Thought we played well but they did well to close it out once 2.1 up. Commentary I had said ours wasn't a pen but bbc said it was. I thought it was so feel a bit hard done by.
Agree. Focus should be on shipping out the deadwood that consumes wages to allow flexibility in the summer - Okaka and Prodl prime contenders. Would love to get rid of Gray as well. Getting rid of those 3 would be an excellent window.
Sky commentarywas so pro-Chelsea though. I wouldn't be surprised if Martin Tyler had Hazard's face tattooed on his backside.
We were ****, they were **** but they also have a player who's miles and miles better than anyone else on the pitch.
I don’t know what game some people were watching but that was a very undeserved loss. They scored from 2 mistakes, outside of that they created next to nothing. A draw or even a victory for us would have been a more deserved result. I thought Chelsea were pathetic. It was one of those games where the ball just wouldn’t bounce in our favour. Deeney played extremely well, I can’t believe people are slating him. Take off your hatred toward Deeney glasses. He held the ball up well, should have had a few more FK’s given his way. Made some great runs that weren’t picked out. Especially in the second half. He found himself between Luiz and Alonso a few times but we never attempted to cross the ball. As a lone striker he done well tonight. Outside of the save in the 91st minute, Foster was never really tested, I know, neither was their keeper. Cathcart and Holebas played well, as did Doucoure and Capoue. I thought Sema played ok, skinned Alonso, put a couple of good crosses in that no-one was on the end of. Deulofeu has the ability to be brilliant but today he just slowed us down countless times by trying to do to much on his own. He just needs to keep the ball moving sometimes and keep it simple. If that was Amrabat everyone bar a few on here, would be ripping into him. Mariappa is an ok replacement when we are playing against teams with not much pace. Against Hazard though, he was bound to get caught. Thought we should have had a penalty right before theirs. If that was outside the area a FK would have been given. We have all seen them given. I hate losing games like this. However after watching Liverpool destroy Newcastle earlier, I’m confident of a win against them. Good performance by most of the boys tonight. Deserved more and we will make it right against Newcastle.
That was disappointing. For 60 minutes we more than matched Chelsea, who bar the goal created virtually nothing up to the penalty, and we looked good for at least a point. After the penalty we never looked like getting back into it and our substitutions just seemed to take the sting out of the game. Two sloppy mistakes ultimately cost us. Hope Kabs is ok, he took some whack when he hit the post
After his performance, many a neutral will heading to the parlour to request a Hazard tatt. The choices are Eden, Thorgan or Mickey. Btw, Sidwell & Scott sounded like they were auditioning for roles as urchins in Oliver! And they both latched onto Deeney like a drowning man grasps after flotsam. Plainly, the only Watford player they could remember.
They were lot sharper and quicker than us although we gifted them both goals... Hopefully Kabasele is ok and we do need more up front - did their goalie have more than one save to make ? We move on I guess onto a team who will be pretty defensive .
I said the same thing to my Son. What would the score have been if could swap Hazard for Deeney? Considering that's the 4th best team in the league they weren't that great
I just cannot understand this constant moaning about our defenders, such as Mapps. We are playing against the best players in the world and yet again we keep the number of chances down to a mere few, yet again. Chelsea have had 42 shots in the last two games, yet they only worked one clear chance tonight, plus our two mistakes. Their first goal was a mistake by our midfield, and whilst Mapps was at fault initially for the second, it was the rush of blood from Foster that cost us the penalty and goal after Hazard had knocked it too wide. Our defenders are good enough to cope with most teams in this league, it is our "forwards" that are so, so poor. Why, oh why, does Deeney keeps getting these long runs in the team, whilst being so ineffective for 90% of the time. It must drive our midfielders bananas knowing that they have to keep coming up with fantastic goals to keep us afloat. Just what do our coaches see in him on the pitch, that barely no-one else can? We have waited several games for Sema to do something exceptional, then he turns someone brilliantly midway through 2nd half near the touch line, takes the ball to a crossing position, and our three players in the box, are all mid to far post. Not one takes a chance going to the near post, to either score from a near post cross, or take a defender or two with them. Where does the cross go under pressure? Near flipping post! Chance gone. We are so close to having a really cracking little team here, it is so damn frustrating.
Christ mate. I'm honestly entirely in the same boat as you but if you're going to choose any game to slate him I'm not entirely sure this was it, better than he normally is although that's still garbage. Main issue was Doucoure losing the ball constantly and Sema offering precisely **** all. Mariappa I won't even bother as it's obvious. Not a terrible performance on the whole but Chelsea were clearly miles better, As they should be.
He was crap today, as he always is. Zero attacking threat except missing a good chance. I agree there were other players equally as bad or worse tonight, but none of them have been as bad as Deeney has been for such a ridiculously long time. He's stealing a living at this level.
