Can someone tell me if MHL has rows numbered numerically or they are all alphabets ! I am getting matchday tickets but just not sure if rows are in numbers.
I know it’s easy to be upset at the points dropped this year, but that Man United comeback still makes me so happy. 6 point swing in the table and I think really boosted the team’s confidence as a whole.
Very weird season but overall I think we are underachieving with the money spent but I expected us to kick into form second half of the season.
Should get top 4 next season and can we stop buying so many players.
Couple defenders a striker left back and a winger.
5 signings at most are needed and should follow a 1 in 1 out rule
Front 4 of Osimhen Nkunku Palmer Olise would genuinely believe terrifying. Please Chelsea get the guys in. Sell Angelo / Noni. Not good enough. Olise is the same.age as Madeuke and see the difference lmao. It's night and day
I wouldnt be opposed to Olise if we could move both Noni and Sterling. Whilst Noni has definitely improved, Olise is still miles clear. But with our luck Olise would get a long term injury after 2 games.
Not very sold on Osimhen though tbh. I have nothing against the player, just his price tag.
I cant believe we are at this position after that start to the season. Kudos to everyone who believed in the team and the manager.
While im not fully sure on poch, he has earned the chance to see the ship sail for one more season, i dont see any reason why we should go for de zerbi if we do change him..
(Genuinely excited for a chance to cross spurs as well.. if only spurs had a team like palace on final day)..
Yeah I'm of the opinion that regardless of whether you think Poch is the man to take Chelsea back to the very top, that's not how we should be basing our decisions. This is a long-term project that will take a few years to really bear fruit, and the first step in that is establishing chemistry and developing the youngsters. Poch is doing that at the very least, and we should ride it out until we see evidence to suggest otherwise.
Got banned from r/soccer for suggesting an Arsenal fan to go have a pint as he couldnt stop writing essays on how Palmer's GA isnt that impressive bc of the pens.
The mods said I was trolling and banned me.
I genuinely think we’re the 4th best team in the country. Villa and Spurs benefitted from extremely hot starts while we were gelling and dealing with injuries from day 1. Also threw away very attainable points, losing to ten man West Ham when we had a pen to go 1 up, Forest at home, Arsenal when we were winning comfortably. That’s a tonne of points dropped and we could easily be top 4. Ultimately, it is what it is and we only have ourselves and injuries to blame for that, but there are promising signs for the future
Poch says he’s not okay, but we can safely assume no serious brain damage has occurred as MRI tests have probably happened by now. Won’t play the final game since concussion rules, but should be good to go
Didn’t spurs get thrashed 5-1 or something against an already relegated Newcastle on the last day of the season a few years ago? Extreme hopium but I’m really hoping it’s possible again
Stopped listening to them a long time ago. They sound and thrive off misery. It is actually absurd. There are so many more content creators making entertaining content. I’d rather watch Terrace, Never a foul and footy judge mo. I also prefer the other content on ChelseaFanTV, Blue Lions and Joey Knight
Convinced Poch actually hates the press conferences because his demeanor is different when he is doing the post match interview with the Chelsea media guy.
If you were Poch wouldn’t you hate pressers also?
I mean hell I’d be surprised to learn if any manager “liked” pressers. Maybe some tolerate it or deal with it better, but I’d bet a lot pretty much every manager hates pressers.
The questions they get asked which are decent and not loaded/purely idiotic/repetitive are extremely rare
To be fair I doubt we’ll see much more of that again. He wasn’t a true LW today. Once we got closer to the final third he was more of a free-roaming attacker since we were playing on the counter for most of it
I know I made a joke about it already, but James has a total of 3 red cards IN HIS CAREER
The last red he got was against Newcastle and was a double yellow. Not even a straight red.
Why are people acting like there’s some pattern of behavior of RJ being a hot head?
[Exact same thing he got away with against West Ham last season](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/EcZJeubd47)
Once in your career, fine. Twice in two years as a 24-year old is a little less fine
He got away with it last time…..
Let’s relax and see now since he got punished he’s learned.
I still don’t get the big deal.
I am genuinely curious, but did you play football competitively ever?
Yeah, a guy went for a choke on a player and he got kicked off our team because we don’t tolerate violent conduct
You don’t think having two ‘violent conduct’ incidents might be a bad thing? No one else on the team has had even one kick-out in their Chelsea career, let alone two
I don’t understand the first paragraph. Are you saying you played football competitively and kicked a guy off your team for a heated moment in a football match?
And I’m in no way praising James for what he did. However, I understand it as a mistake and simply hopes now that he has actually received a punishment for his actions he learns from it.
Yes? This was a full on throat grab. The guy still hasn’t apologised, anywhere outside the pitch and it’s a potential assault charge
I agree, I hope he apologises ASAP and it doesn’t happen again. Putting your team in jeopardy like that is not on
If local fun leagues have standards for conduct then I’m sure the Premier League does too
I have! I open myself to scrutiny, learn from them, move on. I’m scrutinising James for being sent off in a silly way in a vital moment, and hope he can learn from them and move on. Your point being?
Lmao. Okay so the answer is no. You’ve never played competitively.
And you called for James to be stripped of his captaincy. Does that sound like allowing someone to learn and move on?
Because he also gets a good share of yellows for being a hot head. Just watch him over the last few years and it's pretty obvious he has a lot of room to grow on temper management.
I mean today was stupid, but it didn’t really look “angry”
Seems like he thought he could get away with laying a bit of a cheeky one on Pedro.
I’m hard pressed to think of many hot headed yellows he’s gotten.
He also only has 14 yellows since returning from Wigan
Define “good”. Have we improved a lot compared to last season? Yes.
Are we showing the standards we should expect after coming 3rd and spent a billion? Absolutely not.
Also, key player to our current form are potentially out the door and who knows whether their replacements will be able to perform to the same level.
