2 hours ago, Tubbs Tattsyrup said:

Havertz at 9 is a shambles. No physical presence. Our version of Ozil. Clearly talented but offers very little. Why have we never tried to buy someone like Toney from Brentford ? 

He can’t possibly be a shambles. Too many called for Havertz to replace Lukaku at 9 and they can’t all be wrong can they? 

Two hours to get to the stadium and two hours back to watch that game. Still, will keep going as it’s Chelsea and it’s always good to have a few pints and a chat with match going friends. For me the stand out was to see Enzo having a very solid game, a pity his shot did not go in. The new lads Madueke and Fofana got us fired up front, hopefully they’ll get more chances. Mudryck had a very poor game, but we can put it down to him not being 100%, so looking forward to when he’s fully recovered as he did show very good things agains Liverpool.

Shocking that Mitrovic was not sent off the first half. He abused the linesman (I was like 20 meters away), squaring up to him, telling him to f**k off multiple times and calling him everything not in the dictionary. The lineman got the sh*ts and the ref went to talk to our player after he was fouled by that c**t Mitrovic. Shocking. Later, he went on to another yellow card tackle, which should have seen him off. The refereeing standard is so poor.

Anyway, on we go to West Ham next Saturday, early kick off. Hope to watch a better performance.

Back in the summer if we’d been told we’d be a point up on Liverpool at the start of February we’d have all been over the moon. It’s a funny old game! 

3 hours ago, BS66 said:

He can’t possibly be a shambles. Too many called for Havertz to replace Lukaku at 9 and they can’t all be wrong can they? 

The Lukaku who has a first touch that has the opposition bench in tears of laughter? Yeah. I’d rather Havertz. 

12 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

The Lukaku who has a first touch that has the opposition bench in tears of laughter? Yeah. I’d rather Havertz. 

Or a traffic cone rather than either of them...

Edited February 4, 20233 yr by axman2526

Mitrovic was horrible.

4 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

The Lukaku who has a first touch that has the opposition bench in tears of laughter? Yeah. I’d rather Havertz. 

The Lukaku who scored 15 goals that Havertz shows no signs of achieving. 

On 03/02/2023 at 23:15, Blueboys said:

Eurgh reading this is depressing. God we’re spoilt. Because 90 mins is definitely enough time for a whole new team to run through one of the form teams in the league… 

let’s respond to a few of the themes here.

mounts sh*t - out of form, yes. A terrible player, no. Maybe he needs a rest (remember we’ve had awful injuries) but those calling for him to go are ridiculous. On a free too… lol he’s worth like 80m and all the teams you think you wish we were want him 

potters sh*t - really? At what point has he had any time with this team? It’s been constant change (and injuries). Everyone’s looking for new manager bounce here. This is a new manager to half our squad. 

Arteta is great - took arsenal to their lowest league finish for decades two years in a row before this season. Maybe we should give Potter this amount of time? 
 

 

 

 

Great post, this is spot on!  What's happened to our supporter base?  When did it get so.........PSG! :-(,  I am old enough to remember the Hoddle years, this right now reminds me a LOT of Hoddles first season in charge, that turned out rather nicely - only because the board stuck with Hoddle though - it could have been SO very different if they hadn't!  Maybe right now we would be in the Championship still playing 'Porterfield ball'!? 🙂

17 minutes ago, Droyman said:

Maybe right now we would be in the Championship still playing 'Porterfield ball'!? 🙂

It was Bobby Campbell as manager during relegation and promotion! Porterfield was a while after that!

A lot of criticism on Mount and Gallagher on this game. Many complained about why they left Enzo alone on island. 

Let's just look at this two pictures. One is from united vs reading the other is arsenal vs Everton. 

You can see clearly. Arsenal built with 5 players, united built with only 4 players (it was against reading). With the rest of the players playing like "striker". 

In our case many fans wanted Mount and gallagher to sit next to Enzo and build with 6 or even 7 players. It is as if we are playing prime pool or prime city 😭😭😭, I have no idea a lot of people  think this highly out of fulham. 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 20233 yr by Bob stark

16 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

A lot of criticism on Mount and Gallagher on this game. Many complained about why they left Enzo alone on island. 

