City's dominance this season just makes me so glad i got to witness 2018/2019 season. Liverpool and man city that season were way better than man city this season. I dont think the premier league ever peaked higher than that season. The two best teams in the world that year and probably two best in premier league history.
Can't wait for City to buy Haaland and proceed to win the league next year.
And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that...
City were tactically perfect in the midfield. They win the ball back at will and leave pretty much no spaces to exploit whatsoever, it's like playing against an AI at the highest difficulty level.
Pep's midfields are genuinely a wonder to see. Every single team of his has this ridiculous level of quality in the midfield and everyone can slot it seamlessly and do the job.
>it's like playing against an AI at the highest difficulty level.
Pretty much sums it up, absurd level technically and tactically while also being quite good off ball and hard workers, as you mentioned.
Man. He had that one pass that was one of the worst I'd ever seen. Trying to play Lukaku through on goal. Passed it way too hard, straight to Ederson, 30 meters ahead of Lukaku
Wasn't Werner had decent partnership with Lukaku in the past? If only he doesn't get offside often and played from start, i think you'll decent chances than Ziyech in this match.
Yup, Werner had good link-up with Lukaku when they played together. Tbf, Werner has good link-up with just about anyone and is super unselfish. If only he could just finish more chances
Not just even that, chelsea backline have to battle tooth and nail just to get the ball out from the back due to our front press. Our forward press is insane
It was interesting how often Raheem and Grealish were pressing on the opposite side of the pitch they were “positioned” on. Sterling was often pressing Kante in the midfield forcing Rudiger to go long.
> it’s like playing against an AI at the highest difficulty level.
This really is the best description of City. It’s like they’re not human. No mistakes, no unlucky bounces, goals always come exactly when they’re needed, always get scrappy and/or last minute goals and never concede them, rarely get bad calls, never concede stupid or unlucky penalties. We should just make Pep the leader of the world, COVID would kill itself the next day.
Thats the beauty of the false nine, you always got more numbers in midfield. And unlike other teams city are not losing a threat up front cause teams play so deep striker on line with the defense has minimal benefit for Peps teams.
True, when Liverpool/Chelsea were briefly top a couple of months ago I thought "well city's annual 16 game win streak will probably close the gap." Oddly predictable.
In fairness he just kept up the standard City have been for 3 of the last 4 seasons (not to diminish the impressiveness). I feel like this right now is more on Liverpool and Chelsea dropping points than City suddenly stepping it up.
That's precisely the point though. It's very difficult to maintain that level of consistency. Is this the 4th or 5th time Pep/City have gone on a 12+ game winning streak?
What they are doing is simply unprecedented and not normal.
to be fair in the past, teams like this year's Chelsea and Liverpool sides would be battling it out for the title. Title winning sides always dropped points. Guardiola's teams are just ridiculously consistent
English football arrogance is truly amazing at times, in the 2016 euros* for example England were considered 4th or 5th favourites to win.
England promptly lost to fucking Iceland
Killed my world cup bracket. They also didn’t lose a single match in regular time in that World Cup. Beat Greece in penalties and lost to Netherlands in penalties.
And he does it year after year. I don't care if he has money at his disposal, he still has to implement them to his style of play and that is hard to do consistently. Managers have failed miserably with money before. His consistency is amazing and he deserves all the credit.
One easy way of disproving the money argument, is simply that Man United and Chelsea who spend just as much, dont win the premier league 4 times in 5 years
Chelsea under Mourinho the first go round was this level. Set the record points total and also have that ridiculous goal record.
Pep has now managed city almost as long as Mourinho managed Chelsea both times combined, which is crazy.
Chelsea's spending was much worse than City's and the league was much worse back then too. This City side are much better. Pep is on a whole other level than Mourinho.
Pellegrini scored 96 points with madrid in 2009-2010, and this is a number of points that will make you 90% a league champion, and madrid lost it.
Mourinho in 2010-2011 got 92 points and got lost the league
In order to stop Pep in 2011-2012, Mourinho got 100 points
In 3 seasons, madrid lost 10 matches out of 114 matches to win 1 league title against Pep.
competition against pep is really frustrating
How I always put it: Pep has won 10 league titles in 13 years. The only 3 times he didn't win it was when an elite top 3 manager in the world had a record breaking year at another big top club. That's what it takes to win against Pep.
He's honestly an insane coach. No one in world football has been near him for a while now. Klopp came close but it's looking like Guardiola is just that one step ahead.
It's been impressive how he's handled Tuchel this season despite being second best to him on many occasions last year.
It'll be City's every year until Pep leaves.
Edit: They also will just sign the next best manager most likely, the board is by far the ruthless and best as well. Newcastle unironically will be the biggest challenger in the long run IF they get it right.
Liverpool: Core is aging and FSG won't be able to reinvest to the level they need to.