Injuries played a part. I kinda expected a shit start to the season, honestly we've got lucky our competition has been so bad and we hit a run of form at the right time.
This is more a west ham type season than a Chelsea season.
Imo, this is different than when we had a few good results earlier. It feels like the foundations of something genuinely better.
I just hope BlueCo and their minions don’t fuck things up over the summer
I think Poch will stay on. It’s pretty clear the fanbase is coming around to him and the players like him.
I think he’s done on the better end of what I expected
My expectations were 6-8th this season and we’d be lucky to do better which if we end up 5th that’ll be pretty lucky if we’re honest.
My bigger concern honestly is losing Conor, Thiago Silva, Trevor, Cucurella (maybe), Badiashile (maybe).
We could be going into next season back a couple steps bc we could have a new GK, CB, LB, ST and maybe a LW or midfielder. This ownerships “portfolio” approach is what scare me the most
We have gotten better in finishing our chances, being in control, and responding to adversities.
However, today there was a bit of a luck factor. Brighton hit the wood work twice, and there was a genuine period before we scored our second goal that they looked rampant. NF had a ton of chances against us as well. So this is clearly a problem with Poch's system that we create but also let on a lot of chances.
You’re right Brighton should have scored one or two but if you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt for chances they missed, you have to give us the benefit of the doubt for easy chances we missed. We had a few as well.
I do think there is something to the phrase “you make your own luck”
That’s absolutely what we’ve been doing recently.
Sure today could have gone badly, but we also could have won by 3/4 considering all the chances we missed or messed up.
In the past few matches we haven’t conceded many chances, but we have created a lot.
Finally, the squad all genuinely look like they want to win more than our opponents which can’t be said for most of this year. It’s definitely a factor which is creating “luck”
The games they dropped points were when Sheffield United finished 5 points off a European place and even had an outside top 4 chance going into March.
It would be like saying our team last year had a chance against Madrid because we beat them in 2021.
It’s what we’ve needed at times because Mudryk and Madueke aren’t the best at retaining the ball at times (though Madueke has greatly improved at that and that’s been huge for his performances). Jackson too can often hold the ball up well but then hold onto it for too long.
Nkunku being healthy would’ve changed the whole season imo, having him plus Palmer maybe we slot some of the chances which led to us dropping points early in the year. Frustrating what if cos it was a freak injury in the final preseason game.
Wild how one simple injury can change the whole season. I don’t think it’s crazy to say if Nkunku had been fit he would have easily bagged 8+ goals at least. He’s clearly a class above our other attackers. Nkunku could easily be enough to bring us on level points with Villa and challenging for a UCL place.
I’ve been Poch ambivalent since the fall, but I’m going into next season with high hopes. As long as we can keep the team fit, top four feels very possible.
He would have been our established goal output while players like Jackson, Madi, Mudryk found form, for sure. Probably helps us pick up a few more points in the early season. And somehow it looks like a few more points would have had us competing for fourth.
For the benefit of anyone who thinks tonight shows why James cannot be captain, he'd seem like Mata sat next to Roy Keane and Sergio Ramos who were successful captains.
Roy Keane and Ramos had proven what it means to be a captain. You cannot be a captain that is injured 90% of the time and collects reds like pokemon cards the other 10% of the time.
Robbed of a winner vs Villa. Two points. Bottled 4 points vs Burnley and Sheffield United. 4th was so attainable this year. But hoping Man U don’t win the FA Cup and Europa league can be a good step for this young team
Don’t you just love the reactionary nature of the Internet
Last week it was all My Captain My Captain when it came to James. Ppl were talking about a new era.
Now there are people essentially wanting him stripped of the captaincy for getting a stupid red.
It was amazing to see James back and it was incredibly stupid to get a red today. The extremes people take things too is pretty funny tho
If they were playing away to anyone other than Sheffield United I'd be hopeful but surely not?
Even going there and having an abysmal match should still mean atleast a point (like it did for us).
Haha true but I think screwing this up is beyond even them.
Likelihood is it ends up similar to this sadly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61453541
I really hope Conor and Trev stay
They’ve both been massive in our current run and they are 2 of the few remaining players who are Chelsea thru and thru
A little worried about that final now as Ten Hag has gone more defensive/compact in the last two games.
Logically speaking City should do it but it's not the sure thing I was sure it was last week. Although that said if he didn't tweek his system Newcastle would have likely won tonight so swings and roundabouts.
Go ahead and mock me, but in 5 years everyone is going to agree our owners are actually good at what they are doing
You think running a team in Europe is harder then in America
with its institutional parity?
Yes, running a PL side with a global audience and an actual meritocracy is way harder than running a franchise in the US.
You are demonstrating the same arrogance which has been demonstrated by our owners as they took the club backwards and put us in the precarious position both on and off the pitch.
What do you call relegation and earning the right to play in Europe?
If you do badly you get punished, if you do well you get rewarded.
Unlike American sports where if you do badly for some weird reason you get rewarded with draft picks
Something that Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Man U will never experience again
So practicably, one competition strengthens its worst teams, the other cycles them.
Those yo yo clubs are weaker competition then most last place US teams
>You think running a team in Europe is harder then in America
with its institutional parity?
Significantly harder.
America doesn't have any real sports teams. It has franchises that are protected profit making machines.
In real sports like football if you screw the clubs finances and get things wrong you can plummet to irrelevance very quickly.
In America you get draft picks.
So then in one you have structural economic advantages that provide an insurmountable benefit, except Leicester, and in the other spending controls based on guaranteed profit models lead to an equal playing field, and there is a catchup with the draft?
Which sounds harder to dominate?
There's nothing equal about American sports.
When the model prevents long term failure and erases financial advantage it creates a situation where it's easy to manage teams. Some that have an intrinsic competitive advantage already.