Let's just look at this two pictures. One is from united vs reading the other is arsenal vs Everton. 

You can see clearly. Arsenal built with 5 players, united built with only 4 players (it was against reading). With the rest of the players playing like "striker". 

In our case many fans wanted Mount and gallagher to sit next to Enzo and build with 6 or even 7 players. It is as if we are playing prime pool or prime city 😭😭😭, I have no idea a lot of people  think this highly out of fulham. 

 

Can't speak for the Reading game as I didn't watch it, but Arsenal v Everton it was clear the inverted full backs worked against them. Left their wingers constantly in 1 v 2 situations. 

If that was our intended plan then the execution was completely wrong that first half. Cucurella neither overlapped or played centrally. 

as you know you don't have to play with a centre-forward. How about playing Sterling as a 9? Fofana might turn out to be decent as well. Pulisic has been playing well over recent months, he draws fouls around the box. My intuition says to start with Pulisic and Mudryk with Sterling mainly playing centrally. My midfield three would be Kante, Fernandez and Kovacic. 

11 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Can't speak for the Reading game as I didn't watch it, but Arsenal v Everton it was clear the inverted full backs worked against them. Left their wingers constantly in 1 v 2 situations. 

If that was our intended plan then the execution was completely wrong that first half. Cucurella neither overlapped or played centrally. 

My point is not about whether Potter or Arteta made good decision in term of their build up. 

But complaining about Mount n gallagher playing up high make 0 sense when pretty much everyone is doing similar thing. 

Furthermore build up shape is more about manager than player. 

 

 

 

On 05/02/2023 at 11:48, Mod said:

It was Bobby Campbell as manager during relegation and promotion! Porterfield was a while after that!

Wasn't it Porterfield (sacked) then Webb (interim), then Hoddle?  Wasn't Porterfield famed for playing the turgid 'long ball' style?

I don't recall too much about Porterfield, it couldn't have been that memorable! Campbell couldn't save us that first season but completely knocked the old second division out the park, I think we finished 99 points or something with a huge goal difference!

2 hours ago, Mod said:

I don't recall too much about Porterfield, it couldn't have been that memorable! Campbell couldn't save us that first season but completely knocked the old second division out the park, I think we finished 99 points or something with a huge goal difference!

We did get the 2nd Division for 99 points under Campbell, though he was replaced by Porterfield after his first season in the top flight. 

Campbell got us to 11th though certain players were showing their limitations at top level like Graham Roberts, Dixon was seen to be at the end of his career.

Paul Elliott joined us as did Vinny Jones upsetting half the supporter base though Jones got one of the goals in the 2-1 up at Anfield our first win there for several decades.

We had players like Fleck, Cascarino and Clive Allen yet only managed to finish mid table at 14th.  

 

5 hours ago, Mod said:

I don't recall too much about Porterfield, it couldn't have been that memorable! Campbell couldn't save us that first season but completely knocked the old second division out the park, I think we finished 99 points or something with a huge goal difference!

Ha ha! I don't remember much myself, I do remember people complaining about the 'style' of football, attendances were at an all time (top flight) low too, though that was the case for a lot of clubs back then (because of the hooliganism at the time I think).  Porterfield followed Campbell, I think we finished 11th under Porterfield and 14th after Hoddles first season!  Thing is though Hoddle totally revolutionised our style of play and for a while REALLY struggled to get results, however things did eventually start to click and from Hoddle onwards things just got bettter and better.

I'm hoping that Potter is the catalyst for a repeat performance...............I just hope the board are as patient with him as it was back then with Hoddle.

Edited February 6, 20233 yr by Droyman

The stakes for Chelsea are far bigger now. Comparing chelsea today with Chelsea pre Roman misses the point. The patience required is just a judgement. You need some analytics ie xg but not just that, and then you need to really be a skilled estimator of the intangibles in a team performance. In the end unlimited patience is akin to religious faith. But it ain’t enough. 

On 04/02/2023 at 00:00, TimesUpPotter said:

You've not got the point you think you do.

Howe was hired by the team Rock Bottom of the league,  no top side would have gone near him but he's done a fantastic job and rebuilt his reputation.  Credit to him.

