Chelsea (A) - Sun 13th Aug 2023 (4:30pm)

[Jennings]

Watching their goal is hard. We defended shabbily. 

[3 Stacks]

Konate is comparable to every black french defender people didn't rate, obviously. Exactly similar.

[Grinch]

2 minutes ago, Leyton388 said:

Dont rate Konate at all. Think he has a Sakho feel about him. 

He’s a dopey cunt without a clue about how to defend.  No surprise our defence is shit with him in it.

[Kevin D]

That finish was a lot more scuffed than I thought, not as cross with Ali.

[Kevin D]

6 minutes ago, Leyton388 said:

Dont rate Konate at all. Think he has a Sakho feel about him. 

He was our man of the match.

[Mark M]

We are fucked if Konate gets an injury

[Rushies tash]

Thought Konate and Van Dijk played well today. Midfield should have helped out the full backs who were being doubled up on by Chilwell and James. Still the old problems from last year though - we just seem to stop moving off the ball and stand there watching. Overall, I enjoyed the game and am not as downbeat as some after watching that. This is a point away against a Pochettino team, and one looking to impress their manager at that.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Anyway, get some bodies in. On to Bournemouth. Beat them and 4 points from 2 games isn’t awful. 
 

I said in the general football thread that it’s bed wetting to have City winning the league after 45 minutes of the season. The same applies to us. Our first 90 minutes, finding our feet, fitness and rhythm, won’t wholly define our season. 

[waddy78]

5 minutes ago, Grinch said:

Two pure dogshite sides.  A six doesn’t fix this absolute mess.

Exactly, the way we play is to wide open we attack with basically 9 players if we get a 6 we will still attack with 8 players massive gaps allover the place the 6 would need to have the engine of jet plane to cover it all and protect the 2 cb's

[bossy]

I thought we were ok for large parts and shite for others. That’s football until you’re top of the heap. We are in a rebuild so hopefully we’ll get the right players in. 

[Moo]

A really good DM will go a really long way to improving this team.  We simply have to find one. 

[etho]

There's some characters in here haha. Konate is absolutely brilliant and we likely don't get a point without him today. Not quite sure what more people want in a defender. Vvd was good as well. 

[Jordy Brouwer]

17 minutes ago, Red74 said:

I’m sorry but I’m just not seeing this konate that gets lauded in here. He goes charging out of position for balls he’s got no chance of getting leaving massive holes behind him. He just can’t read the game at all.  He’s the one we need to be looking at improving on

 

He made a LOT of important interceptions today. He also made some mistakes but the defence was under immense pressure because we don't have a functioning midield. The back line is protected by Wee Jock Mac Allister - fine footballer but not exactly prime Fabinho in that position. 

 

As I said I think he did quite well today. 

[Turkish Delight]

Thought we were second best after the opening period but would have won with competent refereeing.

 

Under the rules of the game we had a definite pen not given.

 

Had the lines been drawn right for Salah's offside I suspect he'd have still just been off but they might have overlapped slightly which would have put him on. The lines drawn tried to go from his hand to make sure of no overlap but went even further up the pitch than that.

 

It was no surprise to see Darren England was VAR.

[redinblack]

Some hysterical fannies on here today. It's the first fucking game of the season. Chill out, have a pint, have a vanilla slice. Calm down. Its Chelsea and they are cunts, but we will be back for them.

[TheSire]

3 minutes ago, etho said:

There's some characters in here haha. Konate is absolutely brilliant and we likely don't get a point without him today. Not quite sure what more people want in a defender. Vvd was good as well. 

They're just hysterical crying bastards. You'd think it was the end of the world when someone mishits a pass here.

[Jordy Brouwer]

5 minutes ago, waddy78 said:

Exactly, the way we play is to wide open we attack with basically 9 players if we get a 6 we will still attack with 8 players massive gaps allover the place the 6 would need to have the engine of jet plane to cover it all and protect the 2 cb's

 

Thats been my main worry for about 3 years - actually basically since VVD was assaulted by Pickford. 

 

Kloppball is immense when it works but it is super finicky - either everything about it works or nothing works. Since VVD's injury and things that followed on plus the aging of the squad ect we've had too much of nothing about it working. We saw plenty of it today. 

 

 

[diamondjoe]

Fuck it. Take the point and move on. 

[ZonkoVille77]

We look about 20 levels below our last CL winning team. There's a lot wrong that a DM won't fix. Onwards and sideways. 

[3 Stacks]

On reflection a bit after this one, there's a couple things that we did that were more logical than I gave credit for in the heat of watching and they allowed us to exist.

 

We gave up loads of possession which is rare for us and I think it's what we tried to do. We had essentially only two defensive profiles on the pitch in van Dijk and Konaté and had we tried to take the game to them, we'd have been demolished on the counter.

 

So we played more in a block and we weren't good at it, they passed through it the whole game, but at least they weren't behind us every single time and we didn't give up massive chances.

 

Had we come into this game with a more normal midfield setup, we would not have played this way and watched them laser balls through the lines every time. I think this may have been more of a needs must.

 

 

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

8 minutes ago, Mark M said:

Looked better when Salah went off - he was shite second half along with Trent.

We’ve signed a super player in MacAllister just need to have him playing higher up. 
Having no control at all in midfield is giving me kittens that corner at the end when Chelsea nearly won it - WFT!

Agree, and I said it was a good decision when it

was made.His goals and assists are extremely valuable, but general play has been poor for a long spell. And pace seems to be going downhill. 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Sky analysing Chelsea’s new striker, signed from Villarreal. 
 

He should have done much better with that chance he blazed over the bar. 

 

“a sorry miss, Jackson, oooooh”

[Jordy Brouwer]

16 minutes ago, Rushies tash said:

Thought Konate and Van Dijk played well today. Midfield should have helped out the full backs who were being doubled up on by Chilwell and James. Still the old problems from last year though - we just seem to stop moving off the ball and stand there watching. Overall, I enjoyed the game and am not as downbeat as some after watching that. This is a point away against a Pochettino team, and one looking to impress their manager at that.

 

Its settling with me and I'm starting to perk up about it. LOTS of work to do and players to bring in but HOPEFULLY onwards and upwards. 

[Anubis]

Thought Konate only made one mistake in the first half when he stepped out unnecessarily letting them on. Apart from that he was very good. 

[Rushies tash]

Watching Sky's coverage and Sturridge is twice the presenter Richards will ever be. He's articulate and makes some good points. Richards should stick to League of Their Own.