Chelsea thread

^ very good points

They make a name for themselves at a smaller club, where they might give up 10 big chances in a game, and make 8 worldy saves.

The game will end in a 2-0 loss with big plaudits for the keeper. He does this consistently, makes his big move, now all of a sudden he's at a big club, and the defence is so good he's not getting those opportunities to shine. But then the other team hits a 30 yard speculator because they can't get in behind, he's not concentrating, it swerves in the air, boom 1-0. 

The pressure means that eats away at his brain, and might happen again.

Before you know it you've got yourself a Mignolet... 

Not a bad midfield trio you lot have now.

Indeed. Kante to do the running, Jorginho to do the passing, and presumably Kovacic to do a bit of both. Can only hope Madrid go and find some other midfielder between now and next year so something can get done permanently. He's only 24 as well, you tend to think of him as being a bit older as he's been on the scene at Inter and then Madrid for so long.

Bakayoko looks to be heading off to Milan, so that would leave Fabregas, RLC, Drinkwater and Barkley as cover. Ampadu can cover DM as well. One will get loaned out you'd imagine, I hope it's Drinkies rather than RLC as it's about time he has his chance in the first team.

Saw some rumours that Leicester were looking to take Drinkwater back. Probably a good outcome for all parties if it goes ahead?

Kante made Pogba look good at the World Cup. Kante's presence can never be truely appreciated. unsung hero imho.

Had a mare in the final to be fair, think he had a bug. Agree he was class prior to that though, particularly as France really got going in the knockouts after a fairly humdrum group (nearly held to a draw by the Aussies, that atrocity of a deliberate 0-0 against Denmark).

His France team mates love him, they made up a song about how he 'stopped Messi,' and how little he is. 

"Cheater" is apparently a reference to his approach to playing cards.

Drinkwater was linked to Palace as well, though I think that's cooled off a bit now. Latest teams in for him appear to be Everton and West Ham, so we'll see what happens.

Brief message from Kepa, Azpilicueta seems to have taken him under his wing. 

Nah, he is a very good keeper. Chelsea are on to a winner there, and wouldn't have spent 70m+ on a Mingolet. They did their research. Much better than Allison, for example, and has a higher ceiling. 

Chelsea ended up with a pretty good window in the end, I did not expect that, things did not look good a month ago. 

Keeping Hazard and Willian was a very good outcome. 

Best starting 11?

Pretty sure that paulm's post was a general one, rather than specifically relating to Kepa.

Yea, sorry valeo, I definitely wasn't talking about Kepa, I don't know anything about him, was just generalising about good goalkeepers and their value to the team. 

I am interested in your comments on Alisson, another I know very little about. His record seems less impressive than I would've thought, given the hype and the fee. He actually hasn't played a lot of games in Europe for a 25 year old with his reputation. Broke out last year at Roma, but only because Szczesny had left for Juventus. 

+1. Haven't seen much of him at all, but from what I saw at the World Cup I didn't think much of him.

I watched him a bit at Roma after Sneezy left, because I was interested in who replaced him.

He seems like a good shot stopper (i.e. hollywood saves) but his general play doesn't seem overly impressive. I saw him make a number of mistakes and he was lucky not to get punished on quite a few occassions.

For Liverpool, though, basically anyone would've been an upgrade - so I still think he's better than what they had.

                             Arrizabalaga

Azpilicueta - Christensen - Rudiger - Emerson

                               Jorginho

                     Kovacic              Kante

        Willian                                   Hazard

                            Morata

That would be my guess, Pedro and Willian is a bit of a toss of the coin depending on form. Likewise Emerson/Alonso at LB and Rudiger/Luiz at CB, but I think Emerson and Rudiger will be more suited to a back four.

Gee that's a good side; not sure about the producitivty in midfield though. I would pick Cesc to still play a bit.

Don't think Cesc will be suited for Sarri's high press but he'll be useful as a game-changing sub, or a starter against sides who sit deep. He was a bit of a defensive liability at times in Conte's midfield two so the move to a three should suit him.

