Injury News

[Ham]

Just a reminder of our decent squad depth.  I've not even used Cucurella or Palmer. 

[Dwmh]

4 hours ago, Ham said:

Just a reminder of our decent squad depth.  I've not even used Cucurella or Palmer. 

 

Or that guy called Silva.
Or is this just the U35 squad?

Gonna call him Silver now.

[Sleeping Dave]

4 hours ago, Ham said:

Just a reminder of our decent squad depth.  I've not even used Cucurella or Palmer. 

Think it’ll be a while before Fofana plays for us again. 

[Sciatika]

But there's still Trevoh

[Ham]

59 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Or that guy called Silva.
Or is this just the U35 squad?

Gonna call him Silver now.

Forgot to mention him but I've deliberately left him out of the sides because I'm assuming he can't have another season in him.  I'm holding out for prime Fofana as the future. 

50 minutes ago, Sleeping Dave said:

Think it’ll be a while before Fofana plays for us again. 

Possibly but he's a wonderful footballer at full fitness. He's got time. 

1 minute ago, Sciatika said:

But there's still Trevoh

Again I didn't include Trev deliberately in the sides but forgot to mention I'd left him out. I don't think he has a future here. 

[Rob B]

6 hours ago, Ham said:

Just a reminder of our decent squad depth.  I've not even used Cucurella or Palmer. 

Brilliant depth and quality in defence, both at CB and the full backs - arguably the strongest in the league.  Same could be said for centre midfield to be fair. 

What this highlights for me though, and I completely appreciate it goes against the sentiment of your post, is just how green our attack is.  

Raheem Sterling aside, we have like 8 PL goals across our entire group of forwards. 

[Ham]

22 minutes ago, Rob B said:

Brilliant depth and quality in defence, both at CB and the full backs - arguably the strongest in the league.  Same could be said for centre midfield to be fair. 

What this highlights for me though, and I completely appreciate it goes against the sentiment of your post, is just how green our attack is.  

Raheem Sterling aside, we have like 8 PL goals across our entire group of forwards. 

Ok.  Let's say we agree there, we're not the mess, squad-wise, that many on here claim we are.  I maintain that the owners have done a fantastic job in clearing out the old and then building the new. 

Who would you add up top to be competitive in January/next summer?  Could we have kept Lukaku and made him work for his money? Would that have added the required presence/ experience?

[Max Fowler]

49 minutes ago, Rob B said:

Brilliant depth and quality in defence, both at CB and the full backs - arguably the strongest in the league.  Same could be said for centre midfield to be fair. 

What this highlights for me though, and I completely appreciate it goes against the sentiment of your post, is just how green our attack is.  

Raheem Sterling aside, we have like 8 PL goals across our entire group of forwards. 

Honestly, what are you talking about Rob. City's defence is lightyears ahead of ours - I am sorry it's just true. 

Again, to say our midfield is better than Rodri - De Bruyne - Bernardo - you must be having a laugh.

[Rob B]

26 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Honestly, what are you talking about Rob. City's defence is lightyears ahead of ours - I am sorry it's just true. 

Again, to say our midfield is better than Rodri - De Bruyne - Bernardo - you must be having a laugh.

Midfield bit was poor wording on my part.  I was linking it to the comment about brilliant depth and quality rather than the bit about strongest in the league.  

I maintain my point about defence though….

James, Gusto, Silva, Badiashille, Colwill, Fofana, Chalobah, Disasi, Chilwell  and Maatsen is unbelievable quality and depth. 

By comparison City’s is Walker, Akanji, Ake, Dias, Gvardiol, Stones, Rico Lewis, Gomez and Wilson-Esbrand.

Fair one if you prefer theirs, but it’s marginal at best.  Certainly not light years.

[Rob B]

1 hour ago, Ham said:

Ok.  Let's say we agree there, we're not the mess, squad-wise, that many on here claim we are.  I maintain that the owners have done a fantastic job in clearing out the old and then building the new. 

Who would you add up top to be competitive in January/next summer?  Could we have kept Lukaku and made him work for his money? Would that have added the required presence/ experience?

Not going to pretend I know the answer to that mate, I simply don’t watch enough overseas football.   In terms of PL players, I think Evan Ferguson looks like the next Harry Kane but everyone’s going to be in for him.  Isak at Newcastle is a dangerous player but again difficult to obtain probably and I also like Ivan Toney - although aware others don’t rate him.   

Outside of that it’s pretty slim pickings to be honest.  Ollie Watkins is someone who I wouldn’t class as being elite, but works hard and has scored double figures for the last three years running.   Ideally we’d have someone like that as our second striker whilst loaning Broja out to get minutes and continue his recovery. 

Away from the centre forward, a big gripe of mine is the lack of goals from the supporting attackers.  Gone are the days when Mata, Hazard, Pedro and Willian would all chip in with 30+ goals between them.   Hopefully Nkunku can hit the ground running when he returns. 

[Max Fowler]

13 minutes ago, Rob B said:

Midfield bit was poor wording on my part.  I was linking it to the comment about brilliant depth and quality rather than the bit about strongest in the league.  

I maintain my point about defence though….

James, Gusto, Silva, Badiashille, Colwill, Fofana, Chalobah, Disasi, Chilwell  and Maatsen is unbelievable quality and depth. 

By comparison City’s is Walker, Akanji, Ake, Dias, Gvardiol, Stones, Rico Lewis, Gomez and Wilson-Esbrand.

