Chelsea

[John Barnes]

Would be hilarious

If chelsea got the same 10 point deduction that Everton got, they'd be in the ****

There looking at 20

[Deano]

Lol - Thiago's missus wanting Poch gone - You couldn't make it up

[John Barnes]

Lol - Thiago's missus wanting Poch gone - You couldn't make it up

She must really love the London lifestyle etc

[Buzzo]

Chelsea waste their chance and show again what a weird team they are

Mauricio Pochettino’s team resembled in this Carabao Cup final the most salutary lesson in waste and greed

Barney Ronay

There was a telling, and also quite funny, moment at the start of extra time in this Carabao Cup final, a match won late on by a Liverpool team so depleted it resembled by the end one of those Friday night, club TV channel youth-team affairs, gangly kids with floppy hair veering about at some half-deserted practice ground, parents in the stand.

As the moments ticked down to the restart Liverpool’s players formed a huddle near the halfway line. At which point the Chelsea team, already in formation, seemed to realise that actually that’s the kind of thing we should be doing and abruptly shuffled in to form an even tighter, more righteous blue huddle, like a clingy new couple offering up a performative show of affection around the dinner table.

It happened again in the next interval, this time even more wildly, a full staff huddle, as though one of those Derbyshire games of village bladder-ball had broken out mid-final. And in that moment it felt like a perfect miniature, an emblem of what this Chelsea FC footballing entity is, basically some men chucked together without thought or chemistry; and resembling more than ever here the most salutary lesson in waste, greed, and how not to build an elite sporting team.

There are two things worth saying about Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat by Liverpool at Wembley. First, it was by the end a genuine shocker for everyone involved. This was a game Chelsea really ought to have won, but one where they dished up instead a performance lacking in teeth or any kind of in-game influence from Mauricio Pochettino.

Indeed he could well be one game from the sack given the steady downward stumble of the season. Chelsea are still in one cup, until midweek at least, and paddling vaguely in the league, although even in defeat here they went from 10th to 11th in the table. Would any other manager do any better, charged with making this random collection of human talent look like a coherent sporting entity? Would anyone who might have a chance want the job?

Chelsea weren’t terrible here. They were just vague, weird, hard to read or understand. This is a team without a narrative. This is a random-energy machine. For very brief periods they were suddenly good, purposeful, producing zingy little passages of passing. Then just as abruptly, they fell apart, or sank back into lethargy.

But then we have never really seen a football team like this, assembled with such a mania, so deliberately and clumsily opposed to any existing notions of continuity, the human scale, ideas about how the pieces might fit together.

In fact the only really recognisable part of this Chelsea defeat was the sense of an old-fashioned bottle job, a dropping of the ball with the line in their sights. They came into this game as second favourites. But scan the team sheets at the start and Chelsea had a demonstrably more illustrious team here, man for man, albeit the word “team” must be used advisedly when referring to a collection of players with no coherent internal architecture.

But in theory everything fell Chelsea’s way here. Liverpool had at least 10 first-team players out at the start. Shall we just round that up, sir, to the full 11? With 26 minutes gone Ryan Gravenberch rolled an ankle in gruesome fashion, made all the more painful by the fact his ankle happened at the time to be under the studs of Moisés Caicedo. He left on a stretcher. Liverpool rejigged from their rejig.

And by the midway point of the second half this billion-pound miscellany, the non-team of all the talents, was competing against a team of youth-team alumni, eager and talented fill-ins. By the time Virgil van Dijk scored the winning goal with a penalty shootout looming the people flopping on top of him were Bobby Clark, James McConnell and Jayden Danns, energetic kids out there having the time of their lives. By contrast the player Van Dijk had to outjump to score was Mykhailo Mudryk, basically a YouTube player signed as a punt, another human part thrown into this random football generator.

There was an irony in Chelsea even playing this final given their ownership model basically doesn’t really want this competition to exist, wants instead to be doing grander things with its midweeks. Win this and Chelsea would have got into the Europa Conference League. Can they even play in it? Will Uefa, with its tougher FFP rules, actually allow it?

For all that, they did play well at times. Cole Palmer had some nice moments. Conor Gallagher might have won it with some luck. The players gave everything they had and were utterly deflated at the end, Pochettino close to tears.

As ever this defeat, like all Chelsea defeats right now, is on the ownership, on the business plan, on the sheer frat-boy financier arrogance of that beat-the-market spending spree, on always believing you’re the smartest guy in the room. Chelsea had a chance to turn all that energy into something tangible here, to seize the moment. It passed because they met a more coherent sporting entity, with greater will, deeper gears. For now, this thing remains a bust.

[Doc_Piptorious]

That article reads like making excuses for Chelsea and their bum manager.

Also do not buy into that line about them bottling it as that takes away from the mentality shown by all of our guys.