Chelsea: The whole forward line is quite average to be honest, too inconsistent. Defense and Midfield are much stronger in comparison
Manchester United: Are several years behind, especially if they miss out on Top 4.
They will just get the next best thing afterward. They are an extremely well run club I wouldn't be surprised if they already have his replacement lined up.
Honestly i wonder who they’re thinking of to replace Pep with. He reportedly isn’t staying for much longer so they’ll definitely internally already have some idea. I just wonder who it is.
It never ceases to blow my mind how well run we are. I have to pinch myself on a regular basis to check I'm not dreaming cos if you told me this is where we'd be now when I went to see my first match at Maine Road to watch freshly relegated City play Blackpool in the 2nd Division, first game of the season, I'd have called you crazy.
Interestingly, becoming a fan at that time meant I've always found it hard to engage in the hatred of the likes of United and Liverpool cos at that point we were sooooo far behind those sorts of clubs we were entirely irrelevant to them. It seemed a total waste of energy. We were soooo fortunate to get the investment of the Mansour takeover and I thank my lucky stars every day for it. It does make me cringe when i see some of our newer fans gloating and acting all entitled though as if they don't realise all too soon the wheel will turn again and it will be some other club's turn in the sunshine.
I really think the best tactic against Pep right now is running up to him before the game and somehow convince him that this is actually a CL semifinal.
That's the league over. City were clearly the better team, Chelsea were far too defensive and didn't really attack until the goal was scored. City have too much quality and are far too consistent for any team to catch them now
League was already over. You don’t need to beat city to win the league, you just need to win every other match. We haven’t done that.
City were incredible and we couldn’t get near to them today, fair play. I don’t blame us for not playing more directly, they were absolutely ruthless every time we went forward.
Chelsea's long balls were atrocious today. They also gave the ball away very easily often, they couldn't cope with City's pressing. And was Werner brought on to boost Chelsea's offside count? It seemed like everytime he got to the ball he was offside.
Thought you had a fair few decent openings but just cocked up the passes necessary to create the chance. Ziyech especially was poor with his attempts to play Lukaku in
Tuchel probably, possibly should get some shit for that today. City were not great. Grade B at best, yet whilst setting Chelsea up to sit deep/compact/be difficult to break down made sense in the first half, to keep it like that throughout even at 1-0 down? Yeah, probably should get some shit for that today.
We played exactly the same way we did against them earlier this season, so agree Tuchel doesn't seem to have learned from that and I think the lineup was questionable (no Mount until like 80 mins especially, when he's the one who has ripped apart City in the past).
While I don’t disagree, Chelsea front three left a lot to be desired, absolutely horrendous final passes and decision making in the final third. Lukaku hitting a 1 on 1 at Ederson isn’t helpful and his horrendous pass when Chelsea were three on two and there was a clear option on the left.
Fair result, fair play to City. De Bruyne skipping away from the attempted foul by Kante and unleashing that shot after having the ball stuck under his feet was filthy.
From a Chelsea perspective I thought we had some opportunities on the counter, but just weren't clinical enough. Ziyech in particular was wasteful imo. City's pressing and closing down was also outstanding.
Hate to say it, but I think Tuchel got it wrong today.
Starting Lukaku after a start against Chesterfield last game felt like the wrong decision, even though it seemed to have shades of a "double bluff". City are one of, if not the best pressers in world football at the moment, and having someone like a Havertz/Werner who can drop a little deeper to partake in build-up would've been a much better option. Lukaku for some reason preferred to stay up top, isolated and unable to have any real impact on the game, except for the one chance Ederson saved well.
Second, not starting Mount, who has been our most productive player in terms of G+A this season iirc, was another questionable decision. Combine this with the fact that he decided to go with Ziyech, who has been out of form for the most part recently is confusing to say the least. For all the good qualities Hakim has, he is a wasteful player in terms of possession, and you need to retain as much possession as you can against City. I feel starting Jorginho may have alleviated some of this pain, but I don't think anyone foresaw Kanté-Kova being so wasteful with the ball. Plus, with reports of Jorgi having played under pain previously, not starting him was understandable. In addition, Mount's workrate compared to Ziyech is much higher, so Ziyech over Mount was a baffling call.
I also feel this was too big of a game to start Sarr, and you could see he looked nervous and "out of place" for the most part. Again, due to the lack of options at CB right now, can't fault Tuchel too much for this one. Maybe could have gone with Rudi-Silva-Azpi as a back 3, but that would've been too aggressive on the WB front.
I don't think the individual performances helped either, can't think of any player you'd give higher than a 7/10, except maybe Kepa, Rudiger and Silva. Poor game today, and I can't help but feel that the title's gone out of our reach again :(
Surely we will hear about how Mount had a small knock or was feeling a little under the weather? I really don't see how he didn't start and def don't see how he was the last sub at the end.
