couldn’t agree more with you. 

Still annoyed by the defeat. I think it’s more the fact that we keep losing in finals, is a bit of a concern 

I think some players are not as good as they think they are. Thomas needs backing in the summer 

I’m not gutted or pissed off, this was exactly what i thought would happen. As a betting man I could and should have won a nice bit of cash but I can’t back against Chelsea. This team is spineless with a nonchalant attitude, and I really hate to say this but the manager does seem to be clueless at times. The fact is we really need a big clear out. It would come at a massive cost in monetary terms, but it needs to happen. Too many fans nowadays expect to win trophies every year, where expectancy has replaced hope. 

Feel very numb about the result. Not even angry that we just fell short again.

The accumulation of three consecutive FA Cup losses hurts. Liverpool was the most difficult opponent of the three, and ironically the closest we got to winning.

I was annoyed we wore our yellow kit. There was no need for it.

Still positive signs of the team that Tuchel is building. 1 win and 0 defeats (in full time) in 5 against Klopp now. We just need that extra bit of quality and ruthlessness to get us over the line. 

8 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Real Madrid at home.

City at home.

City away.

Man United at home (Uniteds history makes them a big game for us).

Man United away.

Arsenal at home.

Juventus away.

 

That's just this season.

Losing a game doesn’t always mean mentally folding

14 hours ago, Ernie_blue said:

The Werner sub was pretty obvious to everyone, Pulisic was playing sh*t and Liverpool was getting tired. Werner has sh*t end product but his pace is dangerous. With so many subs its actually criminal Tuchel never brought him on, so f**king stubborn the muppet.

TBH Ernie it wasn't obvious to me. I find Werner a truly appalling footballer. Extremely poor ball control. Can't beat a man to save his life. An awful finisher. No football intelligence whatsoever. And his alleged "Turbo" pace is highly overrated IMO. Pulisic, for all his faults, is better than Werner in practically every facet of the game.

I actually think it is more important to off-load Werner this summer than any other of our "nearly" players. He is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with us at the moment. Bigging up second rate players, signed for big money, who are nowhere the level of ability of the players our major rivals have in those positions, and expecting them deliver. Surely there comes a point where you've seen enough to know that, despite his running about.........he's actually useless?

1 minute ago, just said:

TBH Ernie it wasn't obvious to me. I find Werner a truly appalling footballer. Extremely poor ball control. Can't beat a man to save his life. An awful finisher. No football intelligence whatsoever. And his alleged "Turbo" pace is highly overrated IMO. Pulisic, for all his faults, is better than Werner in practically every facet of the game.

I actually think it is more important to off-load Werner this summer than any other of our "nearly" players. He is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with us at the moment. Bigging up second rate players, signed for big money, who are nowhere the level of ability of the players our major rivals have in those positions, and expecting them deliver. Surely there comes a point where you've seen enough to know that, despite his running about.........he's actually useless?

I'd agree. He would be the first one out of all the big name players for me. He may well go back to Germany or France and get a decent goal scoring record again but he certainly won't for us and I don't see another top English club being remotely interested on him now they've seen his shortfalls in the English game.

Heart breaking and gutted, Wembley has been a curse of us in the last 3-4 seasons. It's either referee, VAR, post, penalties, who knows what's next, maybe they will lock our players in the lockerroom next time. Putting the obvious aside, agree with Tuchel we had no regret, gave everything, in the end the 'best team in the world' had to rely on penalty shootout to get over us again. Let's face it, no other teams have got better over them in 2 or more games. We played 4 games against us, 4 well deserved draws and 2 shootouts, yes we got nothing, but nobody got as far as this against them like we did. We got 2 games to go, let's finish them off properly and end this crazy season on a good note. What's next will be players in and out, and a lot of small details need to be look at. We played same amount of game as Liverpool, yet we rarely had the full team to pick from, surely there's some sports science or physios stuffs to examine. Chiwell was a bad one, yet we get this sort of niggling injuries all season, you just never know who's fully fit, and it shows on the field. The bench players need to step up, everytime Liverpool or City call up a bench player, more likely or not they deliver, god damn their reserve left back who barely played all season got the winning penalty. We had so many goes at replacing Chiwell, nobody stepped up, and that's just one example. We suppose to have lots of options in the final third, but yesterday it showed we got players on paper, but nobody was there when the game is on the line. Havertz was a big loss, but come on we got Ziyech, Pullisic etc all meant to be big players, just not there. Now club's future looks to be settled, hope Tuchel gets the backing and support, pretty confident we will be playing at Wenbley again next season, maybe finally we get a bit of luck.

