35 minutes ago, Mana said:

Are you serious? They have been benched for a reason. 

But this goes to show how bad our depth is. None of these players are good enough.

What reason though? They've hardly had the chance and at least Barkley has goals in him.

47 minutes ago, Malcolm9 said:

Get Saul & Barkley involved, I'm tired of Kova, RLC, Kante & Jorginho.

Kante needs a rest, RLC does not offer enough in the middle, Jorgis head is gone and Kova is injured. I agree, give Saul and Ross some games why not.

How are our players dropping like flies whilst Liverpool continue to have a fully fit and fresh squad week after week?

48 minutes ago, doctorblue said:

No more f**king about by Tuchel with this one...think it's time Kepa got a game as I've not been impressed with Mendy for a while now...and Christensen might as well be wearing his Barcelona top...Sarr isn't good enough for our first team (and no sign of Kenedy either) so Dave will have to move across to LB to cover for George Michael...

Kepa

Chalobah Silva Dave

James Kante RLC Alonso

Mount Havertz Werner

Would not bring in Kepa against West Ham as they like set pieces, he could have played re Arsenal and perhaps for United.

Saul might be worth a shot in M/F though alongside either RLC or Jorginho for me.

Not sure Dave has ever played LCB.

We need the win. Lets secure 4 wins back to back and end this season already

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

How are our players dropping like flies whilst Liverpool continue to have a fully fit and fresh squad week after week?

Good question. 

On 21/04/2022 at 21:12, axman2526 said:

Dave wanted to win. He always does, so does Silva. Is what makes them leaders.

Did Lukaku? Did AC? Did Sarr, Alonso, RLC etc. I don't believe it bothered them at all.

Well that's the thing, he clearly cares a lot but even he made some mistakes. Sometimes we're just not the best team on the pitch it doesn't mean that the players didn't care.

15 hours ago, strider6004 said:

Would not bring in Kepa against West Ham as they like set pieces, he could have played re Arsenal and perhaps for United.

Saul might be worth a shot in M/F though alongside either RLC or Jorginho for me.

Not sure Dave has ever played LCB.

Nope Mendy making too many mistakes and needs to be shown the bench to sort himself out...and Saul looks like he's won a competition so no chance...and no Jourinho, no pace and they will target him for turn overs...

1 hour ago, doctorblue said:

Nope Mendy making too many mistakes and needs to be shown the bench to sort himself out...and Saul looks like he's won a competition so no chance...and no Jourinho, no pace and they will target him for turn overs...

So, did Mendy do badly against Arsenal? Where is this coming from? Hello, Mendy only made a mistake when he wanted to pass the ball to his defender, he can work on that, anybody can make that mistake.

But as for his job to make saves and keep us in football matches, he can do that very well.

The problem of Kepa is his height. I think we were in a difficult position when Courtois left us and probably Kepa was the only goalkeeper available at that time and we needed a goalkeeper. The goalpost is a bit big and because Kepa is short, there are some saves that Kepa cannot make.

The current situation shows us that we’ve got a lot of work to do in the transfer window. 

On 21/04/2022 at 17:22, Gol15 said:

If he puts out that lineup I can see the majority of fans fuming before the game starts, though at this point most possible lineups that we can play look kind of like a weak team.

Anyway it's just so risky to play a standard 4-3-3, West Ham can go 3-4-2-1 like last time and then we're outnumbered in the midfield, play a high defensive line and lose 1 ball and that's another easy goal conceded.

                  Mendy
Azpilicueta T.Silva Christensen
James  Jorginho   RLC   Alonso
           Havertz   Mount
                   Werner

Let Werner press and he'll do his job, goals to come from James and Alonso.
Play Kai and Mason as the 2 number 8's as it was the dream for Lampard, cause lots of problems like Arsenal's Odengaard and Smith-Rowe did to us.
Save Kante for Man United and if we're in trouble take out Havertz in order to save him a little bit for Man United and play:
      Mount
Lukaku Werner

I don't believe you will still say something like this after the lesson we learnt from the first leg of our champions league match against Real Madrid. So you still cannot see that 3-4-3 formation has a lot of flaws. So you could not see that when we changed to 4-3-3 formation in the second leg against Real Madrid at Bernabeu, we were a better team. With the 433 formation, we gave Madrid a lot of problems.

The problem with the 343 formation is that we will not have enough legs in attack. And how do you want to win football matches when you don't have players attacking the opponent. You might say that in the 343 formation, that the wing backs will join the attack, but do you know that in the 433 formation, the full backs will still join the attack. So that means with all the attackers you have in the 433 formation, the full backs will still join them, and therefore you can attack the opponents well.

If we had used the 433 formation in the first leg against Madrid with Reece James tackling Vinicius, we would have scored more than them and gone through.

If Tuchel doesn't learn from those two legs against Real Madrid, then I don't think he can learn again. How long are we going to continue to respect opponents when we could have just being brave and win football matches.

On 21/04/2022 at 17:22, Gol15 said:

If he puts out that lineup I can see the majority of fans fuming before the game starts, though at this point most possible lineups that we can play look kind of like a weak team.

Anyway it's just so risky to play a standard 4-3-3, West Ham can go 3-4-2-1 like last time and then we're outnumbered in the midfield, play a high defensive line and lose 1 ball and that's another easy goal conceded.

                  Mendy
Azpilicueta T.Silva Christensen
James  Jorginho   RLC   Alonso
           Havertz   Mount
                   Werner

Let Werner press and he'll do his job, goals to come from James and Alonso.
Play Kai and Mason as the 2 number 8's as it was the dream for Lampard, cause lots of problems like Arsenal's Odengaard and Smith-Rowe did to us.
Save Kante for Man United and if we're in trouble take out Havertz in order to save him a little bit for Man United and play:
      Mount
Lukaku Werner

You used the 3-4-3 formation against Arsenal, and we conceeded four goals. Even with the five defenders we put at the back, we conceeded four goals. 

