Horrible watch and although there was a plan, I don't really understand the thinking behind it.

Playing without any real threat with an out of form cf on the right wing just felt senseless.

Ambition has been sorely lacking of late and if that was the team LR really thought would do the job tonight we shouldn't expect much lookng forward.

If the plan was to only try to score in the last 15 minutes then I fear the coach had never watched Arsenal play.

We had ninety minutes to get level and only used 10 of them.

Painful.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by Chippy

13 minutes ago, Andy North said:

We did try to score and had a few chances. We pushed Arsenal all the way tonight and that can be seen in thier relief at scoring at the end. There's no way we were going to win this early and we had to stay in the game to stand a chance.

There's no way I'm knocking Rosenior for the approach. He's had these players for a few weeks and they seem to be with him. We would have been 2 -0 down at halftime with Maresca.

We drew with Arsenal at home when we had 10 men and Maresca was manager.

Lost 2-3 at home to Arsenal at home when we had 11 men and Rosenior was the manager.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by The Rising Sun
Information

An emotional Estevao and a broken Cole Palmer were never going to do the job against this arsenal defense tonight.

Garnachos goals in the first leg provide to meaningless.

"Pushed all the way..."

By Delap down the right wing ...

Do you know any others ?

Just now, The Rising Sun said:

We drew with Arsenal when we had 10 men and Maresca was manager

AND WE HAD A GO

I've had a better semi after 7 pints of Guinness

Just now, The Rising Sun said:

We drew with Arsenal when we had 10 men and Maresca was manager

True. Looked far better that day than either league cup loss. Should have won that one.

2 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

We drew with Arsenal at home when we had 10 men and Maresca was manager.

Lost 2-3 at home to Arsenal at home when we had 11 men and Rosenior was the manager.

"Vorsprung durch technic" as the old add used to say.

Pedro did his best but without James in the team we just got bullied all over the pitch.

But yeah let’s sign Barco

1 minute ago, The Rising Sun said:

We drew with Arsenal when we had 10 men and Maresca was manager

And we came away from that game happy with the performance and thinking we could have won it.

You can't beat that Arsenal defence playing like we played tonight, and in all honesty, it would be hard to beat any side playing like that.

1 minute ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Pedro did his best but without James in the team we just got bullied all over the pitch.

But yeah let’s sign Barco

Pedro didn't deserve that tonight. He held up the ball better than I have ever seen from him and had nothing around him to work off. No runners in behind, link up players too slow to react, then it got played backwards to the defence, the ultimate Chelsea tactic.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by Scott Harris

For those that think that we didn’t throw away that first half and we were on top of them, these are the stats (we are the red bars).

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

And we came away from that game happy with the performance and thinking we could have won it.

You can't beat that Arsenal defence playing like we played tonight, and in all honesty, it would be hard to beat any side playing like that.

Some of our recent results perhaps raised expectations but you have to look at who we have beaten. Unless we improve it is hard to see anything different in the Champions League once the knockout stages start.

1 minute ago, The Rising Sun said:

Awful.

We were like a plucky little lower league team hoping to hang in there with the big boys .

That's how far our club has fallen, fans actually happy that we were " comfortable" and not getting slapped around by Arsenal .

Too passive, too slow, too scared to take a risk in a game that we needed to win .. Arsenal watching us playing keep ball in front of them.

What a f**king mess.

I do not agree. We are not really the bo**ocks and Arsenal are probably the most complete team in Europe at the moment. Rosenior was smart and his tactics worked to the point he planned to and that was probably minute 60 when Palmer and Estevao came on. That we did not score it is not the end of the world, I thought we actually looked solid and things can only get better.

If anything I would try to learn from this match and build on this formation from now on. I said in one of my previous posts in the Enzo thread that Garnacho and Gittens are hopeless and Enzo on the left is a way better option there. Palmer on the right instead of Delap and Sarr and James in defence instead of Hato and Gusto. A solid formation and very balanced.

Just a thought...

Maybe LR should try Delap at CB

All managers/coaches KNOW Chelsea cant break down low blocks, Arsenal were happy to let Chelsea have the ball, and had no problem defending with the best defense in the league

Just now, Caps_Lock_King said:

All managers/coaches KNOW Chelsea cant break down low blocks, Arsenal were happy to let Chelsea have the ball, and had no problem defending with the best defense in the league

Yes. A few teams we beat recently tried the same but their defenses just weren't that good.

Yes man talking like Maresca in interview, “we dominated the second half”…did we though?

Another cup run has gone sour,

We sat on their Lead for an hour,

Our best had a rest

Its hard to digest,

Was difficult watching that shower.

Just now, Caps_Lock_King said:

Yes man talking like Maresca in interview, “we dominated the second half”…did we though?

Who was outstanding ?

2 minutes ago, petre ispirescu said:

I do not agree. We are not really the bo**ocks and Arsenal are probably the most complete team in Europe at the moment. Rosenior was smart and his tactics worked to the point he planned to and that was probably minute 60 when Palmer and Estevao came on. That we did not score it is not the end of the world, I thought we actually looked solid and things can only get better.

If anything I would try to learn from this match and build on this formation from now on. I said in one of my previous posts in the Enzo thread that Garnacho and Gittens are hopeless and Enzo on the left is a way better option there. Palmer on the right instead of Delap and Sarr and James in defence instead of Hato and Gusto. A solid formation and very balanced.

I think we set out to contain Arsenal and that was achieved comfortably because we were already a goal down at the Kick Off. We created few chances. i think we were happy to be there ....2026 League cup semi finalists✔️ ☹️

It wasnt terrible, it was ok, but only just ok.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by OTL

1-0 to the Arsenal...

Not sure if LR was alive when that started!

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

Well if you think that is pushing Arsenal all of the way, then delusional is the only way to summarise it. United beat them in the league at this ground a week ago, that was pushing Arsenal. We just played our usual slow sh*te we always play. It was cowardly tactics and too afraid to force the situation.

They have Mbuemo, we have Delap. Arsenal were very relieved to score at the end.

We clearly have defensive frailties and I was pleased to see Badiashile was nowhere to be seen tonight but a more gung-ho approach could easily have ended in a heavy defeat. This squad is very young and a heavy defeat that that has no impact on Champions league could have seriously damaged moral.

Rosenior has had to make some big calls early in his tenure and he needs to keep this young squad positive. I have seen too many games this season where we have conceded early and heads drop. We needed to stay close to Arsenal and we did that tonight.

I'm a realist. With this squad I really don't think we could have done any better tonight.

To be honest I don’t blame Rosenior for this. We lost this tie in the 1st leg.

-Despite having improved lately, our GK makes too many direct mistakes leading to goals

-Half of our CBs and all of our wingers bar one are clearly subpar

-Without a fit Palmer and non-jetlagged Estevao we are severely lacking in creativity and that little bit of magic that could have potentially seen us through.

21 minutes ago, Dr. Socrates said:

Not sure why we just didn’t put the ball into the box at the end. We were faffing around too much. Worked our way into positions to cross then just passed it back.

This has been plaguing us for many years now. It's mind boggling. I can only assume that the late goal we conceded today will only make it worse.