Fair enough ;-) My argument was how easily they lost the ball. Fair to say neither were top of their game today.
2nd half we were poor. Chelsea completely dominated us then, just like they did at Stamford Bridge. First half, I thought we played quite well, but we don't normally play two halves where we create lots of chances in both. Chelsea were always going to come out stronger after the break so we had to take our chances when we had them. Our only decent striker this season has been Rodriguez, who was the only striker who started the game, and he wasn't even played up front!
Should we be congratulating the Ground staff for getting a near perfect pitch in impossible weather conditions, or cursing them because it wasn't postponed until we are more fit for purpose?
It also important where you lose the ball. If you lose the ball in the final third of the pitch, no big deal. But if you lose it needlesly in the middle of the park, then the opponent will caught you off balance and launch a dangerous counterattack. I don't mind when Gaston loses the ball in the final third trying something creative to break the deadlock, but it often not the case. Today he lost at least 4 ball too softly in the centre of the midfield and as a consequence Chelsea hit us on the counter. I don't understand how people fail to see that. Mayde I should make a video compilation?
I believe some people would like us to field a team of Ramirez and Wanyamas, running around giving the ball to the opposition, with a few cute flicks and tasty challenges thrown in.
Two possibilities for what happened just after half time: 1. A stroke of genius by "The Special One" 2. A routine substitution for Chelsea, one that brought onto the pitch, in two players, £49,350,000 worth of footballing talent. Hardly a surprise (to me at least) that we suffered. Vin
Ramirez I can understand, even though I don't entirely agree with, but wanyama has been one of our most important players this season. It beggars belief how much grief he gets.
Four Chelsea fans arrested for use of pyrotechnics and assault on stewards at SFC v CFC today, that's a blow for them, hopefully banned for a while at least.
I know a ref was hit recently and an artificial pitch was burnt in Scotland...sadly I suspect there will be a tragedy soon. Idiots won't be told until somebody gets hurt...let's hope it's the person who takes it into the ground....though apparently they are getting their kids to help
Collymore having a pop at MP for not speaking to talkSPORT in English today... https://twitter.com/StanCollymore
To be frank, Chelsea will defeat most teams in this division three nil. I wouldn't concern myself too much with today's loss. We've got most of the big teams out of the way now and several key squad members are coming back to full fitness. We'll be fine and kick on for the rest of the season. 8th or 9th at the edn of the season, for a young and small squad in its second year in the Premiership is a admirable result.
Yeah I saw that, with Simon Peach trying to explain. Surprised nobody said it is all about getting your point across clearly, a bit like talking to a girlfriend or ex wife - something he should have considered.
You raise a good point. I would not argue that Ramirez made the most bad passes and it led to Chelsea attacks on the counter. It's something to look at for future games. But I would also argue that we were completely unable to break down Chelsea regardless. Does it really make a difference if Ramirez passes the ball away vs. Lallana not making the pass and getting disposessed instead? Or Schneiderlin. Did he make a forward pass the entire game? And I have no idea how to pull up the relevant stats via Sqawka or whatever, but from watching the game I felt like the guy who lost more important balls (not via bad passes, but just 50/50 balls, getting tackled, harried into mistakes that didn't show up as an intercepted passes) was probably Cork. Not that I blame him either. Nor I am blaming Lallana or Schneiderlin. But I felt like Chelsea put up a wall in midfield and our only options were to try and play something clever or dork around and pass it back to the defense. The high line we try to play was completely obliterated. They had us pinned so far back that the midfield was in fact the "final third" and if we didn't break them there we were sunk. We had the same problem last year. Even in the Championship. When we get pushed back we have difficulty moving the ball from the back line to attack even though we had players running their heads off trying to cover on defense and then transitioning to offense. When MP took over, the major change was that we didn't get pushed as deep. And I think that was further buttressed this year with the addition of Wanyama and Lovren. We played in the opposition half and not our own. That's no longer the case. Maybe we should have valued possession and defense more. And in that case, Ramirez was wrong and made bad mistakes. But that is more the fault of Pochettino. Or just a symptom of the side just not being good enough to try and dictate terms. If you are out to park the bus, Ramirez is the wrong guy to play. It's a fault of Ramirez that he lacks that dimension, but it's mostly on Pochettino for expecting a creative attacking midfield type to play that role and trying to impose our game against a better side.
