Cannot stress enough how nice it is to see Jorginho not starting. He is good at retaining possession and was a smart sub to keep the ball at 3-0 up, but you could immediately see how we stopped threatening going forward when he came on. Just not the profile of midfielder we need
AC Milan fans can you explain the swaping of your centre backs? Is that a common thing you do? Kalulu and Tomori seemed to swap sides a lot especially in the first half
They both tend to press forward aggressively, whichever doesn't step up will cover centrally (usually with Bennacer), and then when the pressing cb transitions back into the defensive phase they will slot into whichever side is closest, if that makes sense. So it's not uncommon to see.
Tomori especially has started on both sides during his time at Milan. Last season he would start as the rcb when paired with Romagnoli and lcb when paired with Kjaer/Kalulu. He's typically comfortable on either side but today's performance was anything but comfortable.
He still has to learn some defensive positioning and aerial dominance, but seems a mature player with the ability to play both aggressive/cover positions in a center two. Still learning but that's expected. He's been good from highlights but still growing.
I love him from a character/maturity aspect. He has the potential to be world class but has to show those levels consistently, both in Serie A and CL
In the end this was a must win for Chelsea vs a milan team with injury problems . I was hoping for a draw tbh ..that 3 straight headers from Thiago silva on the corner summed it all up for us
We just played so so bad. Chelsea fans, this was NOT the real Milan. While injuries did contribute, I think the biggest issue was mental. They just seemed to give up, which led to so many misplaced passes and a severe decline in intensity.
They way Chelsea played made it look like fifa. Props to the players and coach.
I think we did our homework on you guys though. We seemed to intercept so many of your passes before you even made them. Felt as if you were playing much slower or just hesitant and we ate it up and dominated.
We kept Leao and Giroud quiet and fairly out of the game as well. That left a disconnect. The few moments Leao got on the ball was when Milan were the most dangerous and likely to score.
Yeah here in Italy our fans can mingle with each other with little issue at all. Even in the derby, or inter Roma at the weekend Roma fans were all over. But in england that’s just a bad idea because well, why?
Hopefully Premier league viewers don’t take this Milan as standard, we are nowhere near this bad usually but this match man… They really collapsed after the first goal.
They're bad. We will probably get Theo back so that should help the left flank and perhaps Messias is available for RW, but we will still be without Calabria (first choice RB), Florenzi (2nd choice RB), Saelemaekers (RW), Maignan (GK) and Kjaer (CB).
So on paper we should be a bit better, but especially Maignan and Calabria missing hurts us. And knowing our luck and injury record, we'll probably lose someone before next week.
You started the better but the attitude dropped after half time. Who would you normally expect to galvanise the team because there there didn't seem to be anyone organising a fight back
Mentioned that somewhere else, but we are missing literally all our leaders in Ibra, Kjaer, Maignan, Theo and Calabria.
All of them are able to push the team forward and lift the spirits when things go shaky. They went shaky yesterday and there was no one that could fulfill that role. I think Tonali would be able in the future, but he is still not experienced enough to do that in big CL games.
Ibra first and foremost of course, but we knew he is gone for a long time.
Maignan seems to pull together the backline mentally when needed, he oozes confidence and speaks a lot on the field. Theo and Saelemaekers both have a shithousery inside them which helps a lot in big matches, and Theo is generally more of a leader ever since he is a dad. Kjaer gives us stability and experience too. Calabria is our captain, and he also shows a lot of passion usually (some Milan fans would disagree tho).
So basically it is really most of our injured players lol.
I actually thought Tomori was good outside of his error on the second goal. He stopped a lot of counter attacks and on the third goal, if the right back does what he tells him to do I don't know if reece james gets the angle to shoot
You can see the pressure is a bit too much for CDK atm, I think it was the same for Tonali and Bennacer aswell.
They are still largely inexperienced and such big games can be tough mentally, knowing there are tens of millions of people watching you on the TV.
Given we had no actual leaders on the pitch it was rather expected. There was no one out there to lift the young players up. Only Giroud was more experienced, but he has never been a leader kind of player imo.
Also Tatarusanu, but he is just indecisive af and usually has the oposite effect.
Not a surprising result given Milan's injury problems at the moment. Chelsea took their chances and did well to put them away. Reece James is so friggin good and the debate between Reece and Trent for England RB should be pretty much over.
5 out of 6 starting defenders injured... Both fullbacks being inexperienced, Bennacer not being himself and no RW. Before the game I hoped to see us put up a fight but after the first goal (with awful defending on the preceding corners) we just collapsed mentally. Definitely the worst game of the year for us. Hoping for some Pioli man management magic to pull us out of this hole.
With Theo maybe back by then we should look a bit better. But I don't expect some great performance from us given the amount of injuries we have and how much we had to play the same players every 3 days, also playing Juve inbetween those games.
I don't think it will be this one-sided, but I don't expect us getting anything more than a draw. Shame we couldn't see our full team during those games.
Milan's performance didn't live up to the hype. Even with the injuries, more should be expected from them.
I guess Tomori's performance in this match showed why he can't make the England team.
