Its still a bit 'raw' to admit it but Brighton ARE a much better team than us.........CURRENTLY, so I think we can all go to bed feeling pleased (for the first time in a LONG while).  They out possessed us and shaded the shots at goal BUT they ARE a good team, the fact that they didn't 'bury' us like they did last season has to be a sign of improvement doesn't it?  

Perhaps (just perhaps) this is the equivalent game to the game under Hoddle v Newcastle in season 93/94 which was a 'turning point' for this club.  I was lucky enough to be there that day and although Newcastle (who were fighting at the top of the table back then) dominated the possession there was 'something' different about us, a 'new' way of playing, a bit more steel, a 1-0 victory that put us on a path of improvement - well I hope it is the equivalent anyway! 🙂

ALL clubs find Brighton a tough nut to crack so we have to be pleased with the performance as well as the result today.

Well, that was a bit better. I hope it gives us a bigger lift than the Luton win did. 

To me the main point is that despite Brighton being a good team scoring lots of goals we didnt conced without Silva. 

this clearly points to the way forward. 

Chelsea won a football match again!  Chilwell out with hamstring again. His body is like a biscuit.  
 

 

 

7 hours ago, ozboy said:

To me the main point is that despite Brighton being a good team scoring lots of goals we didnt conced without Silva. 

this clearly points to the way forward. 

This!. 

Silva has been amazing over the years but it's time for Colwill & Desasi to be our 1st choice back pair.

Drop Sterling as well and play Palmer instead. We need creativity and courage, not players who can't lift their head up or pass backwards in dangerous positions.

Jackson will score goals if he actually gets the service.

2 hours ago, erskblue said:

 

Shades of Willem Dafoe in Platoon LOL

8 hours ago, Droyman said:

Its still a bit 'raw' to admit it but Brighton ARE a much better team than us.........CURRENTLY, so I think we can all go to bed feeling pleased (for the first time in a LONG while).  They out possessed us and shaded the shots at goal BUT they ARE a good team, the fact that they didn't 'bury' us like they did last season has to be a sign of improvement doesn't it?  

Perhaps (just perhaps) this is the equivalent game to the game under Hoddle v Newcastle in season 93/94 which was a 'turning point' for this club.  I was lucky enough to be there that day and although Newcastle (who were fighting at the top of the table back then) dominated the possession there was 'something' different about us, a 'new' way of playing, a bit more steel, a 1-0 victory that put us on a path of improvement - well I hope it is the equivalent anyway! 🙂

ALL clubs find Brighton a tough nut to crack so we have to be pleased with the performance as well as the result today.

That's a REALLY 'good' post. 

It's good to have an easier next match. Last season we got City in both early on. Brighton wasn't going to be easy though, many of us were predicting us to be beat so It's great to get the W. Not getting ahead of myself with that result, but happy for Jackson. I never saw the game, but from what I've read Cucurella, Palmer and Mudryk had a  good game. 

I thought that the first half was very bad defensively, especially Cucurella, Disasi with Sanchez, they were diabolical. We had no one to bring the ball forward either and could not get past their high pressing. In several occasions Palmer had to drop deep to do it himself. Caicedo and Ugochukwu did not work well together and weren't unable to bring the ball through the midfield, something was missing. Also, Sanchez was too cocky and almost costed at least one goal with his distribution in the first half. In the second half we improved massively and was tough that Jackson got his second goal overturned, but I guess that his first was offside (or that's what it seemed to me in the MHL). I thought that Sanchez was going to be jelly in the shed end goal where the Brighton fans were, but he actually was better there than in the first half. Cucurella improved but I'm not overly impressed with him, he was easily past by the Brighton players several times. For me, the best player last night was Palmer, who had a fantastic game and Mudryck played well too. In fact, the front line were quite good except for Maatsen (I think that he struggled). Overall, poor first half but picked up on the second half, and it was great to finally celebrate a goal again! And the win against a good team like Brighton. KTBFFH!

9 hours ago, Droyman said:

Its still a bit 'raw' to admit it but Brighton ARE a much better team than us.........CURRENTLY, so I think we can all go to bed feeling pleased (for the first time in a LONG while).  They out possessed us and shaded the shots at goal BUT they ARE a good team, the fact that they didn't 'bury' us like they did last season has to be a sign of improvement doesn't it?  

Perhaps (just perhaps) this is the equivalent game to the game under Hoddle v Newcastle in season 93/94 which was a 'turning point' for this club.  I was lucky enough to be there that day and although Newcastle (who were fighting at the top of the table back then) dominated the possession there was 'something' different about us, a 'new' way of playing, a bit more steel, a 1-0 victory that put us on a path of improvement - well I hope it is the equivalent anyway! 🙂

ALL clubs find Brighton a tough nut to crack so we have to be pleased with the performance as well as the result today.

Honestly, and this may just come across as biased homerism, Brighton's style of play didn't do much for me last night. Yes they had a lot of the ball, but what did they do with it? In the first half especially when we stepped off their backline they seemed completely lost. De Zerbi's build up style seems to me to rely really heavily on circuits (a la Sarri / Conte). If you don't press the CBs the circuits seem to break down immediately, they made so many unforced errors.

We made better chances than them, scored 2 goals (the offside call for the 2nd was baffling), and then ground out the win in the final minutes whilst still threatening them on the counter (we might've put the ball in the net a 3rd time were it not for another baffling offside).