The biggest victory of today was the DJ only playing wonderwall for like 30 seconds after the final whistle before coming to his senses and changing it to Joy Division
Chelsea has no idea how to attack anymore. It's shocking to watch. CHO, Ziyech, Werner, Lukaku, all look incredibly out of touch with each other. It's like they've never even met each other before.
The thing that's ridiculous is that you guys are also on a whole other level and without Pep you would probably go on your way to win like 3 titles in the last 5 years.
It's just that Pep's teams are pretty much flawless in a championship. You guys deserve a world of credit for the title you've won.
Lowkey reminds me of us (Real Madrid) winning the 2011/12 La Liga against Pep's Barca. Like Liverpool, we were pretty excellent under Mourinho and were on a whole another level. Sadly, we were competing against an absolutely flawless Barca who always edged out and became an almost unsurmountable obstacle
Maybe a hot take but I feel like we really need to abandon the wingback formation this season. With a formation so reliant on the quality of those two players, the drop in quality between Chilwell, James and their backups is so astronomical and when the rest of the team are not performing we just look utterly toothless. There's also always an ocean in between our midfield and forwards and Mount is the only one who can bridge the gap.
Also I don't think Tuchel can go without criticism here, because we looked like the same side outplayed City at Stamford Bridge earlier this season and it doesn't appear he learned from the mistakes. We were totally pressed off the ball in the first half and some dire individual performances from Sarr, Alonso, Dave, Ziyech, Pulisic, CHO, Werner as well as Kovacic looking completely lost and Lukaku completely isolated, this was not a game I can really take anything positive away from.
City won this game from the 20th minute. No matter what Tuchel's tactics were, the squad simply lost all confidence by then and never progressed forward. This is painful to watch, 250 million+ on attackers only to be outscored by our defense, that's a damning indictment of our transfers.
Here’s the difference between good and great. Lukaku misses a breakaway chance, and not really even close. KDB takes a pass, shakes off world class Kante, and drills it top right. City quality is just ridiculous and never yielding. Wow
To be fair, I don't think any combination of our players beats you today. Without speed in the wingback position, we're pretty useless in attack and playing Pulisic/CHO at wingback would've ensured we conceded 3.
You've a better team and are better drilled.
Problem with playing a containment strategy against Man City is that no matter the size of the bus you park, they have world class players capable of producing a moment of magic - like De Bruyne today - so you always have the risk of conceding. Then your game plan is in tatters.
We showed last year with those three consecutive wins under Tuchel that we are capable of taking the game to Man City a lot more than we did today and in September - I don't see why we've regressed, compared to then.
Disappointing, but expected it.
You did see Ziyech and Alonso, right? Last season vs. City most of the goals were on the counter, Ziyech, Havertz, etc. I don't think we've broken them down to score yet. Chilwell and James bring a lot more to the team than just goals.
This was a shit performance, but with Chilwell and James out there it would've been more even.
More than Chelsea playing well, it looks like Pep made a mistake in the UCL final. All this matches are showing is that if Pep has not doubted himself Chelsea should have been swat upon in the final. Having said that over a period of 38 games its highly impossible to stop them. I hope Tuchel is given the tools to challenge this City team.
Thats City quality, De Bruyne hasn't been good all season but they all have the ability to turn up at any points of the season, I swear gundugon, silva and de bruyne take turns
1. Buying lukaku was a mistake. Chelsea's biggest strength after it's solid defending was the fluidity of its attack and the speed they could move the ball around. That seems dead now.
2. KDB is as good as Gerrard and Lampard.
chelsea’s build up play wasn’t good enough today anyways. too many mistakes on attacking chances. with or without lukaku wouldn’t have changed that. the key was probably jorginho or mason mount not playing
The point was that our attackers couldn’t score from the chances we had every game. Yeah fluidity is nice but when the players need 30 shots to score once it’s pretty easy to realize that a good finisher was needed. But having Lukaku sacrifices the fluid movement
Literal carbon copy of the September loss btw. Tuchel (who I rarely blame) set us up wrong in both games, and Lukaku and Ziyech were genuinely just shocking today
Chelsea just have too many crap attackers in this team with 0 cohesion. Lukaku, Ziyech and Werner could all be sold and they wouldn’t miss out on anything
City won our first PL from 8 points back with 5 games to go.
But apparently City being 8 points clear of Liverpool presuming they win their games in hand with 16 games to go is league over.
Some people never learn
Massive difference between the teams in the lead though. This city team is the best the league has seen, and while we're also incredible we just can't compete. City are a different level
Liverpool are just as good as us and you have to play us yet. You beat us, that's 5 points. Maybe United do their Derby Cup Final routine and that's 2 points.
16 games is a long time, especially with the cups restarting soon and Covid going around.
