Chelsea 2018/19 - 3rd and European Champions. Sarri, not sorry

[Wednesday at Stoke]

My guess is that he would be looking at an attacking box to box midfielder to play the role that Hamsik played at Napoli. A Lampard/Gerrard/Pogba/Milinkovic-Savic kind of player.

They have the right idea with bidding for Ramsey, otherwise they have to hope Barkley comes through.

 

[Keeps It tidy]

Christensen and Rudiger should be their first choice CB pair.

 

[AltiUn]

I think they need to buy a defender and center forward. I'm not sure why they aren't in for lewandowski.

There's no guarantee he'd want to leave or can be attained, he's in the peak of his career right now, why would he drop that for a season in the Europa League?

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

There's no guarantee he'd want to leave or can be attained, he's in the peak of his career right now, why would he drop that for a season in the Europa League?

I thought Bayern wanted to sell him along with Thiago and Boateng.

 

[tenpoless]

If Cortouis and Hazard trully leaves, They're fecked.

 

[AltiUn]

I thought Bayern wanted to sell him along with Thiago and Boateng.

Their chief executive said he wasn't for sale at any price.
http://www.skysports.com/football/n...-any-price-says-bayern-munich-chief-executive

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Their chief executive said he wasn't for sale at any price.
http://www.skysports.com/football/n...-any-price-says-bayern-munich-chief-executive

Oh well.

 

[Pete Dahh Sneak]

Azpilicueta-Ampadu-Luiz-Emerson will be our best back 4. But the common thing in the preseason so far has been the space between the midfield and defensive line. It just hasnt been highlighted because we’ve played teams we’re better than.

 

[FootballHQ]

Bakayoko wasn't involved today was he so looks like that's a certain departure.

 

[Kapardin]

If Cortouis and Hazard trully leaves, They're fecked.

Without those two, Burnley would finish above them. As it is, think Arsenal will be stronger than them this season.

 

[Mb194dc]

Bakayoko wasn't involved today was he so looks like that's a certain departure.

I hope not unless we've got a high energy midfield replacement lined up, maybe could be Vecino?

We can't play Fabregras (or Drinkwater) in a midfield 3 against a team like City, or probably any half decent team. Fabregas is a fantastic passer but he doesn't have the legs and energy and we'll always be exposed. We needed someone with the energy to press, and box to box, like Kante or Bakayoko. Trying to fit his attacking skills in to the team without us getting exposed defensively is a constant issue. Bakayoko can run and tackle but he's not very technical, I can see why Sarri doesn't want him in his system. He can develop in to a very good midfielder with game time, we should loan him somewhere in Europe he'll play every match and can improve.

Don't think we learned much from this game. City are better than us, are playing in a settled system from last year and had a stronger team and squad available. Barkley still has to do a lot to convince as well. If the midfield is more balanced it will be easier for him perhaps.


We've got a good squad but still a lot of questions to be answered.

 

[duffer]

Bakayoko wasn't involved today was he so looks like that's a certain departure.

Good.

With Fabregas, Kante, Jorginho, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek and Drinkwater, we've 6 players for 3 positions in midfield.

We looked pretty poor today but it's pre-season under a new manager with a new system missing lots of players against the best side in the country.

We've another friendly midweek, will be interesting to see who starts that.

 

[Mb194dc]

Good.

With Fabregas, Kante, Jorginho, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek and Drinkwater, we've 6 players for 3 positions in midfield.

We looked pretty poor today but it's pre-season under a new manager with a new system missing lots of players against the best side in the country.

We've another friendly midweek, will be interesting to see who starts that.

Agree we've got a lot of midfielders. RLC and Barkley can probably grow in to the system. Will take time though.

I remain to be convinced that Drinkwater and Fabregas can effectively play in Sarri's system though. Drinkwater has played his best football in reactive counter attacking teams. Not the kind of high intensity pressing, quick passing system that Sarri wants to play.

Cesc has played in Barcelona teams that employ a similar system. He always played as an AM though or even a false 9 though. He's 31 now though and his legs have gone more. If we play him, we need the other two midfielders to cover a huge amount of ground. Can't see it working against any decent team. It could be interesting to see us try him again as a false 9 against a team like City though, could work with our quality wingers.