Obviously Brighton have been performing very well, but circuit football has a shelf life. Teams are starting to cotton on to Brighton's patterns, as they did to Conte's in his final season with us. I feel confident with Poch because although it maybe taking a bit of time to take root, empowering players to make decisions themselves is in my opinion, the correct way to get a team to play if you want long term success.

35 minutes ago, cfr95 said:

Honestly, and this may just come across as biased homerism, Brighton's style of play didn't do much for me last night. Yes they had a lot of the ball, but what did they do with it? In the first half especially when we stepped off their backline they seemed completely lost. De Zerbi's build up style seems to me to rely really heavily on circuits (a la Sarri / Conte). If you don't press the CBs the circuits seem to break down immediately, they made so many unforced errors.

We made better chances than them, scored 2 goals (the offside call for the 2nd was baffling), and then ground out the win in the final minutes whilst still threatening them on the counter (we might've put the ball in the net a 3rd time were it not for another baffling offside).

Obviously Brighton have been performing very well, but circuit football has a shelf life. Teams are starting to cotton on to Brighton's patterns, as they did to Conte's in his final season with us. I feel confident with Poch because although it maybe taking a bit of time to take root, empowering players to make decisions themselves is in my opinion, the correct way to get a team to play if you want long term success.

I have no problem with circuit ball. However 🤭🤭 Sarriball with cr7 was just match made in hell. Imagine sarri telling cr7 you need to pass here and stay in his position. 

1 minute ago, Bob stark said:

I have no problem with circuit ball. However 🤭🤭 Sarriball with cr7 was just match made in hell. Imagine sarri telling cr7 you need to pass here and stay in his position. 

Were it not for Hazard ignoring his circuits I dread to think how poorly things would've gone with us tbh

34 minutes ago, cfr95 said:

Were it not for Hazard ignoring his circuits I dread to think how poorly things would've gone with us tbh

Tbf with Sarri, Hazard ignored instructions from all manager. 

Who was our '5th sub'?...I didn't see 5 coming on.... Sterling, Enzo, Gallagher & Broja.....4

Why was no-one coming on for Chilly!.....was he afraid of cup tying some of the players.... surely maatsen could have come back on.....

13 minutes ago, saran75 said:

Who was our '5th sub'?...I didn't see 5 coming on.... Sterling, Enzo, Gallagher & Broja.....4

Why was no-one coming on for Chilly!.....was he afraid of cup tying some of the players.... surely maatsen could have come back on.....

Conor

4 minutes ago, ozboy said:

Conor

Conor was one of the 4 !!

We only made 4 substitutions so I was also unsure why no one came out for Chilwell. 

Hard to understand the English refs to be honest. Definitely the worst in world football. 

41 minutes ago, RMH said:

We only made 4 substitutions so I was also unsure why no one came out for Chilwell. 

Isn't there now a rule about the number of substitution windows you are allowed to use in addition to total number of subs? Perhaps that was it?

3 hours ago, saran75 said:

Who was our '5th sub'?...I didn't see 5 coming on.... Sterling, Enzo, Gallagher & Broja.....4

Why was no-one coming on for Chilly!.....was he afraid of cup tying some of the players.... surely maatsen could have come back on.....

Forbzy is correct, you're only allowed 3 substitution windows. We used ours for 4 subs. 

3 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Isn't there now a rule about the number of substitution windows you are allowed to use in addition to total number of subs? Perhaps that was it?

Five subs allowed in three windows. Half time isn't considered a window so you can sub at half time without affecting the windows.

4 minutes ago, Gonoir Beniashile said:

Forbzy is correct, you're only allowed 3 substitution windows. We used ours for 4 subs. 

Known as the Brian Cant rule. you can select to use the square, round or triangle window 😉

On 28/09/2023 at 18:26, cfr95 said:

Honestly, and this may just come across as biased homerism, Brighton's style of play didn't do much for me last night. Yes they had a lot of the ball, but what did they do with it? In the first half especially when we stepped off their backline they seemed completely lost. De Zerbi's build up style seems to me to rely really heavily on circuits (a la Sarri / Conte). If you don't press the CBs the circuits seem to break down immediately, they made so many unforced errors.

We made better chances than them, scored 2 goals (the offside call for the 2nd was baffling), and then ground out the win in the final minutes whilst still threatening them on the counter (we might've put the ball in the net a 3rd time were it not for another baffling offside).

Obviously Brighton have been performing very well, but circuit football has a shelf life. Teams are starting to cotton on to Brighton's patterns, as they did to Conte's in his final season with us. I feel confident with Poch because although it maybe taking a bit of time to take root, empowering players to make decisions themselves is in my opinion, the correct way to get a team to play if you want long term success.

Bit late to the party but I think you're spot on. If there is a blueprint for beating them, that is it. De Zerbi's system seems to rely on the opposition pressing way too high up the pitch, which then opens up gaps they exploit with their overlapping runs. Villa did it to them too, Brighton simply couldn't break them down once Villa sat back after going ahead and the goals came from pretty much the situation you described. 

7 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Bit late to the party but I think you're spot on. If there is a blueprint for beating them, that is it. De Zerbi's system seems to rely on the opposition pressing way too high up the pitch, which then opens up gaps they exploit with their overlapping runs. Villa did it to them too, Brighton simply couldn't break them down once Villa sat back after going ahead and the goals came from pretty much the situation you described. 

West Ham probably did it best against them, just let them dick about with it waiting for the mistakes, then countered them with pace and beat them with relative ease.