City losing should take some pressure off us. But Jose going with the same 11 except Rambo? Fab, Dave, JT & Cahill are all risk after 120 mins from mid week. Really wanted Zouma, Cuadrado et al to get a look in. I would like to give us 80% chance after 5pts lead & 2 games on hand - but Jose wants to keep things interesting for the final few weeks. Easily, this could change from 1 horse race to 3 or 4 horse race - if Jose fails to consolidate our straight forward advantage. Don't see us getting anything today against the Soton lead by speedsters Mane & Long. Ron drops the perennial goal post machine Pelle, brings back the best DM pair Victor / Morgan. Chelsea XI: Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Matic, Fabregas, Willian, Oscar, Hazard, Costa. Southampton XI: Forster, Clyne, Fonte, Alderweireld, Bertrand, Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Davis, Tadic, Mane, Long.
Matic gets all of the ball and pen. Ivan heal was clipped in the box - no pen. Diff Ref same outcome!!
Oscar is invisible...would rather Rambo or Cuadrado. Let alone assists & goals, Fab cannot connect simple 5 yard passes . He exposes Matic & CBs. On this form, where is Mikel when you need him (there is something I thought I would never say).
second half was better, but still not good enough. Oscar continued to be anon except for that one. Jose needs to be incisive. Subs too late to have any impact. But I see why he delayed attacking subs without Matic. Cahill & JT had awful time and we were lucky to come up with a point.
Not the best result for you guys but got to disagree with the OP, the title is in the bag and has been for weeks. Not one of the other teams will catch you. Man City are in poor form at the moment but you would probably expect them to come good again at some stage which is fair enough. But I think the exact same logic applies to you guys too.
Title is in the bag in Germany & Italy. They have 10+ pts lead and the chasing pack is hopeless. Not here!! 6pts & 1 game means nothing with virtually same 11 playing every week and under-performing. Jose's team selection is becoming unimpressive.
Cuadrado and Remy showed their lack of match fitness. Although to be fair if Fraser Forster wasn't in we probably would have won comfortably today. Onto Hull now and let's hope City have a bad game against a toughened up West Brom side after a probable exit to Barca in midweek. I think it's about time Filipe Luis, Cuadrado and Remy had a bit of game time.
Agreed - Failure to take full advantage of good fortune that comes our way seems to indicate that it will be a crawl to the finishing line rather than a sprint
Team was laggy after PSG games, don't listen to the usual Doom mongers that go around pretending to be Chelsea fans, the staints were lucky to get a point in the end. 6 points, game in hand , and no Europe or Cup games left, expect some spankings to be handed out! KTBFFH
hope so !!^^^^ matic and fabregas are both looking out of sorts, matic subbed before he was second yellowed and fabregas seems to be stuck in second gear !! has he got gooner run in itus installed? hazard seems to be the only one performing
Hazard guilty in front of goal too. Should have scored after Oscar's header. But he is still our most potent link up player. Diego was better today, but he isn't getting the ball as much as he'd like to. Mourinho made a mistake starting both Cahill and Terry, this was a game for Zouma with his extra pace. Oscar was non existent. Barring one or two games he has bee a passenger for the majority of the season, Cuadrado must be really bad in training to not get a game ahead of him. As already said, substitutions coming too late. Although with how we were playing second half with all our pressure it was hard to make the subs early on. Let's hope Southampton play like that against everyone else this season and that City play like they did yesterday against everyone else this season.
Hazard superb: relentlessly excellent all season, never goes missing Matic was poor again, bad month for a key player! Ramires was much more effective when he came on: who would have thought Rambo would come on for Nemanja and improve the team?
I am not a naysayer, just simply pointing out our current state. Kudos to Jose for protecting Matic (2nd yellow), keeping faith in Oscar for trying to get him find some of his touch. But at the same time - he should integrate Remy, Cuadrado, Luis & Zouma more often especially when most our team is running on empty. Also - like he suggested 6pts made into 2 pts against Saints. Those are the other factors we need to be mindful and shouldn't get too carried away. Ofcourse I am glad we have 6pts lead and 1 game in hand, but that doesn't guarantee us anything. We could have got daylight between us and the rest. I sure think Mikel will improve our team vastly over Fab!
Whatever is going on, as title favourites we should be putting Southampton away at home. Jose used to be the master of subs, he seems to have lost that skill to a certain extent.
Agree this season his subs have been poor, better last season Using Schurrle as impact player. Funnily enough his subs were better today for first time in ages, especially Rambo but Matic did have his worst 45 for ages. We need two Matics for next season plus Pogba! That's greedy I know