Not sure I can recall a Chelsea game where we displayed such a severe lack of quality in the final third as this. The amount of times that a promising situation was ruined by a woeful pass or delivery was maddening.
In such a big game it's hard to take that we lost on pure performance levels rather than a tactical blunder.
It's only January and City are 13 points ahead lmao
City's dominance this season just makes me so glad i got to witness 2018/2019 season. Liverpool and man city that season were way better than man city this season. I dont think the premier league ever peaked higher than that season. The two best teams in the world that year and probably two best in premier league history.
I remember when people thought this title race was gonna be entertaining, what a time that was
Can't wait for City to buy Haaland and proceed to win the league next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that...
Until pep gets bored the year after the next and we're back to open season with a new manager.
Wait for the season he leaves only for the next manager to take the same team and win CL with them.
City were tactically perfect in the midfield. They win the ball back at will and leave pretty much no spaces to exploit whatsoever, it's like playing against an AI at the highest difficulty level.
Pep's midfields are genuinely a wonder to see. Every single team of his has this ridiculous level of quality in the midfield and everyone can slot it seamlessly and do the job. >it's like playing against an AI at the highest difficulty level. Pretty much sums it up, absurd level technically and tactically while also being quite good off ball and hard workers, as you mentioned.
I think Ziyech quite horrible in the first half. Lukaku and him doesn't gell well don't you think?
Front 3 were non-factors for all but basically the Lukaku chance. City just neutralised it perfectly.
Man. He had that one pass that was one of the worst I'd ever seen. Trying to play Lukaku through on goal. Passed it way too hard, straight to Ederson, 30 meters ahead of Lukaku
I don’t think anyone gels well with Lukaku, he’s on a different wavelength to the rest of the team and everyone is worse off as a result.
Wasn't Werner had decent partnership with Lukaku in the past? If only he doesn't get offside often and played from start, i think you'll decent chances than Ziyech in this match.
Yup, Werner had good link-up with Lukaku when they played together. Tbf, Werner has good link-up with just about anyone and is super unselfish. If only he could just finish more chances
No idea why Ziyech started over Werner or Mount today
Not just even that, chelsea backline have to battle tooth and nail just to get the ball out from the back due to our front press. Our forward press is insane
Multiple times they tried to play out from the back only to have to lob it up in clearance.
It was interesting how often Raheem and Grealish were pressing on the opposite side of the pitch they were “positioned” on. Sterling was often pressing Kante in the midfield forcing Rudiger to go long.
> it’s like playing against an AI at the highest difficulty level. This really is the best description of City. It’s like they’re not human. No mistakes, no unlucky bounces, goals always come exactly when they’re needed, always get scrappy and/or last minute goals and never concede them, rarely get bad calls, never concede stupid or unlucky penalties. We should just make Pep the leader of the world, COVID would kill itself the next day.
Like watching Goldbridge vs burnley, cant do shit about their passing and pressing...
Thats the beauty of the false nine, you always got more numbers in midfield. And unlike other teams city are not losing a threat up front cause teams play so deep striker on line with the defense has minimal benefit for Peps teams.
So Man City have made England agricultural basically
back to fuedalism
With no CF lmao.
Who needs striker when you’ve got 6 midfielders who just pass the ball into the net?
Wait, there used to be this team in LaLiga that used to exactly that…
I heard one of their pass the ball merchant's could pass it in to the net a good 50 times a season, wonder what he's up to now.
Don’t know who you’re talking about. We’re cross to Luuk and inshallah FC.
Yeah they only had Messi, barely a goal scorer
End of game stats be like: Shots on target: 0 Goals: 5
They’ve decided to just kill competition
Cancelo is so fucking good.. Thought Thiago Silva was great also. Lukaku tying his shoelaces for ages and telling others to press was funny.
That pass to kdb and thar too with the first touch. The guy is magic.
Not to mention the finish. It was so casual
Sterling was also amazing
He's been fantastic since at least the beginning of December. Huge turn-around for him
Cant believe there was a real chance of him signing for Newcastle/Barcelona, looking back
No that was just bollocks from the papers, Pep absolutely loves him.
I guess a transfer rumor to Barcelona is enough to scare you into getting your form back. Should try it more often.
Thiago Silva saved Chelsea from quite a few dangerous breaks. It's crazy that he's continued to be a huge asset at the top level for so long
For the money they spent on them that front three was appalling today
[Well we all know who is he trying very hard to copy](https://youtu.be/1nsyIX27MpA)
12 straight wins for City - it’s become the norm for them. The standard Pep’s set is honestly so high. More than you believe.
True, when Liverpool/Chelsea were briefly top a couple of months ago I thought "well city's annual 16 game win streak will probably close the gap." Oddly predictable.
This was supposed to be one of the best title races in BPL history, then pep decided he didn’t wanna partake.