The problem I have with 343 formation is that when you are playing against a good team who doesn't give you spaces, it is very difficult to score. You are only trying to get chances from the wings, the opponents will not allow for crosses. There are only three attackers upfront when there should be four attackers who should be causing the opponents problems.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it difficult to get excited about this match or rest of the season in general, apart from FA Cup final for obvious reasons, even though I'm a bit pessimistic about our chances, given how many finals we lost in the last few years.

This season started so well, the expectations were sky high, then came Lukaku's debacle, Chilwell's injury, dropping out of the title race amongst injury crisis and Covid cases, Carabao Cup drama, the whole ownership disaster, then gerting knocked out of the CL and most recent capitulations against Brentford and Arsenal. I know the club's been through a lot, but something just feels off about this team recently.

I hope Tuchel is a fast learner and once the ownership issue is sorted, he's going to address all the issues that need to be looked at and gets full backing from whoever is in charge by June. This is the most important summer of his CFC career because by now he should know what needs to be done and who he can count on going forward.

We are 3rd in the table yet this is now a must win game.  Even if Arsenal and Utd cancel themselves out today this is still a must win; yet our recent home form would suggest otherwise...the best I can see us getting is a lucky point and once again this lot will drag themselves across the line to a 4th place finish and maybe an FA Cup, but that is looking unlikely by the minute. I see Spurs ending up 3rd.  This season hasn't be a catastrophe but it has been well below what was expected especially league form wise; even though the loss of Chillwell and James at the same time hurt we had a big enough squad to have got through it, but what it did expose is that our squad depth is not as good as the top 2, and unless major surgery is undertaken during the summer we will be no closer next season.

 I am also getting a bit worried with TT of late, some of his team selections have been worrying especially games where we need a win; he's making too many changes at once and then he seems slow to react to make a change during the game....its always this last 10-15 min change when changes should have been made at H/T.

Not sure about the players but I'm tired too of this rollercoaster ride.

1 hour ago, hephzibah said:

I don't believe you will still say something like this after the lesson we learnt from the first leg of our champions league match against Real Madrid. So you still cannot see that 3-4-3 formation has a lot of flaws. So you could not see that when we changed to 4-3-3 formation in the second leg against Real Madrid at Bernabeu, we were a better team. With the 433 formation, we gave Madrid a lot of problems.

The problem with the 343 formation is that we will not have enough legs in attack. And how do you want to win football matches when you don't have players attacking the opponent. You might say that in the 343 formation, that the wing backs will join the attack, but do you know that in the 433 formation, the full backs will still join the attack. So that means with all the attackers you have in the 433 formation, the full backs will still join them, and therefore you can attack the opponents well.

If we had used the 433 formation in the first leg against Madrid with Reece James tackling Vinicius, we would have scored more than them and gone through.

If Tuchel doesn't learn from those two legs against Real Madrid, then I don't think he can learn again. How long are we going to continue to respect opponents when we could have just being brave and win football matches.

In the second half we did play with a back 4 and we still lost the match.

29 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

In the second half we did play with a back 4 and we still lost the match.

Yes he changed into the 433 formation but immediately Mendy made the mistake, and we were 3-1 down, then maybe the morale was down, but in the second leg, we started with the 433 formation, and it was very ok for us.

21 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

How are our players dropping like flies whilst Liverpool continue to have a fully fit and fresh squad week after week?

And playing with high tempo every game too.

Home game so not confident here.

I do agree that mendy has looked suspect for a while. I don’t want to see sarr or christensen start after there poor display against arsenal.

 

mendy 

chalobah silva azbi 

james jorginho kante alonso 

mount havertz werner 

9 hours ago, Munkworth said:

The current situation shows us that we’ve got a lot of work to do in the transfer window. 

Agreed.

On 21/04/2022 at 07:34, mojo said:

Thomas confirmed Rudi is not ok and he will not play against WH

It may just be me but I find the whole timing abit suspicious. He’s suddenly injured for 2 games, and the Madrid news break out.

On 21/04/2022 at 03:01, forbzy said:

No although we would have to go back further. I remember my first season as a season ticket holder was 78-79 when we were relegated with 5 league wins all season. We lost our first 4 at home that season - Everton, Leeds, City, and WBA.

I’m with you there! It was my first full season, we won 3 at home and 2 away!

Being 10/11 that season it was just hope turning up to see a win. At least I saw Graham Wilkins score his only goal for Chelsea

13 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

It may just be me but I find the whole timing abit suspicious. He’s suddenly injured for 2 games, and the Madrid news break out.

Is not suspicious at all. I am sure Rudiger was committed to the cause and played through minor stuff but now he has decided he is leaving it us clear he will protect himself ahead of that move just as AC did on Wednesday when he told TT he could not keep playing. What do they care if we lose our remaining league games and Chelsea are not the CL next season? They will be with Real and Barca respectively.

Edited April 23, 20224 yr by axman2526

5 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Is not suspicious at all. I am sure Rudiger was committed to the cause and played through minor stuff but now he has decided he is leaving it us clear he will protect himself ahead of that move just as AC did on Wednesday when he told TT he could not keep playing. What do they care if we lose our remaining league games and Chelsea are not the CL next season? They will be with Real and Barca respectively.

17 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

We’re losing to United after this, we’re always Charity FC when it comes to them. So we really need to get SOMETHING out of this. Tottenham only drew, so at least that puts a bit more distance between us.