I should take the piss, but I respect the way Ange tried to attack when down to 9 men and the way the fans responded.
This 100% - but particularly Dier who we have been less than kind to, probably with good reason, written him off, but he was immense tonight and showed real passion and fight.
I’d happy with the attitude of those that remained on the pitch. Porro is an absolute warrior, Vic was immense, and Dier and Hojbjerg did everything we could have asked of them playing such a high line under those circumstances. I’m shocked it took Chelsea so long to spring us given the players we had in defence. I think Ange will take some heart from the fact that we went down swinging and didn’t just try and camp our own box. If Son scores that breakaway chance, we can but dream. Even with that the game hinged on a few very tight offside decisions, both Sterling for the 2-1 goal, but also Son’s disallowed one in the first half, even Dier’s strike was a close enough one. But ultimately the two that got sent off have done us here. Romero’s play was utterly inexcusable. Udogie diving in like that when already on a yellow wasn’t much better. It wasn’t even a tackle he needed to make. He’s young and he’ll learn, you’d hope, but Romero has long since ran out of such excuses. There’s a lot of dust to settle from this one and really our season will hinge on VdV being out. Even if he hadn’t got injured this game I think the high line with 9 men looks a lot different.
If Chelsea play like that against City, they will be taken apart. No idea what their set up or tactics were meant to be. Played like a team of obscenely expensive strangers.
Both were reds...and both could have been sent off earlier. They had also had 3 ruled out...although one was cancelled out by the penalty. No idea what complaints we could have.
I agree and Ange won’t be anything like that. We at least went for it and I can’t complain with the attitude of the team and the fans were unbelievable
It's a game of numbers... 5 goals scored. 5 goals disallowed. 6 players booked. 2 players sent off. 2 players injured. 3000 ****s in the away end.
Just a pointer but for all the chuff licking about playing bravely don't you think you were on the edge and ultimately that cost you a huge defeat? Need to calm down you'll get more reds.. dangerous and lacked discipline... Rash.
Thanks for the usual at three point lane. In all seriousness, you guys are in for a great ride with how ange has you playing. You looked still so dangerous when you attacked and the high line was holding out surprisingly well. You have some key players coming back but you have also lost some key players today so will be interesting how you guys fair going forward
I get what you are saying but do you just take a 2-1? We almost scored and yeah of course they got 2 late goals but I’d rather we try and equalise than roll over
It was keegan style you'll have great wins and disastrous defeats. Great entertainment though enjoyed it.
A brave manager would not start them for a while, regardless of their positives. And if their replacements are costly without the same stupidity, put the blame firmly at the feet of said players.
Weirdly this game doesn't actually tell us anything about the team going forward, other than the obvious lesson that Michael Oliver is a useless **** which we (presumably) learned three or four years ago The next few games, though, they will tell us about the team going forward: first of all against Wolves we'll likely have Davies at LB meaning the CB pairing would be Dier and one of Phillips or Dorrington, while against Villa and The Sheikh Mansour Team it wouldn't surprise me if we had a Dier/Davies pairing with Udogie back at LB Maddison is the other big, fat maybe for those games as surely he'll be missing one or two of them, which is the least romantic way to have Bentancur come back into the team that we could have envisaged, or we could potentially reshuffle the midfield pack and move Bissouma into Maddison's role and have Hojbjerg or Skipp as the point between defence and attack (so great time for Santiago to pick up a knock on U21 duty) In other words, maybe watch the U21s match with Cambridge tomorrow, as we might be seeing one or two of those players drafted into the first team squad for a few games coming up
I reckon it will be royal and Dier centre defence for the next game. Dier came out with a lot of credit and in the next few weeks we will need his experience
