Chelsea - FA Cup SF | Post-Match Thread

[Corky]

Didn’t Eddie Izzard run 7 marathons in 7 days ? I’ve never really understood how playing two games of football a week is that difficult for a finely tuned athlete.


edited, he actually ran 27 in 27 days in 2016 and recently ran 31 in 31 days.

That is the thing, it took him almost 31 days, he wasn't competitive. Good marathon runners do a handful a year and are very selective.

 

[decmancity]

Just remembered the two moments I was probably most frustrated yesterday were the last few seconds of each half.

We spent ages dicking about taking the corner, then play it short and act surprised when Mike Dean (MIKE FUCKING DEAN) blows his whistle before we decide to actually try and score.

And the lack of urgency at the end of the second half, once the allocated amount of injury time had passed, was just mind boggling.

If ever there was a time to twat it into the middle it was then.

At 89mins we literally may as well put on Ake and Stones and thrown it into the box, normally when we are losing we throw 200 crosses into the box to the midgets so at least if Ake or Stones are there you have half a chance.

Yesterday felt like the players weren't interested in winning and its the first time I have thought that. Against Leeds etc we missed some chances, got caught on the break and just had a bad game. Yesterday felt like we threw it on purpose.

Chelsea scored through a fuck up in defense and thats it, put on Mahrez and Bernardo and I think we score and at least take it to extra time

 

[lonestay]

Fuck me, what a bunch of petty, self entitled, drama queens we have become. There isn't a fanbase in the world that wouldn't swap with us. There isn't a player in world football who wouldn't salivate at the prospect of winning the medals we are challenging for over the next few weeks.

We've got this far by rotation, a remarkable sequence of results. Win after win. A great season, the likes of which we've never seen before. Barca would swap their domestic cup win for a shot at the CL. The rags would swap their toy town cup semi for the League title. The scousers would swap a month of Giro's for 4th. Fucking 4th. Now, that is pathetic. FOURTH. And would anyone wanna be a Tarquin for the next decade?

We lost a game of football FFS.

Move on, have a nice Sunday dinner and get fucking real.

We never win at home and we never win away.

MCFC OK.

Nothing wrong in losing a game of football , but at least if your going to compete in a cup semi final at least make an effort to compete in it rant over !

 

[OntarioBlue]

That is the thing, it took him almost 31 days, he wasn't competitive. Good marathon runners do a handful a year and are very selective.

The point I was making is that he’s not even an athlete and he can do that. Professional footballers are highly tuned athletes.

As hard as I try I just can’t manage to convince myself it’s that hard to play football twice a week.

 

[Legal Alien]

Still feel aggrieved as it was a great opportunity to complete the quadruple should we have beaten Chelski.

Can’t really blame them for time wasting or acting ‘professional’ in the last 15mins as most teams would have done that with a FA cup final at stake & taking out the heat of the game not that we ever looked like scoring.

Like many Blues felt the writing was on the wall when I saw that team line up against Chelsea. Surely Pep must have known their threat of pace with Werner, Mount & Ziyech would be a large factor so why play Canceló & Mendy to neutralise this where Walker & Zinny have shown to be far more effective.

Our midfield getting overrun was plain to see with Fernie & Rodri needing help. Possibly moving Cancelo into midfield to assist would have helped but then again Sterling, Ferran & Jesus were woeful upfront against a very organised Chelsea side.

I'm frustrated more than anything. The opportunity was there but they gave it up without much of a fight.
The lack of pace in midfield was the main problem for me. Fern is 35, surely he couldn't have been expected to keep up with Mount? We found out really early that he couldn't. Failure to get control of the midfield led to a lack of quality balls being fed to the forward line.
When Foden came on we looked better, but in my opinion, Pep needed to make more changes and a lot quicker than he did.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I never understand these arguments about what a player "should" be able to do because they get paid a fortune or whatever. The reality is that they can't. When a cyclist is cycling for 7 hours a day, he's up against other cyclists who are all doing the same. When a football team plays within 3 days, it's often (not yesterday, admittedly) against a team who last played 7 days ago. In the same way, when a tennis player goes through one of those mammoth 6 hour tennis matches, they don't tend to do very well in the next round.

