Blues 2-0 up at the break without a sweat on. Would like to see more accurate forward balls played as in the first half we were a bit amiss.
Sorry Ginge, was away all day. Good result without playing great. Stan used to start match threads and rant through the match about "Cescy" and Alonso with no one replying. Now you know how he felt !!!
Was away all day too, was at a friends birthday party. 3 points is the main thing, not exactly a stellar performance though. Arsenal lost though, which is a good for us, vis a vis Top 4.
This was more interesting for a couple of reasons. 1. Hazard was much better out of position than last time, though still looks wasted for mine. He seemed to run out of puff 2nd half and got whacked around all game. Brighton eventually managed to neutralise even Hazard. 2. Once any team sets up to stop us scoring, we seem to have great difficulty breaking them down. 3. Our passing was pretty hopeless with sooooooo many balls being given away. pretty much everyone was guilty. That needs correcting. City and Liverpool, who both play to win, provided us with a chance to do the same and we produced our best open, flowing football. This game we were back to the same old conundrum, how can we break this mob down with a limp midfield, no striker and all our efforts to score going through one player, making us as predictable as Theresa May is unpopular. No one was particularly dreadful, and apart from Hazard for 45 mins, no one was particularly brilliant, everyone did their part and played OK. Which is pretty worrying, because if that's what we've got, we need reinforcements ASAP. Hate to say this, but apart from a fairly brief Hazard cameo period, I saw no improvement in our overall play against another lower Team who set up as most do. Strength, power and directness are needed to add to what we already do well A Striker, a midfielder like Pogba without the ego and attitude, and some added toughness in the side would be a good start. We earned the win, and deserve the points and it is pretty amazing that we continue to hold our top 4 spot with obvious problems.
Our team very much reminds me of the 13/14 team we had, when we finished third, Mourinho's first season back. Not so much in play style, but we had the same problem then, lack of a decent striker and short of creativity in the middle of the park, meaning we found it hard to break down defensive teams. Mourinho fixed this the following season by signing Fabregas and Costa in summer 2014, and we ended up winning the title the following season.
Never an easy place to go,so very happy with the win.We all know there's work to be done but overall i'm happy and am confident we'll get better with or without new players.
Decent win on paper albeit we made it a bit uncomfortable second half. Seems it's going to be a bit of an up and down season. At least Arsenal lost
