Match Day Thread Chelsea v City

why Conte waiting? He prefers playing with 10 men FFS?

 

FFS - Pedro for Hazard??????
Batters for Bakaaaaaa...

This is 0-3 written all over it. Conte pulling a Jose?
WTF he is trying too hard to fit Cahill & Cescy in there??

 

FFS Stan.

 

Rudi is amazing in this one. But for him we would be down by 3 goals.

He had Sane in his pocket all game.

I have my back 3 fixed. Should be Azpi, Christensen & Rudi for us to have any hope for 4th spot.
Ofcourse no fcuking dummies, again. Going to be uphill. Spuds are above us FFS.

 

On my way back from the game city probably the best team I've seen for a long time and we had a massive away game on Wednesday night .And yet still some prick who probably never goes slag us off .Also on the way out for those with proper memories bumped into big Cathy she was home And away Inc Europe for 40 off years

 

Yeah I know mate, spins your ****ing nut doesn't it?

 

A bridge too far - 2 tough games in a week; something we didn't have to contend with last season. It's going to be a hard slog making the cut this time around if we're to carry a few passengers.Looks like City will the favourites as Guardiola is starting to warm to the task - one small crumb of comfort is that Christensen is getting regular game time and next week it's Palace.

 

I feel like this one is on Conte...I get that the European trip didn't help (did City have an extra day to prepare) but Conte needs to accept he got it wrong.

Our usual back 5 was too mixed up. I get Luiz was suspended but don't change Azpi and Moses too. And then the substitution was baffling to say the least, we were already struggling for control in the game so if you lose the focal point of the team why replace him with a 5'6 guy who isn't going to hold the ball for us. I get batshuayi has his limitations but he was the obvious replacement surely? He waited too long after that to change things too, it was almost 70 before we changed Pedro and Batshuayi and nothing happened before then to suggest we were going to get anything from the game.

Basically the team selection suggested we gave them too much respect, he made a baffling substitution and then was too slow to change things despite it being glaringly obvious that it wasn't working.

They were very good mind and I did say De Bruyne makes them tick, he stood out a mile.

 

Stan isn't wrong

I didn't watch the match as was out with missus all day and seeing that lineup i knew we probably weren't going to do much.

Dave at rwb does not work. He has nothing going forward really, especially when on the counter as his touch, dribbling isn't good enough (smashing defender though). Meant we were holding out for the draw. After morata went, you have willian and hazard, both as famous for their runs as Fabregas is for his speed. So basically we had no attackers for Fabregas passing (which makes him useless as he's a luxury that cannot defend, something we need against city) allied to our lack of technicians to keep the ball (kante, cahill)

Alonso cannot win a 1 on 1 battle against walker either so basically mark hazard and we ain't scoring against a team like City who will press us out of the ball.

Those subs were terrible, moses should have come on, one of the CBs off. Oh well, we can only hope that City and United hit a rocky period as we falling out of the race already.

As usual, Conte is too conservative against the big teams.

I understand Bats not coming out straight away, no offence but this isn't the type of game for Bats to play in until later as he cannot hold the ball up (he's big but the ball bounces off him, see Burnley game).

 

Perfect assessment, Conte was just awful with selections and even worse with subs. What you didn't say was we now know how far we have fallen behind the probable Champions.
To put it in context,
One world class left back,
One world class midfielder ( not a kid who will become one with more experience) De Bruyne was better than Cesc and Bakayoko combined and literally ran the game single handed. Put him back in our shirt and we are favourites again.
A back up striker with more than potential
Some size and aggression in our attacking midfield.
Hazard and Kante are not enough to win this time. They need help.
The good news?
All the other teams are in the same place as us ,in fact apart from Utd, in a worse place.
Over to you Emanalo, you've got your work cut out

 

Just to sum up, it's very disappointing from Conte. The line up screamed playing for the draw.

Fabregas is a luxury player (possibly more so than Ozil who everyone gives **** for) and once we had 0 runners and no morata up top to hold up/run off he in pretty much useless in a game where we needed to keep possession.

to beat City i think the best way to counter them. The best players to counter is a fast wingbacks (alonso provides energy but isn't that quick) and dave who is not attacking at all and great ball playing players up front. Hazard can, Willian tends to slow up our play. Pedro should have been playing as he's great on the counter.

 

I think we'll still be there abouts. As long as City and United fall off. Conte is a master at rolling over the small sides so we can still go on a run.

City look imperious but come winter when the pitches go ****, hopefully they will be susceptable to a few more teams.

United for me look like they can maintain their form but i'm hoping they will hit a patch where they draw a lot of games because of Joses conservative nature

 

Conte complaining difficult away fixture in Europe, Loss to City who played at home mid week. International break.
there is a repeat of above pattern in fixtures.

We go away to Rome right before Judas game. Judas plays against lowly side at OT mid week. then we have international break right after.

I hope Conte doesn't repeat the results too.

 

Indeed, Citeh did look good and they were very good on the ball with our jaded players finding it difficult to keep pace with them in the second half. Whereas Arsenal were often clattering our players to keep in the game against us, City were breezing past us with slick passing. We could have lost 0-3 were it not for some timely interceptions from Christensen who I thought played a great game.

 

Agree, we could, should have lost it 0-3.
Christensen & Rudiger were immense and kept it decent.
0-1 doesn't do any justice to City. That doesn't mean City were very good.
We were plain awful with multiple passengers.

Adding insult to injury Both Christensen & Rudiger may not start our next league game.
That is not frustrating but disgusting tbh.

 

So much negativity Stan, We only have to play City one more time. The title won’t hang on our results against just them.

 

That was the first time I have seen Christensen and Rudiger for a full match, I must say I was very impressed by both.

 

I was always confident about Christensen and one day he will captain Chelsea but I was more thrilled with Rudigers performance because I thought he was a bit wooden at first for us and it’s nice to be proven wrong.

 

Fair to say that we have done well with our defenders, both Rudiger and Christensen are excellent and should get even better. With Luiz to return we have options at the back now without weakening the defence. At the risk of boring everyone to snores, De Bruyne shows exactly why our midfield needs a serious quality injection . Who was the genius that decided he was surplus to need?
On the positive side, we won't come up against a better team than City for a while, and our new recruits will get better as the season goes on. Squad depth is our real achilles heel and the game after every CL match becomes a minefield.

 

De ja vu - we seem to be falling into a familiar pattern: 2 games in a week, play for a draw in the Premier game and pay over the top respect for top opposition which cripples us with caution. CP is right about our weakness: squad style plus insufficient depth of quality - time to pull finger Michael.