Chelsea - FA Cup SF | Post-Match Thread

[ancoats]

i think i feel better this morning and the pressure been lifted that the we had to do the quadruple ?
it was never going to happen and the truth is the squad players has let pep down by not turning up when asked to play

from here on in anything we win will be amazing even if its only the title i will be happy with bread and butter
we need a transfer window to sort out next season. 2 strikers, left back, youth being added, and i think we will be right

good luck to chelsea ? but you know when your looking for a goal and the other team time waste with fake injuries
you can fuck off because you really did let your team down yesterday

 

[Keeper!]

8 of those starters yesterday have been rotated just to give them some game time.

That display wasn't about running on empty.

That was 8 high maintenance Divas ,running around at 50% with faces like slapped arses because they are considered to be the back up Cup team.

I am starting to think Sterling is deliberately playing shit to try and fuck us up. Nobody can be as bad as he is. Have you seen his in game Heat map ?

Phil came on yesterday for KDB and was my MOM just for his work rate.

I was talking about our normal 1st team players not playing yesterday.

Totally agree the players attitude on the pitch yesterday was poor and unacceptable.

Sterling, what is going on there? Something is very wrong in his head, he has gone as a player, far more than just out of form.

Dias has been hammered by us since day one, he looks knackered and to me, yesterday was a game he should have sat out with Ake in the 11.

 

[SidJames]

Chelsea were fighting on 3 fronts and they played in mid week as well, get the game won and we had 5 subs to bring on not 3. This pursuit of the CL is getting on my tits, we could throw everything away with our pursuit of it, fuck up against Villa and it’s a 5 point lead, then you’ll see nerves set in. Going for 4 could be lucky to get one at this stage.

Getting on my Tits too mate.

This Cherry picking when Pep wants to play our best 11 players .Heaven forbid they play just once at a weekend and in the week for 2 big games.

League game Leeds not considered a Big game = because Pep thinks Dortmund is the bigger game. We lose to 10 men.

Happy clappers are happy, whilst many of us are warning this is dangerous attitude to have with nothing yet won.

Chelsea Cup Semi Final not a Big game = Because Pep now thinks Villa the league game is bigger, after losing the League game to Leeds.

A pattern develops.

You just know we will get another Frankenteam at weekend in the Spurs Final, because PSG becomes more important.

Our Bench at the end of that Lyon game last season was astonishing, It was like he was saving them all for the more important game that never came.

 

[lonestay]

I totally get squad rotation, but isn't the whole point of squad rotation to get you into a position where going into the business end of the season you can use your main assets? If yesterday is not considered to be part of the business end of the season ,then we might as well binned the FA cup at the first opportunity available to the club .

 

[Ajm1985]

Pep clearly has to rotate to keep players fresh for the priority games, but I think it's fair to say it was quite a reach to think the front 3 yesterday (alongside Mendy) would suddenly gel and pose Chelsea problems. They have a very good defensive record under Tuchel, and Sterling, Torres & Jesus are out of form/sync. Cancelo was poor as well - has he played badly since not playing more centrally?

It's not a critique borne from hindsight, but it would have taken either luck or a massive change of form to have taken a result against a full strength Chelsea.

It will or should pose Pep some questions, as the 'B' team have fluffed it, so he may be forced to have more integrated line ups.

 

[OB1]

the two most important trophies to English fans are the League and FA cup . he's just made 8 changes in each. total disrespect .

Speak for yourself Bill, the Champions League is far more important to me than the FA Cup. Much as I would have loved to win the FA Cup this year and would rather win it than the League Cup, I'd rather lose a semi than a final. I hate losing any game though.

Pep isn't disrespecting anyone; part of what he has done is perhaps pay too much respect to some of his players and he may have been guilty of that yesterday.

I think he did make the wrong selection yesterday although that team should have been capable of more but it included too many players who are simply not in their best form.

Even with a misfiring front three, I think the bigger problem is our susceptibility to having the high line pierced. I was going to comment on that myself but was drawn to a headline on NewsNow this morning and this article actually covers Pep's biggest flaw well.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/18/pep-guardiola-quadruple-manchester-city-psg

When City dropped deep as a team defensively yesterday, they did not look like conceding but it's the club's not just Pep strategy to play a high line so Pep has to keep working to fine tune that approach. Playing Kyle Walker rather than having is turbo idling on the bench might have reduced the possibility of leaving his back four trying to navigate the intersection of a creek and an outpouring of effluent without a wooden propellant when Werner and Ziyech ran in behind them yesterday. Mind, someone being close enough to Mount to stop him playing the pass would have been good too.

 

[alexmcity]

We only have about 10 games left
Why not play our strongest team yesterday?
Senior players,will be fuming that we tossed away a great chance for getting to a final

Kevin's injury and Rodri's and Dias' struggles yesterday weren't enough for you to understand why?

Because they played just 68 hours before Wembley a high-intensity game in Germany and travelled Manchester-Dortmund-Manchester-London, because the fixture congestion this season is unseen and the players are not machines, because the PL and the CL are way more important than the domestic cups, because Pep knows how important are the squad players and that we wouldn't be in that position without them, and that we will need them again, etc. etc.

Despite trying to keep the team in the best possible condition, Pep still took a risk playing Kevin and the consequence might be that we fail to reach the CL final, which is far more important than the FA cup final. The risk was probably justified, but it didn't pay off and now our arses will be twitching. We will have to play a weakened team vs Spurs, as we need to rest both Gundy and Bernie for PSG with Kevin being probably out.

 

[carlosthejackal]

The irony of the pundits/media.
When we are on a winning run and in the latter stages of all comps, they say its all because wev'e got the biggest and best squad.
When we lose a game they say we should of played a stronger lineup. Why if our squad is so brilliant. Dickheads.

Pep always takes the blame but i feel the players let him down.
Squad players or not they've got to perform better than that.

when i saw the line ups i written Penalties on here, because thats how i saw it going, and if our keeper hadn't gone walkabouts, that's exactly where the game was heading

No doubt the players let him down yesterday but eight changes would be a big ask against a Championship team , doing it against a team of Chelsea’s quality was ridiculous.

 

[jimharri]

i think i feel better this morning and the pressure been lifted that the we had to do the quadruple ?
it was never going to happen and the truth is the squad players has let pep down by not turning up when asked to play

from here on in anything we win will be amazing even if its only the title i will be happy with bread and butter
we need a transfer window to sort out next season. 2 strikers, left back, youth being added, and i think we will be right

good luck to chelsea ? but you know when your looking for a goal and the other team time waste with fake injuries
you can fuck off because you really did let your team down yesterday

I envy you; I don't. Defeats, I can take. God knows, we've had enough of them down the years. But not turning up on the day is something I can't accept.

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

i think i feel better this morning and the pressure been lifted that the we had to do the quadruple ?
it was never going to happen and the truth is the squad players has let pep down by not turning up when asked to play

from here on in anything we win will be amazing even if its only the title i will be happy with bread and butter
we need a transfer window to sort out next season. 2 strikers, left back, youth being added, and i think we will be right

good luck to chelsea ? but you know when your looking for a goal and the other team time waste with fake injuries
you can fuck off because you really did let your team down yesterday

what pressure?
The only pressure has been from the media