Sunday 5th August - Chelsea 0-2 Man City (Community Shield)

[Storts]

Jorginho is going to be a flop - can't handle the pace of Premier League football.

 

Just Kidding - but he has been awful 

[Stan]

Chelsea are shit.

[LFCMadLad]

I was tipping Chelsea to easily make at least 3rd this season but after watching this I'm not so sure. Think they might actually struggle to make top 4 again. 

Think 5th or 6th is more likely. 

[Stan]

Claudio 'calamity' Bravo  

 

[Happy Blue]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

Claudio 'calamity' Bravo  

 

A clown to entertain the young kids, he does a puppet show at half time! 

[Stan]

Brahim Diaz has been good to watch since he came on.

[Stan]

Just now, Happy Blue said:

A clown to entertain the young kids, he does a puppet show at half time! 

as if entertaining the fans with his mistakes during the match isn't enough

Is there an encore after the full-time whistle ?!

[Happy Blue]

Just now, Stan said:

Brahim Diaz has been good to watch since he came on.

He's equal to Foden, real good young talent Spain have 

[Stan]

if this is known as a 'curtain-raiser' for the Premier League, then we can safely say the curtains are still shut for Chelsea.

Abjectly poor and Sarri has a lot of work on his hands. I know he's not had very long and that's the fault of the Chelsea heirarchy but he needs to sort a lot of things out quickly. Kante and Hazard coming back should be a welcome boost for them.

[RandoEFC+]

It's only one game obviously but that Chelsea squad to me just looks stale and old.

Perhaps there will be a few movements from then before Thursday. If Sarri really is this great coach then perhaps players like Barkley and Morata will flourish throughout the season but I don't see that any amount of coaching is going to do significant wonders for the likes of Luiz, Moses and other players at that particular stage in their career.

[6666]

I didn't think Man City were brilliant but they really didn't need to be. Still won quite comfortably.

[SirBalon]

4 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

David Luiz has been over the hill for a while.

David Luiz has always been a terrible defender. Conte’s brilliant tactics masked it in Chelsea’s championship season. 

[Storts]

All valid points but at the end of the day it's still a pre season friendly that means very little.

Get Hazard and Kante back in that Chelsea team, their two most important players, and they are a different side. Sarri has had little time to integrate his system or get his players in so really not ready to jump to any conclusions off the back of a friendly defeat to the best team in the league.

[Cicero]

6 minutes ago, Storts said:

All valid points but at the end of the day it's still a pre season friendly that means very little.

Get Hazard and Kante back in that Chelsea team, their two most important players, and they are a different side. Sarri has had little time to integrate his system or get his players in so really not ready to jump to any conclusions off the back of a friendly defeat to the best team in the league.

Think our players have a general understanding of Sarri's system, and although this is still a work in progress, the many faults we saw out there today were down to the actual level/ability of the personal.  

All of the negatives we saw today we're nothing new. It's been something we've been saying for months now. The players we have are simply not good enough. Not at least on a technical level.

We finished 30 points behind City, so you can all understand the frustration given we've only signed one midfielder and a 3rd choice GK with 4 days left until the window shuts. The players we have aren't good enough, and it's mostly down to the incompetence of our board these past couple years. City were in cruise control and still took the piss out of us. It's amazing how we are inevitably going to go into another deadline day where we spend ridiculous amounts on more Zappacosta's, Drinkwaters, and Bakayoko's. 

There is a big monstrous hole in our midfield that Kante usually fills. Hazard too will help us a lot, however two players alone can't cloud over the vast weakness in our squad. Jorginho helps the midfield in possession, Kante will help us in pressing, yet there is that attacking midfielder role that I feel no player we currently have is good enough to fill. Cesc's legs are gone, Barkley isn't good enough and Reuben Loftus-Cheek lacks end product. Team currently isn't good enough, and I've been saying for weeks that top 4 realistically is the best we can accomplish. Alonso and Morata continue to start, we won't make it. Pure and simple. We have average players playing in huge roles. 

Amazing, quite literally amazing how this is now the 3rd straight summer our board have left everything until the last minute. It's as if they are oblivious to the actual problems of the team, and continue to perform the same level of incompetence. 

 

 

[carefreeluke]

Take a look at us there and solely the personnel (not even taking into account the performance) looks like a team that would finish anywhere from 6th-10th in the Premier League. We've bought too many squad fillers in recent years. Not long ago we'd buy quality to challenge the first team players, now we bring in players that are brought in to be backup. I genuinely think part of that is actually down to Conte who was banging on and on about squad depth in his time here, for me Conte created holes in the squad which could have just been filled with youth players until the right time came to bring in someone of quality. Bring someone in of quality or don't bother at all. There was a time we were bringing in the likes of Ballack to challenge Essien, Lampard and Makélélé.

Another example was Kanté's arrival. His arrival pushed Cesc right out the team and saw him partner Matic for a good part of Conte's title winning season. This had a big effect on Fabregas who then consequently wanted to prove the manager wrong, rose to the competition, looked the most hungry I've seen him for Chelsea in interviews and on the pitch and he won his place back deservedly towards the end of that season.

Personnel wise I think we've been below par for a good while now,  this isn't reactionary after today's game, I was saying the same even when we won the league under Conte.

[Cicero]

5 minutes ago, carefreeluke said:

 

Personnel wise I think we've been below par for a good while now,  this isn't reactionary after today's game, I was saying the same even when we won the league under Conte.

Think we all were. Funny how some neutrals were calling us out on it too. Won't name names but they know who they are. 

All for them to see today, and last season in fact. 

[RandoEFC+]

3 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Think we all were. Funny how some neutrals were calling us out on it too. Won't name names but they know who they are. 

All for them to see today, and last season in fact. 

Not ashamed to say that I stand corrected, at least partially.

[Machado]

11 hours ago, Happy Blue said:

Bernardo is going to be a huge player for us this season

Pep Guardiola: "Right now it’s Bernardo and 10 more, but it’s about what you do over the season. In this moment Bernardo is far above the other guys. Today the performance (of Bernardo) was a masterpiece."

[Happy Blue]

3 hours ago, Machado said:

Pep Guardiola: "Right now it’s Bernardo and 10 more, but it’s about what you do over the season. In this moment Bernardo is far above the other guys. Today the performance (of Bernardo) was a masterpiece."

I agree, he's looking really sharp and settled now, looked good in the middle today too playing the David Silva role, will be a good long term replacement for Silva when he calls it a day 

[True Blue]

First half wasn't that poor apart from the opening 15 minutes. The second was abysmal, we couldn't string a few passes even when City wasn't pressuring. Saying all this we had Caballero on goal (who was excellent), Luiz who was missing last season, Barkley who was missing for six months, Cesc who is piss, Pedro who is a sub, and Odoi who is a kid and a huge game for him. While City played basically their full team apart from Bravo, no excuses tough. City already gelled a team of three seasons now, while we had three weeks with Sarri with most of they key players either on vacation or planning a move away from the club. This board is ran by morons, we have 3 days to sign players and we managed to get Jorginho. Sad part is that they can leave after the 9th but we can't replace them if that happens. Don't want unhappy players in the team, and obviously we will be having them. With this team we can hope for a top 4 spot which we could get, or at least to win the Europa League. If we don't manage to get new players at least give the kids a go in a season where they could really shine.