2 minutes ago, OneTommyLangley said:

We won 5-1. Our performance was sub optimal. The opposition was dreadful. On balance im delighted😎

And citeh have just dropped points.

And on the downsize..... Spurs are table toppers !!

3 minutes ago, OneTommyLangley said:

Really strange game. Seeing Palmer going off in the warm up, then the slow start and going behind, really thought it was going to be one of those nights. We were all over the place early on and not stringing any passes together, other than short passes in our own half.

But West Ham are poor and thankfully once we got on top, there was only going to be one winner. We got 5 and could and should have scored a lot more. I've got a West Ham mate who before a ball was kicked this season, insists they will go down, and unless they make some changes, I don't think he's wrong. Potter looks clueless and he's not getting backed by Sullivan and Brady. He's no miracle worker - they're doomed!

Weird that we won 5-1 without playing that well. Caicedo good again and great energy and determination from Neto - the guy just doesn't stop and was my MOTM, but other than that, thought we were okay, without ever really having to move up a gear.

Shame Palmer was missing as he would have had an absolute field day, but I guess if he had to miss a game, THAT was the one we didn't need him but hope he's back sharpish as we won't have any games as easy as that.

5 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Every team experiences slow starts. City apparently didn’t feel like starting at all today. Ask Liverpool fans what their biggest complaint is with their team and they’ll tell you how their defence constantly switches off. This isn’t exclusive to just us believe it or not.

All of our players have had 30-60 minutes of football before the Palace game. What were you honestly expecting?

Praising City & Liverpool whilst the former just got humiliated and the latter almost bottled a 2-0 lead.

I didn't praise Liverpool, I said they would enjoy the win but they weren't great and they have weaknesses. You're also misconstruing what I say a lot, I praised City's performance and said they looked good on the day and they could challenge for the title again if they were to get Rodrygo, this was also with Liverpool's performance against Bournemouth in mind. If they don't sort out their defensive issues though, then it will be another top 4 battle for them.

Also, you're right that every team experiences slow starts, but with us, it's almost every game. We set the tempo and never move up a gear, we just play at that same slow tempo from first minute to last.

Even if Maresca's football somehow ends up with us winning the Premier League and Champions League, I'm not suddenly going to say I find us entertaining.

37 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

All of our players have had 30-60 minutes of football before the Palace game. What were you honestly expecting?

I wish people would make their minds up. Before the season started, I had people telling me that we would have an advantage on match fitness because we had a shorter break than most, but it will catch up with us in December. Now it's the opposite and teams are suddenly ahead of us.

Edited August 23, 2025Aug 23 by Scott Harris

If our performances fall off a cliff like last season and Leicesters the season before I don’t want CWC excuses.

IMO any issues from lack of pre season should be at the start of the season when they may be playing catch up.Does it make that much difference to a professional athlete what 2 weeks they had off in July 5-6 months later… I doubt it.

And don’t say fatigue may be an issue because of the games because if we wasn’t playing CWC we’d have played just as many games touring America or Asia.

36 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I didn't praise Liverpool, I said they would enjoy the win but they weren't great and they have weaknesses. You're also misconstruing what I say a lot, I praised City's performance and said they looked good on the day and they could challenge for the title again if they were to get Rodrygo, this was also with Liverpool's performance against Bournemouth in mind. If they don't sort out their defensive issues though, then it will be another top 4 battle for them.

Also, you're right that every team experiences slow starts, but with us, it's almost every game. We set the tempo and never move up a gear, we just play at that same slow tempo from first minute to last.

Even if Maresca's football somehow ends up with us winning the Premier League and Champions League, I'm not suddenly going to say I find us entertaining.

I wish people would make their minds up. Before the season started, I had people telling me that we would have an advantage on match fitness because we had a shorter break than most, but it will catch up with us in December. Now it's the opposite and teams are suddenly ahead of us.

Thing is Scott, I've been saying for ages that watching a good , entertaining, exciting Chelsea is good enough for me, that's all I want from our team and we showed during last season that we are more than capable of playing that way...that is until Maresca got us playing his controlled , slow, meticulous, risk free football. Despite the result last night , we weren't at it , and got away with a very close VAR call for a West ham 2nd.

Can't complain about the end result, but I couldn't believe v Palace that yet again I was watching the familiar tedious football on display and left early for the excitement of meeting up for a few pints .

19 hours ago, CFCCAN said:

I still wear this. Is that so very wrong?

19 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Well my opinion on Maresca's football still hasn't changed. A win against Graham Potter's West Ham of all teams isn't going to change that. It ended up being a win with a lot of goals, but it was a game full of errors by both teams, theirs were just more ridiculous. Another team would have punished us for the amount of free headers we gave away from set pieces. There were some good individual moments from us, but I don't think we played a great game.

I always find it funny that we get comments like this from people who have done the same themselves in the past.

It surprises me how some people can still have this opinion after the progress this team has made this year. We have churned through one manager after another, then Maresca gets us top 4 and wins two cups. What is your benchmark for success, because it seems unreasonable.

I don't see what people have against the way we are playing, the team seem to be working well together and seem happy, tactically we seem versatile, we have had a number of players whose quality has elevated under Maresca, he seems to be able to manage rotation well, the subs often are made at a good time and seem to make a real impact. How many times in the past have we lost great players because our manager wasn't rotating our squad and leaving some languishing on the bench.