😔

14 hours ago, Munkworth said:

If I were a keeper and this guy was lining up to hit one I’d pray I didn’t get in the way!

Remember him injuring himself once cause he hit a free kick so hard. What a beast!

It's really hard to believe they lifted 2 cups without scoring a goal in either final. Sickening.

It’s natural for fans after a loss in a cup final to be pessimistic and negative. And yes it’s justifiable, we lost 3 fa cup finals and our record at Wembley is horrible. And to lose to those scumbags is unbearable, but I was not disappointed by last night’s display, every player gave there utmost effort and for that we should salute them. Now that the issue regarding the ownership is resolved we should focus on rebuilding our team. To those fans, who are probably in the minority, who doesn’t rate Tuchel, it took Guardiola spending nearly a billion pounds to get city to where they are. And it took klopp 4 years to win his first trophy. Tuchel without any investment win us 3 trophies in the span of 18 months. So let’s back him focus on next season after securing top 4 

6 minutes ago, Faisal said:

It’s natural for fans after a loss in a cup final to be pessimistic and negative.

It's 24/7 on here.

Gutted, but at least we didn't get hopped off.

Tough to take, but for a couple of kicks we would have 2 more cups to add to our haul, it's as important to remember that as the negative stuff.

KTBFFH

 

5 defeats in 6 finals kind of hurts. 

37 minutes ago, coco said:

It's 24/7 on here.

Should you not be busting yourself making the next match thread? Can’t get the bloody staff these days… 

17 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Should you not be busting yourself making the next match thread? Can’t get the bloody staff these days… 

 

5 hours ago, timetowaste said:

Losing a game doesn’t always mean mentally folding

It does when it keeps happening for the same reasons. The simple fact is that this group keeps bottling big chances, every game, without fail. That is a telltale sign of a weak mentality. Yesterday, Liverpool were as guilty of it as we were, but that is a very rare occurence for them, for us, it's something that happens in almost every game of the season. It's not because we have a team of poor finishers, we have seen that this group can be excellent finishers, they just have a horrible habit of choking.

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

It does when it keeps happening for the same reasons. The simple fact is that this group keeps bottling big chances, every game, without fail. That is a telltale sign of a weak mentality. Yesterday, Liverpool were as guilty of it as we were, but that is a very rare occurence for them, for us, it's something that happens in almost every game of the season. It's not because we have a team of poor finishers, we have seen that this group can be excellent finishers, they just have a horrible habit of choking.

I agree to the extent its a mentality issue but I disagree that they can be excellent finishers. Being an excellent finisher means your ability to score consistently isn't by chance, its by skill. A skill set no one has. 

Unless we have an entirely new attack we will be seeing more of the same. We arguably need two proven attackers to replace Lukaku and Werner. 

 

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I agree to the extent its a mentality issue but I disagree that they can be excellent finishers. Being an excellent finisher means your ability to score consistently isn't by chance, its by skill. A skill set no one has. 

Unless we have an entirely new attack we will be seeing more of the same. We arguably need two proven attackers to replace Lukaku and Werner. 

 

100% Sconnie. But there's nothing arguable about it. It's fact.

So, positives - we should finish third after a difficult season blighted by one or two major long-term injuries, an off-field trauma that no club has ever faced , and only two years after a transfer embargo that no club has ever faced. We reached both domestic cup finals drawing both after 120 minutes against what they say is one of the best teams in the world. I’d say that’s pretty good …

Negatives - our recruitment since the end of the embargo has been poor and the home-grown players have proved to be far better. It’s slightly worrying  that TT’s only two recruits, Lukaku and Saul have both been failures. 
 

on balance I’m optimistic for next season with the return of Chilly from injury, Gallagher from Palace and some shrewder recruitment than we have seen. I, for one, will be keeping the faith … again!