Well the first half was the hectic and entertaining 2-2 and the second half we won 1-0. Mount scores and as long as he scores every game we cannot be too critical of the young English lad can we? Tammy also produced some clinical finishing.
Some stats and shit. starting line-up had an average age of 24 years and 208 days - youngest Chelsea team in the Premier League since February 1994. Abraham's second goal saw him become the youngest Chelsea player to score twice in a Premier League fixture since 1998. Aged 21 years and 326 days old, Abraham is the third youngest player to score a brace in the Premier League for Chelsea, after Mark Nicholls in January 1998 against Coventry (20y 225d) and Eddie Newton in December 1992 against Tottenham (20y 358d). Great to see Tammy Abraham notch twice. The people that know nothing about football and resort to colour of the skin will hopefully go away now. Also Mason Mount scoring is great, we shouldn't be surprised as he was player of the tournament when England u19s won the euro championship. He is going to be great. I hope his injury is not too severe.
Great win...Mount and Abraham impressive. Zouma sucks. Frank needs to do something about this defense.
That was decent then. Young Mount did quite well, superbly taken goal, and all round team play shows why Lampard will select him every game..until the league cup that is. Looking at us today reminded me of when Klopp first took over at the scummers, quite clearly had an idea of how they had to play (his famous/funny heavy metal football comment) and got the players to buy into it.Similarly, his early teams couldn't stop public transportation at a bus stop. Rudiger can't come back quick enough and hopefully Zouma will be good with the odd run out in cup comps. I rarely watch other football than the Prem, so I've seen precious liitle of Pulisic, but...I mean, has he always been so easy to bully off the ball? Needs to get more upper body strength...and now! Nicked that goal mid way through the second half just like I wanted...
Great to get the win. Mount, Christiansen and Tammy with good games; great to see Tammy score. Clearly a relief for him. Barkley continues to pass to the opposition at will.
I was astonished to hear Mustoe saying postgame that Barkley had a good game, astonished. I thought he was below average, at best, and detrimentally negligent with the ball far too often. The lad has talent, no doubt, but he needs to be more focused. Decent squad player, never a starter and will lose even more mins on the pitch when RLC comes back.
He improved as the game went on, (although he couldn't get a lot worse, tbh), but if you're in your mid 20's and you STILL consistently pick the wrong option or fluff even relatively simple passes, as you say, there's no way he should be a regular starter for a side expecting to challenge for the top four or even top six. Of course, we've yet to see RLC so maybe he'll struggle when he comes back as well but, as things stand, I wouldn't be starting him regularly with the other options we've got. Having said that I'm speaking on the basis that Kovacic continues to play as he did today which, frankly, was a significant improvement on his showings in the past. The game's about options and the alternatives to Ross need to maintain a level of performance on a consistent basis that's better than they have done because Ross has played well on occasion as well. It's the consistency these guys seem to lack.
Mustoe is terrible. His comments on the City Spurs game last week were amazing - he claimed City would be unhappy with how they played because they let Spurs score on their only two shots on goal. Lol - Spurs were lucky not to lose that game by 3 goals! Amazing punditry. Barkley is the poor man’s Joe Cole - the technique is there, but the footballing brain appears to be missing. And if he can’t look good in a game against a promoted side, when will he?
Kovacic appeared to be miscast in Sarri’s system - he has been at least solid in every game so far. (Not great, but solid.) I haven’t seen anything useful from Barkley this season.
At this point barkley is simply unreliable. He takes more off the table than he brings to it which is a problem when you need to hold possession around the box. He is too apt to take a pot shot and does not pick out a good pass most times. Way too careless today. He can and does dribble, did so a few times today (allegedly created 5 chances but can't say I saw more than a couple, mostly following runs) but so can pedro and he's more assured with a better end result. Which is why pedro is selected ahead of him, just a shame he was injured. Fine with him for depth in the league cup but as the squad health improves he'll drop minutes. Hopefully lampard won't try to make him a v2 of himself as he simply lacks the footballing nous to do so. We need reliability in such a key position and his mistakes are magnified. Whilst pulisic isn't exactly careless he coughs it up too much right now from being dispossessed. Put that down to getting up to speed with the league but as that improves so will our control overall. As noted in the thread some of his interplay was very nice and hes in and around scoring chances for himself and others. Needs to make faster decisions especially when looking to get a shot away. It'll come. I would like to see continued improvement from Kova because the talent is there. Still a bit weak on the defensive side and not closing down the opponents enough. Much better at moving the ball up the field though, to transition to the forward players. Today, like you say was much better than we've seen so far. Jorgi mystifies me. Think he wants to play a game more elegant than the one hes in and needs to mix it up a bit given his position on the field. Super happy for tammy. IF he can kick on, not just this season but several seasons are brighter. But he needs to do this consistently. Positive signs today that he knows where the goal is and wants the ball too.