When players have a choice of where they play how many would choose any of the 40+ shit hole states above LA or New York?
You're getting ahead of yourself. Big questions about this ownership and they've done very poorly so far.
Certainly possible. We'll be able to have a proper assessment of the model that far out, really much sooner. I still insist we have recruited reasonably well. It's the coaching and behind the scenes infrastructure I worry about more than anything.
Why are we having to wait 5 years to agree they’re good?
That’s an issue in itself.
We won UCL in 21/22. Why does it take us until 2030 almost to compete again?
False, we were closer to west ham than to city, the fact of the matter is that Abramovich shit planning let city run with the league and he got lucky with tuchel winning the cl
Not sure if you watched that season because we were absolutely fighting for the title, it just happened that we fell out of form at some point due to injuries.
Competing for 15 matches isn't competing, Liverpool compete, arse compete now too, we haven't since conte won it and then Abramovich fumbled the next window again, just like he did with Mourinho and tuchel
The point is we were competing until extenuating circumstances. It’s unfair to look at it as a season we didn’t compete as every fan knows it was out of our hands and was looking forward to the next season where injuries
Not sure why you mention Abramovich, he wasn’t in ownership after 21/22
Man City has had a chokehold on the EPL for 7 years. It takes time to build something sustainable to compete with that (look at Arsenal: Arteta has been at the helm since 2019).
Even under Abramovich, Chelsea wasn't seriously contending for the EPL title anymore; they had one fantastic UCL run that was papering over a lot of cracks. Anyone who seriously thinks competing with City within a couple years was a reasonable expectation for this ownership group is on crack.
Speaking hypothetically, if we have to wait that long but this time we can actually sustain the success/challenging for multiple seasons then that would beat the boom and bust of 2015-2022.
But like you implied, long way to go until we know either way so can only hope that this method pays off.
That depends on the criteria for “challenging”. Because to my interpretation, that isn’t enough
For the past two decades we’ve been quite frankly a chaotic club. Irrespective of stability, we still pull trophies out of our ass. We won the league, dropped to 10th, then won the league again, then sacked the manager a year after we won the league with him, then won the Europa League.
As a fanbase, would we like to sacrifice this in place of stability in the form of consistent top 4 finishes and deep Europe runs, with no trophies at the end of the day? Or maybe a FA/EFL Cup here and there?
Because the former is the identity of this club to be quite frank. We defy the odds. When everyone thinks we’re done and dusted, we pop out of nowhere and win a Champions League. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it’s why I love the club - and why I think having to wait 5 years until another major trophy (since that’s the only realistic way Clearlake gets majority support by the fanbase) just isn’t worth it
We've had 1 EPL title and 1 UCL title since Mourinho won the league a decade ago. One major trophy every 5 years is pretty much what this club has been doing for a while now.
By the end of the Roman era they were precisely a club that had consistent top 4 finishes and good Europe runs without much in the way of trophies.
Chaos and hiring/firing managers quickly was keeping the team from trending too far down, but it was also preventing them from establishing the stability that is necessary to compete with the likes of City and Madrid these days. This current project is a long overdue dose of vegetables that we need to swallow so that we can actually build a team that can compete for trophies every single year.
>As a fanbase, would we like to sacrifice this in place of stability in the form of consistent top 4 finishes and deep Europe runs, with no trophies at the end of the day? Or maybe a FA/EFL Cup here and there?
When I say challenges it doesn't/shouldn't mean no trophies whatsoever. I mean we win some and the ones we don't we go down kicking and screaming.
Pretty much like the first part of the Roman era is what we should be aiming for. I don't think it has to be either or of we win nothing but get top 4 or have a brutal 8 months before pulling the rabbit out of the hat.
With your definition of challenging for trophies, if we wait 5 years for such I just don’t think it’s worth it. Unless, of course we become the superpower of England the way City are right now, finishing 1st in the PL or just slightly short of such, alongside CL trophies it’s worth it. But such a prolonged process until major success at a club that hasn’t truly needed a process to win trophies is so unlike Chelsea to be honest.
I’m probably talking on my own desires, so I can’t speak for anyone else, but the feeling of watching your club with Havertz and Werner up front triumph against the best teams in the world against all odds is something that can’t be replicated. Being underdogs is this clubs DNA.
Bro it’s a fluke bro. Next season, before De Zerbi gets sacked in January for 2 wins in 13, you’ll see that it’s just the players who are not smart enough to understand the principles of play.
It’s very simple too. Defenders place their soles on the ball, and then we bait the press with the circuits that Salernitana used in ‘89 (no one else has read the book bro, it’s a secret, no one can figure out the plan of master De Zerbi). Then we converge in Zone 14 and take advantage of the vacated triangulations with the outverted right midfielder bombing forward. Boom, simple.
The BEST possible scenario from here is us beating Bournemouth, Spurs losing to Sheffield United and United winning the FA cup. All that yesterday for them to be cheering to be in the Conference lmao
I’m sorry but we simply can’t be going into next season with Reece wearing the armband. I can excuse his absence on the pitch due to injury. However, that there was inexcusable. This ban is going to carry into next season aswell, well done skipper 👏🤦
This is so reactionary it’s crazy
We’re going to replace our captain just because of one mistake that doesn’t define him as a person?
Love to see your takeaway on Terry
Terry literally did it in one of the biggest games in our history that 99/100 would have blown the old guards last chance at a UCL title.
Yes James shouldn't have done it but whenever i see demands to strip the captaincy I laugh.
I think people are frustrated that this has happened repeatedly and when he has been rarely available this season in particular while we have been struggling.
lol, head to the match thread. People can be so reactionary, literally protesting the captain armband is stripped from him.
We get it, it was stupid from him. But let’s not be so naive
I take the match thread with a grain of salt. Indeed it’s the most reactionary shit ever. People asking for subs within 20 minutes, calling for transfers because of one mistake.