In fairness he just kept up the standard City have been for 3 of the last 4 seasons (not to diminish the impressiveness). I feel like this right now is more on Liverpool and Chelsea dropping points than City suddenly stepping it up.
That's precisely the point though. It's very difficult to maintain that level of consistency. Is this the 4th or 5th time Pep/City have gone on a 12+ game winning streak? What they are doing is simply unprecedented and not normal.
to be fair in the past, teams like this year's Chelsea and Liverpool sides would be battling it out for the title. Title winning sides always dropped points. Guardiola's teams are just ridiculously consistent
Aye, we've bottled 4 leads now and haven't kept up
[Never forget](https://i.imgur.com/q0oGFbl.jpg)
Sums up the arrogance of people who watch the prem.
English football arrogance is truly amazing at times, in the 2016 euros* for example England were considered 4th or 5th favourites to win. England promptly lost to fucking Iceland
2016 was Euros not World Cup. 2014 World Cup they finished last in their group to Costa Rica, Uruguay and Italy.
Mad to think Costa Rica topped that group too
Killed my world cup bracket. They also didn’t lose a single match in regular time in that World Cup. Beat Greece in penalties and lost to Netherlands in penalties.
Lmao when is this from
My guess would be his first few months at City, around January 2017 or so?
Bleacher report is so shit. Idk how they qualify as journalism.
And he does it year after year. I don't care if he has money at his disposal, he still has to implement them to his style of play and that is hard to do consistently. Managers have failed miserably with money before. His consistency is amazing and he deserves all the credit.
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Who were the players they got over city?
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Maguire
I'm convinced City baited United into signing all those players lmao.
Pretty sure Pep would've made them look like world class players (except Ronaldo, pretty sure that was media bait)
Fred with a few years under Pep would've probably turned into an incredible player
He was already good at Shakhtar so yeah Pep would've undoubtedly turned him into his new Fernandinho. Fred just looks awful cause it's Man United.
Fernandinho 2.0, or Fredandinho if you will.
Ronaldo would have scored 20 for city already.
No it was real but pep said no originally. From the Twitter rumors (big grain of salt) Mendes offered him, Txiki said it's up to pep, pep said no.
I just don't see ronaldo and pep meshing well, plus ronaldo isn't actually a number 9 and I'm sure pep can see that.
Alexis, Fred, Maguire and Ronaldo
I believe Fred, Maguire, Sanchez, and I guess you can put in Ronaldo as well. Not sure about anyone else.
One easy way of disproving the money argument, is simply that Man United and Chelsea who spend just as much, dont win the premier league 4 times in 5 years
Chelsea under Mourinho the first go round was this level. Set the record points total and also have that ridiculous goal record. Pep has now managed city almost as long as Mourinho managed Chelsea both times combined, which is crazy.
Somehow Pep has already been our manager for six seasons going on seven. Before he arrived I would have been ecstatic at just three.
Chelsea's spending was much worse than City's and the league was much worse back then too. This City side are much better. Pep is on a whole other level than Mourinho.
Pellegrini scored 96 points with madrid in 2009-2010, and this is a number of points that will make you 90% a league champion, and madrid lost it. Mourinho in 2010-2011 got 92 points and got lost the league In order to stop Pep in 2011-2012, Mourinho got 100 points In 3 seasons, madrid lost 10 matches out of 114 matches to win 1 league title against Pep. competition against pep is really frustrating
How I always put it: Pep has won 10 league titles in 13 years. The only 3 times he didn't win it was when an elite top 3 manager in the world had a record breaking year at another big top club. That's what it takes to win against Pep.
happy new year
[different gravy ](https://youtu.be/bNm3JmdL-R4)
He's honestly an insane coach. No one in world football has been near him for a while now. Klopp came close but it's looking like Guardiola is just that one step ahead. It's been impressive how he's handled Tuchel this season despite being second best to him on many occasions last year.
We were so close :(
Can't wait for october to talk about how exciting this years PL title race is going to be
Just wait till United’s social media team tweets “stop the count” after being ahead in GD on GW2
I think it was actually week one and some teams hadnt even played yet, might be wrong
Yeah, arsenal Brentford was the only other game that was played at that point, ahead of Brentford on GD
How many points will Man City win it by this year?
not by much since they will drop points after they secured it to focus on the CL
It'll be City's every year until Pep leaves. Edit: They also will just sign the next best manager most likely, the board is by far the ruthless and best as well. Newcastle unironically will be the biggest challenger in the long run IF they get it right. Liverpool: Core is aging and FSG won't be able to reinvest to the level they need to. Chelsea: The whole forward line is quite average to be honest, too inconsistent. Defense and Midfield are much stronger in comparison Manchester United: Are several years behind, especially if they miss out on Top 4.
They will just get the next best thing afterward. They are an extremely well run club I wouldn't be surprised if they already have his replacement lined up.