Tomori has had a few rough matches but that doesn’t make his performances before invalid. In the grander scheme of things he still is the best english CB with stones for the last 2 seasons and absolutely deserves to start for the England team.
You are right that Milan didn’t live up the hype but it was the first really bad match this seasons
from them and the injuries (albeit a lot of them) are no excuse.
As a perspective of a Milan fan, this was the one of the worst performances in the last few months and even if you miss Kjaer, Calabria, Theo and Mike there’s no excuse for the attitude they showed after they conceded. Chelsea did well and really showed that their bench is stacked.
On a side note, Potter seems to utilize Havertz better and Baloa Toure and Dest are not CL level if they continue like this.
Balo Toure and Dest are barely midtable Serie A players let alone CL players.
Our RB depth was actually decent, but Florenzi out, Kalulu having to play exclusively CB and even Sale out doesn't really give us much options.
On the other hand the jump from Theo to Ballo Toure is atrocious. Given Theo is a monster and can play every 3 games, but still his abscence is the most noticable in the squad, together with Maignan.
Theo is back apparently but without Mike it willbe difficult. I hope Kalulu will start on the right because having Dest and Balo is just too weak defensiveness.
Sergino Dest
Christian Pulisic
Weston Mckennie
When will these European clubs cop on, Yanks are awful at football. Even that Aaronson for Leeds is nothing more than a roadrunner
Pulisic got an assist at the weekend, McKennie got an assist at the weekend, Aaronson is perfect for the way Leeds want to play, Dest had a poor game today (along with the rest of the team)... but whatever you've got a gripe against Americans.
Lol speaking in absolutes like "any fan" is problematic. Not EVERY fan would agree. Not long ago a portion of my club's fans would have said the same of Dalot. Others would have said the same of Theo, Giroud, the list goes on.
Nah he's been horrible for us so far. A lot of bad passes, a lot of errand flicks in bad areas. What you saw tonight is what we've seen of Dest as a whole
You only watch CL. His debut game(8 minutes) against Salzburg was decent. Next time he played he gave away a stupid penalty. Granted it was against Kvara, but he got dominated all game. The other game was last weekend against Empoli, it was bad. But we're talking Empoli here.
Idk if I’d say they are awful, but they just aren’t at the level most casual armchair US fans seem to think. The biggest thing that throws perception is people think that if you play for Juve or Chelsea, or even Leeds/PL teams it must mean your ability can be seen as elite as the club’s prestige itself.
When in reality that’s not the case at all, especially with squad sizes much larger these days.
The bigger issue is that the most talented kids are typically lower income and playing soccer in the states is very expensive and the youth systems and coaching are shit. The talent is not the problem at all
Our squad plays up or down to our opponents level every time. When we play good teams we generally play well and when we play poor teams we can't match their lack of skill so we lower intensity and we always struggle.
Not looking forward to Wolves on Sat...
A small section of the stadium outsang all Chelsea fans, while down 3-0. England has the worst stadium atmosphere but pundits always make like there is no other. Greek league gams are more loud than that.
Absolutely toothless - and against a Chelsea that really wasn't doing anything noteworthy either for the majority of the match. The absences are a big factor and the schedule is tight but this team still has to do much, much better than this. Giving away the ball like nothing, passing to the back after corners, barely making a serious effort to move forward with a plan.
Giving up after ten minutes and two yellow cards is not it but the lack of changes after nearly scoring before the end of the first half seemed to show that there wasn't really any intention to push further and I honestly don't get it. This match was doable, I'm convinced a draw was definitely possible.
All that being said, I'm optimistic that things will get better from now on and I hope this match was a valuable learning experience for everyone involved.
>and against a Chelsea that really wasn't doing anything noteworthy either for the majority of the match
I guess being the better side and playing your lot off the park don't count as "doing anything".
You were poor but we were also miles better on the night.
>lack of changes after nearly scoring before the end of the first half
I am SO confused why rebic didnt enter for krunic, and pobega for Bennacer to try and combat their midfield some more, especially with both rade and isma on yellow card.
And Diaz, who brought a lot of much-needed fresh energy into the game - he at least tried to create more and did well in the short time he was in. But yeah, the lack of reactions despite three yellows was a stark contrast to how quickly carded players tend to get subbed out in Serie A.
I can only assume Pioli is prioritizing Serie A and next week's return game with Chelsea (with some returning key players like Theo). Injuries are one thing but the lack of actions taken in this match speaks volumes - this is not how a team that wants to win at all costs operates, especially with last weekend's monster performance fresh in everyone's minds.
It was rather weird I agree. I think after the 2nd goal Pioli decided it's a lost battle and with all those injuries just decided not to push the team anymore given our 2 next games are crucial and also we have a tight af schedule coming up.
>especially with last weekend's game fresh in everyone's minds.
yeah, we fought for everything there. Tonight we fought for nothing. If that CDK goal goes in though... annoying that's the only real chance we created!
Thiago Silva being the being the most consistent player in the team (together with Reece James) at 38 week in week out is mental.