The 1st CL win is still my happiest moment in football but I'm not going to pretend like it was due to some elite management and I think Robbies managerial career after us shows his level

Why anyone would compare Vialli , Ruud or Ateta in their first ever management jobs to a manager that has won less than a third of his games over the last decade is beyond me though.

Every successful manager was once a blank slate.

I can't think of a single manager going from winning 28% of their league games at their previous club and his teams scoring a goal a game for a decade going on to be a trophy winning manager at a top club but hey Maybe Potter will be the first.

Everyone's got to believe in something, right?

Yup, wouldn't be a Chelsea fan if you didn't believe in something.

😀

On 05/02/2023 at 11:48, Mod said:

It was Bobby Campbell as manager during relegation and promotion! Porterfield was a while after that!

Would have been though if not for Webby,  who I think won 5 and lost 5 and was hailed a hero for saving us. 

7 hours ago, strider6004 said:

We did get the 2nd Division for 99 points under Campbell, though he was replaced by Porterfield after his first season in the top flight. 

Campbell got us to 11th though certain players were showing their limitations at top level like Graham Roberts, Dixon was seen to be at the end of his career.

Paul Elliott joined us as did Vinny Jones upsetting half the supporter base though Jones got one of the goals in the 2-1 up at Anfield our first win there for several decades.

We had players like Fleck, Cascarino and Clive Allen yet only managed to finish mid table at 14th.  

 

He also got the quickest booking I have ever seen at the bridge

4 hours ago, Droyman said:

Ha ha! I don't remember much myself, I do remember people complaining about the 'style' of football, attendances were at an all time (top flight) low too, though that was the case for a lot of clubs back then (because of the hooliganism at the time I think).  Porterfield followed Campbell, I think we finished 11th under Porterfield and 14th after Hoddles first season!  Thing is though Hoddle totally revolutionised our style of play and for a while REALLY struggled to get results, however things did eventually start to click and from Hoddle onwards things just got bettter and better.

I'm hoping that Potter is the catalyst for a repeat performance...............I just hope the board are as patient with him as it was back then with Hoddle.

Porterfield was woeful and followed a long line of poor managers and false dawns.  Geoff Hurst, John Hollins Danny Blanchflower, Kenny Shellito, and Christ Bobby Gould. Largely dross. Mcreadie would have done something big if things had been handled better, and John  Neal ended up being one of the few highlights. 

It's funny when we turn our noses up at Poch as a possible manager due to his Spuds connections,  but it was Hoddle that really start the change towards the modern Chelsea. He was getting a tune out of Peacock, Spencer, Wise, and Stein whilst also attracting major names to the club.

3 hours ago, ozboy said:

The stakes for Chelsea are far bigger now. Comparing chelsea today with Chelsea pre Roman misses the point. The patience required is just a judgement. You need some analytics ie xg but not just that, and then you need to really be a skilled estimator of the intangibles in a team performance. In the end unlimited patience is akin to religious faith. But it ain’t enough. 

Not sure. The stakes are just as high but for different reasons and the opposite side of the spectrum. Those of us of a certain age can't help smiling at us being criticised for spending 600m when we spent donkey's years in the grip of Cabra Estates and then the 60m loan being recalled which Roman rescued us from with like two weeks grace. The stakes were high back then, just different as we were staring into an abyss most weeks.

10 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

He also got the quickest booking I have ever seen at the bridge

Against Sheffield Utd in the Cup and later he was clever and showed some skill in avoiding punches thrown by the Blades player. 

14 hours ago, ozboy said:

The stakes for Chelsea are far bigger now. Comparing chelsea today with Chelsea pre Roman misses the point. The patience required is just a judgement. You need some analytics ie xg but not just that, and then you need to really be a skilled estimator of the intangibles in a team performance. In the end unlimited patience is akin to religious faith. But it ain’t enough. 

Why are the stakes far bigger now?  If anything the 'stakes' have never been bigger than they were in the early eighties - the clubs very existence was at stake in the early eighties, we were broke, playing in a run down stadium which we didn't own and our team was awful, If Clive walker hadn't scored that winner at Bolton it might have been the end of us.