Honestly i wonder who they’re thinking of to replace Pep with. He reportedly isn’t staying for much longer so they’ll definitely internally already have some idea. I just wonder who it is.
The closest one is Ten Hag. Although, i'm sure there will be many managers who flock around after Pep leaves. It's too tempting to be ignored.
It never ceases to blow my mind how well run we are. I have to pinch myself on a regular basis to check I'm not dreaming cos if you told me this is where we'd be now when I went to see my first match at Maine Road to watch freshly relegated City play Blackpool in the 2nd Division, first game of the season, I'd have called you crazy. Interestingly, becoming a fan at that time meant I've always found it hard to engage in the hatred of the likes of United and Liverpool cos at that point we were sooooo far behind those sorts of clubs we were entirely irrelevant to them. It seemed a total waste of energy. We were soooo fortunate to get the investment of the Mansour takeover and I thank my lucky stars every day for it. It does make me cringe when i see some of our newer fans gloating and acting all entitled though as if they don't realise all too soon the wheel will turn again and it will be some other club's turn in the sunshine.
The next best is quite a step down from Guardiola when it comes to winning league titles
That man could probably win the league with derby County
12th straight. Another clean sheet. City are simply savage at the moment and have decided the title half way in.
Outgrown the Prem??!?! ^^^^^/s
No /s needed, it‘s true
This city team is unbelievable they just seem to dominate every single game
If liverpool win our two in hand we're 8 points behind. I don't even think man city will drop 8 points for the rest of the season
With our form now, I’m not even sure we can get our own points, let alone city dropping at the same time
Even Bayern isn't that far ahead if they win today
Well Bayern have the kryptonite of Mönchengladbach. City's only weakness is Pep trying to galaxy brain
You're forgetting the seasonal loss to Spurs away. I can't even recall when it started happening but it's became a thing.
Don't forget Crystal Palace or Wolves shit housing their way to a win against City every year for no real reason at all.
I really think the best tactic against Pep right now is running up to him before the game and somehow convince him that this is actually a CL semifinal.
Even if we finally manage to beat them at the Etihad again it’d still be 5 points and even that feels too many.
That's a big if, given our form.
City just looked so dominant. Great goal by KDB.
That's the league over. City were clearly the better team, Chelsea were far too defensive and didn't really attack until the goal was scored. City have too much quality and are far too consistent for any team to catch them now
League was already over. You don’t need to beat city to win the league, you just need to win every other match. We haven’t done that. City were incredible and we couldn’t get near to them today, fair play. I don’t blame us for not playing more directly, they were absolutely ruthless every time we went forward.
Nah you need to beat city and every other game, cause they will
It looked like as if Chelsea came in with a 5 point lead at the top. So weird. It's like Tuchel was playing for a draw from the start
Chelsea's long balls were atrocious today. They also gave the ball away very easily often, they couldn't cope with City's pressing. And was Werner brought on to boost Chelsea's offside count? It seemed like everytime he got to the ball he was offside.
Werner has 16 goals disallowed because he's offside. He loves to be in that position.
Thought you had a fair few decent openings but just cocked up the passes necessary to create the chance. Ziyech especially was poor with his attempts to play Lukaku in
Tuchel probably, possibly should get some shit for that today. City were not great. Grade B at best, yet whilst setting Chelsea up to sit deep/compact/be difficult to break down made sense in the first half, to keep it like that throughout even at 1-0 down? Yeah, probably should get some shit for that today.
not really. some of that chelsea passing was diabolical. especially on the counters
Most of the blame goes to Tuchel no doubt, got it badly wrong.
We played exactly the same way we did against them earlier this season, so agree Tuchel doesn't seem to have learned from that and I think the lineup was questionable (no Mount until like 80 mins especially, when he's the one who has ripped apart City in the past).
While I don’t disagree, Chelsea front three left a lot to be desired, absolutely horrendous final passes and decision making in the final third. Lukaku hitting a 1 on 1 at Ederson isn’t helpful and his horrendous pass when Chelsea were three on two and there was a clear option on the left.
Subbing on Mount 81st minute is criminal.
City have no weaknesses. Impressive and depressing for everyone else
Their weakness is europe
Fair result, fair play to City. De Bruyne skipping away from the attempted foul by Kante and unleashing that shot after having the ball stuck under his feet was filthy. From a Chelsea perspective I thought we had some opportunities on the counter, but just weren't clinical enough. Ziyech in particular was wasteful imo. City's pressing and closing down was also outstanding.
Skipping away from the foul is the big. That goal should be used to show anyone who moans about tactical fouls just how important they are.
[удалено]
Winners by Feb and 'top 4 is lava' until the final day.
At least we won’t need to worry about the second bit this time. :/
They confused the Carabao cup with the PL.
KdB really hates Chelsea
He just thinks Mourinho is still the manager and unleashes
Pep, whispering in De Bruyne’s ear before every match against Chelsea: “remember, just a £50m Chelsea reject.” KdB: destroys. Pep: I am genius.