I wouldn't be surprised to see us sign another midfielder who is used to playing in a 3, we are apparently in talks over Vecino or one of the Alcântara brothers could be interesting. We need to sell / loan non homegrown players to fit them in the squad though. Bakayoko in particular needs to play to develop. No point is us keeping him and letting him rot.

 

[Lash]

I honestly think you should bin off Morata and just stick with Abraham and Batshuayi up top. Cut and run from that donkey.

 

[KM]

I haven't read the posts on here but surely Alonso has to be replaced as a left back? One thing playing as a wing back and another as full back. He looked horrible.

 

[Don _ Conte]

Agree we've got a lot of midfielders. RLC and Barkley can probably grow in to the system. Will take time though.

I remain to be convinced that Drinkwater and Fabregas can effectively play in Sarri's system though. Drinkwater has played his best football in reactive counter attacking teams. Not the kind of high intensity pressing, quick passing system that Sarri wants to play.

Cesc has played in Barcelona teams that employ a similar system. He always played as an AM though or even a false 9 though. He's 31 now though and his legs have gone more. If we play him, we need the other two midfielders to cover a huge amount of ground. Can't see it working against any decent team. It could be interesting to see us try him again as a false 9 against a team like City though, could work with our quality wingers.

I wouldn't be surprised to see us sign another midfielder who is used to playing in a 3, we are apparently in talks over Vecino or one of the Alcântara brothers could be interesting. We need to sell / loan non homegrown players to fit them in the squad though. Bakayoko in particular needs to play to develop. No point is us keeping him and letting him rot.

I'm not convinced by drinkwater and he's probably the worst of the options but he can at least pass and press.

Fabregas can only really play against teams where we are guaranteed to dominate the possession, or last 30 minutes in games where his pace isn't as much of a problem in the AM role. He looks worse at the moment because he's playing further back due to Kante not playing there. Jorghino and kante are set for the deeper two positions so its up to Barkley & RLC to battle it out for AM.

Sounds like Sarri wants one more CM which I wouldn't be opposed to, cant comment on Vecino as don't know much about him.

We need to be patient and have faith in Sarri, I believe we will come good but I just hope its in time for us to get top 4 this season.

 

[Don _ Conte]

I honestly think you should bin off Morata and just stick with Abraham and Batshuayi up top. Cut and run from that donkey.

I think we should keep Morata to compete, but ultimately we should be given Batshuayi the leading role.

I haven't read the posts on here but surely Alonso has to be replaced as a left back? One thing playing as a wing back and another as full back. He looked horrible.

Alonso should be our back up LB, his lack of pace will cause the system to be lopsided.

 

[Lash]

I think we should keep Morata to compete, but ultimately we should be given Batshuayi the leading role.


Alonso should be our back up LB, his lack of pace will cause the system to be lopsided.

Yeah, I mean, i'm being a bit dramatic. He's obviously not that shit, but he really hasn't done well for you. Abraham looks equally effective and probably on half the wages.

RE: what you say about Alonso, I think you'll see Emerson a lot more this season. Alonso basically played as a winger in Conte's system.

 

[blue blue]

I honestly think you should bin off Morata and just stick with Abraham and Batshuayi up top. Cut and run from that donkey.

I think we're stuck with Morata and we'll just have to hope he fulfills his potential. At the moment he looks very poor and if the club sold him they would probably lose £30m. The board will find this very hard to accept so I suspect he will stay. I'm not convinced by Abraham and hope they put him out on loan. Maybe Palace will take him in a Zaha deal.
It will be almost impossible to find a quality centre forward at this late stage and we have to pick 2 forwards from the 4 we have. It's Hobson's choice.

For me we should run with Batshuayi and Morata and hope for the best.

 

[blue blue]

I'm not convinced by drinkwater and he's probably the worst of the options but he can at least pass and press.

