Delph has been brilliant and as I've always said, he's a very underrated player. Hopefully now he'll be given a chance to prove his worth to us.Anyone who can turn Delph into a mini Roberto Carlos against Chelsea deserves to win the Manager of the Year, full stop! Stones too, so cool and calm under pressure, the polar opposite of him last year.
Fair play pal,takes balls to admit such.Quite simply a stunning performance playing football I've not seen before, I certainly didn't see that coming & am embarrassed to say I doubted the team.
Was jn a hotel in jaipur, game kicked off at midnight and when the goal went in we woke half the hotel up. Few apologies at breakfast, luckily they seemed to see the funny side of the mad Englishman and his lad.
Pretty sure that was off Rudiger’s shoulder, mate. From what I saw, Rudiger knew virtually nothing about it. He just happened to be in the way.
i don’t know when I last saw defending champions play at home as though they were playing away. I understand them, mind you. This current City team can really hurt the opposition, at any point in the game.
I was gonna say that, but I thought I'd be labeled a pussy! Lol :-)
I wasn't so bothered about us losing Aguero, because strangely enough, it had the feeling of Mad Mario & the fireworks incident. As someone alluded to earlier, we played the same against them last year, but the difference between then & yesterday was our comical defending & being unable to take our chances.
I still think we have a long way to go and more purchases to make before we're properly there, but the progressive signs we've shown are very promising. Conte's shell shocked look on his face said it all, BUT he should consider this..... We dominated them twice last season, & Chelsea only had the league & FA Cup to concentrate on. This season, we've now seen the real difference when the playing field is levelled.
Conte can bang on about have 24 hours less to prepare, but they had 24 hours more to prepare against Athletico & were at home yesterday which gave them the home advantage of more fans & no travel. The fact he also mentioned how much money we spent in the summer also goes to show how desperate he was to find answers to what happened yesterday.
Another thing I noticed was how animated Pep was in his post match interview. He was a man who was trying to restrain his delight with finally beating Chelsea, never mind with them being the reigning champions & the match being at Stamford Bridge. The fact that not ONE RAG has called or text me to brag about their astounding win over pointless Crystal Palace, goes to show how profound yesterday's display was.
If I were the fan of another club, I'd be shitting myself.
Other than Fernandinho's harsh booking how did we all rate ref Atkinson? He has to take credit for allowing us to play Chelsea off the park. It also helped not having the antics of Costa and Side-show Bob on show. Otamendi's needless argie-bargie yellow would have been welcomed if he had taken Fabregas out and not Willian.
A very interesting table, thanks for posting. I did not realise we were that good.
Shame that table omits goals against where we are joint first with the rags, both having conceded 2.
The media guys and Slippy G in particular might then stop going on about our poor defence.
He said after the Chelsea game that our defence is our weakness and the better teams will make the most of this weakness. I wonder who these teams are that are better than the current champions who created only 4 chances in a home game.
Fernandinho had been warned already and committed a foul that stopped Hazard running at the centre backs - it was a yellow card.
Otamendi was stupid.
My gripe with Atkinson was that Chelsea were using rotational fouls to stop our players - and no one was booked - there should come a time where a referee says I don't care if that is your first foul - its the third on Silva/Sterling/Sane by your team and you are paying for it - works in Rugby, would cause the whole team to be wary of making the next challenge.
Fernandinho had been warned already and committed a foul that stopped Hazard running at the centre backs - it was a yellow card.
Otamendi was stupid.
My gripe with Atkinson was that Chelsea were using rotational fouls to stop our players - and no one was booked - there should come a time where a referee says I don't care if that is your first foul - its the third on Silva/Sterling/Sane by your team and you are paying for it - works in Rugby, would cause the whole team to be wary of making the next challenge.
Only time I’ve ever seen that enforced was Oliver last season who grew a pair of balls and gave Herrera a yellow fo his first foul which was on hazard who had been systematically hacked. It led to a red.Rotation fouling happens quite a lot and it does my head how many teams get away with it. First time I noticed it was the Rags under Piscan when they targeted SWP.
Even the Arse did it to Silva, who is frequently the target, in the cup semi final. He went off midway through the first half, which had a big impact on the game.
Refs seem to be oblivious to as does the media.
Thought the ref was decent. In a game like that the one thing you dont want is the ref impacting on the result. By being conservative with his bookings he never found himself 'in a corner' where for two nothing challenges a side is reduced to ten men and the game is ruined.
Sensible reffing. Just a good day allround.
Without wishing to sound like I'm in any way defending the whining slippy, he did say that IF city have a weakness, it might be at the back if teams get after them. We will find out whether that's true or not, when somebody goes toe to toe with us for a full game.