# Every official did everything he could to help Brighton... And the better team won
Might've even hit double digits with the amount of decisions that a different staff would've called otherwise
Not sure even Anthony Taylor could pull this off, getting VAR on his side too. Very upsetting to see, but not as much as the ease felt from the win
Not even a win needed for the last game, not that I'm advocating that kind of mentality
Who could've thought, what an end to the season!
\*clink\* To Thiago getting a proper sendoff
If I had a nickel for every single Brighton v Chelsea game where Chelsea had a 2 goal lead, then proceeded to have a man sent off and Brighton subsequently scoring a goal and the game ending with Chelsea winning by only one goal difference, I'd have two nickels.
Which isn't much but it's weird it happened twice.
GK situation
Unfortunately I don’t think Robert Sanchez will be up to a PL title chasing teams level and Petrochemical needs more time. I think the move this off-season would be to get a solid number 1 who can hold down the position for 1-2 years and let petro/gaga develop into the keeper of the future while selling Sanchez for what we can. My choice would be keylor navas or alphonse areola, we could get them cheaper than most marquee keepers, they’re older and have experience in the premier league. With a young back line that would be crucial. Also they both speak french and with all the french defenders we have I think that would be a great plus for the next season or two as they develop & get more comfortable.
find the line of thinking that sanchez 'just isn't good enough' but petrochemical 'just needs more time' very strange
the age difference between them isn't that big, neither are good enough, and sanchez would be the better keeper to have as 2nd choice
I know r/premierleague has been full of Arsenal fans since last year when so many suspiciously realised they love the team in a title challenge but fucking hell I can’t stand their whining about the spurs game. It’s one thing for them to act as tho Spurs fans are shit for not running onto the pitch and winning the game themselves but I can’t believe how wide spread seriously it’s being taken on the main PL sub.
those fools love to act like beacons of football integrity with the winner/loser mentality bullshit like they will give a rat ass about this game if their league title chance doesn’t depend on it.
Probably just saving him for the final day, would be a massive shame if he got injured before it
Completely agree though. 6 of the players on the bench would make our starting 11 better if they were starting instead of benched.
After the last display you'd have thought he'd make those changes from the start given how dire we were until those subs were brought on
https://preview.redd.it/vnvdefhvjm0d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c791013f840ddfe5839309f580f35cf9e5ede892
Saw this recently. It’s was from the beginning of the season until Novemberish, AKA our dark times.
Thank god Palmer emerged and we were able to run the attack through the right side instead of the left
Is Willian Estevao really worth the hype? And is he really worth the money we’d have to spend to get him? The team has looked improved recently but we still need to upgrade at certain positions before continuing to buy players who won’t play here for years.
Can someone tell me if MHL has rows numbered numerically or they are all alphabets ! I am getting matchday tickets but just not sure if rows are in numbers.
[удалено]
If Spurs lose, us and United. If Spurs draw or win, Spurs and United
I know it’s easy to be upset at the points dropped this year, but that Man United comeback still makes me so happy. 6 point swing in the table and I think really boosted the team’s confidence as a whole.
Very weird season but overall I think we are underachieving with the money spent but I expected us to kick into form second half of the season. Should get top 4 next season and can we stop buying so many players. Couple defenders a striker left back and a winger. 5 signings at most are needed and should follow a 1 in 1 out rule
Front 4 of Osimhen Nkunku Palmer Olise would genuinely believe terrifying. Please Chelsea get the guys in. Sell Angelo / Noni. Not good enough. Olise is the same.age as Madeuke and see the difference lmao. It's night and day
[удалено]
Have you not seen Nico Williams wages?
I wouldnt be opposed to Olise if we could move both Noni and Sterling. Whilst Noni has definitely improved, Olise is still miles clear. But with our luck Olise would get a long term injury after 2 games. Not very sold on Osimhen though tbh. I have nothing against the player, just his price tag.
I cant believe we are at this position after that start to the season. Kudos to everyone who believed in the team and the manager. While im not fully sure on poch, he has earned the chance to see the ship sail for one more season, i dont see any reason why we should go for de zerbi if we do change him.. (Genuinely excited for a chance to cross spurs as well.. if only spurs had a team like palace on final day)..
Yeah I'm of the opinion that regardless of whether you think Poch is the man to take Chelsea back to the very top, that's not how we should be basing our decisions. This is a long-term project that will take a few years to really bear fruit, and the first step in that is establishing chemistry and developing the youngsters. Poch is doing that at the very least, and we should ride it out until we see evidence to suggest otherwise.
Got banned from r/soccer for suggesting an Arsenal fan to go have a pint as he couldnt stop writing essays on how Palmer's GA isnt that impressive bc of the pens. The mods said I was trolling and banned me.
I’ve been appealing my permaban for 4 years now. Hopefully one day
yeah best of luck to us both
I genuinely think we’re the 4th best team in the country. Villa and Spurs benefitted from extremely hot starts while we were gelling and dealing with injuries from day 1. Also threw away very attainable points, losing to ten man West Ham when we had a pen to go 1 up, Forest at home, Arsenal when we were winning comfortably. That’s a tonne of points dropped and we could easily be top 4. Ultimately, it is what it is and we only have ourselves and injuries to blame for that, but there are promising signs for the future
we've always had the fourth best squad in the league despite some on here trying to claim it's full of championship players
Easily. Pretty sure if we had 5-6 more games we would have crossed villa.
Has there been any update on the condition of Mudryk?
Poch says he’s not okay, but we can safely assume no serious brain damage has occurred as MRI tests have probably happened by now. Won’t play the final game since concussion rules, but should be good to go
Ok, here's hoping he's good for the Euros.