Fabregas can only really play against teams where we are guaranteed to dominate the possession, or last 30 minutes in games where his pace isn't as much of a problem in the AM role. He looks worse at the moment because he's playing further back due to Kante not playing there. Jorghino and kante are set for the deeper two positions so its up to Barkley & RLC to battle it out for AM.

Sounds like Sarri wants one more CM which I wouldn't be opposed to, cant comment on Vecino as don't know much about him.

We need to be patient and have faith in Sarri, I believe we will come good but I just hope its in time for us to get top 4 this season.

I'm hoping we can't read too much into Sunday's performance but we looked to have some serious problems implementing the new system. City just passed through the high press as if it wasn't there. Their first pass out of defence was frequently putting 3 or 4 of our players behind the ball chasing back and we were immediately on the back foot. Hopefully Kante can change this.

Hudson Odoi for all his promise looked a bit out of his depth and Walker did a job on him. Walker is a great player but Hudson Odoi seemed to be coming inside every time to avoid a run down the line. Maybe he needs to come from deeper to arrive at pace. Hazard has to play but keep Odoi in the squad. He's the best youngster I have seen at Chelsea for a long time. I'm with you on Fabregas and the midfield.

I have concerns about top 4. Our strike force looks too weak. I can't see any CF who is going to get 20 goals and Hazard, Willian and Pedro probably can't chip in with any more than 30 between them. Alonso looks weak at RB and Emerson hasn't impressed either. Rudi and Dave are good enough but Luiz and Christensen look dodgy in a 2.

Sarri has got his work cut out. We need to improve our squad by one or two but it's very late. Our best hope is that Sunday was a wake up and the players fitness improves significantly and they adapt to the new system.

Not confident.

 

[Chip Butty]

I haven't read the posts on here but surely Alonso has to be replaced as a left back? One thing playing as a wing back and another as full back. He looked horrible.

And this after him being voted in to the premier leafue team of last season, as the best LB.

 

[Don _ Conte]

I'm hoping we can't read too much into Sunday's performance but we looked to have some serious problems implementing the new system. City just passed through the high press as if it wasn't there. Their first pass out of defence was frequently putting 3 or 4 of our players behind the ball chasing back and we were immediately on the back foot. Hopefully Kante can change this.

Hudson Odoi for all his promise looked a bit out of his depth and Walker did a job on him. Walker is a great player but Hudson Odoi seemed to be coming inside every time to avoid a run down the line. Maybe he needs to come from deeper to arrive at pace. Hazard has to play but keep Odoi in the squad. He's the best youngster I have seen at Chelsea for a long time. I'm with you on Fabregas and the midfield.

I have concerns about top 4. Our strike force looks too weak. I can't see any CF who is going to get 20 goals and Hazard, Willian and Pedro probably can't chip in with any more than 30 between them. Alonso looks weak at RB and Emerson hasn't impressed either. Rudi and Dave are good enough but Luiz and Christensen look dodgy in a 2.

Sarri has got his work cut out. We need to improve our squad by one or two but it's very late. Our best hope is that Sunday was a wake up and the players fitness improves significantly and they adapt to the new system.

Not confident.

I think if you look at Sarri at Napoli they started slow also and I think it will take a bit of time to get used to this style.

A trend of our games in pre season has been that our shape is 1000x times better in the first half than second which does hint towards teething problems.

Our pressing as a team will take time to learn.

Regarding Hudson Odoi I still felt he was probably our best attacker which says a lot, he was cutting inside due to a number of things, one being not many players can burn Walker on the outside, 2 being there was pretty much no over lap option for him (Alonso) and also a lack of options in advanced positions in the centre.

I think Bathsuayi is honestly capable of getting close to that if given a run in the prem, looking at the style of how we played in pre season. In a lot of the chances that Morata had throughout the games not many were involving his hold up play or amazing movement. Which makes you think if ultimately the striker is there to get on the end of our play, Bats is our best option and finisher.

Emerson - Rudi - Christensen - Azpi

The above is a more than good enough back 4, Emerson may need a bit of time to get up too speed.

 

[Mb194dc]

I haven't read the posts on here but surely Alonso has to be replaced as a left back? One thing playing as a wing back and another as full back. He looked horrible.

