Bournemouth 0 Chelsea 1

[ROTG]

Not really a lot to write about. 

it was a snatch and grab result, and a win is a win. 
 

the team was out played, out coached, better tactics deployed 
 

Obviously this was not a match for the XG posters. 

[My Blood Is Blue]

8 minutes ago, ROTG said:

Not really a lot to write about. 

it was a snatch and grab result, and a win is a win. 
 

the team was out played, out coached, better tactics deployed 
 

Obviously this was not a match for the XG posters. 

A win is a win, but a defeat is a disaster... football fans are a funny bunch.

[Siidi]

7 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Don't think that's necessarily unreasonable. That being said, Enzo is also pretty composed under pressure and he's one of the only real players we have that regularly plays with their head up. He may have struggled a little more with the transitional aspects of play, but he'd have also probably have allowed us to move the ball through the middle a lot more effectively into our forward line  - which was woeful in that first half. 

Veiga grew into the game as it went on, but nothing really stood out to me either with respects to adding anything to the midfield balance. Lavia would've been ideal in this one, and in most games I'd say, just need to get him fit and regularly out on the park.

Re Caicedo, he was reasonable I thought. Did some good things as you'd expect, also lacked in some aspects also. We're probably not maximising him entirely, as he is capable of having an impact in the final third, but with the way he's generally been used since arriving he's seen more as a DM - rightly or wrongly. 

Couldn't disagree with any of your points  With Caicedo, there are matches where all he  can do is sit back and break things up. But I would also like to see matches where he runs the game from back to front.. and for that he needs to show a different level of energy. That is the modern DM.

In general I think we have this squad  to push for top four this season. We must stop trying to prove a point, fielding an underperforming player and leaving the better one on the bench. 

[Ham]

8 minutes ago, ROTG said:

Not really a lot to write about. 

it was a snatch and grab result, and a win is a win. 
 

the team was out played, out coached, better tactics deployed 
 

Obviously this was not a match for the XG posters. 

Doesn't explain why there was so much more discussion on the Palace draw (which we should 100% have won based on chances missed).

"A win is a win". Should be a cause for more discussion than a draw amongst die- hard Chelsea fans surely, unless Chelsea winning isn't the most pressing concern for some on here who choose to, for example, concentrate on Gallagher scoring for AM than Chelsea winning. 

I worry for the membership numbers on here if we have a successful season. 

[Ham]

5 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

A win is a win, but a defeat is a disaster... football fans are a funny bunch.

"Football fans"

[boratsbrother]

15 minutes ago, Ham said:

Doesn't explain why there was so much more discussion on the Palace draw (which we should 100% have won based on chances missed).

"A win is a win". Should be a cause for more discussion than a draw amongst die- hard Chelsea fans surely, unless Chelsea winning isn't the most pressing concern for some on here who choose to, for example, concentrate on Gallagher scoring for AM than Chelsea winning. 

I worry for the membership numbers on here if we have a successful season. 

I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk about Palmer's noticeable drop- off from last season.  This tedious possession play clearly isn't bringing the best out of him and I said It wouldn't  before a ball was kicked in anger this season. My prediction was he'd scored half the goals he did last season. 

Maresca is trying to get us to play a style which has already been perfected by City.  We will NEVER compete with them by trying better them at what they are doing. The reason why we caused them so many problems last season was because we were playing  a lot of off the cuff football which created so much goal threat. I fear we will tread water for as long as Maresca is here.

 

 

[Blue Orca]

14 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

Livramento simply wasn't prepared to be second choice and at the time probably thought he'd never dislodge James from being number one, so decided to move on. With James horrendous injury problems,  Liv would probably be first choice now had he stayed, 

Not sure about Tomori or Gilchrist though. Tomori hasnt kicked on since his days with us and I honestly didn't see anything in Gilchrist to suggest he's a future Chelsea starter. Badiashile and Fofana look nowhere good enough.