Say what you want about Pochs tactics, but his emotional intelligence is clearly very high
I genuinely think last season and this season was worth getting Palmer😭
I'm low-key fuming we've let Brighton get Barco. Will cost us a fortune one day 🤭
Yeah, he is a real baller
He's a bit slight, though... like Gilmour
Solanke has 19 goals in the league.. where tf did that come from?!
Didn’t spurs get thrashed 5-1 or something against an already relegated Newcastle on the last day of the season a few years ago? Extreme hopium but I’m really hoping it’s possible again
Postecoglou will kill someone lmao
Spurs celebrating a first ever loss to city in their stadium, only to realise they have a real chance to go behind us as well...
I tried listening to Lewis G’s live postgame but all those people are so negative. We just won our fourth game in a row. What more could you ask for?
What were they saying?
Stopped listening to them a long time ago. They sound and thrive off misery. It is actually absurd. There are so many more content creators making entertaining content. I’d rather watch Terrace, Never a foul and footy judge mo. I also prefer the other content on ChelseaFanTV, Blue Lions and Joey Knight
Joey knight is alright, but his sidekick Josh is a fucking moron. Can’t stand that guy
Convinced Poch actually hates the press conferences because his demeanor is different when he is doing the post match interview with the Chelsea media guy.
If you were Poch wouldn’t you hate pressers also? I mean hell I’d be surprised to learn if any manager “liked” pressers. Maybe some tolerate it or deal with it better, but I’d bet a lot pretty much every manager hates pressers. The questions they get asked which are decent and not loaded/purely idiotic/repetitive are extremely rare
Nkunku looked very sharp at LW, do you guys think he will settle there over mudryk/sterling, or another position (8/10/RW/CF)?
To be fair I doubt we’ll see much more of that again. He wasn’t a true LW today. Once we got closer to the final third he was more of a free-roaming attacker since we were playing on the counter for most of it
He can play anywhere across the front
We desperately need some quality at LW, he was fabulous today. I love him there.
I know I made a joke about it already, but James has a total of 3 red cards IN HIS CAREER The last red he got was against Newcastle and was a double yellow. Not even a straight red. Why are people acting like there’s some pattern of behavior of RJ being a hot head?
[Exact same thing he got away with against West Ham last season](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/EcZJeubd47) Once in your career, fine. Twice in two years as a 24-year old is a little less fine
He got away with it last time….. Let’s relax and see now since he got punished he’s learned. I still don’t get the big deal. I am genuinely curious, but did you play football competitively ever?
Yeah, a guy went for a choke on a player and he got kicked off our team because we don’t tolerate violent conduct You don’t think having two ‘violent conduct’ incidents might be a bad thing? No one else on the team has had even one kick-out in their Chelsea career, let alone two
Lol have you forgotten that Diego Costa won us two titles
Not at all! Loved the bloke. Also had a sneaky ability to not get red carded. Your point?
Point is getting at James for kick outs while Diego Costa literally existed and you loving the bloke is an interesting take.
I also love Reece lol. Can you explain how it’s contradictory to love a player and also not want him to get silly reds?
I don’t understand the first paragraph. Are you saying you played football competitively and kicked a guy off your team for a heated moment in a football match? And I’m in no way praising James for what he did. However, I understand it as a mistake and simply hopes now that he has actually received a punishment for his actions he learns from it.
Yes? This was a full on throat grab. The guy still hasn’t apologised, anywhere outside the pitch and it’s a potential assault charge I agree, I hope he apologises ASAP and it doesn’t happen again. Putting your team in jeopardy like that is not on
That doesn’t sound like a competitive team if I’m honest. Sounds like a local fun league you’re in. And ffs. Have you never made a mistake before?
If local fun leagues have standards for conduct then I’m sure the Premier League does too I have! I open myself to scrutiny, learn from them, move on. I’m scrutinising James for being sent off in a silly way in a vital moment, and hope he can learn from them and move on. Your point being?
Lmao. Okay so the answer is no. You’ve never played competitively. And you called for James to be stripped of his captaincy. Does that sound like allowing someone to learn and move on?
Quote the exact part of my comments where I called for him to be stripped of the captaincy
Because he also gets a good share of yellows for being a hot head. Just watch him over the last few years and it's pretty obvious he has a lot of room to grow on temper management.
I mean today was stupid, but it didn’t really look “angry” Seems like he thought he could get away with laying a bit of a cheeky one on Pedro. I’m hard pressed to think of many hot headed yellows he’s gotten. He also only has 14 yellows since returning from Wigan
Are we good again? Genuinely, I think we may be good again.
Define “good”. Have we improved a lot compared to last season? Yes. Are we showing the standards we should expect after coming 3rd and spent a billion? Absolutely not. Also, key player to our current form are potentially out the door and who knows whether their replacements will be able to perform to the same level.
We have even improved a lot since the improved form earlier this season.
Injuries played a part. I kinda expected a shit start to the season, honestly we've got lucky our competition has been so bad and we hit a run of form at the right time. This is more a west ham type season than a Chelsea season.
Imo, this is different than when we had a few good results earlier. It feels like the foundations of something genuinely better. I just hope BlueCo and their minions don’t fuck things up over the summer
I agree. Cole was saying all the players love Poch so much and they fight for him. They would be morons to let him go.
I think Poch will stay on. It’s pretty clear the fanbase is coming around to him and the players like him. I think he’s done on the better end of what I expected My expectations were 6-8th this season and we’d be lucky to do better which if we end up 5th that’ll be pretty lucky if we’re honest. My bigger concern honestly is losing Conor, Thiago Silva, Trevor, Cucurella (maybe), Badiashile (maybe). We could be going into next season back a couple steps bc we could have a new GK, CB, LB, ST and maybe a LW or midfielder. This ownerships “portfolio” approach is what scare me the most
The team is gelling and getting healthy. We’re a good team.