Also this argument that it was just West Ham... historically we have had trouble breaking down the low block from the weaker opposition. Granted there will be the odd game where we struggle with this, but it has got a lot better.

On 23/08/2025 at 16:00, OneTommyLangley said:

We won 5-1. Our performance was sub optimal. The opposition was dreadful. On balance im delighted😎

And citeh have just dropped points.

We are currently the 3rd best team in London. This cannot continue.

7 hours ago, Jackbuchanan said:

It surprises me how some people can still have this opinion after the progress this team has made this year. We have churned through one manager after another, then Maresca gets us top 4 and wins two cups. What is your benchmark for success, because it seems unreasonable.

I don't see what people have against the way we are playing, the team seem to be working well together and seem happy, tactically we seem versatile, we have had a number of players whose quality has elevated under Maresca, he seems to be able to manage rotation well, the subs often are made at a good time and seem to make a real impact. How many times in the past have we lost great players because our manager wasn't rotating our squad and leaving some languishing on the bench.

Also this argument that it was just West Ham... historically we have had trouble breaking down the low block from the weaker opposition. Granted there will be the odd game where we struggle with this, but it has got a lot better.

You say historically " we've had trouble breaking down the low block" ,,,, " but it has got a lot better"

Just last week against Palace it wasn't any better at all. No one around me enjoyed it . Yeah, Palace are difficult.

Go back to last season, Maresca didn't like the our most exciting and winning football that we played all last year . He wanted " more control" . He got it . It was unbearable to watch at times.

I can't fault the win v PSG , it was extraordinary

We could and maybe should be a great team to watch and enjoy. Lets hope we eventually get it again.

Come on you BLUES!!

7 hours ago, Jackbuchanan said:

It surprises me how some people can still have this opinion after the progress this team has made this year. We have churned through one manager after another, then Maresca gets us top 4 and wins two cups. What is your benchmark for success, because it seems unreasonable.

I don't see what people have against the way we are playing, the team seem to be working well together and seem happy, tactically we seem versatile, we have had a number of players whose quality has elevated under Maresca, he seems to be able to manage rotation well, the subs often are made at a good time and seem to make a real impact. How many times in the past have we lost great players because our manager wasn't rotating our squad and leaving some languishing on the bench.

Also this argument that it was just West Ham... historically we have had trouble breaking down the low block from the weaker opposition. Granted there will be the odd game where we struggle with this, but it has got a lot better.

I don't know where to start with this post LOL ... was it intended as satire ?

On 22/08/2025 at 21:25, PloKoon13 said:

Not sure why they keep cutting to the corpse of Peter Bogdanovich in the posh seats

😆. Paulie Walnuts clipped him

10 hours ago, Jackbuchanan said:

It surprises me how some people can still have this opinion after the progress this team has made this year. We have churned through one manager after another, then Maresca gets us top 4 and wins two cups. What is your benchmark for success, because it seems unreasonable.

I didn't make any argument about success, it's the football I have an issue with. I find it a chore to sit through, it's not entertaining. It can be argued though that his switch in tactics in December made it difficult to achieve success on the pitch. If it wasn't for Palmer ignoring Maresca's game plan and taking it upon himself to make something happen (Palmer's own words by the way) then there's a high chance we wouldn't have even won the Conference League. Top 4 shouldn't have been as difficult as it was last season. City and Arsenal dropped off, Tottenham and United were pathetic, we were comfortably second until around the midway point. Fighting for a Champions League spot should not have come down to the last game of the season.

I won't fault him for the CWC success. The only game he really got it wrong was the one against Flamengo, but that fortunately worked out in our favour. The tempo of Maresca's football was perfect for those conditions.

10 hours ago, Jackbuchanan said:

I don't see what people have against the way we are playing, the team seem to be working well together and seem happy, tactically we seem versatile, we have had a number of players whose quality has elevated under Maresca, he seems to be able to manage rotation well, the subs often are made at a good time and seem to make a real impact. How many times in the past have we lost great players because our manager wasn't rotating our squad and leaving some languishing on the bench.

What players improved under Maresca? Caicedo and Cucurella just picked up where they left off from the season before. All of our wingers struggled, Jackson was worse than ever. Gusto went from one of our most promising young players to arguably our worst player of the season. Palmer, our best player, has only gotten worse because Maresca has refused to play him in his best position and give him freedom to be the player we know he can be. The way Palmer has played since December is the reason why people said he wouldn't work out under Guardiola.

Maresca's subs have been awful. The majority of his subs have always come across like they are planned before a ball is kicked. They rarely feel like tactical changes.

I don't know where you get the idea from that we are versatile tactically. It's very rare to see Maresca move away from plan A. As we saw against Palace, we really needed to up the tempo, try something different, but it never happened. One of the only games I have seen Maresca change things up tactically was against PSG. I wish he would do it more often, especially in games where we are struggling to break teams down. A shift in tempo, switching to a more attacking game.

11 hours ago, Jackbuchanan said:

Also this argument that it was just West Ham... historically we have had trouble breaking down the low block from the weaker opposition. Granted there will be the odd game where we struggle with this, but it has got a lot better.

But West Ham didn't play a low block, they were very open. Crystal Palace did, and we didn't test their keeper once.