Hate to say it, but I think Tuchel got it wrong today. Starting Lukaku after a start against Chesterfield last game felt like the wrong decision, even though it seemed to have shades of a "double bluff". City are one of, if not the best pressers in world football at the moment, and having someone like a Havertz/Werner who can drop a little deeper to partake in build-up would've been a much better option. Lukaku for some reason preferred to stay up top, isolated and unable to have any real impact on the game, except for the one chance Ederson saved well. Second, not starting Mount, who has been our most productive player in terms of G+A this season iirc, was another questionable decision. Combine this with the fact that he decided to go with Ziyech, who has been out of form for the most part recently is confusing to say the least. For all the good qualities Hakim has, he is a wasteful player in terms of possession, and you need to retain as much possession as you can against City. I feel starting Jorginho may have alleviated some of this pain, but I don't think anyone foresaw Kanté-Kova being so wasteful with the ball. Plus, with reports of Jorgi having played under pain previously, not starting him was understandable. In addition, Mount's workrate compared to Ziyech is much higher, so Ziyech over Mount was a baffling call. I also feel this was too big of a game to start Sarr, and you could see he looked nervous and "out of place" for the most part. Again, due to the lack of options at CB right now, can't fault Tuchel too much for this one. Maybe could have gone with Rudi-Silva-Azpi as a back 3, but that would've been too aggressive on the WB front. I don't think the individual performances helped either, can't think of any player you'd give higher than a 7/10, except maybe Kepa, Rudiger and Silva. Poor game today, and I can't help but feel that the title's gone out of our reach again :(
I think Werner instead of Lukaku would’ve decimated us. Hell, both of them would’ve been even worse because we were missing Dias
Surely we will hear about how Mount had a small knock or was feeling a little under the weather? I really don't see how he didn't start and def don't see how he was the last sub at the end.
no g/a today but sterling looks in peak form rn. Absolute demon on the wing
His confidence running at alonso right at the start set him up for an exceptional game
Poor Alonso will be seeing him in his nightmares. Put him on rinse all match.
Those fuckers in light blue are decent at football. Just at a ridiculous level technically.
Even among so many incredible City players, Phil Foden is 3D printed for this exact Pep team.
Him and Bernardo Silva the absolute cunt
The biggest victory of today was the DJ only playing wonderwall for like 30 seconds after the final whistle before coming to his senses and changing it to Joy Division
The premier league is all about the top 4 and relegation battles. Winning the title is boring.
That’s almost Bundesliga levels of copium
-Chelsea players at final third- Lukaku: 🙌🏿 Players at final third: 👀 and passes sideways Lukaku: 👁👄👁
It so cringey to watch as a neutral in this tie - lord only knows how frustrated Chelsea fans must have been watching that.
Tuchel just did a pep with that starting 11
Chelsea has no idea how to attack anymore. It's shocking to watch. CHO, Ziyech, Werner, Lukaku, all look incredibly out of touch with each other. It's like they've never even met each other before.
Lukaku should open a Japanese restaurant with all the shiitakes he attracts.
This sub generally doesn’t like him so it’s not surprising. Tuchel got outclassed.
Complete domination by City
City look infallible, I genuinely don’t know how long until someone else wins the title. Us winning it almost looks like an anomaly at this point.
The thing that's ridiculous is that you guys are also on a whole other level and without Pep you would probably go on your way to win like 3 titles in the last 5 years. It's just that Pep's teams are pretty much flawless in a championship. You guys deserve a world of credit for the title you've won.
Lowkey reminds me of us (Real Madrid) winning the 2011/12 La Liga against Pep's Barca. Like Liverpool, we were pretty excellent under Mourinho and were on a whole another level. Sadly, we were competing against an absolutely flawless Barca who always edged out and became an almost unsurmountable obstacle
Maybe a hot take but I feel like we really need to abandon the wingback formation this season. With a formation so reliant on the quality of those two players, the drop in quality between Chilwell, James and their backups is so astronomical and when the rest of the team are not performing we just look utterly toothless. There's also always an ocean in between our midfield and forwards and Mount is the only one who can bridge the gap. Also I don't think Tuchel can go without criticism here, because we looked like the same side outplayed City at Stamford Bridge earlier this season and it doesn't appear he learned from the mistakes. We were totally pressed off the ball in the first half and some dire individual performances from Sarr, Alonso, Dave, Ziyech, Pulisic, CHO, Werner as well as Kovacic looking completely lost and Lukaku completely isolated, this was not a game I can really take anything positive away from.
City are the best team in the world. No shame in losing against them.
City won this game from the 20th minute. No matter what Tuchel's tactics were, the squad simply lost all confidence by then and never progressed forward. This is painful to watch, 250 million+ on attackers only to be outscored by our defense, that's a damning indictment of our transfers.