I'm most intrigued about Barkley hopefully fulfilling some of his promise, and RLC getting some proper minutes in his actual position. Mourinho threw him on as a #10, Conte used him as a second striker, he's due a chance to show what he can do as an #8.

https://twitter.com/Mateo_Kova23/status/1027970054...

That does not sound like a loan.

Batshuayi off to Valencia for the season on loan. Sarri has clearly decided that Tammy with a full pre-season behind him is a preferable #9 option.

Zouma to Everton on loan also finalised, deal sheet was submitted early enough so negotiations had a bit of extra time past the deadline to get sorted. Zouma was clearly never an option for Sarri and he didn't even go with the squad that traveled to Perth due to injury. 

Bakayoko to Milan is inching closer, obviously no time pressure on that as the Italian widow doesn't shut until the 17th. Even with his departure we're still probably a man over in midfield, you imagine Drinkwater is being shopped around.

Nice little kick about, and though the cliche about no easy matches in the Prem holds true we'll have much sterner tests than that. We dealt with Uddersfield comfortably. A David Luiz back four likely won't look this assured again for some time.

Delicious goal in the second half, in which we played much better than the first. Lovely little N'Golo miss hit, if he connects properly it probably goes flying into the keeper's hands or something, but nice to see Sarri freeing him up to be more of an attacking influence down the right now that Jorginho is holding down midfield. Teams will quickly get wise to that but Huddersfield didn't seem to expect it.

Liked seeing RLC as first sub for Ross, even though he basically had nothing to do.

Filthy peno from Jorginho, who looked class and ran the game. Nailed-on pen despite Phil Neville at HT claiming there was a 'genuine attempt to win the ball' which apparently meant it wasn't a pen at all - sod off Lesser Neville, even Tim Sherwood understands pens better than you.

Eden was unplayable when the super sub klaxon sounded. Willian looked dangerous, Pedro less so but very busy. Morata was anonymous and drifted through the game, created one good opportunity with that driving run but then couldn't find Eden with the cutback so ended up wasting his endeavour.

Kepa had sod all to do, probably should have been beaten but for the woodwork in the first half. But apart from that, quiet debut and a clean sheet.

Pretty much summed it up perfectly there Gullitesque.

Hazard was really good when he came on, a noticable level above both Willian and Pedro.

Based on today, I'd take Willian over Pedro to start alongside Hazard and Morata. He just seems that little more dangerous/capable with the ball at his feet coming forward.

All in all, couldnt have asked for a more comfortable opening match. Especially compared to last seasons opener.

You f*ckers still looking after our handsome french b*stard? or have you flicked him on?

Giroud is still a backup striker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%9319_Chel...

Back up to Morata, sheesh, there's a slap in the face ;)

He overtook him quite quickly and easily last season, he's gonna have to do it all again to impress Sarri!

Don't think Sarri fancies Giroud that much, though he's barely had any time with him due to the World Cup. If Morata turns things around (big if) and if Tammy steps up to the plate as a competent backup, I could see that Marseille move happening in January. Though by that time he'll be free to negotiate for a Bosman if we've not extended his contract, so he'll probably see out the full season whatever happens.

He'll have plenty of Europa League minutes to show his worth, so there's that.

Bakayoko off then. 

Reading Pat Nevins piece he basically thought Kante and Jorginho were locked in so it was effectively RLC, Cesc, Barkley, Kovacic, Drinkwater all fighting for that last midfield spot.

Kovacic basically seals Cesc's fate as Europa League starter at best, barring injury. Don't blame him for sticking around for his last year on big wages.

Interesting that he chose Barkley first up. Is that a fitness-related thing or has Sarri deemed he is ahead of Fabregas and RLC in the pecking order? 

Fabregas is an interesting player. Since he left Arsenal, he's always been one of those guys that clearly has a lot of quality, but has never found his niche. He's started in multiple roles at both Barcelona and Chelsea, from a false 9 to a deep-lying playmaker and everything in between. 

Obviously I'm biased but I think he would've had a better career had he just stayed at Arsenal, where he was fully established as the no.10 in a 4-2-3-1, had a high goal-scoring output, and was basically flying, season after season. 