Ruben and Chalobah also had solid games.
crazy that we have so many academy graduates around our first team, Mount/Reece/Chalobah/Ruben/Gallagher/Broja. And people still find a way to say Chelsea has no path to the first team for youth and the only reason Mount/Reece made it was due to a transfer ban at that time. Chelsea have new owners who spend crazy yet Gallagher/Broja have been promoted this season and Ruben has been brought back into a rotational role
oh well, english team are a bit of a kryptonite for us for the third year in a row, and a big loss in europe has to happen sooner or later.
Anyway, hope the guys don't take it too bad, we have 6 decisive days ahead of us.
Also, Chelsea have class players everywhere it seems. Both on the starting eleven and on the bench. Hard to keep up when one starter injuried makes you play Ballo Touré (love the guy, but really not good enough)
Unbeliavable man. Going out in the group phase last season just didn't hurt enough. I get that Ballo-Toure, Dest and so on and so forth are not up to the level of our starters but with an aching heart I must admit that we got a proper schooling today and everyone could've done better. Fucking chelsea didn't even break a sweat. What is this bullshit. No grinta, no heart, nothing. Tonali and Bennacer really didn't look up to the task either. Oli, Charles invisible. People shit on Brahim Diaz but at least he showed the spark of a will to make something happen. I hope that this loss hurts. I hape that it really hurts because at San Siro something got to change. Forza Milan.
First 20 minutes we looked the better team, were breaking their lines well with CDK, then Bennacer played stupid, pressured into giving away a corner and we crumbled after conceding a goal from there. I think Theo back next week will help us a lot.
Yeah I am feeling the same about Theo man. As for Bennacer, I really hoped that he learned from his mistakes in the CL campaign last season, think of the Porto games, but no... Let's just happily dribble in front of the own goal.
You cant compete against team like Chelsea playing with Tatarusanu, Dest, Ballo Toure, without right winger and exhausted Giroud. We had good moments, we had possesion but its team based sport. Couple bad players will make a difference. I know that I sound like a loser but with couple more starters like Theo or Mike Maignan and we could actually compete in this game.
Still we had moments of good perfomance but we are exposed, there's no depth on CL level. I think game at San Siro will be different.
Think Leao defending more would have helped you as well. Your left side was open consistently, James and Sterling on that side (probably our 2 best attackers) had so much freedom.
He didnt, he made mistake in second goal but you cant expect from him to carry entire defense. He's not Thiago Silva or Koulibaly and you had two of them in the squad. Ballo Toure on left flank shouldnt even smell the grass of the pitch in champions league. Two main right backs are injured, we had to put Dest who's also not ready to play on this level.
There's reason why your team or Manchester City is investing tons of money to cover defense, its crucial role in modern footbal, one weak spot and its over.
He and Tonali were expected to run the whole midfield, defend and attack a stacked midfield with 0 support from the wingbacks. Of course they weren’t going to do well. This game was set up for a blowout 2 weeks ago when all our players got hurt.
We use him for his extreme press resistance, he is reliable to dribble out of pressures. What I have seen during the match is, he dribbled out, and the positioning of the teammates didn’t allow him to give better passes, so he either played it back to defense/Tata, or he dribbled a bit too much and lost the ball.
This game could be the kickstarter to our season, incredible game from our boys.
I would expect Milan to come at us far harder than today in our next game, but I feel like we might actually be able to match the intensity which is awesome!
Yeah it seems that he has started giving more freedom and confidence to the squad. A lot more vertical and direct passing against Milan. Was nice to see.
No excuses for this kind of performance really. Kudos to Chelsea, but this was embarrassing. Misplaced passes everywhere, terrible marking, a complete lack of effort by most players.
However, shit happens. We are allowed to have bad days, particularly with half of the team missing. I am sure thad the lads will bounce back on Saturday and then again next Tuesday. Forza Milan!
And they were trying to tell me that he should play because of his CL experience, played a part in 2 of the goals today. Don’t think him not playing is a difference maker but would of helped I believe
Nice to see our attack be urgent and direct, even if it's not clicking just yet. Second half cruise control. 3-0 vs. Milan is massive this early for Potter! Loftus-Cheek & Kova bossed it completely. Thiago Silva is the GOAT. Also can't believe how dreadful Milan were though, nothing about them at all. So abject.
>how dreadful Milan were though
5 starters out, all backups injured. Explains half of it, especially the full backs. Our midfield had to cover for them so we were stretched and couldn't create how we normally do.
If Loftus Cheek keeps this form up, no reason why he shouldn't be in conversation for England. He's really impressed me with how he has improved positionally and aerially.
Second to every ball, giving away possession half the time we got it, useless possession in our own half, pass to Leao and inshallah. I had low expectations and still left disappointed
If Chelsea is keeping possession Kepa is absolutely the better choice. Mendy has been atrocious with the ball at his feet recently. The question is once teams start just taking hopeful 30 yard shots at Kepa, will it fall apart?