Good to see CHO doing ok for Forest. I thought his days as a premier league player were over after his terrible loan spell in Germany. Difficult to turn things around when a players career has been on the slide for as long as his was, so it's showed  good mental strength to keep teying and believing in himself to get back to a good level🙂

 

 

 

It's amazing how people see different things in a few appearances. I see Gilcrist as a future Chelsea RB. He came in at times when we were deadly dodgy defensively ( ok when aren't we recently!!) was confident, tackled well and scored a great goal. Not sure what else he could have done in his first games for the club in a generally leaky defence?

[Blue Orca]

1 hour ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

He was very good, made some important saves and commanded his area well, especially at the end gathering the ball from a late corner. If he can maintain this level then that will help us a lot!

That's a huge IF. 

[Blue Orca]

11 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk about Palmer's noticeable drop- off from last season.  This tedious possession play clearly isn't bringing the best out of him and I said It wouldn't  before a ball was kicked in anger this season. My prediction was he'd scored half the goals he did last season. 

Maresca is trying to get us to play a style which has already been perfected by City.  We will NEVER compete with them by trying better them at what they are doing. The reason why we caused them so many problems last season was because we were playing  a lot of off the cuff football which created so much goal threat. I fear we will tread water for as long as Maresca is here.

 

 

I think it is more the reaction of opponents to Palmer and the recognition of what he can do. They often double up on him now and attempt to block him from coming inside, preferring to show him the line. 

[My Blood Is Blue]

8 minutes ago, Blue Orca said:

I think it is more the reaction of opponents to Palmer and the recognition of what he can do. They often double up on him now and attempt to block him from coming inside, preferring to show him the line. 

Yeah, very much agree. We're still seeing the magic Palmer brings, it's just harder for him to make the impact on matches that he did last season. I think this will change though, I think Palmer will adapt and Maresca will find a way to allow Palmer to make the kind of impact we know he can.

[Mark Kelly]

25 minutes ago, Blue Orca said:

I think it is more the reaction of opponents to Palmer and the recognition of what he can do. They often double up on him now and attempt to block him from coming inside, preferring to show him the line. 

We saw collective fouling from Bournemouth as they took it in turns to kick him off the park , a competent referee would have sent one of their hatchet men off instead of letting then kick him eight times before he booked one of them. 

[Proud-Blue]

Would have done a longer post earlier but ended up having quite a busy weekend.

The most important thing is the points. We need to get into the top four badly and, frankly, I really don't care how we do it as long as we do it. 

With that in mind this was definitely not a great performance. We didn't really start playing until about the 70th minute. Were it not for some excellent saves by Sanchez including the penalty, we might well have lost.

I'm now concerned about our RB position. We don't know what the future holds for James, but when Gusto is injured as well, we seem to have very little there. I really hope Acheampong is given a chance against Barrow to see what he can do there, and maybe prove he is a viable option for us. Disasi was genuinely concerning there at times.

Veiga is another one I'd like to mention. First half, I understand why people were concerned by his performance. It definitely was poor, but most of the team was. However, I do think that second half he improved quite a lot. And as he got better, so did Caicedo (who quietly had a fantastic second half I thought). I may be a minority, but I actually see a lot of potential in Veiga.

Felix... no. Just no. Don't do that again please.

Anyway, let's talk more positives! Jadon Sancho really impressed me as I've said elsewhere. I feel like he can offer us something completely different on the left to Neto and Mudryk in that he's a much better passer of the ball. Those interchanges he does with  other players, and the through-the-needle passing we saw to Jackson and later Nkunku was fantastic. Let's just see how this develops over the next few months, we might have genuinely got a superb player for us. And I'm a bit of a Sancho fan having watched him for years at Dortmund.

Finally, Nkunku. I don't care how, but get him in the team. He's a natural goalscorer. His minutes to goal ratio for us must be fantastic. I would strongly advise playing him up front rather than just relying on Jackson all the time. We can also switch it round so that he goes central and Palmer goes right in certain moments. There's plenty of ways he can fit into this team, but he's easily one of our most talented players. We need him on the pitch.

Overall... I get being a bit deflated about the performance. And while we definitely can't play like that every week and expect to win, we have trophies in our cabinet that were won on the back of those kinds of wins. I don't remember the last time we grinded our a 0-1 away from home like that. It feels, overall, like a big step forward to me.

