Chelsea 2023/24 season thread.

Berbasbullet said:
Agree with this and before the goal you guys actually started to play with some swagger. Was impressed with how you handled one of the best teams in the league.
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Yeah this was the passage of play before we gifted them a goal. It was like this for a while in the second half. It felt to me that Arsenal had given up, their players looked beaten and the result felt pretty secure for us. And then disaster struck.



Happy with the performance. Proper gutted about the result.
 
WeePat said:
Yeah this was the passage of play before we gifted them a goal. It was like this for a while in the second half. It felt to me that Arsenal had given up, their players looked beaten and the result felt pretty secure for us. And then disaster struck.



Happy with the performance. Proper gutted about the result.
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That's the one, the interchange at around 1min 20 to escape the press I really liked.

You can take a lot of heart from that performance and maybe just remain realistic this season. CL is probably too much this season for you but just need to see an upward trajectory, EL would be a positive step.
 
WeePat said:
We had a good game plan and it worked wonders for the majority of the game. We were comfortably the better team. A crazy mistake let them back into the game and at that point I knew we wouldn’t hold on. Momentum is a funny thing in sports and they had the wind in their sails for the next 10 mins or so. We should have honestly have been 4-0 up by the time Arsenal made it 2-1. Incredibly frustrating results.
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Yeah I agree with all that but we still have played a lot better in other matches so far, notably Liverpool and Villa even though we lost. But the praise from Arsenal, their players and especially the fans isn't genuine and is more an attempt to prop themselves up than actually giving us credit. They have a history of doing it and its just annoying.
 
1905 said:
Yeah I agree with all that but we still have played a lot better in other matches so far, notably Liverpool and Villa even though we lost. But the praise from Arsenal, their players and especially the fans isn't genuine and is more an attempt to prop themselves up than actually giving us credit. They have a history of doing it and its just annoying.
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I mean, both can be true. You played much better than us for most of the game, you were tactically very good and you deserved to win the game.

However, we were also as sloppy as I’ve seen us all season, and gave the ball a lot even under little or no pressure. Also felt we weren’t as good off the ball either.

Both don’t have to be exclusive of each other. You’ve got some very good players so it makes sense that at some point you were going to be a good team again.
 
I can feel for Chelsea. Not enough transfer activity on the market for years, money on players and bodys in the team. :D
 
A lot of naysayers on here. I think they are playing with a bit more Gusto under Poch.
 
Imagine United spent £1bn in 12 months and were this bad.
The pressure on the two clubs couldn’t be more different.
 
One thing that strikes me every time I watch Chelsea this season...

Caicedo is shit. Gallagher and Palmer are by far their best players.
 
12 points out of 30 and they haven't played any big teams away yet. I don't expect them to take more than 5 points in their next 5 games
Could they end up in a relegation battle?
 
VinchNow said:
12 points out of 30 and they haven't played any big teams away yet.
Could they end up in a relegation battle?
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No way, they're just being let down by poor finishing + a lack of confidence, they're not a bad team at all. I'm sure they'll beat us then go on a run or something.
 
How did Caicedo play? Badly. I feel so bad.
 
36 points from the previous 38 league games played.

In a typical season that's 16th or 17th place.

Living on the edge.
 
All that money spent and they're this mediocre. I thought the new owner and his experts were going to disrupt "soccer" with their methods?
 
I can't believe how shite they still are despite their massive spending
 
njred said:
How did Caicedo play? Badly. I feel so bad.
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He wasn’t bad today at all. Don’t know what people were watching. He had a good game. He could have had a red card though with a late tackle, but he was pretty good otherwise. This a great smash and grab by Brentford.
 
Buckie said:
Historic (losing) run has commenced today. Good chance they lose their next five fixtures.
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We struggled mightily with teams who park the bus. None of the next 5 opponents will be doing that.
 
1 win from first six home games. Was the big problem as last season went on and it remains under Poch. You aren't finishing even top 8 if you can't win around 50% of home fixtures.

Chelsea have little off the bench to change things either if they fall behind as I assume Reece James will be starting next time at Spurs so it's been very lopsided squad building.
 
WeePat said:
We struggled mightily with teams who park the bus. None of the next 5 opponents will be doing that.
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They'll adapt. Newcastle will be more conservative when they play you especially with their injuries and probably Man. United aswell.
 
