What to make of City game ??

This team was unrecognisable from the turgid one of the past couple of months.
The effort was total, the commitment impressive, the attack was sharper and the team ran at every opportunity. It looked like Sarri ball had been dispatched with, and players were freed to play the way they do best.
There was one slacker though, Jorghino , who ambled around behind the play, made little attempt at defending and contributed his usual zero to attack. What this bludger is doing in the team is beyond me .Kovacic was an obvious replacement and his energy and effort might have made a big difference.
My mate Barkley ran until he dropped, if only his skill matched his effort, instead his end result was sadly nil.
Ratings.
Kepa ?????? No doubt more to come here.
Dave a whole lot better, and got forward as of old.
Rudiger, had a big game and never stopped
Luiz also put in and made some great through balls for the forwards.
Emerson was excellent, full of running and very sound in defence most of the game
Jorghino is an oxygen thief. His patty cake penalty sums up the man, weak, insipid and lazy.
Kante again one of if not our best
Barkley 10 out of 10 for effort, just doesn't have what it takes to be a top player.
Willian did really well
Pedro was excellent
Hazard looked really up and put in a top class performance.

RLC showed skill, flair and power. He has to start before Barkley.
CHO lively, and worried the defenders. Needed a bit more time on the pitch.
Higuan looks more and more like a larger, slower, balder version of Morata. Did nothing but had little time.
Sarri set us up weirdly, but credit for letting players off the hook, if he did !!!!!
Needs to think long and hard about a significant penalty for Kepa, who was disgraceful.

 

Good team performance all round. I thought Jorginho was very good, don’t think any of them underperformed. Kante continues to show he’s more than just a holding midfielder, he was our best player for me.

Nice to see Sarri adapt and be less predictable, it definitely showed. Even the subs changed and all had an impact on the game and gave them something to think about.

No excuses for Kepa at the end though. Misunderstanding or not, asked to come off, you come off. Absolute disrespect and this will claim the media spotlight and our good performance will be forgotten about.

Hopefully more to come from the Spurs match.

 

The line up at the end is what I would want to start. Emerson was very good after a shaky start. Barkley almost played well, (there is a footballer in there somewhere), but needs to stop giving the ball away. RLC is a class act how on earth he is not a regular starter is beyond me. All hail Kante, without him we would be in the brown stuff. Hudson Odoi will be great I hope its for us, Hazard got his mojo back he needs to stop losing it. Rudi Luiz Dave did well to keep them at bay Luiz made some tremendous passes out of defence again, Dave is looking a bit jaded though, has been below par for a while but seemed to be fired up today. Pedro was as always ditto Willian. I cannot say too much about our Keeper Keper who's name I do not pronounce too well and hopefully will not have to for too long. Disgraceful conduct...………... but wait I never saw the board with his number and the replacements number raised by the 4th official so how can he walk from the field without it? Communication breakdown and terrible officiating? Sarri should have took control but sadly didn't. If we play half as well against The Spuds we will win.

 

Jorginho spent most of the game jogging from side to side on the pitch and he has a very irritating habit of pointing at every opportunity. He’s totally lightweight and consistently the worst player this season. He should not have been in the starting line up. Keppa should be sacked as he was feigning injury then refused to come off to make way for Caballero who has an excellent record on penalty saves. If Keppa was an employee of mine I’d sack him as I just could not trust him to obey simple instructions.

Apart from Jorginho and Keppa, the rest of the team were excellent and unlucky not to lift the Cup. Jorginho and Keppa = a pair of Tommy Tankers.

 

Phew, thought I was alone in thinking Jorghino was again terrible.
Kepa and Sarri have explained the "mix up in communications" but Kepa was way out of order and in normal circumstances would be on a bus back to Spain.
Felt for Sarri, as no manager deserves that nonsense.
Think Sarri has earned another couple of weeks stay, big improvement all round after sensible change in attitude. Now needs to look at tweaking his starting 11 a bit more, but major effort by all. I'd start with the Team we finished with ,but rest Dave, move Rudi out wide and bring in Ampadu for Spurs.
Hope we can put another big effort in against Spuds.