[Siidi]

It's important for us that Maresca doesn't turn out another Pochettino, where we only want to win by playing well and only play well when the others let us. 

Bournemouth presented us with a reverse task, by pressing rather than sit back as you'd expect smaller teams to do. The solution is simple - hit them with quick transitions in. Once they can see the real danger of conceding early, it's plan B for them or back to the drawing board.  So when Caicedo wins the ball and his first pass is sideways or backwards, that's completely the wrong approach. We seemed to have sorted that in second half, but we were lucky not to have got into serious trouble by then. 

We must be prepared for all these scenario.

[Thiago97]

16 minutes ago, Siidi said:

It's important for us that Maresca doesn't turn out another Pochettino, where we only want to win by playing well and only play well when the others let us. 

Bournemouth presented us with a reverse task, by pressing rather than sit back as you'd expect smaller teams to do. The solution is simple - hit them with quick transitions in. Once they can see the real danger of conceding early, it's plan B for them or back to the drawing board.  So when Caicedo wins the ball and his first pass is sideways or backwards, that's completely the wrong approach. We seemed to have sorted that in second half, but we were lucky not to have got into serious trouble by then. 

We must be prepared for all these scenario.

Like so many things in such a hard league as the PL, its the fine margins at play.

We played well in defeat on a number of occasions last season, so it was not a case of the opposition letting us play well, nor was it a case of we only played well when we won. It's a case of more often than not, we were on the receiving end of those fine margins, mostly due to silly mistakes and poor game management. From both the players and managers.

Saturday was no different. A silly unforced mistake,they got the penalty which would have certainly changed the game, we got on the right end of the fine margins by Sanchez producing a great save. If Sanchez goes to his right there, very likely a different set of circumstances plays out.

Edited Monday at 12:05 by Thiago97

[Siidi]

3 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

Like so many things in such a hard league as the PL, its the fine margins at play.

We played well in defeat on a number of occasions last season, so it was not a case of the opposition letting us play well, nor was it a case of we only played well when we won. It's a case of more often than not, we were on the receiving end of those fine margins, mostly due to silly mistakes and poor game management. From both the players and managers.

Saturday was no different. A silly unforced mistake,they got the penalty which would have certainly changed the game, we got on the right end of the fine margins by Sanchez producing a great save. If Sanchez goes to his right there, very likely a different set of circumstances plays out.

That's true, but also true that we could have forced Bournemouth to change their plan, and  that is ultimately how you gain control of a match. You could see they were well drilled in what they planned to do - the pressing, the tackling, the fouling, etc, was systematic and non-stop. We let them run their plan for far too long, leaving us with little chance of imposing ours.

You can no of course snatch a win against a smaller team by letting them play to their plan. But at this level, that is too risky. 

[Thiago97]

2 hours ago, Ham said:

Doesn't explain why there was so much more discussion on the Palace draw (which we should 100% have won based on chances missed).

"A win is a win". Should be a cause for more discussion than a draw amongst die- hard Chelsea fans surely, unless Chelsea winning isn't the most pressing concern for some on here who choose to, for example, concentrate on Gallagher scoring for AM than Chelsea winning. 

I worry for the membership numbers on here if we have a successful season. 

I can only speak from a personal perspective. A win generally has less talking points than a defeat, we got the result we wanted. As an example, win against Arsenal or Spurs will have far more posts than a win against Bournemouth or Palace. We are Chelsea and have spent billions, its expected we win against lesser teams.

Again, I am only speaking personally. I have stepped back from posting as often for a number of reasons. Time being a key one, I just can't afford the time to get involved in long back and forward disagreements.

I find it easier to mostly read and add the odd post these days. I also find it better for my own state of mind, it just doesn't suit me becoming embroiled in back and forth with people who you will never convince. It's football followed mostly by men, with that comes ego's and a reluctance to admit wrong.  I just can't be doing with that any more.

 

 

[Siidi]

1 hour ago, Thiago97 said:

I can only speak from a personal perspective. A win generally has less talking points than a defeat, we got the result we wanted. As an example, win against Arsenal or Spurs will have far more posts than a win against Bournemouth or Palace. We are Chelsea and have spent billions, its expected we win against lesser teams.