GazTheLegend said:
No way, they're just being let down by poor finishing + a lack of confidence, they're not a bad team at all. I'm sure they'll beat us then go on a run or something.
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If we take their last 38 league games and pretend it was one continuous season, they would be relegation candidates for real. It's absolutely within the realm of possibility.
 
Dansk said:
If we take their last 38 league games and pretend it was one continuous season, they would be relegation candidates for real. It's absolutely within the realm of possibility.
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If you roll a six sided dice 10 times in a row and get ten 1's, it doesn't make it more or less likely that you'll get another ten 1's when you roll the dice again. There are a lot more than 3 worse teams in the league than them. And my feeling is that eventually those shots will turn into goals and they will creep up the league. Too late to do anything this season but all the same, they won't go down.
 
FootballHQ said:
They'll adapt. Newcastle will be more conservative when they play you especially with their injuries and probably Man. United aswell.
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If they do that we will struggle against them too. But to be fair. It’s not like we aren’t creating chances. We created like 3 sitters today. Brentford scored with the first real chance of the game and at that point, we were fecked as they’re brilliant on the counter if you give them space.
 
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WeePat said:
If they do that we will struggle against them too. But to be fair. It’s not like we aren’t creating chances. We created like 3 sitters today. Brentford scored with the first real chance of the game and at that point, we were fecked as they’re brilliant on the counter if you give them space.
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Well with Newcastle they could just low block you and then ping it up to Gordon and Almiron once James and LB are caught upfield. Or play their usual game and wait for Wilson to make runs off the shoulder of your CBs.

Again with Man. United if Rashford wakes up from his current malaise he could hurt you a fair bit.

Problem Chelsea have is they've completely lost the profile of soaking up pressure and keeping it 0-0 home or away, scoring from a counter and then seeing that out like say we and Forest have already done at Stamford Bridge this season.

I genuinely can't remember the last time you won a prem game in that manner. If you want to be a top 4 team again soon you'll have to re-learn that skill.
 
WeePat said:
He wasn’t bad today at all. Don’t know what people were watching. He had a good game. He could have had a red card though with a late tackle, but he was pretty good otherwise. This a great smash and grab by Brentford.
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Brentford had an xG of 2.46 today, to Chelsea's 1.65. Smash and grab?
 
Their two 100million+ midfielders have looked like garbage to be honest. They have some really tough fixtures coming up. I worry for them.
 
HookedOnAPhelan said:
Brentford had an xG of 2.46 today, to Chelsea's 1.65. Smash and grab?
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Well they scored 2 goals but they created nothing of note before the first goal, and then had a couple of easy chances in the last few mins as Chelsea tried to go gung-ho. Second goal was an open net after our keeper went up for a corner.
 
FootballHQ said:
Well with Newcastle they could just low block you and then ping it up to Gordon and Almiron once James and LB are caught upfield. Or play their usual game and wait for Wilson to make runs off the shoulder of your CBs.

Again with Man. United if Rashford wakes up from his current malaise he could hurt you a fair bit.

Problem Chelsea have is they've completely lost the profile of soaking up pressure and keeping it 0-0 home or away, scoring from a counter and then seeing that out like say we and Forest have already done at Stamford Bridge this season.

I genuinely can't remember the last time you won a prem game in that manner. If you want to be a top 4 team again soon you'll have to re-learn that skill.
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I know the threats both teams pose. If they choose to sit back deep and counter us then it’s an easy way to stifle us and frustrate us. It doesn’t mean we don’t create anything, so it’s still a risk to play that way against us because our chance creation is excellent. It’s whether we take those chances. I’d say it’s probably a calculated risk worth taking when teams play us that way, to bank on us missing the chances we inevitably create and then sucker punch us in the second half.
 
WeePat said:
Well they scored 2 goals but they created nothing of note before the first goal, and then had a couple of easy chances in the last few mins as Chelsea tried to go gung-ho. Second goal was an open net after our keeper went up for a corner.
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There is nothing wrong with going away from home and barely giving anything away for first hour and then looking to see what happens then with more space when home side start to gamble.

You did it endless times in the peak Mourinho and Conte teams.

Until you get that mindset back mid table/Europa Conference is about the best this squad can come up with as it's shown consistently over last six months it can't win prem games in many styles under several different managers.
 
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