Barca came calling and was his boyhood club so you can hardly blame him, and he was very unfortunate when he came back to England, as he wanted to come back to Arsenal but we'd just signed Ozil. He did well to get a contract at Chelsea and has had his moments there, won titles, but he's just never been the key player he was at Arsenal. If he'd remained a key player he might've pushed his game to a higher level. 

Barkley has started every game under Sarri, pre-season + Community Shield and now Huddersfield. So I'd say he's pretty happy with what he's bringing to the table. Certainly ahead of RLC in the pecking order - RLC reportedly rejected the chance to move to Schalke on loan - and I imagine it will be a straight fight between Barkley and Kovacic in the early stages of the season. RLC will get his chances but needs to show more, I'm worried his languid approach won't gel with Sarri's pressing demands, whereas Barkley has spoken about studying Sarri's Napoli ahead of time and going out of his way to impress.

Kovacic has himself spoke of being under-cooked following the World Cup and not taking part in much training at Real due to the uncertainty of his move away (aka 'on strike' according to the media, though I'm sure the situation was a tad more nuanced), so Barkley has a real chance to establish himself in the opening weeks. 

Jorginho and his mum

https://mobile.twitter.com/6Flavs/status/102932310...

Solid result, albeit some woeful defending to throw away our 2-0 lead in the first half. Second half felt a lot more in control but still needed a bit of Eden brilliance from the bench to unlock Arsenal's defence. Kovacic looked decent in posession when he came on, exuded calmness on the ball.

That was an odd game. Kind of reminded me of our 5-3 loss when RVP scored a hattrick. We missed a ton of early chances in that game.

Back to the 3-2, we looked so good with the ball in the opening 20 minutes. But looked eqaully as bad without the ball to close out that first half.

Not sold yet on Jorginho, more so that it means Kante is further forward. Look a bit exposed there in the middle without Kante.

Really happy to get 6 points from 2 matches. Last season when we lost our opener to Burnley it felt like we were playing catch up for virtually the rest of the campaign. So even though it's only 2 games, it feels great to have those points in the bag.

Kante's energy was great for pressing the defence, but he was sorely missed when Arsenal broke. I'd be playing them beside each other so Kante can screen more.

Worth noting that our first-choice midfield three hasn't really taken shape yet, will be interesting to see how Kante plays when Kovacic nails down a starting role as he surely will. 

I look forward to Christensen displacing Luiz at some point.

Yes. Why is Christensen not playing yet? Haven't heard anything regarding injury?

Was meaning to ask this, how did Kovacic go?

Looked good on the ball with some nice touches, forget the precise stat on how many passes he completed but he didn't misplace any. Came on at the same time as Hazard did and linked up well with him on the left side of the pitch. Can see them proving to be an effective combo, Morata has also spoken glowingly about their time together at Real so hopefully that familiarity bodes well. 

Remember someone quoting Bilic talking about Kovacic at the World Cup, with Bilic apparently being asked how good he was and replying along the lines of 'nobody knows' due him not getting a sustained run in the team at Real. If he stays injury-free there's not much stopping him from starting 30+ league games for us. Just hope his Instagram farewell to Real proves telling as far as where he'll be playing next season is concerned. 

Not injured afaik. Didn't play a big part in pre-season after his World Cup campaign with Denmark but then neither did Rudiger. 

The problem he had at Madrid is that someone there seemed to have decided that Kovacic would be a replacement for Modric when the latter leaves/retires, which always seemed silly to me, seeing as they're quite different players. Kovacic is a pretty classical attacking midfield player who likes to run with the ball, and Kovacic in general likes to play in a more advanced role than Modric. I hope his attacking/running with the ball instincts haven't been coached out of him at Madrid, because to my eyes that has always been the quality that would take him onto bigger things in the game. He's still only 24 though, so hope he still has time on his side.

And yep, I definitely see how Hazard and Kovacic (playing to his strengths) would work very well together, if Kovacic can secure a first XI spot it could make Chelsea quite fun to watch.