Pulisic needs improving but credit to him, direct involvement in 2 goals today. To do that and still have a high ceiling for doing better makes me feel all the more confident in his ability to be a big player for us.
Some thoughts: Pulisic had a good game. Happy for the youth players getting run outs. Highly concerned about the back line. Dave alone has me wondering if he’s done. All that mileage he’s obtained over the years is starting to catch up and he’s at an age where fullbacks depreciate significantly. I won’t be surprised if Reece James ends up taking his spot but it is obvious Dave is not what he used to be. I just hope Reece is up to the task.
Deserved the win today but 7 goals conceded in 2.5 games is FAR too many (obviously) Mount was fabulous, Tammy obviously had a good day and Kovacic was great, Berkeley a day to forget, Pulisic needs to 'bed in' a bit and Rudiger needs to come back & soon! But overall not too bad (apart from defensively), small steps
We certainly are missing the likes of Rudiger and Kante. They have amazing experience and they are total professionals that would help to anchor this young team. I am not missing the liability that is Luiz, he totally fcucked up for arsenal yesterday and that kind of chaos we really don't need around our young diamonds. Christensen is a more stable player in so many ways and he has decent experience for his young age - playing in Germany, etc. The BIG problem at the back is really the Dave question. There is also the Captain question if we ditch Dave. What to do about Dave? IS he following the Branislav Ivanović route? Just watching a once great player get caught out too many times. Can he play as a CB in a back four?
It is strange, isn't it. Yesterday he went on a mazy little run inside their box, taking the ball past about 4 players, and just needed to 'pass' the little into the corner of the net to score, (albeit at an acute angle as he'd been driven a bit wide across the goal), or a pass. You think, 'Well if you can do THAT, why can't you make a 20 metre pass to someone on your own side?', which happened just after the match started. I can see how finding out the manager prefers the other guy instead of you and THEN having to play might dent your confidence a bit and he improved quite a lot as the game went on but the point is, as I said, he's in his mid-20's now... if he hasn't got his mind straight NOW, how much better will he be in the years to come. I dunno... it's a bit strange. Not to say, a LOT frustrating I think he'll be rotated with Kovacic as the season progresses and whoever performs best will play more and more which, as an England supporter, is a shame because he's helped England quite a bit in the past year or so. But, again, if he's not doing the job... screw him! Regarding Kovacic... thanks god we'd got that guy on loan and could buy him even though we had a transfer ban, albeit at a bit of an inflated price. If he carries on performing like he did yesterday he'll be pretty much a guaranteed starter I'd say.
I think, with Rudi AND Kante back, Dave will look considerably better. He'll have more protection with Kante getting in people's faces and not giving them the time to pick out a pass to get in behind both Dave AND Emerson and Rudi can maybe organise the rest of the back line. Well... better than Zouma, anyway. So I think he can still do a job for us and he's also quite useful bombing up the wing and, as yesterday showed, making runs into the box and gaining penalties. The fact it wasn't given wasn't his fault, was it. He was there to 'not win' it, wasn't he.
I think Kovacic and Barkley are fairly similar players, although Kovacic is a far more intelligent one. They both dribble well and are active but not especially great (though solid defenders). The one thing Kovacic doesn’t do is score, but Barkley does that rarely and takes far too many long pot shots into the stands. Yes, those will occasionally go in....but they mostly go into row Z. I’d give Kovacic the nod every time. As for helping England - if he’s the solution, yikes! Dele is a vastly better player at everything Barkley does. His health is the issue.
Ross has done quite well for us on occasion but I agree, we've got better options. More to the point we've got better guys coming through. Kovacic seems to have kicked on in the past couple of games so, from a CFC point of view, let's hope that continues. if it doesn't at least Ross will provide some competition for places which is, of course, the very definition of a squad player.
Intelligence? Well he is a scouser. Kovacic speaks five languages and Dross struggles with one. Kovacic just needs to score goals ... well one would be nice. But Ross is a decent enough squad player. Sometimes he does score. But they are both obsolete when RLC comes back. interesting Ross fact: Barkley was eligible to represent both England and Nigeria as he has a Nigerian grandfather.
Kovacic is going to be a very important player for us, hopefully for a few years. He was underwhelming last season under sarri but this weekend looked more impressive, albeit against a recently promoted side so you would expect him to be better. His ceiling is higher at this point and while I do agree ross will see a lot less time, kova can expect to play plenty (we have games enough for everyone). Which is good as rlc will have to work for his place, he is not an automatic when he does return by any means. Competition in the squad is important.