Well Loftus Cheek should and Barkley shouldn't. Hazard will apparently again attempt to perform a passable imitation of a striker, purely to assure Sarri that he can. Guess that means Kante will play out of position once more, and the decreasingly impressive Jorghino will no doubt top the " most passing player"' contest, whilst making hardly any telling passes. Willian should be on the bench and Hudson Odoi start, though he won't, and Pedro will be the other wide boy. Bringing up the rear we will no doubt see Dave, Rudiger, Luiz, and my big surprise pick, Emerson. Just a joke, Alonso will play. Oh and ,as always, Kepa, who has shown pretty good judgement, reflexes and positioning will assume his place as our only PL goalie. Here's what I'd do, and why Sarri can relax. Willy Dave, Christensen Luiz Emerson Jorghino RLC Ampadu Pedro Giroud Hudson Odoi. And that's it from me., so fire away.
You wouldn’t play Hazard, eh? First name on the team sheet every week if he’s fit. I think I’d play RLC wide with Pedro this one and give Willian a break, Kovacic, Kante, Jorginho and the usual back 4 although Emerson must be very close to getting a start, Alonso has been dreadful recently.
For Wales. Pity he didn't play today as Leicester are yet another team to suss us out, and show that we are in need of change, either in formation or personnel. Don't know how many more times Sarri will sit back and watch us squander good work with atrocious finishing and lack of ideas. Can't see any improvement in this team when we play the same players , and they play the same way. Surely the weak links are obvious and need addressing, Our early season progress has virtually stopped and it is starting to look like we are unable to improve further with these players playing this way against teams that set up to stop us.
Why the constant stream of endless criticism? We wasn’t that bad today and Leicester are a decent team. Both goalkeepers made two excellent saves each with the only difference being we hit the woodwork twice when we really should have scored. They didn’t! The only thing we need is a forward who can bag 20 goals a year.
Don't think it's that simple. Since Lampard retired, we've had a pretty ordinary midfield. Kante is a world beater but not this season, Jorghino looked good early but is being negated by allegedly lesser teams, to the point of being subbed. Barkley has been ordinary for all but 3 or 4 games, Kovacic is solid but holds no goal threat, and RLC, in better form than all of them, doesn't play enough. Until the midfield fires, the strikers will struggle ( Morata though would struggle with any midfield) The front men are getting poor service from the midfield, only Luiz looks able to make telling passes, but he has the occasional wobble defensively, and Alonso looks a shadow of last years player. Even Hazard has his struggles to find a way past a gaggle of defenders. He must be tearing his hair out and craving a better midfield. Willian looks seriously ordinary and Pedro and Fabregas are getting on. Add to that no one pushing the team in the way JT or even Cahill did, and the entire team goes to sleep after 60 mins, or a set back like a goal. I don't think a striker is going to fix all those problems. I do think 3 new players will though, and hopefully re awaken half the team, who look all the world like they are complacent. I also strongly believe Sarri needs to be more flexible, as it is pretty clear that this group of players is no longer improving at Sarri Ball.
Didn't see the game but disappointing that we lost to this hobo of a Leicester side. One thing i will say about this chelsea side is that without rlc, jorginho, kovacic and kante provide zero goal threat from outside the box and minimal goal threat in the box. Rlc has to be getting starts. First things first i would revert back to a 4 2 3 1 and ditch this 4 3 3 bollocks or put kante in the hole.
I say all this but we need to give sarri time to adapt. We can't be expecting instant fixes especially with how strong the top 5 are. All of pep (plus a few hundred million), klopp and poch took times to create an identity and likewise we need to be patient with sarri. None of them rocked up at their clubs and made them world beaters in their first season. Only pep did it in the second season with another truck load of money. Obviously the big mark on sarri is that he has not won anything so lets hope he gets that duck of his back with a carling or europey. This excellent beginning of the season is clouding peoples judgements into thinking we should be one of the bigboys
On another day we would have won. It happens. Did we look great? Not really, but that’s ok. It’s Sarris first season with a team he has inherited. We already look better than last season and there will be much to learn from the squad and system from everyone. Nothing to panic about.
