Does anyone else feel underwhelmed by our PL performances ???? We have now dropped to equal 6th after a piss poor display at Everton, and the same old cracks are beginning to show up. Our inability to break down organised defence, poor link play between the back and the front, no one up front who can score, overcomplicated attack with too much sideways and backwards passing, too many midgets being pushed and shoved all over the shop. Hazard looks well below par and is surrounded by 3 defenders. Mata will surely be looking to move to a team that values him before long. Schurlle is Marin in disguise. Our defence does look more assured, and Luiz and Ivan look in good form. Terry is hanging on OK and Cole had a poor game. Eto'o looked promising first up. Personally I think we have no POWER in the team. It is only to be expected that it will take more time to settle on our best line up, but it's hard to see where we have really improved. Ramires, Mikel, Lampard and Oscar simply cannot "run " the midfield, that is not their forte, so who the hell will ?? Needs to be addressed urgently. Don't think anyone is intimidated by us anymore, Everton certainly weren't nor should they be. Jose needs to pull out all the stops now, we can't lose games like this and expect to do well in the PL. Looking forward to some serious improvement, surely we have the squad to do better.
I and millions of others were told in no uncertain terms that you were going to win the league. This after 45 minutes of scintillating football against Hull, So sit back and relax.
I'm sitting back, but not relaxed. Those 45 mins against Hull need to be doubled against everyone else. Early days for sure, but still looking all over the shop for mine.
Agree with you C.P. 100%. For me today the most annoying part was Hazard's performance. I know he has the potential to be very special, but this is his second season and i'm expecting him to up the ante big time. I lost count of the amount of times he lost the ball or ran into a dead end. He is being doubled up on a lot of the time but i still think he's capable of a lot better than this. On one occasion today he tried to skin the first man, lost the ball and fell over like a sack of spuds. Everton broke and almost scored and Jose's face flashed up. Methinks that went into the notebook !
I said at the start of last season you had bought three of the same type of player, this season you have bought some more of the same. It does not look good for you right now.
Time will tell of course, and better football brains than ours are involved, but it does still look like an unbalanced team. Too many tiny little skilful darting "midfielders", but no core to the midfield control. Playing one up front without a strong robust finisher. We have De Bruyn, Willian, and the Dutch kid to come, but they all look like all the rest. Personally I couldn't care less who plays where, but right now Hazard is not playing with any freedom , Mata must be spitting chips, Ramires is trying to play a distributing role, but can't pass to the man beside him, and I'm buggered if I can see what the point is. Guess that's why Jose gets 7 million a year and I only get 6 !!!!!!!!
Don't be bloody silly! All conquering Jose and Chelsea making a mistake? Surely not. We have been told all summer that with Jose on board they will win titles and trophies. Banish all doubts right now
It will come good I'm sure. Your squad has possibly the most depth of any of the top sides which will make a difference. No team so far has looked particularly good apart from maybe Liverpool and that won't realistically last. With that squad and manager (dislikeable as he is), it's nigh unthinkable you won't finish at least second and with a domestic cup.
We certainly havent come flying out of the blocks! We looked fine in the pre-season warm up, and apart from yesterday, been getting the results--but it has definitely not been pretty stuff!
Who apart from Liverpool has come out of the blocks flying? City and United certainly haven't. I agree with Jose in that the time for this group of players to flourish will be in 2 years time. We won't win the league this season imo. Keep the faith. We will be fine.
No problems with the result, Everton deserved the win. Nobody expected Everton to play that well, not even them! they will probably not reach that level of performance again this season. Howard made some good saves but we should have done so much better. At present no one is looking good so no real worries there.
Schurrle needs time, the defences in Germany often play into the hands of a counterattacking side but Everton, like United, were not naive enough to fall into the trap of pushing up the pitch and letting Chelsea get in behind them at will. Schurrle showed the two sides to him yesterday, which I mentioned when you signed him. At times he finishes like a top striker and at other times like Heskey. That shot he had in the second half was so nearly perfect from what was really only a half chance, yet the one in the first half from an easier opportunity resembled a Jonny Wilkinson conversion. The subs definitely left something to be desired yesterday it didn't seem like Mourinho was putting some prepared plan into action. The players certainly didn't look like they knew what they were supposed to be doing and by the time you'd gone to 3 at the back you looked an awful muddle which is in complete contrast of what we're used to seeing from Jose's Chelsea when you're throwing everything forward in the last few minutes. On the plus side Ramires looked very good again yesterday, last season he sort of struggled but he's the type of player that willl benefit from the more direct football that Mourinho likes his teams to play.
Not convinced that E'eto is the striker you need. He's won everything there is to win and is entering the twighlight of his career. I wonder if he's got the desire and longevity that Chelsea need ?
Of course you're entitle to your view regarding Schurrie but you were clearly watching a different game from the rest of us? When Everton took off their striker and bought on McCarthy they had made their intentions obvious. Switching to three at the back was the correct thing to do at that time, maybe if AVB had spent more time watching Mourinho than making tea he might have developed a plan B.
Plus two outstanding blocks when beaten all ends up, still we could always cheat like your rabble did.
I said nothing about Everton's tactics at the end. What I was saying is that the subs didn't really seem to bring any change in the play, it was all a bit disorganised in terms of how you tried to break them down as the clock went down. It surprised me as Mourinho sides are usually good at getting goals late on and he usually has a specific tactic in mind to break the other side down. Maybe I was watching a totally different game to you because I thought you looked disorganised once the subs came on and didn't think you created many chances for an equaliser. AVB has gone with 3 at the back on a few ocassions when we've been chasing a game and "tea boy" seems to be doing a good enough job for us at the moment putting us above the notso Special One despite having a poorer squad at his disposal.
You say that but reality is Chelsea are the only one of us to gain points cheating and bad refereeing decisions, Torres anyone??? Tell us how we cheated to gain 3 points??? Don't be mad at us, I said all summer Chelsea are being way way over hyped, its the same every year with Chelsea and City and United always get written off. How many of you truly got sucked into all the hype and believed United would be on 1 point after 4 games and Chelsea 12.. Its football, its not that simple.