Yes Vim.....but a football match lasts for 90 minutes. Plus this bunch is not ageless. All we seem to do is build for tomorrow. Before we know it these lads will be hitting the peak of their careers and we can't decide whether to take cups or the league seriously. I fear us blowing our young team whilst daydreaming about the youth coming through. So when is our time to deliver? Its not a one off performance...there seems to be a trend this season. If you can't get your head around incompetence like Dembele's yesterday and iron it out of your game then there is an issue. Costa had a disciplined game yesterday for the benefit of his team....i use him as an example because he is always up for a dirty game. I think a few of our players need to get their heads out of the sand and do some soul searching...too many passengers for me. A part of me does think that's due to Poch...he's still the man for me...but I have to raise an eyebrow.
There were quite a few dodgy team sheets before kick-off, including the BBC's who had Son as left wingback, for some reason. No idea why so many of them got it wrong, to be honest. Wimmer or Vertonghen at left-back was pretty natural.
Should have been hammered into Rose's head to not get that yellow last week. Some of his tackles are a tad filthy. Poch should have hammered it into him. Ultimately his suspension rocked our preparations. People may think I'm being over board but I seriously believe this precise attention to detail and demands is what costs us and the fine line between being on one level or the one above it.
Overboard on Rose, but not the general theme. Actually my stream commentary yesterday remarked that Costa con is on 4 yellows, and Conte appears to be managing the antics that would have had him crossing the line a few games ago.
He gave the ball away multiple times in key areas - bang in the middle of the park when we were building an attack, players were pushing forward, and instead of laying it off he decides he's going to take on your entire midfield single-handedly, which ended predictably and left both of our full backs stranded out of position. On two of those occasions, you seized possession and broke to score. Dier was also massively at fault for the first goal while one of Jan or Wimmer should've been tracking Moses, but at the end of the day better decision making from Moussa and neither goal wouldn't have happened. If at the age of 29 he still plays that naiively, it's no wonder no big club has come in for him. Excellent player on his day but sometimes puts in displays that are full of baffling choices.
I know what you mean, but he was mouthing off at the officials from the first minute. He should've gone in the book for that, but was let off, for some reason.
I quite enjoyed that part. The sign of a player who was being bossed. I was hoping that he would revert to type, and justice from last season would be done.
agree with giving away the ball. But some of you have claimed he was responsible for both our goals. Which is not accurate.
Costa is crucial for them. In the first half- especially when we were on top, Costa was moaning, going down easily and trying to get our players booked. It was when he decided to play football that they improved . He started receiving the ball ,holding on to it and dribbling and creating problems. It brought everyone else into the game. He gave them the outlet up front and that gave them the edge. It has in fact been their season. He got those 4 yellows early on when he was being the cynical Costa that we know and when he should have been sent off on numerous occasions. ( I dropped him from my fantasy team because I was worried that he would get that red ). Chelsea at that stage of the season were struggling. Since then, Conte has no doubt spoken with him and Chelsea are a different team and Costa is a different player (the good one, unfortunately ) and Chelsea are now winning. It has coincided with their system of 3 at the back, but that is not the reason for the turnaround in my opinion.
I've discussed our injury problems before but I feel I really need to highlight just how problematic it's been as I think some of the criticism of the team/ manager has been far too harsh. Take a look at our best XI of last season - which so far we haven't been able to field collectively once this campaign: Hugo Walker, Toby, Jan, Rose Dier, Dembele Lamela, Eriksen, Alli Kane Those in bold (plus Wanyama who's now a fixture in the side) are the only players who've been able to be called upon for our 13 Prem games so far, that's a gutting statistic. Can anyone honestly wonder after seeing that as to why things haven't always been pretty and peachy on the pitch? I get we've played ugly in some games, some performances could've sent us to sleep but when we've been without so many key players in just 13 different Prem games, it's no wonder we haven't found a consistent rhythm to our play. Poch is having to deal with one or two (sometimes more!) forced changes each week. Despite all the problems to the squad, it took an in-form Chelsea team at Stamford Bridge to inflict our first league defeat of the season in which the result was very harsh seeing as both sides dominated one half each. In that match alone we were without both LBs, our best CB and our hardest working AM while Kane and Dembele (possibly Alli too) are still a game or two away from being 100% fit. A defeat is always disappointing, especially to a rival but the bigger picture tells me that if we can go to Stamford Bridge with a depleted & weakened side and lose due to one sloppy mistake in an even game, then when we're at full strength we're going to be a real force. Whispers on social media say both Toby and Lamela could be back next week, while Rose will obviously have served his suspension. That could then finally allow us to start playing our best team on paper, of course some are going to be lacking match sharpness so it will still be a couple of games before we can start reaching peak form but I think the next few weeks is going to be a crucial stage for the club providing we don't get hit with any more injury problems.