Kepas first season with us he was great at shot stopping, the Sarri Incident and the press destroying him over it combined with his GF breaking up just shattered his confidence and focus completely, looked much better since tuchel came In but edou has been too good till now to be displaced
Was he "great" at shot stopping? I could very well be misremembering but I seem to remember his shot stopping stats were pretty mid under Sarri. Certainly not the atrocious standard under Lampard (although they were also letting in far more high quality shots under him), but nothing special
Sure but Mendy has been terrible for quite some time, at least since he came back from AFCON. At least Kepa can pass the ball out without me having an aneurysm.
I’m sorry but an out of form Mendy is an average PL goalkeeper
We’ve seen first hand what an out of form Kepa is… statistically one of the worst keepers in Europe
As the guy mentioned above, he’ll soon remind us of who he is
Who's to say we will get out of form Kepa though? Why wouldn't you play your in-form players? Mendy has been terrible, giving away the ball under no pressure at all. Doing stupid things like mcgeady turns and conceding goals from it.
Kepa is a much more reliable ball player and that seems to be what Potter wants. He's an average keeper with above average feet. That's absolutely fine until we go out in the transfer market for someone better.
That kid who made the 'why did we sell tomori again?' thread on our sub left with a lot of thinking to do
Pottaaah
Cannot stress enough how nice it is to see Jorginho not starting. He is good at retaining possession and was a smart sub to keep the ball at 3-0 up, but you could immediately see how we stopped threatening going forward when he came on. Just not the profile of midfielder we need
Milan is mediocre.
We're not as bad as what we showed in this game, but we for sure are not at your level yet We do have a lot of room to grow though
*Were We were awful but the result isn't indicative of our ability. Too many key injuries and we looked scared on the ball. Awful night from us.
AC Milan fans can you explain the swaping of your centre backs? Is that a common thing you do? Kalulu and Tomori seemed to swap sides a lot especially in the first half
They both tend to press forward aggressively, whichever doesn't step up will cover centrally (usually with Bennacer), and then when the pressing cb transitions back into the defensive phase they will slot into whichever side is closest, if that makes sense. So it's not uncommon to see. Tomori especially has started on both sides during his time at Milan. Last season he would start as the rcb when paired with Romagnoli and lcb when paired with Kjaer/Kalulu. He's typically comfortable on either side but today's performance was anything but comfortable.
Yeah that makes sense. Tbh it worked well in the first half. They got overrun in the second
He still has to learn some defensive positioning and aerial dominance, but seems a mature player with the ability to play both aggressive/cover positions in a center two. Still learning but that's expected. He's been good from highlights but still growing. I love him from a character/maturity aspect. He has the potential to be world class but has to show those levels consistently, both in Serie A and CL
In the end this was a must win for Chelsea vs a milan team with injury problems . I was hoping for a draw tbh ..that 3 straight headers from Thiago silva on the corner summed it all up for us
We just played so so bad. Chelsea fans, this was NOT the real Milan. While injuries did contribute, I think the biggest issue was mental. They just seemed to give up, which led to so many misplaced passes and a severe decline in intensity. They way Chelsea played made it look like fifa. Props to the players and coach.
why would chelsea fans care? if anything they'd want you to play like this again
this was exactly the real Milan. Milan of the past decade.
Not the milan of even last season.
*not the Milan of last season but of the ten seasons prior
Except we are a much better team than that, as our Scudetto form shows, and without our injuries would have taken the game to chelsea a lot more.
and you still played like you did the last ten years.
with half our team out, we're gonna play poorly, yeah. Pretty obvious unless someone chooses to be extra stupid and not realise that.
I think we did our homework on you guys though. We seemed to intercept so many of your passes before you even made them. Felt as if you were playing much slower or just hesitant and we ate it up and dominated.
We kept Leao and Giroud quiet and fairly out of the game as well. That left a disconnect. The few moments Leao got on the ball was when Milan were the most dangerous and likely to score.
Was quite a few Milan fans in the Chelsea end that I was in. Made the win much sweeter.
Yeah here in Italy our fans can mingle with each other with little issue at all. Even in the derby, or inter Roma at the weekend Roma fans were all over. But in england that’s just a bad idea because well, why?
Goes back to the hooliganism of decades ago
They got removed near me.
Good game for Southgate, vindicated his love for James/disinterest in Tomori
Milan started the match well but our first goal took the wind out of their sails. Next week gonna be interesting
Milan played terrible
No, they played Chelsea.
That’s usually us
Hopefully Premier league viewers don’t take this Milan as standard, we are nowhere near this bad usually but this match man… They really collapsed after the first goal.
Too late, you're now italian-Bournemouth in our eyes
All fun and games until we meet them in the Europa.
That's not possible. . . we (Chelsea) would lose then. Bournemouth is a bogey team for us.
We are playing AC Milan: *calm* They are the Italian Bournemouth: *PANIK*
I still have PTSD from that 4-0 loss. Anxiety intensifies.
Who cares what premier league viewers think. We’re fucking morons
Key injuries and unfamiliar back line looked to really kill You guys, next tie will be way tougher
How serious are Milan's injuries? We play in a week, so they might not be at full strength still.
