I won’t complain. It was a decent point for a team that at times looked like they’d just been to Baku and back. Hugo MOTM for one point-winning, unworldly save. Dembélé was probably our best otherwise, then Alderweireld and Vertonghen. I thought Son was poor, along with Walker, and, especially Rose. Rose did a lot to redeem himself, though, with that medical-with-us-and-then-you-signed-for-Chelsea? ball. I thought Mason was good, and that Lamela had the best idea as to how to create a goal. I’m surprised Pochettino stepped way out of character to troll Mourinho, but Mourinho did deserve it. Not only did he coin the bus parked phrase, I think he did it to describe us in one game. So asking who’s parking the bus now is fair. Besides, a draw is a much better result for a team on a long unbeaten streak than for one that’s still 12 points out of fourth. A more ambitious and perhaps wiser manager would have tried to pressure us and hope our fatigue would tell. Just noticed the crowd rise as one to applaud Rose for that ball to Willian’s face.
Not sure how windy it was out there, but it was certainly very blowy in the stands. I have a feeling a combination of tiredness along with the blustery conditions combined to make our performance below par. We never really got into our stride and it was noticeable about 10 minutes into the second half that our physical game was dipping. Given our recent heavy schedule and our difficult run of fixtures, I take today as a good result.
"Top four aspirations? Really need to be beating the bottom clubs at home or its curtains for your cl dream" Which came first in the WHL 0-0 cup finals : the Chicken Jose or the Kloppety Egg ??
In his pre-match comments, Moron described us as a "small club" who didn't have the same pressures as "big clubs" - so it's no surprise that Poch used it against Moron after the way the Chavs played. It's not the first time Poch's trolled someone, either: there was his theatrical eye-rolling in a press conference a few weeks back when a journalist mentioned rumours of Man Utd looking to sign Harry Kane - and it's not the first time he's trolled Moron, either... ...sadly I can't find the gif of the whole thing, where Poch side-eyes the camera while Moron is still performing in the background to complete indifference.
They did indeed, albeit a fantastic first time volley from Hazard after Walker misjudged the flight of a cross, which Hugo did very, very well to keep out. Other than that, it became clear very quickly that Mourinho chose not to play a striker so that he'd be able to keep 11 men behind the ball at all times, rather than the conventional 10. Jan and Toby played very well. As soon as I saw the chelsea line up I panicked a bit because I doubt either of them have faced a false 9 interchanging between players of real quality (although Pedro is a shadow of the player he was at Barca), yet they rose to the challenge and read the game very well. We visibly tired as the game went on - Kane and Eriksen in particular looked finished. Going forward moments of quality were few and far between. I think we were just trying to be a little bit too intricate all the time, with Son standing out as always wanting an extra touch or trying to pull off the impossible spins and flicks. I think it's just a natural part of his skill set that he'll learn to control and discipline within the context of all-action PL defending. Walker and Rose both had disappointing games which was a shame as both were rested and there were times where we were crying out for some width. We definitely improved when Lamela came on, I'm pleased to report. Him, Dembele and Dier combined to basically make sure that they weren't allowed past the halfway line more than once per fifteen minutes or so. West Brom grudge match up next followed by Newcastle at home. Two very winnable games that we need to take full advantage of.
Walker played as if it was the first game of football he had ever played. Loads of enthusiasm, loads of energy, loads of lapses of concentration and mixed end product. Rose played as if to confirm to his doubters that he sometimes can be a liability. Heaven knows what he thought he was doing in putting in a challenge like tat for his booking when he didn't need to.
Back from the post-game pub session. The team seemed very tired in the second half and unrecognisable from the team of a week ago against West Ham. A weird game and a very flat atmosphere as well. Given that we are only a third of the way through the season it shows how essential the January transfer window is to our hopes. If we are to compete we need to have the resources to mix it with the competition. That isn't going to be cheap but Lewis and Levy are on notice regarding the outcome of recruiting Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen or ending the window with their £millions intact. Despite the disappointment of dropping points to an extremely negative Chelsea side, the likelihood is that we'd have lost that game in previous seasons and we now have a week to rest tired limbs and go again.
I thought the same about Son. Contrary to just about everyone else (!), I thought we played some lovely stuff in the final third of the pitch in the first half, but Son was just trying to be too cute. Btw, what a player Willian looks
I thought Willian did very well to stay on his feet after the ball in the face from Rose. Had that been the slightest touch from an arm he would have been on the floor, clutching his face, doing several rolls, claiming a foul and wanting the player sent off. It shows what a cheat he is.
He was superb last night though. MOM by a country mile imo. **** that he is, he's a brilliant player and would have made a hell of a difference to us.
Agreed. Willian is a class talent. I always had it in my head that he was a bit of a luxury item but to his credit he works damn hard. Hazard is also quality, Oscar pulled off a few silky skills here and there but looks a shadow of the player he was a few years ago. And Pedro just has the look of a man who's wondering to himself why he swapped the beautiful Barcelona beach for London's largest collection of racists and plastics. It was never quite clear which of Lamela or Eriksen was signed once it became clear that the Willian thing was just a wind up. I have to say that if it was the latter, I'm glad we got him and especially at half the price. But if it was the former..:similar price and I'm afraid as much as Lamela has improved, a front line of Son, Eriksen and Willian behind Kane is frankly frightening.
Willian has easily been Chelsea's best player this season but he might have got in Eriksen's way a bit if we had signed him. I think on balance we have to be happy with Eriksen and forget about the little ****.
Four goals and five assists in fifteen games this season, and he's also been posting a lot of nice things about us on Twitter - as well as favouriting the tweet about Baldini getting the bum's rush...
Well, good luck to him. I also think Baldini got a bad rap. AVB in other places has been successful. The players Baldini (as far as I know) bought were also successful in other places--and three have been successful here. But AVB + lots of Baldini buys were poor. The simplest answer is that lots of buying at once is a bad idea.
In the case of the Baldini Splurge, it was the combination of bulk buying and not considering how those players would actually fit into the team. Take Paulinho as an example: at Corinthians he was a box-to-box midfielder in a 442 formation, as he was for Brazil in the 2013 Confederations Cup and was a genuine goal threat - yet in AVB's 4231 formation he was deployed in the pivot even though he lacked both the creativity to be a deep lying playmaker or the positional awareness to help out defensively, in a league where box-to-box midfielders are more common so defenders are going to be better aware of tracking him breaking from deep. The other bizarre one was signing two left-sided attacking midfielders in Lamela and Chadli at the same time - in fact the bulk-buying of attacking midfielders that summer was odd, as we added Eriksen, Lamela and Chadli while retaining Sigurdsson, Holtby, Lennon and Townsend that meant we had seven players for three positions, all of whom would have expected games.
Yeah, we were nowhere near at our best and it was a disappointing game. But hey, that was probably our worst league performance since United on the opening day and according to Mourinho it was Chelsea's best yet they still didn't beat us. That's a good sign of progress imo. Still, Pochettino's insistance on taking so many first team players to play in Azerbaijan is frustrating and I hope he's not planning on starting the first 11 against Monaco when qualification's already wrapped up. Had Kane and Eriksen been at their best we might have gone 4th yesterday so that's a missed opportunity.
