₦airaland Forum

philip0906:
RLCis the major culprit. Can’t defend, can’t create attack neither can he dictate the tempo of the game. Our midfield with him and Jorgi has been flat.

One of the things I rate the most in a midfielder is positional awareness and space interpretation.

RLC severely lacks this. Always leaving empty spaces in the middle and doing his usual rubbish casual jog. He gets the ball, delays passes, does the unnecessary dribbling, squares his shoulder and then ends up making a bad decision

We probably need to add a new midfielder into our mix. One that can particularly understudy Kante

Not a coincidence our struggles have coincided with RLC starts for us. Jorginho has been overworking in this match.

RLC only good at dribbling in circles

Maximilan:
Our players are moving in slow motion, if we don’t get a third I highly doubt we can hold this to the end

RLC particularly. Looks gassed too

My Jorgiboy!!!

Rudiger the scammer

Overall play still bad, Boom, Scores a tapin, Now he's shutting up haters

The jokes on y'all

Jorginho - RLC midfield doesnt look good enough

Rlc wasting time on the ball

I'ld probably switch Mount and Werner at this point.

Timo is so isolated

Timo needs to be more central and stop playing like a winger

Mount lacking positional awareness so far

Amoto94:
We cannot divorce economic thinking from the following; emotion, logic, morality, empathy, and social standing. A true progressive society is one where justice is served not equality, equal opportunities won't guarantee equal outcomes, we can't pay the eager-beevers the same amount as goofers it will disincentivize people from striving; having said this we should strive to provide for those who lack opportunities not for want of trying but because of circumstances they find themselves in.
For instance in Islam Muslims who are wealthy are commanded to remit 2.5℅ of their wealth after they have taken care of their needs, this amount will be redistributed to the poor, wayfarers, orphans etc, in the same vein people are encouraged to not depend on handouts from people so there's balance you are expected to work and help those who by virtue of circumstances they are unable to meet their needs.

Interesting perspective but contrary to what most people think, the tax drag on the above is quite significant; more than your regular income taxes; An Anathema to your suggestions.

Perhaps the religion aspect helps

TT did seem irritated.

How disappointed are you Thomas with the result tonight?

"Well, you know, if you coach Chelsea and we concede six goals in two matches...we gave four times the lead away in these two matches.

"My ambition to talk about individual performances is not so high, because nobody can be happy today, and nobody can be happy in West Ham. So it's absolutely not the moment to talk about individual performances, about whether we are happy or not happy, nobody can be happy.

You said after the West Ham defeat it was the details costing your side. That was again the case tonight so are you concerned your players are not listening?

"I remind myself now that you are normally a nice guy and that I don't take it personally that you make a judgment here that my players are not listening to me, which I don't find so nice. But it's your opinion.

"I think we had a very good first 15 minutes and then we stopped doing the things we did in the first 15 minutes. I had the feeling, and it's my opinion, that when we are in charge, when we are the better team, we are forgetting why we are the better team. The investment, the level of concentration, the level of physical investment was higher enough to be the better team.

"Once this drops 5% or 10%, once we start managing results, once we start changing our behaviour based on the score, we get punished at the moment. It happened against West Ham and today.

"The reaction was good and that shows me it's not about what we can do, because suddenly when we concede a goal, two goals, we can step up and show a reaction. But once we had the lead we give it away again.

"The last six minutes, we start playing balls back, start not attacking with the same aggression and with the same hunger and we got immediately punished. It is for me the level of investment that we have to do no matter what is on the scoresheet."

You played Reece James in the double six, do you see this as a role for him going forward?

"Of course, but I expect normally N'Golo (Kante), Mateo (Kovacic), Jorgi and Ruben (Loftus-Cheek) to start in midfield and they are all out today so we need to be a bit creative and put Reecey in there.

"We knew about the quality in central midfield and wanted to have some physicality. That's why he helped us there today but the target is to put him back on the wing. For this, we need players back who can play in central midfield."

You said after the defeats to Man City and Juventus earlier in the season you and your coaching team had a meeting to discuss the issues. Do you feel another is needed?

"I told you what's wrong in my opinion. We can have a meeting but we already had a meeting right after the game. My analysis is very clear. Our behaviour changes when we have a lead and this is something we never did and should never do.

"We do the things we want to do on the highest level and we push ourselves until it hurts and it has to hurt. You have to be tired at half-time and fully tired. You have to play through physical pain and raise your level of concentration and overcome adversity. Without all this, if you change your behaviour because of a result, you allow the possibility to be punished.

"If you are unlucky enough, like we are at the moment, then it can happen to you. The challenge is to close the door and minimise the possibility. It is very easy, we need a higher level of sprints, a higher level of running, intensity and concentration level.

"It is the basics and the basics need to be pushed onto a higher level while we are in the lead. It cannot drop just because we are in the lead and this is what is happening right now to us. It's not the big picture but it is what it is."

Did Zenit surprise you or did they play how you expected?

"Exactly like this – a lot of quality if you give enough space, if you are not closing the space with enough effort. While you attack you can always be hurt by counter-attacks. If you do big mistakes in central positions you get punished by counter attacks because the speed is high, because the quality is high, technical level is incredibly high.

