I would be interested to see what the other top 15 or so players in the world look like at LW or RW when the other winger is willian and the striker is morata. Not saying hazard has been playing well but this isnt basketball where one player can truly dominate.
Hazard false 9 but only giroud on the bench. 3 mids. Interesting. Would prefer Hudson-Odoi on the bench but I’ll take it
Hazard at forward works if we have 2 good wingers behind him. Pedro is ok but Willian is complete trash.
It’s amazing how much he takes away from the attack. Terrible decisions and touches. No surprise the uptick has come after he’s gone off.
Just imagine how good we would be with actual top flight wingers. I will give Pedro a lot of credit today. He was really good in possession in tight circumstances and had a great work rate.
https://theathletic.com/709371/2018...prepare-to-accept-a-loss-on-their-investment/ Anybody got a sub?
It's been sounding like Bats may be returning from Valencia early. If Morata somehow exits, hopefully Sarri can get the best out of him.
Spoiler The words were curt, even though they were well practiced. Asked post-match why Morata had been totally omitted from the squad for Chelsea’s biggest game of the season so far, Maurizio Sarri pulled no punches. “It’s tactical,” he said. “Because, with the side to start with Eden (Hazard) in another position, I think it’s useless to have two strikers on the bench.” For the avoidance of doubt, this was Sarri saying that Chelsea’s record outfield signing, in his current form, was not good enough to even make the 18 for a key Premier League game. And worse was to come, as the Chelsea boss talked us through his thinking. He had chosen 32-year-old Olivier Giroud to occupy that lone place on the bench; but, more damaging still for Morata’s reputation, he hinted that even Ruben Loftus-Cheek, largely untested at this level and out of position, was still a better bet for him up front than the £58 million man. Fourth in the pecking order. So, after that snub, where next for Morata? The trajectory his Chelsea career has taken, since a pretty decent opening scoring run under previous boss Antonio Conte, has been mostly dire. Many thought he had dodged the “curse” of Chelsea’s No. 9. (Itself a myth—the Blues’ strike rate with goalscorers hasn’t been dramatically different to that of other team’s, and real successes—like Didier Drogba and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink—remain among the best in Premier League history, even if the former took a season to acclimatize to the Premier League). But the Fernando Torres-esque traits did seem to creep in not that long after. Replacing Diego Costa was always going to be a tough act. However, it became necessary because, despite his excellent goalscoring and workmanlike hold-up play, Conte despised Costa’s lack of work ethic, and unprofessional dietary regime off pitch. Morata was seen as the anti-Costa: hard working, intelligent, cultured. He was the man Conte wanted—ahead of Romelu Lukaku, who was strongly linked with Chelsea, but ended up at Manchester United. (Plenty of proof right there that other sides can struggle with strikers). Once the goals dried up, Morata became the victim of naivety in interviews. He fell into a trap to which many other foreign players have succumbed: making outlandish comments in his own language, over international breaks, that came home to bite him. Pledging his long-term love for Real Madrid over employers Chelsea wasn’t a deal breaker for most Blues fans, who had heard plenty of the same before. But it didn’t encourage them to come to his aid when the goal drought continued. The managerial change was another matter which might not have been calamitous on its own. Plenty of other Chelsea players have found themselves signed by one boss, only to become surplus to the requirements of the new one. Way back on Feb. 2, 2009, transfer deadline day, a Portuguese winger just voted the worst player in Italy was signed on-loan by then manager Luiz Felipe Scolari. Seven days later the manager was sacked, and the Ricardo Quaresma was cast into the reserves. The highlight of his Chelsea career: a lone assist in the FA Cup at Coventry. But, a year on, Quaresma went on to pick up a Champions League winner’s medal with Inter. Morata’s status, of course, is as a permanent signing. So if he is to leave Stamford Bridge, as now seems inevitable in one of the next two transfer windows, it will require someone to stump-up the not insignificant asking price. Sources suggest Chelsea are already reconciled with the idea of losing significant cash on the 26-year-old Spaniard. And they will want a break somewhat cleaner than they did with Torres. El Niño, as he used to be known while a free-scoring Liverpool striker, was a Chelsea disaster from start to finish—give or take a certain goal in Barcelona. He was signed, according to legend, without full oversight of a medical report. Chelsea got themselves a player with a checkered injury history, and the Reds got £50 million (which might have gone down as the greatest payday in history, had they not immediately spent £35 million of it on Andy Carroll). Torres’ mental state seemed to be