Subs are always on the manager, Mount was clearly gassed and I thought he should have come off. Thought we had a dominant first half, and had multiple opportunities to put the game away 2-0 in a less than stellar 2nd half. I think the sacking talk is a bit ridiculous given a tight loss in what is basically the EPL equivalent of the Johnstone Paint Trophy.
idgaf about the tinpot cup but the fact is that if my dumb ass can see the tactical issues and the defensive lapses coming then there's something afoot
To be clear I’m not advocating for sacking Frank, I’m just not going to buy into the “Chelsea has changed narrrative” with respect to being cutthroat. If we don’t get 3 on Saturday it’s going to be a long international break.
Emerson failing and Lamela succeeding in a single frame of TV screen is douchechills on unimaginable levels
Frank's tactics are not great but he's a young manager. I think we all knew there'd be bumps in the road.
Paywall obviously but thought this was a good summation of the midfield issues. Kind of surprised Christensen hasn’t been shoehorned into the DM spot as he does play there for Denmark from time to time.
we have used 5 different midfield combinations and 5 different centerback combinations in our 5 games this season. We’ve also used 4 different players at LB. I know there wasn’t much of a preseason and we have had some injuries but it just feels like a disorganized mess. My main concern with Havertz and Werner is that they are Very unique players. I think we had 3 unique players last season in kante, Jorginho and kovacic and I don’t think lampard showed he could get the best out of them. We will see what he does once pulisic and ziyech return but I’d have to imagine we see them on the wings, Werner at striker and havertz playing as the slightly more advanced central midfielder in a lot of games with mount or kante behind him and then hopefully a new player as the CDM? I don’t think we should discount using Reece James there if we don’t sign Declan rice. He was team of the season at Wigan as a RB but he played the final 10 games in midfield and he was even better. I just don’t know if you will see the discipline to not go forward from him. Azpi is another option. I’ve always felt he could play in that type of role. Zouma and Christensen have done it at times in their careers. It’s clear that it can’t be kova or Jorginho. Try and get declan rice but we need to find a solution if we don’t get him. Panic buying someone who isn’t ready day 1 won’t get us what we need.
Not a novel thought here, but if I was playing in FM I think I’d line us up like this: Puli Werner Ziyech Mount Havertz Kante Chilwell Silva Zouma James Mendy No idea if the midfield would hold up; Mount and Havertz would kind of trade off going forward and the other would drop deeper. Given Frank’s propensity to tinker with the lineup, I’m sure we will see it at some point. The other lineup that could be something would be more of a 4-2-3-1 with Kova in for Mount and Havertz playing more centrally behind Werner/Abraham.
Group E for us. Drawn against Sevilla and Krasnodar (Russia) so far. Apparently this is Krasnodar's first UCL appearance.
I don’t pay much attention outside of Prem and a little Bundesliga, but Sevilla seems like a good but not great draw. Tell me why I’m wrong
Great draw for us and city so far. Solid, fun draw for Liverpool. Absolutely brutal draw for Manchester United.
Of all the P1 options, Sevilla was one of the better. They play hard, physical football but are beatable. Just lost Reguilón to Spurs too.
mendy play his old club. Bad pot 4 but good pot 1 and incredible pot 3. I’ll take that group all day. Would be embarrassing not to qualify
Would like to get it up to £15m but he has a really high wage. Even if it’s just this lets get it done. We need to start getting some money.
I hope this is our only 4:30 PT match. It's always a debate whether to punt sleep and nap before college football starts or try to catch a few hours beforehand.
Nice break there. Would like to see a better shot from Werner. To be fair Jorginho seems to be in the right positions and covering better defensively. He still doesn’t have the pace required to do what he needs to do but at least we might be starting to see what it is Frank wants from that position. It’s not always clear. I can see why declan rice would fit into that position so well. He would be able to better fit into defense and make it a back 3 when both fullbacks push up.
Bayern going all in on CHO again. I wish he had more opportunities for us on the left. He’s just not that good on the right. Even bigger drop off for him on the right than pulisic or hazard have.
Tammy needs to get better in the air. For a player with his height and jumping ability, he needs to become an aerial threat.
Werner on the right and CHO on the left now. Major opportunity for CHO to make an impact on his favored side.
Chili! Needed a Palace mistake but I’ll take it. CHO and Werner switching sides every 20 minutes or so.
Nice to be up 1-0 but the things I’m most happy about are -defensive communication -playing long balls to the forwards from defense/Jorginho -tactical fouling when we lose the ball to stem counter attacks