Dunno if anyone has seen any of the Schalke news, but they are absolutely riddled with injuries. They're back line is completely non-existent, missing Howedes, Matip, Santana, Uchida and Kolasinac, with Kirchoff doubtful. Also have injuries to Farfan and Groetzka. We should, in theory, absolutely smash them. Luckily I'm going tonight, so should get to see a cracking game.
This 433 is solid. Already 1-0 poor from the referee to let the play continue., but the boys punished them. hazard is flying atm too. He's really buzzing these days
Hazard is fine, but our defending is a bit of a shambles ! On the whole we're fortunate to have a lead!
I don't think it's so much our defence, just our defending in general throughout midfield too. Hazard has been brilliant but they've started closing him down and giving him the rough treatment. Didier looks completely knackered already, which is hardly surprising considering his lack of game time and age. Need to step up a gear in the 2nd half!
Draw a fair result. Smacked of last season really with Drogba up top, his fitness looks awful. Made a difference bringing Costa and Remy on but too little too late.
Was impressed with Felipe Luis. Good start for him, looked very good for me. Drogba, it was his first start and he did look a little rusty, I think he will get goals. Fabregas was awesome again, between he and Felipe Luis for MOTM for me. That ball for Hazard was sublime. Will never understand why Arsenal didnt get him back, but their loss is our gain! Bottom line I think we have enough to win at Schalke so a draw isnt the end of the world, with the other game ending in a draw I still think we will piss the group
Not the end of the world, but mediocre sadly, with flashes of brilliance from Hazard, and more confirmation in my mind that the back 4 will be our problem zone this year.
Hopefully Zouma gets a run out in the League Cup next week and can start putting pressure on our central defenders. He has pace which all the others seem to lack.
He's American, has been for 20 years when he gave up his Aust. citizenship. Bloody good riddance too says most of OZ.
Drogba was awful, but he's miles from match fit. It was like watching last season. Yet again the CDs were pretty ordinary. Way too slow, Cahill still doesn't convince me he's much more than a squad player and JT is looking more and more like he want's to be somewhere else. Luis was a big plus, he really looked the player we bought, and Hazard Fab etc all did well. CD is now almost as big a problem as the pre Fab midfield was last year. Roll on next transfer period. Jose needs to hold his hand up too, he sent out a below par team, maybe didn't give enough respect to the opponents, and we paid the price. He was also too slow to make changes. They don't say there are no easy games in the CL for nothing Jose. He rarely makes the same mistake twice so doubt that will happen again.
Poor performance and scoring early it looked like we though we would waltz to a 3-0 or 4-0 victory. When the second didn't come Shalke got more confidence and they have attacking players that can hurt anyone. Defence wasn't great but credit to Huuntelaar, Draxler, Meyer etc who were very lively. Main issue, much as it was last year was not the goal we conceded but our failure to get another from 3-4 very good positions. The Cesc and Drogba chances were big misses. At 2-0 it's game over. We also had 2 off the line so we did enough to win just one of them nights. Hey ho, we move on. Rather draw here than lose league points so hopefully we get a reaction at the weekend. Can't win them all or play well every game.
Hoping Jose keeps the defence strong for next week's cup game and plays Azpi-Ivanovic-Zouma-Luis, we need to try out our options.
Anyway, to the match, Drogba was aboslutely abysmal. The worst performance I've ever seen from him. He offered absolutely no attacking threat what-so-ever, we were essentially playing strikerless. Jose has to take the blame for that, starting Drogba was a huge mistake, especially when you have a completely fit Remy on the bench.
Proves what a walk over he thought this game would be perhaps? Shalke were much better than could have been expected given their injuries. Drogba was poor and that was a big miss in the 2nd half. But others had chances to win it as well.
The header off the line by the Schalke defender made my jaw drop. He wasn't in place he had to move to it. I agree with a lot of the comments about us, how we should of won that game easily, but I have to credit that Schalke performance. There fans and team spirit were enormous. They never dropped their pace even when they couldn't get the ball. Their discipline was fantastic, Hazard always found himself against two defenders when he was left side and when he moved to the right late on he found the same thing. Sam showed up the fact we hadn't identified him as the creative and he moved around from marker to marker. Our defence running back to goal again from the high line were scared to tackle Draxler and on the whole I thought we were the dirtier side. Overall we were slower with passing and when we matched their speed we never maintained it. For me the difference was a team confident and skillful who lost it's cool against a team who knew they were up against it and could either roll over or fight for it, and they did fight but in the right way.