incredibly fragile while at Chelsea, and he certainly showed signs of paranoia that various people were out to get him. The snub he delivered to his own club on the night of its greatest ever triumph in 2012 did not endear him to fans: ranting to a Spanish journalist about his unhappiness in the Munich mixed zone, while his teammates danced around him, carrying the European Cup. His relations with the domestic press became very poor too: during the trip to the Club World Cup in Japan that year, he spoke at length to gathered Japanese and Spanish reporters before pointedly grimacing at British colleagues, then blanking them completely. He hit a downward playing spiral: it was likened at the time to the “yips”—the extreme nervousness that causes a golfer to miss easy putts. Many have noted hallmarks of this in Morata at Chelsea now. Sarri has been clear the problem is “mental” and Morata recently spoke about how he’s been to a psychologistto “regain happiness in football.” Chelsea needed to trigger a bizarre system of loans, involving both AC Milan and Atletico Madrid, to bring about an end to the Torres saga in a manner that preserved any crumb of dignity for either partner. And it is already looking like the same sort of machinations may be needed to move on Morata. In the wings, there are a number of on-loan strikers who might fill his boots. Though it says much about the depths to which trust in Morata has sunk, that both Michy Batshuayi and Tammy Abraham may well be seen as better prospects than him—even though neither looks likely to be anywhere near first choice at Stamford Bridge, both some way off bridging the gap required to display top-end Premier League consistency. Chelsea will need to go into the market to find a headline striker. And, whoever he might be, he is likely to cost several times what Morata is presently worth. If there are lessons here, Chelsea will be seeking to learn them. Though learning lessons, and being able to do anything about what you have learned, are not always the same thing. Besides the obvious regrettable human cost—this can’t be doing the player’s sense of worth much good—the problem is that these things do sometimes happen. Chelsea have seen it before: with Torres, with Juan Cuadrado, and just last season with Tiemoue Bakayoko—players who hit a vicious twin-cycle of declining performances and confidence. All will hope Morata will be able to achieve his potential elsewhere in the future. But he isn’t the first Chelsea player to go through this indignity, and one can be certain that he won’t be the last.
Will be interesting to see how we approach the January window. I’m typically against buying anyone except maybe a young player or a necessary depth guy in January but this year feels different. This transfer ban may or may not be a real concern. If the club thinks it is you have to think we spend money in January. Even if it isn’t, we have 6 months to convince hazard to resign with us. I don’t think we have the money to keep hazard next summer without him signing an extension. If you are going to sign another striker/RW, I would expect us to try next month and allow hazard to get to play with that guy.
Fekir at RW has been my pipe dream for a while. Seeing rumors starting up again about our interest. One can only hope.
Wasn't really thinking of him as an out and out winger, more like an inside forward. Would've made more sense with Conte's system, with the overlapping fullbacks.
Loftus-Cheek has had more success at RW than Willian this year so maybe fekir can work. Talk of pulisic but it really doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t solve for what we need and we have a younger player in Hudson-Odoi who I think will be better than pulusic and is a right footed winger. Normally i would say we will see next summer but with a potential transfer ban and hazard’s decision looming next summer it wouldn’t shock me if we spent big in January. Also wouldn’t shock me If we sit on our hands and give Pedro/Willian more money and years to continue to be mediocre and fail to address our championship level striker depth.
I half ass read other clubs threads and the has been the most common theme in any of them and I hadn’t seen it but the shit he just did was impressively bad
I’m sure other people suck also. He gets so many chances though. We dominate possession and to me hazard is the best player in the league. He gets so much attention on him. Willian sucks and our defense, as we just showed giving up that goal isn’t nearly good enough to score 1-2 a game
When Willian kicks it right at the keeper I’m impressed that he got it on target. That’s where I’m at with him at this point.
Hazard and Alonso hit post on the easiest chances they’ll have this year and Rudiger misses a header less than 5 yards from goal. It’s just beyond pathetic.
That day is already here. CHO is better than Willian. Pedro didn’t have a good game but is still a good 3rd winger. Also RLC at RW is better as well. Give me hazard up top, RLC at RW and CHO at LW or RLC at LW and Pedro at right wing. Willian is awful and every other combination should be tried before he plays again. Somehow though he plays more than hazard. Baffling.