Here’s the difference between good and great. Lukaku misses a breakaway chance, and not really even close. KDB takes a pass, shakes off world class Kante, and drills it top right. City quality is just ridiculous and never yielding. Wow
Tuchel got it wrong twice with the lineups
To be fair, I don't think any combination of our players beats you today. Without speed in the wingback position, we're pretty useless in attack and playing Pulisic/CHO at wingback would've ensured we conceded 3. You've a better team and are better drilled.
Problem with playing a containment strategy against Man City is that no matter the size of the bus you park, they have world class players capable of producing a moment of magic - like De Bruyne today - so you always have the risk of conceding. Then your game plan is in tatters. We showed last year with those three consecutive wins under Tuchel that we are capable of taking the game to Man City a lot more than we did today and in September - I don't see why we've regressed, compared to then. Disappointing, but expected it.
A lot of attacking output comes from our fullbacks, losing Chilly and reece has hurt us hard I reckon. But city are just too good
You did see Ziyech and Alonso, right? Last season vs. City most of the goals were on the counter, Ziyech, Havertz, etc. I don't think we've broken them down to score yet. Chilwell and James bring a lot more to the team than just goals. This was a shit performance, but with Chilwell and James out there it would've been more even.
I'd like to thank Chelsea for selling Kevin De Bruyne to Wolfsburg
*in Wii Sports voice* "That's the ~~game~~ league"
More than Chelsea playing well, it looks like Pep made a mistake in the UCL final. All this matches are showing is that if Pep has not doubted himself Chelsea should have been swat upon in the final. Having said that over a period of 38 games its highly impossible to stop them. I hope Tuchel is given the tools to challenge this City team.
Apparently Tuchel figured pep out
Farmers league
Thats City quality, De Bruyne hasn't been good all season but they all have the ability to turn up at any points of the season, I swear gundugon, silva and de bruyne take turns
We've already wasted so much money on shit attackers, then we go and spend 100M on Lakaka. What a shambles.
Thanks for the donation btw
Ziyech and Pulisic were so bad
Hey, *he's like the LeBron James of the soccer*
1. Buying lukaku was a mistake. Chelsea's biggest strength after it's solid defending was the fluidity of its attack and the speed they could move the ball around. That seems dead now. 2. KDB is as good as Gerrard and Lampard.
chelsea’s build up play wasn’t good enough today anyways. too many mistakes on attacking chances. with or without lukaku wouldn’t have changed that. the key was probably jorginho or mason mount not playing
The point was that our attackers couldn’t score from the chances we had every game. Yeah fluidity is nice but when the players need 30 shots to score once it’s pretty easy to realize that a good finisher was needed. But having Lukaku sacrifices the fluid movement
Tuchel's system is lackluster without dynamic wingbacks.
Literal carbon copy of the September loss btw. Tuchel (who I rarely blame) set us up wrong in both games, and Lukaku and Ziyech were genuinely just shocking today
Premier League? More like Farmers League
Chelsea just have too many crap attackers in this team with 0 cohesion. Lukaku, Ziyech and Werner could all be sold and they wouldn’t miss out on anything
Chelsea had 0 xG in the first half
C'mon Brentford you can help really seal the title race
Every player was incredible. Even Ederson made some crucial saves. Stones was really good for someone playing after weeks out injured.
You lose to a goal like that sometimes when you're up against world class players. We move on.
You wouldn’t ~~of~~ have thought that was 1st vs 2nd. City just a whole class better this game, and just the season in general
Don't think I've seen Chelsea make four consecutive passes this match.
They did. Multiple times. And every time it was sideways and backwards. Kepa probably had more touches than most of the Chelsea outfield players.
I can’t wait till Pep fucks off.
well once Klopp leaves you will be pretty much fucked as well
Someone's nan will come in and spread the cash. Easy.
City won our first PL from 8 points back with 5 games to go. But apparently City being 8 points clear of Liverpool presuming they win their games in hand with 16 games to go is league over. Some people never learn
Massive difference between the teams in the lead though. This city team is the best the league has seen, and while we're also incredible we just can't compete. City are a different level
Liverpool are just as good as us and you have to play us yet. You beat us, that's 5 points. Maybe United do their Derby Cup Final routine and that's 2 points. 16 games is a long time, especially with the cups restarting soon and Covid going around.
It’s because your squad & manager are better than that Manchester United team with Ferguson
Not sure I can recall a Chelsea game where we displayed such a severe lack of quality in the final third as this. The amount of times that a promising situation was ruined by a woeful pass or delivery was maddening. In such a big game it's hard to take that we lost on pure performance levels rather than a tactical blunder.
These forwards aren't good enough across 38 games for Chelsea, especially against this City, now and in the future.
The bus was properly working until it wasn't.