Sunday August 5th, 2018 - Community Shield - Chelsea FC vs Manchester City FC

I forgot that Barkley was a Chelsea player and had the number 8.

On ESPN+ if y’all are interested.

 

And as I type that, Aguero scores.

 

Woof, bad half. CHO once again our best player. Misfield not doing nearly enough. Azpi having a shocker.

 

so after having cable and the fee including a good bit for Disney/ESPN, paying extra fee for sports/more ESPN channels, I have to pay even more for ********ing ESPN+ after taking 30 minutes of match to get thru all the captchas and crap to sign up only to find it is unwatchable loading every 3 seconds fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkk

hopefully a replay is available and works later, afterwhich i will cancel the free trial on this shite

ten years ago I could watch a singapore or China stream that was better than my tv, now I have to pay to watch1970s technology

 

That could have been worse. We did limit City to one good chance, which is something.

Barkley. Yeah. Sigh. I agree Dave is struggling to adapt back to RB, though in fairness he’s up against Sane.

 

Jorginho with a tough debut. Badly given the ball away a few times.

 

Lack of Kante is obvious.

 

well city are a class above Chelsea who are too pedestrian. CHO had a tough introduction against a very good right back.

I was not really expecting anything else today. I wonder what Eden is thinking if indeed he is bothering to watch.

It's going to be a long hard season. Just as well that I now get in for half price now that I am officially a boring old git

 

Defensively we look terrible. Rudy and Luiz doesn't look like a good partnership...lots of gaps between them

 

I think that has more to do with the midfield ahead of them and the opposition.

 

We’re what, three weeks into Sarri’s tenure, and playing without our best players? I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from this

 

Yeah, you were just an interested amateur before, weren't yer.

But I'd have liked to have seen CHO on for more of a run-out.

I watched Foden and CHO in the England U17 WC and they were two of the best players in the competition. Nice to see them playing for their clubs again although, having said that, in the current context I could have done with seeing Foden having a 'mare, tbh

 

Those little flicks and passes of Jorginho are of little use if you keep giving the ball away.

Still, early days as we say.

 

Very optimistic of you. I see a continuation of last year's frustrations.

 

I was thinking the same: no Cortois, or Hazzard, or Kante...who even cares? Disappointing it had to fall like this.

Is Luiz, Rudiger really our best CB pairing? AC made some mistakes last year, but seemed to excel more than struggle. It’s not like Luiz isn’t a heart attack waiting to happen out there.

 

It’s possible. But a game against Citeh is an odd way to judge it.

 

Man City were missing De Bryune and Sterling too.

 

They have far better depth at that position than we do for Kante and Hazard.

 

Sarri has big problems to fix if he wants to stick to a back four. These are square pegs in round holes. There was no pace at the full back positions with Dave (he's lost a yard of pace) and Alonso. Fabregas' workrate is going to cause an early burnout for Jorginho, the same way it did to Matic. And as I mentioned before, we're still missing a top class target man.

 

We need to fix the lack of quality in our starting eleven before we even think about depth IMO.

 

You’re being way too negative and missing the point. This is a completely new system implemented in 3 weeks with our best players not even back yet against a nearly full strength side that won the league last year.

This was always going to be rough. But it’s a very bad measuring stick.

 

Completely new system? It's a 433 formation.... hardly new to professional soccer players

The issue is with having the wrong players for the system. But yes once Hazard and Kante return we should look a bit better.