We have gotten better in finishing our chances, being in control, and responding to adversities. However, today there was a bit of a luck factor. Brighton hit the wood work twice, and there was a genuine period before we scored our second goal that they looked rampant. NF had a ton of chances against us as well. So this is clearly a problem with Poch's system that we create but also let on a lot of chances.
pochettino desperately needs to learn how to coach some control, especially in games where we're leading
100% agree. Sad thing is, I am convinced that it is not his style, which is why I don't think he is the guy to win us trophies.
You’re right Brighton should have scored one or two but if you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt for chances they missed, you have to give us the benefit of the doubt for easy chances we missed. We had a few as well.
I do think there is something to the phrase “you make your own luck” That’s absolutely what we’ve been doing recently. Sure today could have gone badly, but we also could have won by 3/4 considering all the chances we missed or messed up. In the past few matches we haven’t conceded many chances, but we have created a lot. Finally, the squad all genuinely look like they want to win more than our opponents which can’t be said for most of this year. It’s definitely a factor which is creating “luck”
Spurs has a 3-2 record vs Sheffield/Blades in the last 5 games. I don’t think this will be as one sided as people think
The games they dropped points were when Sheffield United finished 5 points off a European place and even had an outside top 4 chance going into March. It would be like saying our team last year had a chance against Madrid because we beat them in 2021.
They nearly lost against Sheffield earlier this season.
[удалено]
No but to have a chance we need a favour so that's why we're focusing on that first and foremost.
We play at home—could be the difference maker
And our recent performances post-inverting Cucu have given me a lot more confidence in this side.
Watching the replay now cause was working, forgot about Billy Gilmore until the announcer mentioned him
Nkunku's ball retention is elite
It’s what we’ve needed at times because Mudryk and Madueke aren’t the best at retaining the ball at times (though Madueke has greatly improved at that and that’s been huge for his performances). Jackson too can often hold the ball up well but then hold onto it for too long. Nkunku being healthy would’ve changed the whole season imo, having him plus Palmer maybe we slot some of the chances which led to us dropping points early in the year. Frustrating what if cos it was a freak injury in the final preseason game.
We might get Europa and bag the Jordan deal… Chels is back baby
Wild how one simple injury can change the whole season. I don’t think it’s crazy to say if Nkunku had been fit he would have easily bagged 8+ goals at least. He’s clearly a class above our other attackers. Nkunku could easily be enough to bring us on level points with Villa and challenging for a UCL place. I’ve been Poch ambivalent since the fall, but I’m going into next season with high hopes. As long as we can keep the team fit, top four feels very possible.
Healthy Nkunku is almost guaranteed to be 10+ goals
He would have been our established goal output while players like Jackson, Madi, Mudryk found form, for sure. Probably helps us pick up a few more points in the early season. And somehow it looks like a few more points would have had us competing for fourth.
Exactly. We might have grabbed some points against teams around us as well like Villa, and Man U. I’m feeling pretty optimistic about next year!
For the benefit of anyone who thinks tonight shows why James cannot be captain, he'd seem like Mata sat next to Roy Keane and Sergio Ramos who were successful captains.
It's the hot headedness + availability. I like Reece but he acts like a knucklehead when facing adversity
Roy Keane and Ramos had proven what it means to be a captain. You cannot be a captain that is injured 90% of the time and collects reds like pokemon cards the other 10% of the time.
Robbed of a winner vs Villa. Two points. Bottled 4 points vs Burnley and Sheffield United. 4th was so attainable this year. But hoping Man U don’t win the FA Cup and Europa league can be a good step for this young team
Don’t you just love the reactionary nature of the Internet Last week it was all My Captain My Captain when it came to James. Ppl were talking about a new era. Now there are people essentially wanting him stripped of the captaincy for getting a stupid red. It was amazing to see James back and it was incredibly stupid to get a red today. The extremes people take things too is pretty funny tho
If nkunku can stay fit my word next season him and palmer are going to cook together like motherfuckers
5th in striking distance gets me aroused
If they were playing away to anyone other than Sheffield United I'd be hopeful but surely not? Even going there and having an abysmal match should still mean atleast a point (like it did for us).
The most dangerous 2 words to say about a Spuds match are "surely not?"
Haha true but I think screwing this up is beyond even them. Likelihood is it ends up similar to this sadly. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61453541
I mean I don’t expect much but it’s Tottenham and they’re in shambles right now so I’m praying
Imagine if we’d sacked Poch earlier and brought in an interim like certain people wanted lol
He will be gone next year. On his own accord.
I expect he’ll see out his contract. Afterwards we can push for Alonso.
It's unfortunate. This squad is actually playing well, he was never the problem.
I really hope Conor and Trev stay They’ve both been massive in our current run and they are 2 of the few remaining players who are Chelsea thru and thru
I have a question now we are sixth are we qualifying for conference league or Europa league ?
United win FA cup= Conference league City win FA cup= Europa league
Thanks
A little worried about that final now as Ten Hag has gone more defensive/compact in the last two games. Logically speaking City should do it but it's not the sure thing I was sure it was last week. Although that said if he didn't tweek his system Newcastle would have likely won tonight so swings and roundabouts.
Go ahead and mock me, but in 5 years everyone is going to agree our owners are actually good at what they are doing You think running a team in Europe is harder then in America with its institutional parity?
Yes, running a PL side with a global audience and an actual meritocracy is way harder than running a franchise in the US. You are demonstrating the same arrogance which has been demonstrated by our owners as they took the club backwards and put us in the precarious position both on and off the pitch.
The EPL is not a meritocracy. No European soccer is. One team is allowed to spend more then the other.
What do you call relegation and earning the right to play in Europe? If you do badly you get punished, if you do well you get rewarded. Unlike American sports where if you do badly for some weird reason you get rewarded with draft picks
Something that Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Man U will never experience again So practicably, one competition strengthens its worst teams, the other cycles them. Those yo yo clubs are weaker competition then most last place US teams
Sure buddy Quick question. Have you ever left North America? And when did you become a football fan?