He was also lucky that the ref or assistant never saw him taunt us when Pedro scored their equaliser. I was sitting in row 7 so it was practically right in front of me, he turned round and picked the ball up, done a stupid stroke-like movement and then mouthed something, think it was in Spanish/ Portuguese as I couldn't understand any of it. Baring in mind Nacer got booked a couple seasons back for doing the hush signal to Arsenal, that was just as bad.
E I agree with this. Apart from Toby, our biggest miss is Lamela. I think that if he had been used properly in his first season he would now be even better. His confidence must have been seriously knocked back when after being our man of the match in one game, he was dropped for the next and barely got any more minutes before he was injured. Unlike some in here I have always been a big fan of his. The sooner he is back the better.
Like many things with the officials, there's just no consistency with this sort of thing. There was quite a lot of crap being directed at linesmen this weekend and nothing given, for example. A few weeks ago that was an automatic booking and there was far, far less of it.
You're 100% right SOS. The biggest grumble myself and the Grinch Society have is how poorly we prepared in the summer for this eventuality, having fluked our way through an entire season without a major injury to any of our starting XI. I sound like a broken record by now, but whilst it's true that the first XI are up there with the best in the league, as soon as you drop down to our bench - let alone the wider squad - there is a massive dip in quality and reliability, which is why our flaws are so horribly exposed as soon as we pick up a few injuries. Other than Vorm, Davies, Dier (on the basis that he will no longer be picked once Toby is back) and Son (IF he's in the mood, which is usually once every 3 months), who in our wider squad can we rely on to deliver a performance worthy of a side with top 4 aspirations? The answer is frightening. We relied on Janssen, GKN and Sissoko all coming good within a few weeks of their laughably late arrivals, and that just hasn't happened. Too much was gambled on the unknown. PNP made an excellent point in one of his earlier posts: With the gift of hindsight, was it really a wise decision to strip the squad of settled albeit not brilliant players like Chadli, Mason and Bentaleb and replace them with the crud that we've apparently deemed more valuable to our overall targets? Did we not look back at our last CL campaign and learn the lessons that poor recruitment cost us then? Imagine if the fax machine had broke that night and VDV didn't happen! We'd have crashed out at the group stage and probably finished 6th or 7th in the league. Yet we do not learn. Ever. Most big clubs suffer and cope with injuries. Kompany is almost always out for City. Arsenal have been without Cazorla for months. Liverpool are now without Firmino and Coutinho. There's no point playing the sympathy card - everyone goes through it at some point. If we haven't got the squad to cope with it, it's a rollocking we need, not sympathy.
If Lamela is still suffering in confidence from an experience 3 years ago, he shouldn't be a professional footballer. It's a simple as that. The more likely explanation is that he simply isn't as good as Roma had us believe.
His work rate sets the precedent for the rest of the side, don't get me wrong he can frustrate me at times, mainly because I know he's a class player who just seems to allow himself to drop out of games but even when he's not being productive on the attacking front you can always be assured that he'll give his all and put in a shift for the side to chase things down, that definitely rubs off on other players.
But we are coping reasonably well-we are fifth in the league, only 2 points of what we had last season from the equivalent games. We haven't got the resources to have Strurridge or Willian or Yaya as bench warmers. ( Iknow we did waste 30mil on Sisokou-but apart from him)
Sorry to be blunt but you've undermined your own argument there. £30 million! We had the resources. What we lacked was the brains and foresight...again.
My point is that, that is one player that I admit we wasted resources but how many of those players have other teams got?
How many other teams have got players as expensive as Son, Sissoko and Janssen warming their benches? Only the teams who can genuinely afford it. We can't. Which is why when we do splash out, we need to spend wisely. Which we don't.