Don't think we can really judge our defense until the midfield issues are sorted out. We were getting overrun against City, even Maldini would look awful when constantly exposed, City's attackers had so much space in between our midfield and defense.

For the first goal, a couple of passes and Foden was totally free, our midfield was about 10 meters behind him, Aguero had acres of space on the edge of the penalty area. Can't imagine the players will be enjoying the analysis of the game!

 

[Dancfc]

I think if you look at Sarri at Napoli they started slow also and I think it will take a bit of time to get used to this style.

A trend of our games in pre season has been that our shape is 1000x times better in the first half than second which does hint towards teething problems.
.

Tbf that's inevitable given the second half Sarri slowly hauled off the first teamers and ended the games with the B/C team out.

The team that ended the match vs Arsenal in Dublin was ridiculous, that was genuinely a relegation battle level side.

 

[Mb194dc]

Looks like Courtois asked Sarri to leave. Not surprising given his Family situation... I think we've got to sell him really, not point in keeping him if he's unhappy and won't be able to concentrate on football.

Hopefully the club have someone lined up to replace him by the Thursday deadline? Interesting to see what we're going to do.

 

[Bastian]

Would you Chelsea people really be content with Butland? If you're going down a level, at least I'd want Schmeichel but Butland...

 

[TheMagicFoolBus]

Would you Chelsea people really be content with Butland? If you're going down a level, at least I'd want Schmeichel but Butland...

Would be very discouraging, agreed. I'm personally still holding out hope that we can swing a deal for Kepa Arrizabalaga - he's excellent. Donnarumma would also be preferable to Butland and Schmeichel IMO, but Arrizabalaga would be my first choice.

 

[NikkiCFC]

Some promising rumours today. I think we'll sign 3 new players in the next 66 hours. GK, ACM and RW.

Kepa or Oblak?
SMS or Fekir or Ramsey?
Pulisic or Bailey or Zaha?

Also Kovacic rumours. I think we'll end up with Kepa, Fekir and Zaha.
Courtois and Willian out = 100m. Moses don't have place in this team anymore.
Also Cahill, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, RLC, Giroud all could leave.

 

[Tommy]

Some promising rumours today. I think we'll sign 3 new players in the next 66 hours. GK, ACM and RW.

Kepa or Oblak?
SMS or Fekir or Ramsey?
Pulisic or Bailey or Zaha?

Also Kovacic rumours. I think we'll end up with Kepa, Fekir and Zaha.
Courtois and Willian out = 100m. Moses don't have place in this team anymore.
Also Cahill, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, RLC, Giroud all could leave.

I'd be surprised to see Oblak move honestly, but the other names you mentioned would go some way to filling the holes left by your potential departures.

Arsenal should take Giroud back & ship off Welbeck.

 

[AltiUn]

Some promising rumours today. I think we'll sign 3 new players in the next 66 hours. GK, ACM and RW.

Kepa or Oblak?
SMS or Fekir or Ramsey?
Pulisic or Bailey or Zaha?

Also Kovacic rumours. I think we'll end up with Kepa, Fekir and Zaha.
Courtois and Willian out = 100m. Moses don't have place in this team anymore.
Also Cahill, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, RLC, Giroud all could leave.

Think I saw a Tweet saying Kepa's contract has been renewed with a massive release clause. Fekir and Zaha would be very good additions, aside from if Courtois leaves, what do you think the main area for Chelsea is to strengthen? I'm not entirely impressed with your full backs currently.

 

[jmaggio]

My friend who is a season ticket holder claims they are building a special smoking area at Stamford Bridge just for him...

 

[Nickholas]

My friend who is a season ticket holder claims they are building a special smoking area at Stamford Bridge just for him...

Is he going to start smoking again ? The stress of being a Chelsea manager might be too much !

 

[TheMagicFoolBus]

Think I saw a Tweet saying Kepa's contract has been renewed with a massive release clause. Fekir and Zaha would be very good additions, aside from if Courtois leaves, what do you think the main area for Chelsea is to strengthen? I'm not entirely impressed with your full backs currently.

