Danny

Annoying, Chelsea have created nothing outside of the goal and as great as the ball in and the header were, it was completely uncontested. How have Zanka and Ajer let Jackson slip in between them, when he's the only person forward? Terrible defending, take control. I want us to swap to a 4-3-3 in the second half, get more pace down the wings, get more creativity in the middle and try to overload this Chelsea team. The way Poch has set up has cancelled out our attack, but it's also left Chelsea pretty weak going forward.

Chelsea with a superb goal out of the blue, taken control of the game since. Fernandez has been the best player on the pitch.

I can only hope Forest get deducted lol

I've played around with a few formations, I like playing season mode and having to find a formation specifically for each team. Career mode is great but I always end up doing the same formations with similar players. In Seasons I'll play as Netherlands, I like having to make use of the amount of centre backs they have. They have about 5/6 who could all be top quality on their day, so fitting one into the defensive midfield position is a must to offer the best defensive solidity. Depay - Gakpo Simons Ake - De Jong Malacia - Van Dijk - Van de Ven - Timber - Dumfries Flekken Sometimes I'll play as Croatia and use the below. It's a bit of a weird one but essentially Croatia's dominance over the past 6 or so years has come down to the quality of their midfield so I thought how best to use the midfield? Brozovic sits at the base and acts as a defensive midfielder, Kovacic will sit next to him but has more room to push forward. Just behind the strikers are Ivanusec and Majer who play as Attacking Mids but have the freedom to drift wide a bit. Then Modric sits in between all of them playing in a free role, linking up play. The idea is that it should always draw the opposition in to press you, but because they are so good at keeping the ball when being pressed (Kovacic and Modric especially), it allows for Kramaric to break through behind and also for Ivanusec and Majer to do so as well. But the last two also stay connected with the box midfield so that there is always an option to pass to, with the wing backs moving forward to increase the passing options. Kramaric Ivanusec ------------------ Majer Modric Kovacic -------- Brozovic Sosa - Gvardiol - Sutalo - Juranovic Livakovic Last year on Fifa 23 I created the below for England, it was before Pep stopped using wing backs so I am officially claiming he copied my brilliance. The idea is that because we were winger heavy I decided to play with 4 wingers. Saka and Sterling would cut inside and play more direct whereas Grealish and Foden would look to hold the ball on the outside of the area and then dribble in, either beating players or playing 1-2's. Kane would be floating around as a false 9 always ready to score from a cross or cut back. Bellingham and Trent would play as defensive midfielders covering the centre, Trent specifically spraying balls out to either wing when on the counter or when needing to switch play and Bellingham being given freedom to push forward in possession. With those two covering the centre defensively it meant I could take Walker when defending and rush him out to the wing, same with Stones (can play Rice on the left instead and Stones central). With Rice playing central though it offers another defensive player who can play big long balls out to the wingers when on the counter. It worked really well with England, but it's difficult to do in career mode as you really need the skillsets. Sterling --------- Kane ---------- Saka Grealish --------------------------------- Foden Bellingham - Trent Stones - Rice - Walker Pickford In Career mode I have been playing as Udinese. It has been a challenge as they lack money, signing talent hasn't been an issue but getting depth was. Took me about a season/season and a half to fully get the depth I needed to push for Europe. The formation was inspired by my Netherlands back 5, but also took something from City's attack too. Back 3 who don't push on too much, Lenny Yorro and Vitaly Janelt sat in front. Yorro is just a physical presence who can win the ball back consistently. Janelt is similar but he has play-making responsibilities. He will often pick the ball up on the right hand side, draw players towards him and then I can rifle a ball cross field to Zafeiris who is playing left midfield. This generally opens Zaferis up for a run and to play into players ahead. Otherwise Ebosele is used to bomb forward. The front 3 is fairly simple, Ferguson makes runs in behind and I try to get him as many 1/2 touch finishes as possible, but he can also drill them in from distance. Baturina is a bit of a playmaker but mostly he's there to score goals and help keep possession. Pafundi, who I didn't know anything about, has been phenomenal. He is the team's playmaker, dribbles in and out of defences, can play difficult passes but also scores a lot of goals from distance, especially when on the half turn in a difficult space. This team is now pushing for top 4 with about 8 games to go, though it maybe a bit too much with the gap. We are 6th at the moment. In terms of depth going forward I have Jurasek, Karabec (both Czech) and Konate from RB Salzburg. Konate is a great option to bring on when defences are tired, he's also great at pressing. Karabec does a job and Jurasek can play across the attacking midfield spots to score goals, very prolific. Ferguson -------------------Baturina --- Pafundi Zafeiris --------------------------------------------------- ------------------Yorro ----Janelt --------------- Ebosele Lukeba - Harwood Bellis - Diomande Silvestri

With a mostly fit squad no, but we were expecting most of these injuries to clear up in January/February and now it's March and we're still waiting on news for a lot of players. Hickey, Pinnock, Mbeumo, Schade...for me, I've said this a million times but right now our problem is a lack of pace. We normally do so well against the big teams because we have pace to get behind them, but with Henry, Mbeumo, Dasilva and Schade out there just isn't anyone to get in behind off Toney. Then we have the defensive issue in that our current first choice back four are all injured. I think we're finally at a point now where we accept that we could be in a relegation battle, the season has just been terrible for injuries and we've not had much restbite. The one thing about this league is injuries can force 14 of the clubs in the league into a relegation battle if they are that bad, and right now for us they are bad. The West Ham result was difficult because it's probably the worst we've played since promotion. West Ham were terrible on the night and were there for the taking, and somehow we conceded 4. We beat Wolves which was great, but we needed a point minimum against West Ham to help cushion us in this run of games where we are playing Liverpool, City x2, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd, Brighton and Villa. Fortunately we still have to play the bottom 3, yourselves, Fulham, Bournemouth and Newcastle. But it feels close right now.

