Chelsea Post Match Thread

[BigChief]

If Costa had put Can out of action I would be tempted to find Costa and break his legs myself.

[CJ]

Cunt

It has been said before.


It will be said again

[DannyMan2006]

There's no point being good at build up if you can't finish.

And I guess that's the only reason I let it slide that Lallana didn't come on. He'd have offered the same and we needed someone to bag a goal.

I'll be honest, I'd have no confidence we'd do anything this season if it weren't for Sturridge coming back. Football is about scoring goals and we are useless at it.

[BigChief]

Great night of football. Really not fussed we didn't win.

We play some bloody good football despite losing two world class strikers that would pretty much cripple anybody else. Johnson did very well coming in cold in an unfamiliar position against the best team in the league.

All our non subs were excellent. Lallana, Coutinho, Ibe, Sterling and The Studge to destroy West Ham please! Come on!

[vonk]

Have to say I thought the subs made sense at the time. Hindsight and all that...

1. After all the criticism he has received about signing Lovren, at least Rodgers is seeing sense and leaving him out. He's behind Toure, Sakho, skrtel, Can and Johnson for the three centre back spots. So when Sakho is injured it's Lovren or Johnson.
2. Balotelli for Markovic. I can see why Balotelli came on. At that point in the game we were under the most pressure. A chelsea goal looked inevitable. We just couldn't make it stick up front, Sterling couldn't get hold of it. Balotelli for all his flaws is good at holding it up. Markovic was invisible second half. At the time I thought it was the correct substitution. Problem was the switch of Gerrard and Henderson.

Overall I thought we played well but the final ball or shot let us down. Really concerned about the goals from midfield. Gerrards shooting was poor. Lucas will never score, like Allen. Countinho and Sterling seem to take the extra touch when the should pass or shoot. Henderson should be getting a lot more goals. And his chance was the one that should have been taken. Harder to miss really.

[DannyMan2006]

Have to say I thought the subs made sense at the time. Hindsight and all that...

1. After all the criticism he has received about signing Lovren, at least Rodgers is seeing sense and leaving him out. He's behind Toure, Sakho, skrtel, Can and Johnson for the three centre back spots. So when Sakho is injured it's Lovren or Johnson.
2. Balotelli for Markovic. I can see why Balotelli came on. At that point in the game we were under the most pressure. A chelsea goal looked inevitable. We just couldn't make it stick up front, Sterling couldn't get hold of it. Balotelli for all his flaws is good at holding it up. Markovic was invisible second half. At the time I thought it was the correct substitution. Problem was the switch of Gerrard and Henderson.

Overall I thought we played well but the final ball or shot let us down. Really concerned about the goals from midfield. Gerrards shooting was poor. Lucas will never score, like Allen. Countinho and Sterling seem to take the extra touch when the should pass or shoot. Henderson should be getting a lot more goals. And his chance was the one that should have been taken. Harder to miss really.

Think the angle of the run made the header more difficult for Hendo. But he can join the lengthy queue of LFC players who are hopeless at finishing. We can chat up the most beautiful women in the world but when we get them home and in bed we don't know what to do. I could say we were unlucky over the two legs if we weren't like a broken record stuck on the same track.

[Darkon]

We played well yesterday, and the week before, but we were let down by the fact we don't have a good finisher in the team (besides Gerrard perhaps, but he is not in the position now a days). We had all the chances needed to progress, but Sterling, Coutinho et al for all their brilliance are poor finishers and it's letting us down without any strikers in the team. Not that the once we have are doing much mind.

Mignolet did save us on numerous times last night, brilliant second half from him! Really kept us in to extra time.

Other than that very good performance from everone in their, keep going like that and we will get enough points to finish fourth - especially if we soon find a way to put the ball in the net from the chances we create.

[Redspin]

I must have been watching a different match then. I thought they got behind our wingbacks time and again. We also lacked any drive from midfield and no composure up front.

