33 minutes ago, just said:

I can't believe we have to give money to Man U for Sancho. They should be paying us.

You've been plying some New Year's Eve drinks I see Just lad!

1 minute ago, Mod said:

You've been plying some New Year's Eve drinks I see Just lad!

You are the Mother Theresa of lost footballers. First Mudryk and now Sancho. Feliz ano nuevo Mod. And keep up the good trabajo. 

Just now, just said:

You are the Mother Theresa of lost footballers. First Mudryk and now Sancho. Feliz ano nuevo Mod. And keep up the good trabajo. 

I've still got high hopes about Veron in a Blue shirt! 👀

You left Cucu off your list there Just, wonder why!

Sancho is still clear of Felix, Madueke, Nkunku, Jackson, and debatable Neto!

What have you got against Sancho? Do you think if you post about him enough, he'll turn a corner like Cucu?

1 hour ago, Mod said:

I've still got high hopes about Veron in a Blue shirt! 👀

You left Cucu off your list there Just, wonder why!

Sancho is still clear of Felix, Madueke, Nkunku, Jackson, and debatable Neto!

What have you got against Sancho? Do you think if you post about him enough, he'll turn a corner like Cucu?

Sancho turning a corner takes 6 minutes 

1 hour ago, loz said:

Sancho turning a corner takes 6 minutes 

Which is why Disasi calls him little lightening.

So when Felix.came back he said he had spoke to Maresca and that he convinced him he was part of his plans.

Fast forward 4 months and apparently Felix is the ONLY signing Big Enz did not want, has let him know as much but is "working with him" to try and make the situation work out.

 

This may be why they reportedly had a falling out.

13 hours ago, axman2526 said:

apparently Felix is the ONLY signing Big Enz did not want

But when you see that we spent 30 million quid on a player Big Enz did want. Dewsberry-Hall. We can conclude (i) that Mr.Felix was a bargain at £42 million and (ii) Big Enz is not great in the transfer market.

20 minutes ago, TheCeleryKing said:

But when you see that we spent 30 million quid on a player Big Enz did want. Dewsberry-Hall. We can conclude (i) that Mr.Felix was a bargain at £42 million and (ii) Big Enz is not great in the transfer market.

Or to put it another way if we offered Mr.Felix to Barcelona for 40 million quid they might say "he's not worth it" - but if we offered them Dewsberry-Hall for 30 million quid they would say "who the fcuck is that??!!?"

On 01/01/2025 at 04:03, axman2526 said:

Fast forward 4 months and apparently Felix is the ONLY signing Big Enz did not want, has let him know as much

My faith in Maresca's judgement has been restored

Should be playing at LW every week 

2 hours ago, timetowaste said:

Should be playing at LW every week 

Played very well today, and certainly made a case to be more started more often. Question is whether he can put in performances like that against better opposition.

Said it many times - he is a rolls royce. He is better than Jackson, Madueke, Sancho, Current Chris ans Mudryk. He offers creativity and vision that others dont - and deserves to be playing more of a role than he has been allowed. 

 

4 hours ago, nonotnowjim said:

Said it many times - he is a rolls royce. He is better than Jackson, Madueke, Sancho, Current Chris ans Mudryk. He offers creativity and vision that others dont - and deserves to be playing more of a role than he has been allowed. 

 

Only one of the 'trying to break through' players who has made a genuine case to start.  Definitely warrants a decent run of games.

Nice to see a game against league 2 opposition making everyone forget how sh*t he's been every time he's played against a team that aren't in the relegation zone or from an unknown Eastern country. 

 

2 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Nice to see a game against league 2 opposition making everyone forget how sh*t he's been every time he's played against a team that aren't in the relegation zone or from an unknown Eastern country. 

 

Players not in the first team can only stake a claim in games like this and in training. None of us are privy to what goes on in training so we have to trust the manager in that respect. 

People have been calling for Nkunku  Guiu and Felix to get more chance due to how poor we have looked recently.  Felix is the only one of the three who has looked remotely equipped in the past few weeks.

17 minutes ago, loz said:

Players not in the first team can only stake a claim in games like this and in training. None of us are privy to what goes on in training so we have to trust the manager in that respect. 

People have been calling for Nkunku  Guiu and Felix to get more chance due to how poor we have looked recently.  Felix is the only one of the three who has looked remotely equipped in the past few weeks.

By why is a performance against a league 2 opposition being praised as him deserving more chances, with people on here calling him a Rolls Royce (LMAO), when it was only two weeks ago we saw him get his chance against Ipswich and get hooked after 55 minutes because he was stinking the gaff out. 

6 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

By why is a performance against a league 2 opposition being praised as him deserving more chances, with people on here calling him a Rolls Royce (LMAO), when it was only two weeks ago we saw him get his chance against Ipswich and get hooked after 55 minutes because he was stinking the gaff out. 

Well for me that was a strange decision by Maresca as there were at least 5 players who played far worse against Ipwich than Felix. 

 

Agree that the idea he is suddenly the answer to our problems is well over the top. But I think he is ahead of the likes of Nkunku, Guiu, Madueke and Mod's Ukrainiain flat mate 

28 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

By why is a performance against a league 2 opposition being praised as him deserving more chances, with people on here calling him a Rolls Royce (LMAO), when it was only two weeks ago we saw him get his chance against Ipswich and get hooked after 55 minutes because he was stinking the gaff out. 

