PBP: Matchday 2 / 2023-2024: West Ham United FC v. Chelsea FC

Weren’t we linked to Paqueta briefly? What a bozo.

 

We are lacking

 

Mudryk can’t cross to save his life. Can’t believe we spent 90mm on him. A speed merchant and nothing else.

 

Full disclosure: I am an Arsenal fan.

I enjoy watching Chelsea, but they look kind of disjointed right now. Like so many new faces, nobody knows where their teammates are on the field.

 

This is closer to what I expected from our early season form than week 1.

 

There. Our weakness has been laid bare. No one to put away the crosses.

 

An awful debut from Caicedo. Giveaways in the box and now a penalty.

 

Ugh. Could that have ended any worse?

 

We're cursed I tell ye! If 80+% possession and outshooting our opponents 3-1 isn't working what are we going to need exactly, 99+% possession? 100 shots at goal compared to one against? Would that be enough for us to squeak out a 1-1 draw? :-D

 

He doesn't look like a 50m player. Let alone 115m.

 

Worst day of football ever.

 

Poch f'ed up and should have never subbed him on. He barely had a pre-season with Brighton and just arrived. Looked out of shape and completely lost.

 

Hopefully, just a painful lesson on a soon to be upward path, but I think we changed too much and sold too many too quick. The Premier League is hard on the inexperienced. Some players take months or a year to settle in especially in a Team with top 4 ambitions, and now most of our team is inexperienced in the League.

I like that Pochettino said we expect to be a Top Four club this season, but given what he was given, and the injuries we are being cursed with, I may be happy if we are still in the Premier League come May.

My fear and thoughts are that Todd et-al think winning the League and buying players is a math problem they can solve like in their finance companies.

And factors like fight, heart, soul, character, passion, drive, ambition, leadership, ability to read the game, refusal to quit, being a winner don't show in a pure number analysis, and stats are not nearly as significant as in baseball. (Not to say those non-stat factors don't play a part in baseball as well)

The one bright light was Jackson who never stopped trying, moving and doing so many things we have been lacking in a striker for a good while, hopefully a goal comes quick so he and the press don't fixate on it.

 

Well we had 17 shots at goal, that should be more than enough to score a couple, after all West Ham managed to score 3 times while having fewer shots than us - its the same old story over and over and over and over and over, it's like a recurring nightmare! :-D

Still we ARE a mid-table team, that IS the truth of it and I DO believe we have the 'parts' to get us back up there - as long as we give Pochettino TIME.

We also need a couple of games against some 'minnows' to help build confidence, something we didn't get much of last year, at least we haven't drawn Manchester City right off the bat in the league Cup this year!

Surely we can do something against Wimbledon!? Surely!
I've forgotten what it feels like to win, we've won 5 (five!!) times in the last 36 matches! That's relegation form.

 

Allegedly (have not verified myself but sounds right) Moises Caicedo’s Chelsea Debut by numbers: 37 minutes played 8 losses of possession (2 at edge of our box) 2 fouls 1 shot off target 1 error leading to shot 1 penalty conceded.

only up from here right...

Todd has paid Brighton near a quarter billion for players and a coach who have yet to help us, Brighton sits in first, us 15th,

surely there is a bottom to this pit, right...

 

On the one hand, it takes time for a squad of brand new players to come together.

On the other hand, we looked like total shit and the management of this club leaves a lot to be desired. It's our fault we decided to revamp the entire club when it probably didn't need it. It's our fault that Caicedo had no pre-season. It's our fault we decided to replace good players like Pulisic with very bad players like Mudryk and Madueke. It's our fault we overpaid Sterling, can't get rid of him and now have to play him. (Yes, he was OK yesterday.) It's our fault we paid a gazillion dollars and have no goal threat yet still leak goals. It's our fault we have a third stringer in goal while our #1 is OK to go start for one of the best teams in the world.

This squad is unbalanced and will not score goals. And the fact Poch built his entire system around an oft-injured player in Nkuku and now has to change systems to figure it out is really shitty. How about this. Save the ********ing Romeo money. Save the Disasi money. Buy a ********ing striker.

 

I mentioned elsewhere that Caicedo looked like yellow or red card or, even worse, a PK, waiting to happen at some point and what he could get away with when playing for 'plucky underdogs, ((c) BritMeejaTrash 1960-2023), Brighton, he probably wouldn't get away with in a Chelsea short.

But even I didn't think he'd show it this early

Still, early days as many have said, for both him and the rest of the new guys.