Fair one if you prefer theirs, but it’s marginal at best.  Certainly not light years.

Fair play Rob.

Personally at this moment I don't think any of our starting four get in City's.
Walker is the best RB this county has ever seen and hugely contributes to their CL win - perhaps their Kante in dealing with Mbappe.
I would take any of Akanji, Ake, Dias, Guardiol or Stones over our lot.

The point is - we have a lot of players who are not very good, just very young.
Yes Ham's graphics show we have a lot of depth, but is it the right kind of depth? Not for me.

Considering our spending:

Defence
Still missing an elite goalkeeper, at least one elite centre back to replace Thiago Silva AND doubts over Chilwell and Reece (injuries & form). We also have too many defenders now and have invested too much money in defence compared to our attack.

Grade: D

Midfield
The one area Clearlake have done quite well in. I love Caicedo, Lavia, Enzo, Ugo and Chuk. Good work from the team, although we really need Enzo to come up with goals and to add another creative midfielder - should have been added already.

Also invested too much money in defensive midfield compared to attack.

Grade: B

Forward line
Utter embarrassment in terms of recruitment. Especially given last season's lack of goals.

Mudryk, Madueke, Palmer, Jackson and Broja can't even spell the world goal.

Grade: G

[boratsbrother]

57 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Honestly, what are you talking about Rob. City's defence is lightyears ahead of ours - I am sorry it's just true. 

Again, to say our midfield is better than Rodri - De Bruyne - Bernardo - you must be having a laugh.

Have to agree with you there!

Hopefully this will be a legit argument in few years time but it's certainly not one arm!

As great as Silva has been for us he's nearly 39 and would not be in the City or Liverpool teams. James and Chilly were playing great a couple of years ago but since the injuries they picked up neither has been as good as they were before those injuries. None of the others have proved anything much in a Chelsea shirt.

The midfield is light-years away from the level of City's.

 

 

[Max Fowler]

 

 

[Sciatika]

10 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Mudryk, Madueke, Palmer, Jackson and Broja can't even spell the world goal.

Did you mean "word"? 🙂

[Mark Kelly]

9 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

 

 

Badiashille has re-injured himself in training too ! Woo hoo ! 

[Ham]

41 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Badiashille has re-injured himself in training too ! Woo hoo ! 

I'm picturing Cobham as the house from Home Alone with tripwires and swinging tins of paint. 

It's incredible. 

This is why we need a big squad. 

[ROTG]

12 hours ago, Rob B said:

James, Gusto, Silva, Badiashille, Colwill, Fofana, Chalobah, Disasi, Chilwell  and Maatsen is unbelievable quality and depth. 

By comparison City’s is Walker, Akanji, Ake, Dias, Gvardiol, Stones, Rico Lewis, Gomez and Wilson-Esbrand.

Fair one if you prefer theirs, but it’s marginal at best.  Certainly not light years.

Fairer comparison is the number of weeks each player has had out injured over the past 2/3 seasons and total each back line

[Holymoly]

[Simon Philips] Trevoh Chalobah's personal trainer has appeared to brand Chelsea's injury crisis 'an absolute mess'. Ed Hodge, who works closely with Chalobah, seemed to discuss the Blues' issues in a now-deleted Twitter post showing what looks to be a private Instagram conversation. - @MailSport

 

This may smack a bit of yah boo sucks but there has to be some reason for the plethora of non contact and training ground injuries.

[xceleryx]

14 hours ago, Holymoly said:

[Simon Philips] Trevoh Chalobah's personal trainer has appeared to brand Chelsea's injury crisis 'an absolute mess'. Ed Hodge, who works closely with Chalobah, seemed to discuss the Blues' issues in a now-deleted Twitter post showing what looks to be a private Instagram conversation. - @MailSport

 

This may smack a bit of yah boo sucks but there has to be some reason for the plethora of non contact and training ground injuries.

Was shared by @Max Fowler a few days ago, might be on the last page back actually

Will say what I said then - it's odd that he claims to know the solution, yet his own client is currently out with the same injury type. 

Knee and hamstrings have been at the forefront of our problems going back to the early 2010's, and plenty of change has occurred within the medical department in that 13 year period from then to now. 

Also not a good look for Chalobah having this leak, after he leaked the team line up for a match last season. 

[Holymoly]

3 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Knee and hamstrings have been at the forefront of our problems going back to the early 2010's

There was an article on the BBC website pointing out that Kante hasn't had an injury since leaving Chelsea. /shrug

[Mark Kelly]

Nice to see N'Golo Kante curling one in from the edge of the area in Saudi when had he been playing for us he'd have needed two blood transfusions and the total rebuild of his lower half since August . 

[xceleryx]

1 hour ago, Holymoly said:

There was an article on the BBC website pointing out that Kante hasn't had an injury since leaving Chelsea. /shrug

Have you seen the footballing standard over there? The intensity pales in comparison. 

[Ham]

5 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Was shared by @Max Fowler a few days ago, might be on the last page back actually

Will say what I said then - it's odd that he claims to know the solution, yet his own client is currently out with the same injury type. 

Knee and hamstrings have been at the forefront of our problems going back to the early 2010's, and plenty of change has occurred within the medical department in that 13 year period from then to now. 

Also not a good look for Chalobah having this leak, after he leaked the team line up for a match last season. 

Important to note that the bloke leaking wasn't his personal trainer at all. 

[paulw66]

Caicedo and Madueke available for Sunday

[paulw66]

Reece, Trev and Chuk are all close to returning to full training.