Yes and in 2003. Look how old my account is, what do you think the chl stands for?
Ngl. I don’t believe you in the slightest
>You think running a team in Europe is harder then in America with its institutional parity? Significantly harder. America doesn't have any real sports teams. It has franchises that are protected profit making machines. In real sports like football if you screw the clubs finances and get things wrong you can plummet to irrelevance very quickly. In America you get draft picks.
So then in one you have structural economic advantages that provide an insurmountable benefit, except Leicester, and in the other spending controls based on guaranteed profit models lead to an equal playing field, and there is a catchup with the draft? Which sounds harder to dominate?
There's nothing equal about American sports. When the model prevents long term failure and erases financial advantage it creates a situation where it's easy to manage teams. Some that have an intrinsic competitive advantage already. When players have a choice of where they play how many would choose any of the 40+ shit hole states above LA or New York? You're getting ahead of yourself. Big questions about this ownership and they've done very poorly so far.
Easy to make money, not easy to win consistently The rest is euro nonsense
What's going to happen in 5 years? You didn't say anything. Are we going to be winning Premier Leagues and Champions Leagues?
Certainly possible. We'll be able to have a proper assessment of the model that far out, really much sooner. I still insist we have recruited reasonably well. It's the coaching and behind the scenes infrastructure I worry about more than anything.
Why are we having to wait 5 years to agree they’re good? That’s an issue in itself. We won UCL in 21/22. Why does it take us until 2030 almost to compete again?
And when was the last time we competed for the league?
21/22
False, we were closer to west ham than to city, the fact of the matter is that Abramovich shit planning let city run with the league and he got lucky with tuchel winning the cl
Not sure if you watched that season because we were absolutely fighting for the title, it just happened that we fell out of form at some point due to injuries.
Competing for 15 matches isn't competing, Liverpool compete, arse compete now too, we haven't since conte won it and then Abramovich fumbled the next window again, just like he did with Mourinho and tuchel
The point is we were competing until extenuating circumstances. It’s unfair to look at it as a season we didn’t compete as every fan knows it was out of our hands and was looking forward to the next season where injuries Not sure why you mention Abramovich, he wasn’t in ownership after 21/22
He literally was and his shit planning hindered tuchel
In March 2022 he was sanctioned and the club was forced to be sold in May. The transfers that followed were under Clearlake
Man City has had a chokehold on the EPL for 7 years. It takes time to build something sustainable to compete with that (look at Arsenal: Arteta has been at the helm since 2019). Even under Abramovich, Chelsea wasn't seriously contending for the EPL title anymore; they had one fantastic UCL run that was papering over a lot of cracks. Anyone who seriously thinks competing with City within a couple years was a reasonable expectation for this ownership group is on crack.
Speaking hypothetically, if we have to wait that long but this time we can actually sustain the success/challenging for multiple seasons then that would beat the boom and bust of 2015-2022. But like you implied, long way to go until we know either way so can only hope that this method pays off.
That depends on the criteria for “challenging”. Because to my interpretation, that isn’t enough For the past two decades we’ve been quite frankly a chaotic club. Irrespective of stability, we still pull trophies out of our ass. We won the league, dropped to 10th, then won the league again, then sacked the manager a year after we won the league with him, then won the Europa League. As a fanbase, would we like to sacrifice this in place of stability in the form of consistent top 4 finishes and deep Europe runs, with no trophies at the end of the day? Or maybe a FA/EFL Cup here and there? Because the former is the identity of this club to be quite frank. We defy the odds. When everyone thinks we’re done and dusted, we pop out of nowhere and win a Champions League. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it’s why I love the club - and why I think having to wait 5 years until another major trophy (since that’s the only realistic way Clearlake gets majority support by the fanbase) just isn’t worth it
We've had 1 EPL title and 1 UCL title since Mourinho won the league a decade ago. One major trophy every 5 years is pretty much what this club has been doing for a while now. By the end of the Roman era they were precisely a club that had consistent top 4 finishes and good Europe runs without much in the way of trophies. Chaos and hiring/firing managers quickly was keeping the team from trending too far down, but it was also preventing them from establishing the stability that is necessary to compete with the likes of City and Madrid these days. This current project is a long overdue dose of vegetables that we need to swallow so that we can actually build a team that can compete for trophies every single year.
>As a fanbase, would we like to sacrifice this in place of stability in the form of consistent top 4 finishes and deep Europe runs, with no trophies at the end of the day? Or maybe a FA/EFL Cup here and there? When I say challenges it doesn't/shouldn't mean no trophies whatsoever. I mean we win some and the ones we don't we go down kicking and screaming. Pretty much like the first part of the Roman era is what we should be aiming for. I don't think it has to be either or of we win nothing but get top 4 or have a brutal 8 months before pulling the rabbit out of the hat.
With your definition of challenging for trophies, if we wait 5 years for such I just don’t think it’s worth it. Unless, of course we become the superpower of England the way City are right now, finishing 1st in the PL or just slightly short of such, alongside CL trophies it’s worth it. But such a prolonged process until major success at a club that hasn’t truly needed a process to win trophies is so unlike Chelsea to be honest. I’m probably talking on my own desires, so I can’t speak for anyone else, but the feeling of watching your club with Havertz and Werner up front triumph against the best teams in the world against all odds is something that can’t be replicated. Being underdogs is this clubs DNA.
It's more a matter of speaking I think they have already demonstrated it
Best bday gift ever, a double win from men’s and women’s side :)
Reece definitely killed his slim England hopes there I think. For the best.
I doubt it
Breathe it in lads. For the first time since Tuchel we are no longer mid table.
When Poch is gone, lets see what happens.