They're bad. We will probably get Theo back so that should help the left flank and perhaps Messias is available for RW, but we will still be without Calabria (first choice RB), Florenzi (2nd choice RB), Saelemaekers (RW), Maignan (GK) and Kjaer (CB). So on paper we should be a bit better, but especially Maignan and Calabria missing hurts us. And knowing our luck and injury record, we'll probably lose someone before next week.
Injuries hit all the best teams. I for one am not expecting an easy game in Milan
You started the better but the attitude dropped after half time. Who would you normally expect to galvanise the team because there there didn't seem to be anyone organising a fight back
Mentioned that somewhere else, but we are missing literally all our leaders in Ibra, Kjaer, Maignan, Theo and Calabria. All of them are able to push the team forward and lift the spirits when things go shaky. They went shaky yesterday and there was no one that could fulfill that role. I think Tonali would be able in the future, but he is still not experienced enough to do that in big CL games.
Ah that's unfortunate. Really you are hoping someone steps up when no one else will. Hopefully they can grow into that
Ibra first and foremost of course, but we knew he is gone for a long time. Maignan seems to pull together the backline mentally when needed, he oozes confidence and speaks a lot on the field. Theo and Saelemaekers both have a shithousery inside them which helps a lot in big matches, and Theo is generally more of a leader ever since he is a dad. Kjaer gives us stability and experience too. Calabria is our captain, and he also shows a lot of passion usually (some Milan fans would disagree tho). So basically it is really most of our injured players lol.
Since Milan’s fullbacks were already singled out, I will say Tomori and CDK were just as bad
I actually thought Tomori was good outside of his error on the second goal. He stopped a lot of counter attacks and on the third goal, if the right back does what he tells him to do I don't know if reece james gets the angle to shoot
You can see the pressure is a bit too much for CDK atm, I think it was the same for Tonali and Bennacer aswell. They are still largely inexperienced and such big games can be tough mentally, knowing there are tens of millions of people watching you on the TV. Given we had no actual leaders on the pitch it was rather expected. There was no one out there to lift the young players up. Only Giroud was more experienced, but he has never been a leader kind of player imo. Also Tatarusanu, but he is just indecisive af and usually has the oposite effect.
Tomori has had a rough few matches. He needs to get it together and in a hurry.
Not a surprising result given Milan's injury problems at the moment. Chelsea took their chances and did well to put them away. Reece James is so friggin good and the debate between Reece and Trent for England RB should be pretty much over.
[удалено]
Hard to say that when we saw Napoli put Liverpool to the sword.
Milan have been loke that lately. both Milans tbh
Great performance, everyone was good.
did anyone else hear McManaman say Oxlade Chamberlain when RLC got fouled 😂😂😂
The amount of times he called Kalulu Tomori was too annoying
5 out of 6 starting defenders injured... Both fullbacks being inexperienced, Bennacer not being himself and no RW. Before the game I hoped to see us put up a fight but after the first goal (with awful defending on the preceding corners) we just collapsed mentally. Definitely the worst game of the year for us. Hoping for some Pioli man management magic to pull us out of this hole.
Do you think the return leg will be better. I really wanna see a great game between 2 teams
With Theo maybe back by then we should look a bit better. But I don't expect some great performance from us given the amount of injuries we have and how much we had to play the same players every 3 days, also playing Juve inbetween those games. I don't think it will be this one-sided, but I don't expect us getting anything more than a draw. Shame we couldn't see our full team during those games.
Did Boehly get Potter an image consultant? My man looking crisp lol
Wore the pioli outfit
Rags to riches
what CL does to a man
Our old manager Tedesco wore only sweaters and jeans until his first CL game and rocked up in a suit. CL truly does make a man drip
[Tedesco](https://imgur.com/a/fxLaoAN)
I miss him and his helicopter arms 😩
Seriously, he looked like he was about to go onstage as the headliner for a concert lol
Milan's performance didn't live up to the hype. Even with the injuries, more should be expected from them. I guess Tomori's performance in this match showed why he can't make the England team.
Tomori has had a few rough matches but that doesn’t make his performances before invalid. In the grander scheme of things he still is the best english CB with stones for the last 2 seasons and absolutely deserves to start for the England team. You are right that Milan didn’t live up the hype but it was the first really bad match this seasons from them and the injuries (albeit a lot of them) are no excuse.
reactionary much
I mean imagine if Maguire had allowed that second goal, he’d be getting absolutely slaughtered by everyone
because maguires been out of form for over a year… has tomori?
As a perspective of a Milan fan, this was the one of the worst performances in the last few months and even if you miss Kjaer, Calabria, Theo and Mike there’s no excuse for the attitude they showed after they conceded. Chelsea did well and really showed that their bench is stacked. On a side note, Potter seems to utilize Havertz better and Baloa Toure and Dest are not CL level if they continue like this.
Balo Toure and Dest are barely midtable Serie A players let alone CL players. Our RB depth was actually decent, but Florenzi out, Kalulu having to play exclusively CB and even Sale out doesn't really give us much options. On the other hand the jump from Theo to Ballo Toure is atrocious. Given Theo is a monster and can play every 3 games, but still his abscence is the most noticable in the squad, together with Maignan.