He was our best attacking player against Ipswich, which doesn't say much, but as soon as he came off, our attack died completely. Everybody was terrible that day.

His performances this season warrants more starts than we have seen so far, especially when the likes of Neto, Sancho, Madueke, Mudryk (suspended) George (not currently good enough) aren't doing anywhere near enough themselves.

11 hours ago, timetowaste said:

Should be playing at LW every week 

Yay I get to be the killjoy 🤣
 

I'm not saying I disagree but I really think it need to be understood the implications of your suggestion. Felix is not a left winger, he's an attacking playmaker who (usually) plays in the left half space channel. He won't hold the width the way a Sancho, Neto or Mandueke will. This means you need the left back to be the one providing the overlap to stretch the pitch or you end up with a heap of "deadzone" and become much easier to play against.

Teams playing against such a formation will tuck in their full back on that side and form a much stronger defence shape defending a small space and not being pulled out of position. There is a reason Maresca is so wedded to having wingers who are true wingers (holding the width). It stretches the opposition defence as wide as possible to try to prevent them from from forming a solid defensive block (or at least forces their attacking wide players deep to cover defensively).

Could we just go back to overlapping full backs and wide attackers who tuck in? well yeah, of course we can, that is the standard 4-2-3-1 most teams in the Premiership play. But it's not Maresca's style and it will only work with someone like Cucurella who can play the traditional overlapping wing back role and not a Veiga who can't.

I'm not sure anyone cares, but here is why England were so sh*t at Euro 2024

Foden (like Felix) isn't a winger and wouldn't hold the width, so it was left to Trippier to provide the overlap but he's right footed and illsuited to the job so there was no left width stretching the play. Then Kane would drop deep (as is his strength as a forward), but there would be no one running in behind. In the end you'd end up with Foden, Kane and Bellingham all crowding the number 10 spot with no left width and no runners inbehind leaving a huge dead spot in the shape on a L.

Then compare to Spain. Man for man a for inferior squad to that of England. But their team was balanced beautifully. They had a striker in Morata who we all remember is a little bit meh but both offers a target man (hold up and aerial) and a threat inbehind. Two wingers in Yamal and WIlliams who held the width (no dead spaces either wing). Three midfielders who all balanced each other (Rodri defence, Ruiz box to box, Olmo playmaking). Maybe boring and conventional, but it covered the pitch and meant Spain's attacking players had space and time on the ball to create and score goals.

https://www.google.com/search?q=spain+euro+2024+team&oq=spain+euro+2024+team&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTUxNTdqMGoxNagCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#sie=m;/g/11vlsvmgm6;2;/m/01l10v;ln;fp;1;;;

Bringing back to Chelsea. Maresca's system has been pretty consisitant the whole time. Jackson is the Morata type player, the threat inbehind while also being able to hold up the ball and offer an aerial threat. There is a reason Nkunki as good of a player as he is has largely warmed the bench rather than started, because he just doesn't do the kind of role Maresca wants in a number 9. And when it comes to width, Maresca has been consistent that he generally wants it from wingers and not overlapping wingbacks. But, both can be workable systems, it's just not having either (width from wingers or wingbacks) that leads to very bad outcomes.

Yeah it’s time to give him a run of games.

Ive seen someone say it’s only a league 2 side and he never turns up against stronger opposition. To be fair to him he’s never had a run of games, and it must be really difficult to get a rhythm going when you’re not getting regular games.

He seems to be in pretty good form recently with his performance vs Ipswich and yesterday. If there’s ever a time to give him a run of games, it’s now.

As things currently stand for me, he is our first choice LW.

He might be overrated but I think he's definitely talented and very underutilised. Give him a run see what he can do. 

24 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

Yeah it’s time to give him a run of games.

Ive seen someone say it’s only a league 2 side and he never turns up against stronger opposition. To be fair to him he’s never had a run of games, and it must be really difficult to get a rhythm going when you’re not getting regular games.

He seems to be in pretty good form recently with his performance vs Ipswich and yesterday. If there’s ever a time to give him a run of games, it’s now.

As things currently stand for me, he is our first choice LW.

He's had "run of games" for years and never truly impressed.

He can't play on the LW unless we go all out overlapping fullbacks which we don't have the personnel to do given it's not Cucus strength and Chilwell is barely resembling a top flight footballer in the present day.

I can't see why people are advocating for him to start at LW instead of Sancho, who's been a handful outlet for our attacks. He maybe could play AM with Palmer going to RW and that's the only position I can see Felix playing well. 

5 minutes ago, Brigadeiro Mk II said:

I can't see why people are advocating for him to start at LW instead of Sancho, who's been a handful outlet for our attacks. He maybe could play AM with Palmer going to RW and that's the only position I can see Felix playing well. 

Depends on the opposition. Against teams that sit back, I wouldn't play Sancho at all. I would prefer Neto in those situations or Felix.

What I want to see more of is Palmer on the right and Felix in the middle. It doesn't have to be every week, or even more often than not, but Palmer was at his best on the right for us and has struggled to consistently perform for 90+ minutes in the middle of late. Maresca hasn't played Palmer on the right and Felix in the middle once. I feel like it could have made the difference at least once in the last 4 games.