No real complaints from that. Was two teams trying to get the ball down and play but their passes were far more cutting and faster paced. Don’t think Doucoure was as bad as some have said on here but in saying that, he is absolutely nowhere near the player we know he can be and Capoue is by far the better of the two at present. Couldn’t deal with Hazard or Kante all night but better teams than us will struggle to do that too. Whilst Deeney is nowhere near good enough for where we are aiming to be as a side, I think some are going a bit strong at him. He faded badly as the game wore on, but Deulofeu was the poorer of the two tonight IMO and is more frustrating as you know he has the talent to be so much more. Simply can’t be afforded as a passenger in games like this. Kiko and Holebas I thought were very good and Pereyra drifted in and out of the game but was always trying to create - Azpilicueta will be one of his harder games this season and I think that was obvious by the way he kept coming inside. Sema tries to be fair and there looks to be the odd spark from him but on the whole, he just looks a level below this to be honest - he should be nearer our second string side than anywhere near the first team as he has been. And finally I though Cathcart was brilliant. Did as well as could be expected once he lost Kabasele as his partner and it can’t be easy with Mariappa having regular brain-fade’s next to him. Hazard knew this was a game for him when that happened. I hope Kabasele’s injury isn’t too bad - but a large part of me hopes it’s bad enough to force Gino to finally put a decent amount of money into a CB.
This season Bobby & Del have buzzed telepathically around the box. Some long balls tonight but an uninformed & lazy comment from the lead pundit I felt.
WTF are those SKY Pundits on, Steve Sidwell actually said that if Luiz tackle had been outside the box it would have been a foul Then in the next breath he said that it was great defending by Luiz and that it was NOT a penalty, likewise the female pundit said quite emphatically it was NOT a penalty and that it was great defending That is the fourth time in the last six games we have been robbed by an inept official and it is really ******* me off I actually said to my Mrs. that had that been at the other end and the foul had been against Hazard it would have been given, and low and behold a few minutes later it happened. Having said that, it was a fair penalty that was awarded against Foster, but so should the foul on Deulofeu have been a penalty too As others have said earlier we did not deserve to lose that match, but we probably did not deserve to win it either, a draw would have been about the right result IMO.
I personally think the coaches should make him study videos of Hazard - has the pace and dribbling to have a similar play style to him.
We were great. Foster had hardly a save to make against one of the most expensively assembled teams in the country. For anyone moaning they need to remember where we were even a couple of seasons ago. If we had a goal scorer we would have been on 4 or 5 po8nts more. Not much else wrong. What a great game of football
This season we haven’t been a long ball side. But Carragher was right if he was claiming that we did it a fair bit tonight. Chelsea’s pressing of the ball out of possession was very good with Kante, Alonso and Azpilicueta stand outs in that respect. Made us go longer than we probably wanted to and then we had Deeney winning a few flick ons, some aimed towards Deleufeu who didn’t bother anticipating all night and some just aimed nowhere in particular.
Agree. Hazard shielded the ball out for a throw when 2-1 up and the commentator said he was “brilliant”. In the pub I was watching the game with Chelski supporters I said out loud “ that’s just what every professional player does, they’re so biased” but it didn’t go down well.
People moan about defenders because Mapps is justifiably 1st reserve who came on and was at least jointly responsible for the winning goal. Next option is Prodl who is a creaking 40k per week veteran with the turning circle of a battleship. We have dreadful centre back options beyond the excellent Cathcart and to a lesser extent clanger prone Kabasele. If you play Mariappa or Prodl for an extended period in this league then we will be extremely vulnerable. The owners are seemingly uninterested in upgrading this area because it’s harder to turn a big profit.
Think MoTM for us could either be Holebas, Cathcart or Capoue. All of em were very good today. Ironically, these three were often the scapegoats for criticism in previous seasons but this year, the three of them have been our most consistently good players in my opinion. Deeneys got to go... He really brings down the standard of football that Deulofeu and Pereyra bring to our frontline. Fair enough, he won a lot of headers and put in the occassional tackle, but I don't feel confident that he will create anything when he has the ball (unlike Doucs, Gerard and Pereyra). Although he wasn't bad today in particular, I don't think we are going to get any better performances from him and in the long-run, it will cost us a fair few goals and points. Doucoure was okay... His occasional giving the ball away cost us the first goal but otherwise, he was one of the few who were desperately going forward and provided a sweet low cross to Deeney who fluffed it. Mapps is crap. Anyone who thinks otherwise is as deluded as those who wouldn't have minded seeing Pereyra going last summer. Overall though, not too dissapointed as we gave em a go and could have snatched a point, and once again that has been prevented by crap officials. Quina should start over Kema next game, he won't, but he should. Oh well, we move on to Newcastle
Tbh - Quina looked a little inexperienced. I thought Sema did ok today but having said that I thought the whole team was great(other than Deeney who was average)