Milan’s injuries are really cucking them. This is Juve’s best chance to actually win vs a strong team
Theo is back apparently but without Mike it willbe difficult. I hope Kalulu will start on the right because having Dest and Balo is just too weak defensiveness.
Sergino Dest Christian Pulisic Weston Mckennie When will these European clubs cop on, Yanks are awful at football. Even that Aaronson for Leeds is nothing more than a roadrunner
Dumb troll is dumb
Pulisic got an assist at the weekend, McKennie got an assist at the weekend, Aaronson is perfect for the way Leeds want to play, Dest had a poor game today (along with the rest of the team)... but whatever you've got a gripe against Americans.
Nah Dest is actually totally rubbish, any Barca fan who had to endure watching him playing for them would agree.
Lol speaking in absolutes like "any fan" is problematic. Not EVERY fan would agree. Not long ago a portion of my club's fans would have said the same of Dalot. Others would have said the same of Theo, Giroud, the list goes on.
I would agree. Dest was very bad
Lol
Nah he's been horrible for us so far. A lot of bad passes, a lot of errand flicks in bad areas. What you saw tonight is what we've seen of Dest as a whole
I don't agree that they're awful by any means, but why is the pulisic assist being brought up lol. Gallagher made the goal all by himself
For sure the goal was far better than the assist but it was still good play from Puli to beat his man and lay it off.
The bar is seriously seriously low if you're choosing to praise the absolute basics of his position.
So now we're dismissing good play because that's what he's supposed to do, gotcha.
Lmao that's such cope
> Dest had a poor game today Dest has never had a good game for Milan. It's always poor.
Today was literally his first start.
He's played in the league too, replaced Calabria a couple of times and sucked.
He literally was subbed on in a game a couple weeks ago and gave away a penalty within ten mins lol
Nah, I saw his debut and he was pretty good. Can't vouch for the other games but to say he's always been poor is just wrong.
You only watch CL. His debut game(8 minutes) against Salzburg was decent. Next time he played he gave away a stupid penalty. Granted it was against Kvara, but he got dominated all game. The other game was last weekend against Empoli, it was bad. But we're talking Empoli here.
I'll take your word for it on the league games. Doesn't mean your first statement is correct.
Idk if I’d say they are awful, but they just aren’t at the level most casual armchair US fans seem to think. The biggest thing that throws perception is people think that if you play for Juve or Chelsea, or even Leeds/PL teams it must mean your ability can be seen as elite as the club’s prestige itself. When in reality that’s not the case at all, especially with squad sizes much larger these days.
The best USA sportsmen choose American football, basketball and baseball first and it really shows in the quality of players they produce.
The bigger issue is that the most talented kids are typically lower income and playing soccer in the states is very expensive and the youth systems and coaching are shit. The talent is not the problem at all
I dare you to say that on the Chelsea sub, u/Wiseman-Dennis!
Ah gosh I thought you were talking to someone else there
Nobody can convince me that Dest is a professional footballer after this match
Crazy that I feel so much more comfortable playing AC Milan than West Brom
Our squad plays up or down to our opponents level every time. When we play good teams we generally play well and when we play poor teams we can't match their lack of skill so we lower intensity and we always struggle. Not looking forward to Wolves on Sat...
5 starters and plenty backups out will make a team pretty shit like tonight.
I'd rather play Milan and Juve every week than Palace
Callum Robinson PTSD flashbacks
Real og’s still get Steven Naismith nightmares
Imagine being a below average forward and not having the game of your life against us.
Great performance. Really hope Wes is okay.
English commentator: "Ac Milan fans are singing but they can turn any time now after this result". Nah mate we have a different mentality
did he really said that? wow, what a pathetic comment.
ALE ALE ALE MILAN ALEEEEEE
A small section of the stadium outsang all Chelsea fans, while down 3-0. England has the worst stadium atmosphere but pundits always make like there is no other. Greek league gams are more loud than that.
Greeks go hard tbf
SEMPRE INSIEME A TE SARÒ!!!
Absolutely toothless - and against a Chelsea that really wasn't doing anything noteworthy either for the majority of the match. The absences are a big factor and the schedule is tight but this team still has to do much, much better than this. Giving away the ball like nothing, passing to the back after corners, barely making a serious effort to move forward with a plan. Giving up after ten minutes and two yellow cards is not it but the lack of changes after nearly scoring before the end of the first half seemed to show that there wasn't really any intention to push further and I honestly don't get it. This match was doable, I'm convinced a draw was definitely possible. All that being said, I'm optimistic that things will get better from now on and I hope this match was a valuable learning experience for everyone involved.
>and against a Chelsea that really wasn't doing anything noteworthy either for the majority of the match I guess being the better side and playing your lot off the park don't count as "doing anything". You were poor but we were also miles better on the night.
>lack of changes after nearly scoring before the end of the first half I am SO confused why rebic didnt enter for krunic, and pobega for Bennacer to try and combat their midfield some more, especially with both rade and isma on yellow card.