It seems that you were. They only had one more effort on goal than we did and the same number of corners as far as I'm aware. We were under no sustained pressure and they looked nothing special. We were just let down once again by an inability to defend at set-pieces. In open play they looked fairly toothless and I can only recall a deflected shot causing Mignolet any problems and that was all down to the deflection, not Costa's shooting ability

[Roboklopp]

Don't get me wrong I've had the odd issue - I went head to head with some Manc cunt who started on me in 2003. Bayer Leverkusen CL game when Ged took Hamann off, I was going potty in the pub and riled some Manc pricks. Then I got Sky at home and never watched another one in a pub for over a decade, until this season after the collapse of my marriage sort of forced my hand

Sounds like you've fared a little better than me. Was defo glad to get Sky Sports at home & avoid all that ****.

[RichC]

A decent striker short of being a very good side. A fit Sturridge last night I think would have put both legs to bed for us.

Team played really well last night especially when playing a side like that who are constantly looking to go down or leaving their foot in on players.

[The Birdman]

Thought we were brilliant.
Over the 2 games we more than matched indeed outplayed the best team in the country for long periods.
We needed a little more composure in the final third over the 2 legs, players like Coutinho and Sterling you can excuse as they are still young but 4 or 5 times last night alone Gerrard took on shots from outside the box when that 1 extra pass down the sides was on to get in behind them.

Only gripe was that we chased the game and set the team up wrong in Extra Time.

I'd have brought Allen on for Lucas to allow us to retain possession and build sustained pressure rather than give it away then spend ages chasing it again.

Bring Lambert on and not play 1 longer ball into him - pointless.
Switch to 433 and put Sterling on the right up against Azpelecuta who had just come on, our best attacking chance against their freshest defender??? We should have put Sterling left up against Ivanovic who started the game and had been booked.

Overall hugely encouraging, not just for the rest of this season but next year and beyond

[frank the tank]

There's no point being good at build up if you can't finish.

And I guess that's the only reason I let it slide that Lallana didn't come on. He'd have offered the same and we needed someone to bag a goal.

I'll be honest, I'd have no confidence we'd do anything this season if it weren't for Sturridge coming back. Football is about scoring goals and we are useless at it.

good summary......

and we were so good at scoring goals last season that it masked all our other **** ups!!!

[Norbs]

Had the misfortune to listen to Jason Cundy's talk in last night after the game, what a piece he is. Kept ramming the point that at no point over two legs were we going through and so couldn't be considered to be in control of the game. Hurts to admit it but, taking out his biased vitriol, he was correct. We played well but they played within their means and in control of the tie.

[frank the tank]

he is a knob alright. I lived in London for 4 years and looking back i can't believe i stuck it. Hate them all down there...... ******s....

In reality though, we scored 1 goal in 210 minutes of football. So we didn't deserve to go through. Brendan saying we were the better side and that their goalie put them into the final doesn't really cut it either to be honest - their goalie is part of their team so they were the better team. We should have scored 3 in anfield and that would have been enough to put us through.

But we didn't.

The upside is that there are plenty of positives. Our defense is starting to look very good. Hopefully Sakho isn't out injured now because the Sakho - Skrtel - Can trio at the back is looking promising. When i first saw the 3 at the back, i was hoping that it would be a temporary solution because Moreno needed time to become a top quality left back from a defensive point of view. But maybe it will work long term. It gets more of our midfielders in the game and as a consequence we keep more control of the game.....

If Coutinho, Sterling, Markovic and Henderson can all add goals to their game then we could have a league winning team. They are all at the age where it will hopefully come together and click.

I thought that Balotelli and Sturridge might click together and maybe they still will. But in the summer i would be very tempted to offload Lambert, Borini and Balotelli and buy 2 strikers.

Such a pity Alexi Sanchez didn't join us.

[Exiled_red]

As I mentioned it was a great performance, but we severely lack someone who can put the ball in the net. Balotelli and Lambert aren't what we need.

In extra time I thought we were poor, this was largely because the players were so tired, the guys in midfield Gerrard, Lucas and Henderson in particular. Personally I would have brought one of them off for Lallana to give us fresh legs who could offer something creative. There was no late onslaught towards the end because we lacked the players with the energy to get the ball up the pitch and create chances. IMO bringing Lambert on was a mistake. Lallana's energy could have driven us forward and if we were creating chances and needed an extra body in the box we could have thrown Skrtel up there for the last 5 mins. As it was the two strikers were left isolated so despite having strikers on we couldn't create them the chances we needed (in extra time).