Chelsea better sign two centerbacks in the January window. Christensen and Zouma aren't good enough and neither is Rudiger IMO. James/Emerson/Tomori can all work on the outside but the goals are coming right down the middle.
Pulisic was very frustrated by the physical play against him. He seems to always have problems with physical defenders. I also noticed some games he just doesn't show the energy/aggression needed to create opportunities to score. . Willian...Love his hustle but he isn't a real scoring threat. Chelsea keeper and defense sucks. Team was terrible today.
Kepa is young. He's a little undersized for my liking, but athletic. I think they can let him learn with the rest of the youngsters and replace him next year if he shows he can't cut it. I would much rather have Kepa back there over Courtois.
I'm not willing to make that characterization yet. He's certainly made some bad decisions in distribution, but those things can be learned. I wasn't expecting much out of Chelsea this year and taking a season-long look at these youngsters will go a long way.
Chelsea isn't going to cut and run on their €80 million, 25-year-old goalkeeper after a year and a half.
They need a new center back pairing. What's the story with Ruediger? Sorry can't make an umlaut. Time to bring back Miazga? He cannot be worse than what they've got right now. Seriously, and I say that with 12 grains of salt. He's playing well, and their current pair are costing them games.
need more grains! Playing well in the minors simply isn’t comparable to being able to play in the majors. Team and Fulham looked great when get promoted and then a very similar team looked like cannon fodder in the EPL. The level is so different. is it possible that Matt’s game translate? Yes but I wouldn’t use strong performance in the championship as a key indicator.
As noted, the team and CP looked tired. First touches as a whole were awful and that defense was worse along with Kepa. Regarding CP, he still managed to make some good runs and put himself into dangerous positions so credit for hanging in there. On another note, if this is the defense Lampard wants to run with then his midfield should consist of Kante, Kovacic and Jorginho. Mount in my opinion aside from the goal earlier in the week offers nothing and with a back four struggling as they are someone that can hold up play in midfield is much more valuable.
CP is a starter for sure, but I think he should have probably been rested this match, problem is now they have a quick turn around with a must-win Champions League match on Tuesday and some tired legs on the team
He has not been impressive for Chelsea but, because of the sunk cost fallacy he will have the #1 shirt for at least two more seasons.
Lamps should have just gone full rotation today. CP is dragging ass and anytime he gets physically marked early and he's already fatigued he loses 20% of his speed and much of his guile. It's something later in his career you'd expect to improve but for now he needs rest. He's not a grown ass man yet.
RE: Miazga. Today he was replaced at the half to switch to a 442 (Bowen is much more familiar with the 442), even though he was their best defender. Not the first time either. Seems the coach prefers Morrison and Moore who knows why.
CP hasn’t figured out yet how to be valuable when blanketed by defenders all the time, and he is getting muscled off the ball a lot. And besides that, he seemed a bit passive today.
He was a 21 year old man, 5'7" and 150 lbs., being marked by a 27 year old man, 6' and 170 lbs (Sidibe). So, well, let's say he had to be fast, agile, and jump at the right time.
He looked A LOT like the last 18 months bvb’s Christian pulisic recently. We all got hyped with his hat trick and tap in goals, but the fact is, he still needs to work on the end product.
Everton attempted 62 tackles and was successful on 37 of them. That is a very high number for both. While mistakes ultimately did Chelsea in, you better be ready when you get into a game like that.