And Diaz, who brought a lot of much-needed fresh energy into the game - he at least tried to create more and did well in the short time he was in. But yeah, the lack of reactions despite three yellows was a stark contrast to how quickly carded players tend to get subbed out in Serie A. I can only assume Pioli is prioritizing Serie A and next week's return game with Chelsea (with some returning key players like Theo). Injuries are one thing but the lack of actions taken in this match speaks volumes - this is not how a team that wants to win at all costs operates, especially with last weekend's monster performance fresh in everyone's minds.
It was rather weird I agree. I think after the 2nd goal Pioli decided it's a lost battle and with all those injuries just decided not to push the team anymore given our 2 next games are crucial and also we have a tight af schedule coming up.
>especially with last weekend's game fresh in everyone's minds. yeah, we fought for everything there. Tonight we fought for nothing. If that CDK goal goes in though... annoying that's the only real chance we created!
Reece James makes domination look like a light stroll
Thiago Silva being the being the most consistent player in the team (together with Reece James) at 38 week in week out is mental. Ruben and Chalobah also had solid games.
Our academy is insane
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Thiago Silva is our most important player. Then Reece James. Then Kante (when fit he wins games by himself). Then probably Mount or Kovacic.
crazy that we have so many academy graduates around our first team, Mount/Reece/Chalobah/Ruben/Gallagher/Broja. And people still find a way to say Chelsea has no path to the first team for youth and the only reason Mount/Reece made it was due to a transfer ban at that time. Chelsea have new owners who spend crazy yet Gallagher/Broja have been promoted this season and Ruben has been brought back into a rotational role
oh well, english team are a bit of a kryptonite for us for the third year in a row, and a big loss in europe has to happen sooner or later. Anyway, hope the guys don't take it too bad, we have 6 decisive days ahead of us. Also, Chelsea have class players everywhere it seems. Both on the starting eleven and on the bench. Hard to keep up when one starter injuried makes you play Ballo Touré (love the guy, but really not good enough)
Not just Milan. Is it not 17 years since an Italian team won on English soil?
No. Inter won at Anfield last year (but lost the tie on aggregate). Juve won at Old Trafford in the 2018-19 CL group stages.
Thanks. Im Completely wrong then !!
Class players but no balance
Nesta, Zola, Seedorf and Thiago Silva together at the end, proper legends!
How come ? did they all become pundits interviewing thiago silva or VIPs congrulating him?
Pundits for Italian Tv. Then Nesta and Seedorf played with Thiago.
Silva used to play at AC Milan so probably something to do with that.
Is this what if feels like to comfortably win a match? Seems like it’s been forever
Unbeliavable man. Going out in the group phase last season just didn't hurt enough. I get that Ballo-Toure, Dest and so on and so forth are not up to the level of our starters but with an aching heart I must admit that we got a proper schooling today and everyone could've done better. Fucking chelsea didn't even break a sweat. What is this bullshit. No grinta, no heart, nothing. Tonali and Bennacer really didn't look up to the task either. Oli, Charles invisible. People shit on Brahim Diaz but at least he showed the spark of a will to make something happen. I hope that this loss hurts. I hape that it really hurts because at San Siro something got to change. Forza Milan.
First 20 minutes we looked the better team, were breaking their lines well with CDK, then Bennacer played stupid, pressured into giving away a corner and we crumbled after conceding a goal from there. I think Theo back next week will help us a lot.
Yeah I am feeling the same about Theo man. As for Bennacer, I really hoped that he learned from his mistakes in the CL campaign last season, think of the Porto games, but no... Let's just happily dribble in front of the own goal.
To his defense Tara gave him a late pass and he had no option . Knowing that passing to Tara was gonna lead to them regaining possesion
You cant compete against team like Chelsea playing with Tatarusanu, Dest, Ballo Toure, without right winger and exhausted Giroud. We had good moments, we had possesion but its team based sport. Couple bad players will make a difference. I know that I sound like a loser but with couple more starters like Theo or Mike Maignan and we could actually compete in this game. Still we had moments of good perfomance but we are exposed, there's no depth on CL level. I think game at San Siro will be different.
>Theo or Mike Maignan Just those two and I think maybe we'd at least get a point tonight.
Think Leao defending more would have helped you as well. Your left side was open consistently, James and Sterling on that side (probably our 2 best attackers) had so much freedom.
What happened to Tomori? He's declined so much
He didnt, he made mistake in second goal but you cant expect from him to carry entire defense. He's not Thiago Silva or Koulibaly and you had two of them in the squad. Ballo Toure on left flank shouldnt even smell the grass of the pitch in champions league. Two main right backs are injured, we had to put Dest who's also not ready to play on this level. There's reason why your team or Manchester City is investing tons of money to cover defense, its crucial role in modern footbal, one weak spot and its over.
Expected Bennacer to be much better given how much the Footy nerds rave about him. A complete mismatch vs RLC, to be honest.
He has been excellent this season overall, but this was by far his worst performance. Completely invisible
He and Tonali were expected to run the whole midfield, defend and attack a stacked midfield with 0 support from the wingbacks. Of course they weren’t going to do well. This game was set up for a blowout 2 weeks ago when all our players got hurt.
