Ivanovic-less Chelsea v Relegation fodder

No Ivanovic, and potentially no Mourinho, who has been given a 1 match ban by the FA.

Zouma has been tipped to replace Bran and Loftus-Cheek was said to be a starter after our last game. Willian has scored 6 goals in his last 6 games for club and country so I doubt he'll be dropped and Costa returns after his suspension. I also expect we'll see new signing Amelia on the bench, and he'll likely be joined by Papy Djilobodji (who?).


Amelia, Djilobodji, Baba, Fabregas, Pedro, Remy, Falcao/Kenedy

Let's go win this.

Hoping the international break has done some good to our boys.

Soul wrote:Hoping the international break has done some good to our boys.

So have I.

Hazard got this

I thought Baba on the left and Azpi on the right would be established by now? Has the newcomer failed to impress?

Zouma RB @ home

*bleep* you Mou.

linetty wrote:I thought Baba on the left and Azpi on the right would be established by now? Has the newcomer failed to impress?

I think Mou said that he's just too inexperienced to start matches at this level

Soul wrote:

linetty wrote:I thought Baba on the left and Azpi on the right would be established by now? Has the newcomer failed to impress?

I think Mou said that he's just too inexperienced to start matches at this level

Yeah, he needs to adapt, apparently.

Wtf, we're up 2-0? My tv must be broken

All of the goals Chelsea score – freekicks – penalties – wondergoals – horrorshow defensive errors by the opposition – deflections = 0

look at it from a clean sheet perspective rather than just how the goals were scored.

Clean-sheet where? The 17 goals we conceded in 8 games? Or the one we kept today against the side 1 point from bottom? The point is, we don't create chances, and the lion's share of our goals come from those methods I mentioned. That may succeed in getting you through a game here and there, but long-term, it's something that's going to cost us more points than any imaginary defensive solidity it brings about wins us.

I am referring to today's game, not the previous games.
Thinking long term at this point is not the right way to look at things. There is no long term, there is no future. The team is in wrecks. So that is why I asked you, before criticizing the way the goals are scored, to look at it from a different angle, and that is no goals were conceded today.

That could mean nothing, or the beginning of something, but that is how circumstances change after a capitulation.

There is no quality to this side, by the way. I am not arguing about that. But this is something which is already known even when the team won the league last year.

That would be true if this were the first game we didn't create much in. But it's very emphatically not. This side simply does not create chances, and relies very and ominously heavily on chance or luck to score goals. There's nothing exclusive to this particular game about that.

This team needs rebuilding from the core. You cant win trophies and compete at the highest levels when your core consists of Cesc (Kick's favorite player), Oscar (Blue's favorite player), Ramires, Mikel, Remy, Falcao. The last four being tactical players (the definition of a tactical player is a player who performs certain allocated duties only). The first two players are out of their depth. They dont belong to a team like Chelsea. Look at Oscar rotting on the bench when we could have sold him for a good sum of money and invested it in players like Douglas Costa for half the price of Pedro. Cesc is a Mourinho signing so dont expect him to be benched even if he plays terrible. In fact Cesc is the heart of problems at Chelsea at the moment, because he holds a position which is too slack on him / doesnt fit him, yet he draws all those balls which could have been offered to someone else who can do a better job. So he's basically sabotaging both the Defensive duties and offensive ones for Chelsea. He is terrible. Guy is nice and all, but when it comes to football, he should be shown the door already. Again something which I ve been preaching about ever since the first part of last season when he was nailing all those assists and goals. See, football its not just a game of numbers, but numbers are a result of good football. I could see through this and that is why I called him a fraud.

Oh I ve been talking extensively about all this for the past 730 days and most recently just before the pre-season. So it doesnt come as a surprise. Let's just see what is next.

one positive thing is Costa, he really played good today and smoked his markers. I am sure the break and the diet he was put on benefited him. Hazard could benefit from a similar regimen.

Before the game I felt very comfortable, I consider Villa the worst side in the league. I expected a win, which I have not in recent games.

But honestly the game looked and felt like two regulation teams going at it.

Two gifts from Villa was the difference.

Happy with the win, Happy with how RLC played, happy to keep a clean sheet, happy with Diego Costa's goal and Willian's assist, Happy with the signs of improvement from Cesc, Matic, Costa, Terry, and Azpilicueta.

unhappy with Pedro, unhappy with how poor Baba was, unhappy with RLC getting subbed off.

Overall, we should have won, we needed to win and we did.

That is all that matters, at present.

Also, its worth noting that Jose kept Ivanovic in the side as he said he needed him for defensive set pieces, judging off today's display, we don't really need him for that.

But Baba wasn't much better