The contract that Kepa signed last winter has a release clause of €80m, which is indeed quite steep but not totally unreasonable for a very good 23 year old. I'd personally prefer him to Oblak, given the relative price points and the fact that Kepa is better with the ball at his feet than Oblak (granted, this is probably the only thing he's better at but still might make him a better fit for Sarri's system).

Fullback is definitely an issue, especially left back. With Azpilicueta & Zappacosta (plus maybe Moses in a pinch) I think right back is actually ok. I personally don't think Alonso can come close to playing left back - as evidenced by his leaving his zone totally exposed for City's second goal. I actually think he should be converted to the attacking midfield role - he's very good going forward and at pressing, just lacks the pace to recover and defend 1v1. Emerson is an unknown quantity but I actually think he'd be a much better fit for the system on paper - hard to say if this will prove true on the pitch though.

 

[Mb194dc]

Presumably we're going to get about £30-40m for Courtois out of RM, so we add £40m and go for Kepa and get a keeper who is 3 years younger. Bilbao is a slightly odd club though, they can't replace easily, they need to be comfortable one of their other GK can step up and play at the level required. I can't imagine he'll leave them in the lurch. It could be a good deal and he's friends with Morata as well I think, so that's a bonus.

Wondering if we'll do any other business apart from a GK? There has been some chatter about Martial, with Willian going the other way. If we're going to play Martial central and he's motivated to come that could be quite a good deal. Zaha looks like another possibility, he's another who we know won't be happy as a squad player on the bench though, needs to play nearly every week. Crazy we've only got two days to sort all our incoming deals.

We might rush a few sales though before the 9th, at least we can sell in to Europe still after that, Once Sarri has a better idea of who he actually wants to keep.

 

[Don _ Conte]

Cant share people's optimism for signings atm.

We have been so poor in the last few windows that I cant see anything other than Tibo out and Butland in.

Ideally we need another CM or attacker, both would be preferable.

People rate this Kepa so would mind him or Oblak (never happening) or Butland I wouldn't be too annoyed at due to his age.

 

[Kapardin]

Is he going to start smoking again ? The stress of being a Chelsea manager might be too much !

He never quit, did he? 80 cigarettes a day is just terrible though.

 

[Dancfc]

Cant share people's optimism for signings atm.

We have been so poor in the last few windows that I cant see anything other than Tibo out and Butland in.

Ideally we need another CM or attacker, both would be preferable.

People rate this Kepa so would mind him or Oblak (never happening) or Butland I wouldn't be too annoyed at due to his age.

The Butland rumours are slowing down while the Kepa rumours are doing the opposite, that's usually a good sign.

 

[Don _ Conte]

The Butland rumours are slowing down while the Kepa rumours are doing the opposite, that's usually a good sign.

I know, its not that I'm completely worried about. If we get Butland its not the end of the world he's young and English which I like and I think he will be heavily motivated being at a big club. Obviously I would prefer Kepa like most.

Just more negative due to the face I don't think we will get another attacker or CM.

We need to be swapping Tibo for Kovacic really.

 

[filibuster]

I have never been cheering on Barca, but I will now. Fark Madrid!

I say we make an united front with MU against Real. They were doing the same tactics with De Gea.

Start unsettling their players with bigger contracts. Maybe they pay a lot to their Ronaldos and Bales, but I think the rest of the squad is under payed compared to their peers from PL. They will do the same with Hazard or Pogba if left alone.

 

[Dancfc]

I know, its not that I'm completely worried about. If we get Butland its not the end of the world he's young and English which I like and I think he will be heavily motivated being at a big club. Obviously I would prefer Kepa like most.

Just more negative due to the face I don't think we will get another attacker or CM.

We need to be swapping Tibo for Kovacic really.

I rate the role of keeper higher than most and think Jack is bang average, Kepa looks attainable as is a the best replacement for Tibo we can get, worth noting a lot of Spanish natives actually want him in the national team over DDG.

Regarding CM, i'm not usually one to kneejerk re youngsters but i can't believe we loaned out Mount, he would have likely won that LCM place already.