Solid Chelsea luck though that Eze and Guehi will probably be gone from palace in the next few days but held on long enough to play against us

15 minutes ago, OneTommyLangley said:

we were poor and still got a point.

some got to have a w**kfest over wharton and others gloating about vivid seats and FFP from down under,very well done👌

i'll take the point we will get better.

😎

Getting a point at home to Palace is definitely a big result for the World Champions, I left before our lap of honour.

24 minutes ago, bluedave said:

Ironically, that's the kind of chance Enzo has gotten good at taking.

I kind of think Santos should start and Enzo comes on later where he is actually useful as an attacking mid.

The Prem would all play the same way. The players are there, the style just needs to be quicker, we can't have passengers anymore

Got away with that thanks to a freak law no one knew about. Otherwise that would’ve been an embarrassing defeat.

Doesn’t bode well for teams that come and play a low block which, let’s face it, is most of the Premier League. Don’t think their keeper had a single save to make in 90 minutes. All our transfer activity was designed to overcome that. So nothing’s changed then.

Would like to see a new centre back, new keeper. But more likely have to settle for Symons and Garnacho. Be interesting if Jackson is still here end of the window. Didn’t see much from Pedro to suggest he’s going to be the main man upfront.

Maybe I am right after all. 😂😂

Why this sudden drop of performance after cwc n friendly? Because PL team defend differently. It is that simple.

Blocked the middle, force Chelsea wide and we can't do anything. We sold our best solution last season which is Madueke. Neto n Sancho and now looks like gittens are simply not good enough to do this.

If our solution this season is Estevao then we are just being stupid. It is not a good idea for a skinny 18 year old to play heavy minutes in PL.

4 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Solid Chelsea luck though that Eze and Guehi will probably be gone from palace in the next few days but held on long enough to play against us

I know, pure spite . . 😂

4 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

There's really no point trying to look too deeply into that performance, Enzo was the only clear sh*t player, but the rest was obvious, they struggled because of the system. This is on Maresca, again. He said he knew we would win in the first 10 minutes against PSG, well I knew we wouldn't do much today in the first 10 minutes. He held us back again, his defenders will pretend he didn't, but everything we saw today was everything wrong with Maresca's football.

You do not beat a compact defence playing slow and isolating your attackers in 1v2 situations. It very rarely happens and when it does, it's usually a smash and grab type win. I said Maresca would have to come up with something different to succeed in the Premier League, and he failed on day 1.

Yeah we have all the tools in the team to be a really unstoppable attacking force, but I said the same thing last season, wingers must hate playing in this system, rare overlap support, and its so slow at times taht when they do get the ball, its safer to play backwards or try and beat 2 or 3 players.

Not sure what the balance is, but we were looking towards Chalobah to create something from deep today, which camt be right with the attacking talent we have.

19 minutes ago, JPH said:

He had all the last seasion, playing hasn't improved a bit.

I largely agree, but I don't trust this board to choose managers, anyway.

2 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Maybe I am right after all. 😂😂

Why this sudden drop of performance after cwc n friendly? Because PL team defend differently. It is that simple.

Blocked the middle, force Chelsea wide and we can't do anything. We sold our best solution last season which is Madueke. Neto n Sancho and now looks like gittens are simply not good enough to do this.

If our solution this season is Estevao then we are just being stupid. It is not a good idea for a skinny 18 year old to play heavy minutes in PL.

Yeah, because it's not like these exact same situations didn't happen with Madueke in the team last season 😐 I can find plenty of games where Madueke was just as sh*t if not worse in similar games.

37 minutes ago, Liam said:

We seem reluctant to switch the ball to the right. Give Esatvao a run. Neto is being swatted aside like a child.

Spot on there - brought him on and he opened it up straight away - then no one gave him ball !

sh*tty tactics - Down to the manager that one

Why is Cole Palmer not in his best position???

Why is Gittens on before Estavao ???

We spent 75% of the match doing the wrong thing - and wtf is Enzo ???

How many attempts on target ? 3 What ff'ing game were we playing for the other 90 minutes ?

Very disappointing.

Doesn't seem like Maresca got the nonce to read the game and change it around when it's not working...

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

Yeah, because it's not like these exact same situations didn't happen with Madueke in the team last season 😐 I can find plenty of games where Madueke was just as sh*t if not worse in similar games.