Will we win? Will we lose? Will we field a team of fully fit players? Who the fuck knows.

I didnt wanna have to say it out loud so thanks for that Stan That’s just our entire back 4 out, Schade, Mbeumo, Dasilva and whoever else I’ve forgotten

I think a lot still do but I’ve been unconvinced, he just runs a lot which I think has convinced people that hes good but for me theres no real end product when he gets forward, continually loses the ball and hes not that great defensively, just has recovery pace. Put in a couple of real stupid challenges yesterday and I couldn’t believe he had the cheek to get sarcastic with the referee both times, especially when he was on a yellow. I hope he grows into a better player as its early days with us but he reminds me of Sergi Canos and thats not a good thing.

This isn’t just our worst game of the season, its our worst game since we got promoted. The team have been terrible and Frank has been far too slow to make changes leaving the absolute weapon that is Reguillon on as well as Onyeka who has only successfully given away fouls. We are without 5 first eleven players still, but thats no excuse for this performance. We should be getting a point from this, not getting battered by a West Ham team who have also been pony

I can see why you’ve loaned Reguillon out for a second time in one season @Storts

Clear as day penalty

He hasn’t spent anything and you know that, he like Graham Potter is having to manage a shitshow with no long-term plan in place.

Mate Poch took Spurs to a Champions League final and within inches of winning the league. Spurs. The club notorious for being not very good. He’s a very good manager who is in charge of a shitshow

No coaches would just change their approach to keep their players onside lol

Pretty disingenuous to compare the mass upheaval thats happened at Chelsea to City pre-planning the club’s structure to suit Pep and Liverpool’s successful analytical model merging perfectly with Klopp. You got a sentence through your Klopp argument before realising Poch just took Chelsea to a Cup final in his first season lol.

Its pretty well documented that those 3 were the issue regardless of coach in charge

Then the issue is consistency, but its factually offside

Mate Neymar, Messi and Mbappe was a terrible front 3. Neither Messi or Neymar wanted/could do any running and Mbappe was too busy moaning at people for passing to Messi than him lol

Do you not think Chelsea losing that killer instinct is down to the ownership and their transfer model rather than Poch?

Sky really need to sort out Carragher commentating on Liverpool games. The goal was clearly offside, Colwill clearly had a run on Van Dijk and Endo from an offside position blocks him. Pretty straightforward, second time recently that Carragher has let his bias get the best of him on commentary

I don’t think you can with the current manager, tbh the more I look back on him saying the current team can’t play out like his Ajax team the more I see it as a mistake. Obviously you shouldnt look to replicate them exactly, but I do think its a case of him publicly giving up on the players. But I look at Spurs and think they’ve managed to play some really good football with the likes of Skipp, Davies, Bissouma who looked terrible last season. With Ten Hah in his second full season at the club, I feel like he should be doing better with how you’re performing on the pitch. Completely get that the club has been run a shambles and you’ve had numerous managers bringing in players not fit for purpose who don’t fit the next managers vision. But again, I just think you should be expecting more in the play style to build for a better long-term future. At the moment it just seems you’re hoping the opposition aren’t clinical and that you can grab a couple goals on the break. Obviously you know more than me, but I just look at the positivity that other managers have brought to their clubs in this league, with lesser players and lesser fortunes to buy them, and think Ten Hag could take a page out of their books.

Honestly, the money Chelsea have spent, beating Liverpool to Caicedo for big money, the fact half Liverpool’s team is injured snd they brought on 5 academy players and still couldn’t win. A humiliating loss for Chelsea

There’s still no real identity in how the team play other than sit back and try to occasionally make use of the talent going forward. It must be painful at times watching this United team, knowing they can offer more, and then watching Tottenham for example bring in a manager who has a gameplan and a style that is almost immediately put together on the pitch. Or the improvement Emery has made to Villa, or O’Neill at Wolves. I’m not saying United should want these managers, but where I was on the fence before about whether or not he should go, it’s looking more and more likely he should. There just isn’t any vision in how that team is playing, and tbh, right now, theres a lot of talent in there that warrant more expansive football.

He would get bullied from pillar to post in the dressing room if he was playing during United’s best years.

What a game that was. Wigan had so much fight, looked like they were going to give it away for a while but they forced a couple of big tackles deep down field and began to win and ultimately balance out the physical battle that Penrith were winning. The tries are definitely a talking point and will probably be more of one down under, but I don’t think anything conclusive came either way. There was one angle that made it look like the ball was far away but then another made it seem like he got it grounded. Difficult to be precise with the camera angles, definitely an issue we’ve seen in football too. That disallowed try was class from Wigan, shame they ran ahead of the kick as that was a real highlight moment.