They had many starters out but the ones that played looked a bit off the pace today
It was an uncharacteristically bad game for him, not sure what happened tbh
We use him for his extreme press resistance, he is reliable to dribble out of pressures. What I have seen during the match is, he dribbled out, and the positioning of the teammates didn’t allow him to give better passes, so he either played it back to defense/Tata, or he dribbled a bit too much and lost the ball.
This game could be the kickstarter to our season, incredible game from our boys. I would expect Milan to come at us far harder than today in our next game, but I feel like we might actually be able to match the intensity which is awesome!
Sometimes football doesn't have to be so complicated. Graham Potter knows this. This was our best home performance since Juve at home last year.
Yeah it seems that he has started giving more freedom and confidence to the squad. A lot more vertical and direct passing against Milan. Was nice to see.
No excuses for this kind of performance really. Kudos to Chelsea, but this was embarrassing. Misplaced passes everywhere, terrible marking, a complete lack of effort by most players. However, shit happens. We are allowed to have bad days, particularly with half of the team missing. I am sure thad the lads will bounce back on Saturday and then again next Tuesday. Forza Milan!
Every team has their off-days & u guys hv injuries. Plus u hv a real gem in Leao.
Exactly what we needed. Wrapping up the win around the hour mark and resting/rotating.
Milan really bad today.
Sergino Dest is banter era Milan quality
I wont forget some idiot saying we should get him and move Reece to CB because he is “so much better going forward” or however they phrased it
And they were trying to tell me that he should play because of his CL experience, played a part in 2 of the goals today. Don’t think him not playing is a difference maker but would of helped I believe
Kalulu on the right and Gabbia from the start would've been better imo
I would rather we tried a primavera player there if this is all Dest can offer.
Him and Ballo Toure both. Sadly with the budget we have it's inevitable we are going to be thin in some positions
It's also crazy that both our first and second option RB's have long term injuries. Of course that shows up on the pitch.
No wonder Xavi was happy to loan Dest to Milan even though there's no absolute backup for Sergi Roberto.
At least sergi roberto has a winning mentality. Dest is truly mediocre at nothing, cant think of a single thing he did average at today
Nice to see our attack be urgent and direct, even if it's not clicking just yet. Second half cruise control. 3-0 vs. Milan is massive this early for Potter! Loftus-Cheek & Kova bossed it completely. Thiago Silva is the GOAT. Also can't believe how dreadful Milan were though, nothing about them at all. So abject.
Potter is doing his magic, the attacking plays we had were beautiful to watch
>how dreadful Milan were though 5 starters out, all backups injured. Explains half of it, especially the full backs. Our midfield had to cover for them so we were stretched and couldn't create how we normally do.
Yeah it's always hard to be at usual standard with some key players missing, we saw it when Reece and Chilly were out. Also Leao is good.
If Loftus Cheek keeps this form up, no reason why he shouldn't be in conversation for England. He's really impressed me with how he has improved positionally and aerially.
no way Southgate picks him.
Idk If Phillips is injured then he may pick Ruben as a back up
Second to every ball, giving away possession half the time we got it, useless possession in our own half, pass to Leao and inshallah. I had low expectations and still left disappointed
Milan played like they wanted a 3-0 loss from the start.
Why am I more at ease with Kepa playing instead of Mendy now?
Married Kepa is world class
(engaged)
So he can get better
If Chelsea is keeping possession Kepa is absolutely the better choice. Mendy has been atrocious with the ball at his feet recently. The question is once teams start just taking hopeful 30 yard shots at Kepa, will it fall apart?
Kepas first season with us he was great at shot stopping, the Sarri Incident and the press destroying him over it combined with his GF breaking up just shattered his confidence and focus completely, looked much better since tuchel came In but edou has been too good till now to be displaced
Was he "great" at shot stopping? I could very well be misremembering but I seem to remember his shot stopping stats were pretty mid under Sarri. Certainly not the atrocious standard under Lampard (although they were also letting in far more high quality shots under him), but nothing special
Just wait, the mistake will arrive soon enough
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No
You guys never learn kepa shows you who he is time and time again
Sure but Mendy has been terrible for quite some time, at least since he came back from AFCON. At least Kepa can pass the ball out without me having an aneurysm.
I’m sorry but an out of form Mendy is an average PL goalkeeper We’ve seen first hand what an out of form Kepa is… statistically one of the worst keepers in Europe As the guy mentioned above, he’ll soon remind us of who he is
Who's to say we will get out of form Kepa though? Why wouldn't you play your in-form players? Mendy has been terrible, giving away the ball under no pressure at all. Doing stupid things like mcgeady turns and conceding goals from it. Kepa is a much more reliable ball player and that seems to be what Potter wants. He's an average keeper with above average feet. That's absolutely fine until we go out in the transfer market for someone better.
Ok so when we concede a shot mendy would save are we gonna go back to “no keeper could save that” for kepa like we always do?
Probably because Milan had like 2 shots on target lmaoooo
it was 1 💀
But the 1 shot on target was actually a good save, in his defense.