Yesterday wasn't anything to do with that though. I always worry when we don't have one of Bernardo or Gundogan in midfield, because they're the sort of players that don't give the ball away and allow us to build attacks. Take Mahrez out as well and you're losing three players who you can rely on to pass it to in any situation and they'll control it. KDB and Sterling are great players (when on form), but they aren't exactly strangers to giving the ball away. And that's fine normally, because we had a good mix, but yesterday until Phil came on, we didn't have anyone who is like that. Gundogan also made a massive difference.

But the lack of substitutions suggested to me that Pep didn't consider it a priority. Sure, nice to win, but if the team he put out on the pitch couldn't win it, he wasn't going to risk more players getting injured or tired.

 

[madloaf]

We were poor against Leeds. We were very poor first half against Dortmund. We were very poor against Chelsea. I can understand the panic.

 

[northstandgiveusasong]

I never understand these arguments about what a player "should" be able to do because they get paid a fortune or whatever. The reality is that they can't. When a cyclist is cycling for 7 hours a day, he's up against other cyclists who are all doing the same. When a football team plays within 3 days, it's often (not yesterday, admittedly) against a team who last played 7 days ago. In the same way, when a tennis player goes through one of those mammoth 6 hour tennis matches, they don't tend to do very well in the next round.

Yesterday wasn't anything to do with that though. I always worry when we don't have one of Bernardo or Gundogan in midfield, because they're the sort of players that don't give the ball away and allow us to build attacks. Take Mahrez out as well and you're losing three players who you can rely on to pass it to in any situation and they'll control it. KDB and Sterling are great players (when on form), but they aren't exactly strangers to giving the ball away. And that's fine normally, because we had a good mix, but yesterday until Phil came on, we didn't have anyone who is like that. Gundogan also made a massive difference.

But the lack of substitutions suggested to me that Pep didn't consider it a priority. Sure, nice to win, but if the team he put out on the pitch couldn't win it, he wasn't going to risk more players getting injured or tired.

Good point about the lack of substitutions. I also thought Pep didn't really show his usual passion yesterday on the touchline almost as if it was just another game to get out of the way. The thing that gets me though is, if it's not a priority why bother getting all the way to the semis. Do what Liverpool did and put the kids out from round 3 if that's the case. Take nothing away from Chelsea however, it was a drab affair to say the least but they got their tactics spot on in addition to a dire display by several of our players who's names are already mentioned.

 

[northstandgiveusasong]

We were poor against Leeds. We were very poor first half against Dortmund. We were very poor against Chelsea. I can understand the panic.

Stop flapping! ;)

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

I never understand these arguments about what a player "should" be able to do because they get paid a fortune or whatever. The reality is that they can't. When a cyclist is cycling for 7 hours a day, he's up against other cyclists who are all doing the same. When a football team plays within 3 days, it's often (not yesterday, admittedly) against a team who last played 7 days ago. In the same way, when a tennis player goes through one of those mammoth 6 hour tennis matches, they don't tend to do very well in the next round.

Yesterday wasn't anything to do with that though. I always worry when we don't have one of Bernardo or Gundogan in midfield, because they're the sort of players that don't give the ball away and allow us to build attacks. Take Mahrez out as well and you're losing three players who you can rely on to pass it to in any situation and they'll control it. KDB and Sterling are great players (when on form), but they aren't exactly strangers to giving the ball away. And that's fine normally, because we had a good mix, but yesterday until Phil came on, we didn't have anyone who is like that. Gundogan also made a massive difference.

But the lack of substitutions suggested to me that Pep didn't consider it a priority. Sure, nice to win, but if the team he put out on the pitch couldn't win it, he wasn't going to risk more players getting injured or tired.

You don't need to be a sports scientist to know the comparison to other sports are a nonsense. We've played more minutes of football than any other team in the country, starting later than other teams because we were the last English side left in the CL for the mini tournament. They're professional athletes, of course they could play twice in a week, but it's going to impact fitness, concentration and other things, even by a couple of percentage points, and in high end physical competition those percentage points will cost you against other world class athletes. Pep has prioritized the CL, with no guarantees we will win it, because he knows the league is won and European success is what his bosses and everyone in world football understands to be the priority. That some fans would run players into the ground or have some other priorities for their own choosing is entirely up to them, but the decisions and gambles he has taken should be obvious to anyone.