 

Vast improvement on recent performances - as for Kepa he should demoted to tealady for the next game where he can have time to reflect on his disgraceful exhibition, no excuses whatsoever. Anyway valiant effort by the coach & the team, let’s hope we continue in similar vain against Spuds.

 

Agree, Kante was unbelievable in box to box role.

And Hazard absolutely brilliant in false no 9 role.

Sarri got tactics spot on to be fair, and we more than matched best team in Europe in second half.

Great day out at Wembley. 9 year old loved it. Brilliant atmosphere in our end too

 

Think we will be a bit knackered for Spurs, and we always show up in finals as our trophy-winning mentality is good.

Think Barkley has what is takes to be a top player apart from brains, he is so thick.

Jorghino wasn't terrible but did much better than recent games. He was improved with Kante in tighter to him, battled more, and took a yellow for the cause.

However jury still out until. But Chelsea fans rightly applauded his efforts, especially in extra time when team was tiring, he worked his socks off.

I thought he and Kante controlled midfield well in second half and we were better than City in this phase, despite their unpunished tactical fouling.

22 City fouls to Chelsea's 7. I think the ref should have carded their players earlier to stop their tactical fouls when we countered. Hazard is brilliant and just gets on with it. He' doesn't fuss. The ultimate big game player

 

Didn't get what we deserved but that's football isn't it!!

This wont mean a lot to City in the grand scheme of their season but would have been huge for us and Sarri.

But I was expecting we'd get beat comfortably so at least we didn't show ourselves up.

The unpredictability of this team is infuriating though! Back to being gash against Spurs I guess...

 

Far better performance and tactics. Kepa can **** off but Sarri should have been stronger imo.

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/11647531/kepa-no-intention-to-disrespect-sari

Happy to accept his explanation and move on. He's a young guy who made a mistake or it's a genuine misunderstanding. Either way this group needs to be together more than ever.

Bad week but football can change very quickly.

If we can take the positives from the performance we can still salvage the season.

 

....I’ve never before known a player refuse to come off when told to. OK, I’ve known players throw a tantrum when told to come off but never before anything like Kepa’s antics. If I was Sarri I would have told the referee to issue Kepa with a red card to make him come off. At that stage it was penalties so being reduced to ten players would have made little difference. Caballero could have made three saves on the penalty shoot out and won us the Cup - now we’ll never know. Indeed, Kepa can **** off.

 

Good game for us IMO apart from Keppa and Jorg,thought we edged the second half and looked more
likely than them to nick it.Thought our support was top drawer,"Carefree" all through the second half.
I still tthink the managers days are numbered,could be wrong though

 

I didn’t get a free flag to wave. I noticed that the lower and more expensive tiers seemed to have been issued with free bar scarves. I liked the Man City chant “just like Manchester your city is blue”. They were singing that outside Wembley.

 

Atmos was brilliant in our end, even in the upper tier at Wembley, which can be quiet

 

Saw people twirling scarves in lower tier of Chelsea end, we didn't get any upper tier

 

I felt sorry for Sarri over the Kepa dummy spit, which was strange as I am all for him either changing or moving on. Maybe in some strange way, the players might also be embarrassed at their lack of action against Kepa and their dire lack of professionalism for not showing enough respect for the position of their Manager, if not the man himself. The actions of Kepa and the lack of action from the players, Luiz apart, undid what should have been a major lift in our form and attitude. Shame on all.
I agree that Dave should lose the Armband, his feeble " I didn't see anything" added to his lack of leadership of the team in general, has been a factor in our performances, maybe in his performances as well.
Time that Sarri appointed a new leader ( please NOT JORGHINO ) and employ a suitable punishment for Kepa. If he does those 2 things, plus continue his apparent epiphany on tactics and subs, he might just get this team up and running again. They owe Sarri now, let's hope they deliver against the Spuds.

 

I had a fantastic view from the upper tier right behind the goal. The £56 ticket was a bargain because I’ve paid more than that for Wembley finals in higher priced category areas with no where near as good a view.

 

I don't think the ref can do that as the Laws explicitly cover the situation:
'If a player who is to be replaced refuses to leave, play continues.'

 

Have I missed something, or was the board that signifies the substitution numbers not held up? If your number is not called up then you cannot leave the field of play without the referees permission. FFS dudes did you see the substitution board, or am I going do-lally-tap.