Again, I am only speaking personally. I have stepped back from posting as often for a number of reasons. Time being a key one, I just can't afford the time to get involved in long back and forward disagreements.

I find it easier to mostly read and add the odd post these days. I also find it better for my own state of mind, it just doesn't suit me becoming embroiled in back and forth with people who you will never convince. It's football followed mostly by men, with that comes ego's and a reluctance to admit wrong.  I just can't be doing with that any more.

 

 

Personally I find it refreshing that people can still talk about what we could have done better even after we've won, instead of just say,  we won, go home. We didn't exactly win the quadruple, only snatched a win against Bournemouth. 

I get that some people feel upset by any criticism of the team. I am annoyed that we looked second best to Bournemouth for large parts of the match and could have come away with a defeat. It's everyone to their own, as they say.

[chara]

@My Blood Is Blue,,,,reference the Sanchez opinion...agree with your post 100% and the reply from @Blue Orca,,,IF,

 I can only totally agree about the great contribution Sanchez made to the game and he deserved all the accolades.

However, imho ,as an EPL keeper, that should be close to a standard game performance..how many times does an "ordinary" in EPL terms keeper come to SB and appear to have a worldie game ?

The standards are so high and Sanchez has always had that sort of game in him..the problem is not on the consistent basis the likes of  PC and TC at Chelsea...that is the difference ,,,one great game two or three "ordinary" games and a shocker is the kind of performance we have come to accept from Sanchez and our keepers.

I hope he does "firm up" and continue to play at that standard every game,,for his sake as much as for Chelsea and us long suffering fans,

May sound harsh but a good player having a poor game can "hide" and a win muffle the criticism.

A keeper cannot hide and the criticism is immediate win or lose,,,the up side is the accolades after a game like this weekend but being THE MAN this week is a hollow triumph if things slip back in the next few games.

[ROTG]

8 hours ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

A win is a win, but a defeat is a disaster... football fans are a funny bunch.

Not really,

maybe we have been spoilt with the late bates era and Roman. 

When you are used to being a serial winning club, the current philosophy and subsequent results are something hard to swallow. Especially with the BS propaganda from the new establishment 
 

The second half of last season the club seemed to be on the right track, however the management disagreed and hit the reset button. At least the previous coach seat a bar for a bag of dolly mixtures 

[ROTG]

6 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

We saw collective fouling from Bournemouth as they took it in turns to kick him off the park , a competent referee would have sent one of their hatchet men off instead of letting then kick him eight times before he booked one of them. 

We were played off the park for a second time in less than six months by the Bournemouth coach. 

[chrisb]

2 minutes ago, ROTG said:

We were played off the park for a second time in less than six months by the Bournemouth coach. 

And we won. At their ground. Without conceding a goal.

[Mark Kelly]

1 minute ago, ROTG said:

We were played off the park for a second time in less than six months by the Bournemouth coach. 

I'm pretty sure if we were allowed to kick their best player eight times before anyone got booked and then switched the players so two or three players also had a go we'd have played them off the park also. 

We were terrible but let's not pretend that the referee wasnt the major factor behind it. 

 

[ROTG]

12 minutes ago, chrisb said:

And we won. At their ground. Without conceding a goal.

Nobody is arguing the fact it was a snap and grab result. But the overall performance was poor.  
 

unless I miss something that is the general consensus on this game 

[ROTG]

13 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

I'm pretty sure if we were allowed to kick their best player eight times before anyone got booked and then switched the players so two or three players also had a go we'd have played them off the park also. 

We were terrible but let's not pretend that the referee wasnt the major factor behind it. 

 

Kicking the best player off the park is part and parcel of football. It is how the player reacts and influences the game, that is the real sign of a great player. 

I got slaughtered by the usual gang when i said season two will show how good a player CP is. 

[Ham]

1 minute ago, ROTG said:

Kicking the best player off the park is part and parcel of football. It is how the player reacts and influences the game, that is the real sign of a great player. 

I got slaughtered by the usual gang when i said season two will show how good a player CP is. 

A bit early for the end of season review if you ask me.