Our players forced them into their shells, our manager showed them the difference between an actual top tier manager and one whose reputation is built on sand and we are the team that worked hard over and over to come back from set back after set back.



Liverpool did not win because Chelsea were this or that. Liverpool won because Liverpool were, to a man, willing to leave it all out there on the pitch and none of them stopped believing that a win would be the outcome.

[Exiled_red]

That article reads like making excuses for Chelsea and their bum manager.

Also do not buy into that line about them bottling it as that takes away from the mentality shown by all of our guys.

Our players forced them into their shells, our manager showed them the difference between an actual top tier manager and one whose reputation is built on sand and we are the team that worked hard over and over to come back from set back after set back.



Liverpool did not win because Chelsea were this or that. Liverpool won because Liverpool were, to a man, willing to leave it all out there on the pitch and none of them stopped believing that a win would be the outcome.

It's an odd one, without wanting to take anything way from our lads, the togetherness, the desire and the plan of how to play. I don't think you can argue that the players that they had on the pitch towards the end of the 90mins and through out extra time on paper at least should have been better than what we had on the pitch at the same time. Sure you can make arguements about us being greater than the sum of our parts etc. But I found their approach somewhat baffling, they finished the 90mins on top and then in ET sat back and invited us on to them. There were comments about them playing for pens as they believed that they were better than us at them. But I find it staggering that their players didn't look at who we had on the pitch and think 'this is our chance'. I'd like to believe that we forced them back and into playing that way but I think that while true to some extent it was also due to the way they approached it.

I can understand teams playing for penalties if they are a man down or whatever, or even if we were the team playing for penalties given the circumstances. But in their situation I found that really odd. I don't subscribe to the theory than pens is a total lottery, there are definitely elements of skill and character involved but there is also a not insignificant amount of luck involved. If you are (on paper at least) the better side and had the momentum going into ET facing an inexperienced opposition, I don't see why you want the game to go to pens

[peterbread]

Wonder what happens with Poch at Chelsea. Will he be sacked or given more time.

[Doc_Piptorious]

It's an odd one, without wanting to take anything way from our lads, the togetherness, the desire and the plan of how to play. I don't think you can argue that the players that they had on the pitch towards the end of the 90mins and through out extra time on paper at least should have been better than what we had on the pitch at the same time. Sure you can make arguements about us being greater than the sum of our parts etc. But I found their approach somewhat baffling, they finished the 90mins on top and then in ET sat back and invited us on to them. There were comments about them playing for pens as they believed that they were better than us at them. But I find it staggering that their players didn't look at who we had on the pitch and think 'this is our chance'. I'd like to believe that we forced them back and into playing that way but I think that while true to some extent it was also due to the way they approached it.

I can understand teams playing for penalties if they are a man down or whatever, or even if we were the team playing for penalties given the circumstances. But in their situation I found that really odd. I don't subscribe to the theory than pens is a total lottery, there are definitely elements of skill and character involved but there is also a not insignificant amount of luck involved. If you are (on paper at least) the better side and had the momentum going into ET facing an inexperienced opposition, I don't see why you want the game to go to pens

We know how to fight, they don't.


We have a manager that knows how to inspire others to do better, to work harder and to want to achieve for that manager.

They have an overrated manager whose reputation in the PL is built around winning the square root of **** all.


Both teams reflect their manager.

[SB]

We know how to fight, they don't.


We have a manager that knows how to inspire others to do better, to work harder and to want to achieve for that manager.

They have an overrated manager whose reputation in the PL is built around winning the square root of **** all.


Both teams reflect their manager.

In a nutshell.

[ChesterDave]

1-0 down at home to Leeds inside 10 minutes

[Cerbie]

1-0 down at home to Leeds inside 10 minutes

Can’t beat the Leeds press playing out from the back.

How is Sterling getting a start after the weekend?

[Doc_Piptorious]

Poch the Argentinian owl hooting after the game about having to play last night after being in a cup final on Sunday and the nodding head pundits all agreeing with him.



When Klopp says similar the comments tend to be about how it is a squad game and how he needs to just get on with it.

[Exiled_red]

Thread on Chelsea's latest financial results:

[ame="https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1779031635838603541"]https://x.com/KieranMaguire/status/1779031635838603541[/ame]

[Exiled_red]

This is dodgy as ****,they met P&S rules by the club selling hotel to owners

[ame="https://twitter.com/SamWallaceTel/status/1779429626533523791"]https://twitter.com/SamWallaceTel/status/1779429626533523791[/ame]

[spud_gun]

As with many facets of modern day life rules are for the small people.

If you're rich enough you can just about get round any rule that may impede you.

Funny as it is to laugh at Everton's (and Forrests) points deductions there is any equitable scenario where those two clubs are punished whilst the most egregious offenders in the league are left to do as they please.