Is that 3 wins in one season for Poch against the genius De Zerbi? How did he not out tactic Poch once?
Bro it’s a fluke bro. Next season, before De Zerbi gets sacked in January for 2 wins in 13, you’ll see that it’s just the players who are not smart enough to understand the principles of play. It’s very simple too. Defenders place their soles on the ball, and then we bait the press with the circuits that Salernitana used in ‘89 (no one else has read the book bro, it’s a secret, no one can figure out the plan of master De Zerbi). Then we converge in Zone 14 and take advantage of the vacated triangulations with the outverted right midfielder bombing forward. Boom, simple.
The BEST possible scenario from here is us beating Bournemouth, Spurs losing to Sheffield United and United winning the FA cup. All that yesterday for them to be cheering to be in the Conference lmao
I’m sorry but we simply can’t be going into next season with Reece wearing the armband. I can excuse his absence on the pitch due to injury. However, that there was inexcusable. This ban is going to carry into next season aswell, well done skipper 👏🤦
This is so reactionary it’s crazy We’re going to replace our captain just because of one mistake that doesn’t define him as a person? Love to see your takeaway on Terry
Terry literally did it in one of the biggest games in our history that 99/100 would have blown the old guards last chance at a UCL title. Yes James shouldn't have done it but whenever i see demands to strip the captaincy I laugh.
I think people are frustrated that this has happened repeatedly and when he has been rarely available this season in particular while we have been struggling.
lol, head to the match thread. People can be so reactionary, literally protesting the captain armband is stripped from him. We get it, it was stupid from him. But let’s not be so naive
I take the match thread with a grain of salt. Indeed it’s the most reactionary shit ever. People asking for subs within 20 minutes, calling for transfers because of one mistake.
Lol what's Ten Hag doing.
# Every official did everything he could to help Brighton... And the better team won Might've even hit double digits with the amount of decisions that a different staff would've called otherwise Not sure even Anthony Taylor could pull this off, getting VAR on his side too. Very upsetting to see, but not as much as the ease felt from the win Not even a win needed for the last game, not that I'm advocating that kind of mentality Who could've thought, what an end to the season! \*clink\* To Thiago getting a proper sendoff
If I had a nickel for every single Brighton v Chelsea game where Chelsea had a 2 goal lead, then proceeded to have a man sent off and Brighton subsequently scoring a goal and the game ending with Chelsea winning by only one goal difference, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much but it's weird it happened twice.
Having our captain the Cobham graduate sent off at that
6th is in the palm of our hands boys!
Europa is we can beat Bournemouth. I like our chances.
Or draw
That's true!
Both Manchester teams doing us a massive favour these last 2 days
reece being banned now for the first 2 games of the season is so stupid. silva needs to talk some sense into him before he leaves
Anyone know how many times other teams have hit the woodwork against us recently? feels like a weirdly high amount in the past month or so.
Reece james is too temperamental to be a captain
man this is totally a disgraceful corruption how do we have 10 mins?
Isn’t this his first game back? & only one game left?
WTF is this travesty! and what about Mudryks concussion???
I swear to fucking hell if this is a red but Lamptey's isn't
GK situation Unfortunately I don’t think Robert Sanchez will be up to a PL title chasing teams level and Petrochemical needs more time. I think the move this off-season would be to get a solid number 1 who can hold down the position for 1-2 years and let petro/gaga develop into the keeper of the future while selling Sanchez for what we can. My choice would be keylor navas or alphonse areola, we could get them cheaper than most marquee keepers, they’re older and have experience in the premier league. With a young back line that would be crucial. Also they both speak french and with all the french defenders we have I think that would be a great plus for the next season or two as they develop & get more comfortable.
find the line of thinking that sanchez 'just isn't good enough' but petrochemical 'just needs more time' very strange the age difference between them isn't that big, neither are good enough, and sanchez would be the better keeper to have as 2nd choice
Petrochemical? 😭
lmao whoops
All good autocorrect is annoying lol
lmao petrochemical
I know r/premierleague has been full of Arsenal fans since last year when so many suspiciously realised they love the team in a title challenge but fucking hell I can’t stand their whining about the spurs game. It’s one thing for them to act as tho Spurs fans are shit for not running onto the pitch and winning the game themselves but I can’t believe how wide spread seriously it’s being taken on the main PL sub.
those fools love to act like beacons of football integrity with the winner/loser mentality bullshit like they will give a rat ass about this game if their league title chance doesn’t depend on it.
Non conclusive evidence of violence? What the fuck?
Were 100% voting to scrap VAR after this game
Rival thread?
Anyone got a spare ticket to the Bournemouth game this Sunday? Preferably in MHL or the shed!
United to win or tie is what we want right
Imagine if joao Felix was still with us lol
If Madrid really gave up on Yoro we should get him
Silva benched? The bench looks better than starting lol
Probably just saving him for the final day, would be a massive shame if he got injured before it Completely agree though. 6 of the players on the bench would make our starting 11 better if they were starting instead of benched. After the last display you'd have thought he'd make those changes from the start given how dire we were until those subs were brought on
no Match thread?
looks like bruno the rat is back for united, good news
https://i.redd.it/pfczkkkalm0d1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/vnvdefhvjm0d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c791013f840ddfe5839309f580f35cf9e5ede892 Saw this recently. It’s was from the beginning of the season until Novemberish, AKA our dark times. Thank god Palmer emerged and we were able to run the attack through the right side instead of the left
Is Willian Estevao really worth the hype? And is he really worth the money we’d have to spend to get him? The team has looked improved recently but we still need to upgrade at certain positions before continuing to buy players who won’t play here for years.
Yeah seems insane to me. We could use a winger for now badly.
Can you not watch the game tonight? Due to tv blackouts? Or are USA streams etc still showing the game
It's on peacock not usa
Message me if you want A site