Chelsea (A) | PL | Post Match Thread

Great game. Loved it. Well done to both sides. Fabulous spectacle enjoyed with a nice bottle of champagne and canapés.

I think it’s mainly adolescent teenagers but City fans crying about wether Sterling or Cole celebrated or disrespected us… get a grip you soft arses.

Both great servants to city over many years. Cole who made the club a huge profit and Raz who won tons of trophies for us and got us all our money back from his initial fee. Players like this will always be fondly remembered by true blues.
 
Chak19 said:
I said it in the game thread, this was like the 3-3 at Newcastle early on last season, it was the worst defensive display of the season, we had no control and everytime Newcastle attacked they looked like scoring, that type of game never happened again last season and Pep will make sure tonight never happens again this season, the Chelsea lads played out of their skins and we still got a point, so we'll take it and move on.
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Good post
 
I felt frustrated during the game because it seemed like we never, ever got control of things, but as soon as the final whistle went it sunk in pretty quickly that it was the kind of game you can't really legislate for or bring to heel. Pep might have taken a long time to notice where we were deficient but even when he made those changes (like bringing Kovacic and Grealish on) it just never calmed down. Chelsea just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and made us react to things when it's normally us that likes to set the tempo. It was a bit of a mid-90s throwback in a lot of ways.

Lots of mixed bag performances from players on both sides, lots of huge performances from players on both sides as well. Rodri, Dias, and Gvardiol all over the place for us, but Foden, Haaland, and Akanji were all brilliant. On the flipside, Disasi, Thiago Silva, and Caicedo were rubbish throughout for Chelsea but Palmer, Sterling, and Cucurella were great. Basically all of the goals in the first half came from shocking defending and errors by both teams, a lot of the key incidents happened out of nowhere. Just a topsy turvy game that was never going to calm down.

So you just take it. A point is perfectly fine. I think, when the season's over, we'll look back on this 4-4 with Chelsea similarly to how we look back at the 3-3 against Newcastle from the 22/23 season - it felt like a disappointing result and a concerning performance in the moment but as the months dragged on and more big teams dropped points there, it ended up looking like a good battle. I imagine we'll feel similarly when Chelsea have finished comfortably in a European position in May and have taken more big points off the teams around us.

If you'd told me in August that we'd head into the November international break one point ahead of some vastly improved sides like Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs (even Villa), I'd have taken it. Everyone knows it takes us until February to really knuckle down and get our heads properly straight, and I anticipated a drop-off after playing so much football and winning so many trophies last season - so the fact that we're still competing after losing Mahrez and Gundogan and blooding in loads of new players, it's very encouraging heading into the Christmas period.
 
give it to gordon said:
Midfield was over run. No real support for Rodri.
Chelsea played very high tempo and were quick through the midfield, I thought Chelsea would run out steam but no.

Makes a change to see a team go toe to toe with us.
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Yep, the defensive contribution of Doku, Foden, Bernie and Julian was poor, Rodri was exposed (but had a very poor 1st half himself) and I think that took a lot of pressure to our defence, resulting in many faults. We only had 1 good defender in Akanji today.

Defending as a team has to be much much better vs top sides.
Also, our 1st half 1v1s were too soft, we were bullied throughout, was painful watching it.
 
Lavinda Past said:
Maybe. One thing for sure, he had a much better game than Doku.
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Yep, but he’s allowed one. First half Reece James had far too much freedom to get forward, but doku was better second half. Grealish gives us more control that’s for sure, but maybe doku gives us the unexpected.
 
Brightwell Bros. said:
I'm not panicking, but last year's success was built on us being very, very hard to score more than one goal against.

Funny that Pep was a bit too cautious at Arsenal away and not imo cautious enough here.

Could be a fluke of a game, could be Pep just working out the right balance for this squad, could be cause for concern. Wish we could play the Liverpool game next weekend, this pacing isn't helping I don't think.
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It could be that we missed John and Nathan.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
Scoring from corners isn’t that easy. The stats across the board are about 3% resulting in goals.

The difference between hitting the first man and the ball sailing over all the players is marginal when whipping a cross in.
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I’m not disagreeing with you at all.

Just saying that recently we have been poor at corners and today we scored from one.
 
Big shout out to all the Blues there today - a great noise all through the game, to the almost total silence of 'the Bridge'. I thought we missed Stones and someone like Gundo would have been useful too. Still left the ground feeling a little disappointed.

Yet again - away end full of tourists on their phones not singing with their half and half scarves - what kind of real City fan sells their tickets to tourists?? Obviously making a mint from them (and denying a load of Blues on lower points the right to support the team) - but it is fucking wrong - exchange it on here at face value, if you cant go - scumbags.
 
Thought Dias, Gvardiol, Doku and Rodri were all dreadful

But to have so many players put in a stinker and come away with a point isn’t so bad I guess

Hopefully Stones back soon and Kev in the New Year and we can kick on
 
GrumpyLegacyFan said:
Big shout out to all the Blues there today - a great noise all through the game, to the almost total silence of 'the Bridge'. I thought we missed Stones and someone like Gundo would have been useful too. Still left the ground feeling a little disappointed.

Yet again - away end full of tourists on their phones not singing with their half and half scarves - what kind of real City fan sells their tickets to tourists?? Obviously making a mint from them (and denying a load of Blues on lower points the right to support the team) - but it is fucking wrong - exchange it on here at face value, if you cant go - scumbags.
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I mentioned earlier how it was my first game today (from US). We were in the Chelsea section next to the Away fans and you were so loud - I don’t think I heard a Chelsea chant all game. If there were fake fans on their phones in the Away section, we certainly didn’t see them (lower section anyhow). I’m so glad I got to sit next to you all so I could soak up some of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, our Chelsea section was 100% filled with fans like me - basically foreigners who would have rather been cheering for City (the rest of my family are neutrals so we presented ourselves as well behaved fans - no half and half scarves). More empty seats in the Chelsea section than I anticipated too.
 
Brightwell Bros. said:
But the problem wasn't scoring goals it was defending them!
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Well, the original poster mentioned we haven't looked this chaotic in years and my point is I think it is partly due to the club having a roster they didn't bank on. Kevin's long penetrating runs would help in a game like this.
 
wattle said:
It was just this. And thank goodness they still happen now and again. It’d be a very predictable, and dull sport if they didn’t
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and it made a great game to watch...when i hear people talk about the 'ballet on ice game' bet there were loads of mistakes nut made for a great game to watch...all helps when our mastery with Bell, Lee Law et al could really play regardless of conditions... what a club we follow ....UTB
 
mike1923 said:
Thought Dias, Gvardiol, Doku and Rodri were all dreadful

But to have so many players put in a stinker and come away with a point isn’t so bad I guess

Hopefully Stones back soon and Kev in the New Year and we can kick on
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Stones away...big miss...hope he recovers properly, he's a big lad and it might hamper him if rushed back
 
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