We have to get our clever players working together and on the ball more - especially Palmer, Pedro and Estavao (bit difficult if you keep him on the bench!)

Even Eden looked bored, seemed more concerned with what the bird in front of him was fiddling with!

31 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Man, these lot didn't even give me one game to get my hopes up ffs.

It's best to get that hope crushed as soon as possible.

3 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Maybe I am right after all. 😂😂

Why this sudden drop of performance after cwc n friendly? Because PL team defend differently. It is that simple.

Blocked the middle, force Chelsea wide and we can't do anything. We sold our best solution last season which is Madueke. Neto n Sancho and now looks like gittens are simply not good enough to do this.

If our solution this season is Estevao then we are just being stupid. It is not a good idea for a skinny 18 year old to play heavy minutes in PL.

We are all right. we've all been saying the same stuff for years now.

The truth is that it remains unbelievable that amount of people, especially pundits that assimilate the fee paid for a footballer having anything to do with their ability within a team environment in a league as competitive as this.

Madueke wasn't our best solution, he is a poor quality footballer. The getting rid of Madueke wasn't the problem, its the inability to get a better replacement in.

When i was a kid the German league was one of the strongest and most competitive leagues in European football. A scant number of English players were able to make it there, Keegan and Woodcock spring to mind. Nowadays it appears to be virtually League One level. Will Simons buck the trend, I doubt it.

3 minutes ago, Bebe1980 said:

nonce

I suspect you meant nous, but I agree with your post.

We won’t go down with Maresca, and he’s done a better job than his last few predecessors, but until we find a better coach, we’re not going much further, domestically at least. Mad we’re world champions but look absolutely clueless at home to a mid table English club.

Edited August 17, 2025Aug 17 by Snedger

Gittens looks as bad as i feared he’d be. New mudryk.

4 minutes ago, Mod said:

Even Eden looked bored, seemed more concerned with what the bird in front of him was fiddling with!

Never feels like there is any atmosphere in the 2pm games either.

15 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Maybe I am right after all. 😂😂

Why this sudden drop of performance after cwc n friendly? Because PL team defend differently. It is that simple.

Blocked the middle, force Chelsea wide and we can't do anything. We sold our best solution last season which is Madueke. Neto n Sancho and now looks like gittens are simply not good enough to do this.

If our solution this season is Estevao then we are just being stupid. It is not a good idea for a skinny 18 year old to play heavy minutes in PL.

Stop it Bob. Teams will always try and stop the other team playing. This isn't new.

We get around that by moving the ball faster, with more creativity, more attacking intent, and stopping the slow and stagnant, sideways and backwards football.

For 75mins today we played with the handbrake on. We didn't win, because Maresca allowed them to play slow and in a risk averse manner....

Playing catchup to the three teams that we aspire to catch.

1 minute ago, WhiteWall said:

We are all right. we've all been saying the same stuff for years now.

The truth is that it remains unbelievable that amount of people, especially pundits that assimilate the fee paid for a footballer having anything to do with their ability within a team environment in a league as competitive as this.

Madueke wasn't our best solution, he is a poor quality footballer. The getting rid of Madueke wasn't the problem, its the inability to get a better replacement in.

When i was a kid the German league was one of the strongest and most competitive leagues in European football. A scant number of English players were able to make it there, Keegan and Woodcock spring to mind. Nowadays it appears to be virtually League One level. Will Simons buck the trend, I doubt it.

Correct. . The amount of the fee is irrelevant to a player's ability. . .The club keep paying huge fees regardless of a player's ability. And fans expect a player we buy for record fees to be better than a players bought for a couple of quid

So disappointing, didn’t even look like scoring at any point.

5 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

Stop it Bob. Teams will always try and stop the other team playing. This isn't new.

We get around that by moving the ball faster, with more creativity, more attacking intent, and stopping the slow and stagnant, sideways and backwards football.

For 75mins today we played with the handbrake on. We didn't win, because Maresca allowed them to play slow and in a risk averse manner....

What ? Teams who spend a pittance compared to us will actually try to stop us playing our game ? I can see why other teams can't lay a glove on those teams

18 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Never feels like there is any atmosphere in the 2pm games either.

Mate, we we

19 minutes ago, Zeta said:

Gittens looks as bad as i feared he’d be. New mudryk.

I'd take Mudryk back in a heartbeat.