"So you need to do your stuff on the highest level. if you do it you can have a game like the first 15 minutes. If you don’t do it and the feeling that this should be ok, you get punished because the level is too high and this is what happened."

raumdeuter:
Optiions for Chelsea

Bayern Madrid Ajax.

There's still Lille or Salzburg

Bye Sarr. As for AC, I'm not sure i'll be giving him the contract he wants at this point

I must have seen a thousand Kai runs being missed so far

Top class Timo

My boy

Christensen not looking comfortable to me.

BTW, how come Sarr and Saul on the same left side?

Watching the replay now. Sarr has to go.

TT's post match comments

Performances have dipped, how concerned are you?

"I didn't see our performance dip against Man United or today. I think the performance is enough to even win the game but what we clearly see is we give easy goals away and this is very unusual. We make big mistakes that lead to big chances that lead to easy goals. We do this now in three matchdays against Man United, Watford and again today. If you do this at this kind of level, you can't expect to have a result."

Does the standard of the Premier League mean you have to get out of this bad period very quickly?

"The race is not interesting at the moment. What is interesting is always the next 90 minutes and what is interesting is to have the focus right, the attitude right, and to take care about the details.

We are not good enough on the details at the moment. We do too many big mistakes and have to care about the details. There is not need to ask questions or start doubting about the big picture. This is a game if you play at West Ham about the details. I can only repeat myself: without doing big mistakes, there is a big chance we win this game."

What did you make of Edouard Mendy's performance and how is Kai Havertz's injury?

Kai has huge pain, Marcos Alonso has back pain, so that is another two substitutes due to injury. We have to deal with it.

Edou is dealing with a rough period. I don't know why exactly but he seems to have lost a bit of confidence. OK, his decision making was not on the highest level today with the first goal but we also bring him to a really awkward situation.

He could have saved the situation but he did not. We are far, far away from blaming anybody but we need to admit that we do too many crucial mistakes at the moment that cost us a win against Man Utd and today as well.

Midfield issues - when is N'Golo Kante back and how much are you missing him?

No, I actually have no idea when he will be back and we are missing not only N'Golo, also Mateo Kovacic since five or six weeks ago.

Jorgi is playing with hip pain for many matchdays and you can see it. That is the situation.

When you say "no idea" does that mean he won't be back before the New Year?

How can you say? If I say I have no idea how can you say it is before the New Year?

Asking, not saying, do you think he will play before the New Year?

It is not interesting what I think. He plays when he is back. He has a long way to go, if I say now he plays at Zenit and he doesn't play then that doesn't help.

I take care of the injured players. N'Golo has not been on the pitch since Juventus.

Lost 4 games last December, have you looked at that for this season?

No, not one second.

The goal conceded vs Watford, ball given away, mistake vs Man Utd for a goal - is there overplaying at the moment?

We have some overloaded players, yes. This is not an excuse and I will say overload and if you look at our schedule, there is no escape and this is exactly where we struggle at the moment.

We have crucial ball losses in situations where you simply cannot have them if you want clean sheets and want to dominate games.

If you want to protect against counter attacks, it is impossible to do these kinds of mistakes, three times in a row, it is simply too much and we cannot give any excuses that we are tired.

It is absolutely normal to be tired through the Premier League in winter, it is a question of precision, details, risk management, where you take it and where you absolutely don't.

If you invite a team like West Ham into your own box, into the last 20 metres by giving big ball losses then you are in the trouble.

https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/fixtures-results/chelsea-west-ham-kante-mendy-22365971

All the silly blames when this was clearly a bad day for Mendy. It was so bad that West ham noticed and tried some long shot from the restart.

Anyway, we'll learn from this.

We probably need to try Azpi as LWB. Getting tired of opponents targeting Alonso.

RLC needs to be sold. All that flatter to deceive dribbling adds zero value to the team. He needs to move the ball faster

CHO - Bye, Should have grabbed the cash when we had the chance with Bayern. Just seems to me like a player who couldnt care less

Lukaku - needs to stay away till he builds some sort of rhythm with the team. Cant believe the shocking display I saw earlier.

Pulisic - If inconsistent was a person. didnt even see the guy throughout.

Jorginho - Needs to cut out all the ball sloppiness. Too many of those lately

More painful that this game was there for the taking. At worst should have been a draw. Personally, I thought all 3 goals could have been saved by Mendy

Now I hate West Ham more

Lukaku has been bad since coming on

Same ol Hudson Odoi. Not taking football seriously

AnfieldFan:
Has nothing to do with Lukaku, Moyes just told them to do what they should have done in the first half, close up those half spaces in their half while keeping a man in the wings. James and Alonso were afforded too much space in the first half...

I hear ya. Wonder why they werent able to do it earlier.

Alonso afforded too much space?. U dont even know what ure talking about.

Kantebets:
lukaku doesn’t press
Lazy mf

The energy and pressing from the front has disappeared. Lukaku also seem rusty

Looks like West Ham are playing better from the back. No more pressure on their defenders with Lukaku on

raumdeuter:
Rice error led to the 2nd goal

And Zouma is still a brainless defender. The challenge on Harvetz should be a foul

I agree

With Lukaku on. I'll also want Pulisic on the pitch with him

While that was partly Jorginho's fault. Mendy has become terrible at playing from the back lately. That could have been easily avoided.

The pitch looks so small and compact. No space to quickly move the ball