Chelsea at home Sunday 20th Oct 430pm

[Mr Pink]

I don't think it was a pen at all. He gets the ball first and they collide afterwards.

I'd be absolutely fuming if that was given against us.

The Salah one on the other hand was a clear pen. No idea how that's not given tbh. He gets none of the ball and takes out his legs. It was a clumsy challenge. Yes Mo drew the contact, but its a foul anywhere else on the pitch.

While we're on **** decisions - NFI how anyone can say that wasn't last man on Jota. He was clearly through towards goal had he not got hauled down. Colwill is a good 5 paces behind the play and only catches up because Jota gets dragged back. If he is allowed to run he'd be through on goal with Colwill trying to chase him down. Whether Colwill has the pace to catch him is irrelevant.

agree with all this. The Salah pen shout- I’d like to see it back again.. at the time I was thinking it was a stonewall pen but I’m always very biased while watching the game live.

The Jota one was a blatant red card- crazy how similar it was to the Saliba one yesterday too.. the most frustrating thing about the refereeing standards is the inconsistency. The fact that var upgrade it to a red one day, but not the very next day for what I thought was pretty much an identical offense. You’re never going to have 100% consistency, but it’s a joke how inconstant it is.

I thought the ref was ****e in general. Not even so much the big decisions- the red card and the penalty shouts, but all the small decisions were bad imo- like the foul on Nunez near the end, etc. so many free kicks given that left me shouting at the tv…

[Norbs]

I don't think it was a pen at all. He gets the ball first and they collide afterwards.

I'd be absolutely fuming if that was given against us.

The Salah one on the other hand was a clear pen. No idea how that's not given tbh. He gets none of the ball and takes out his legs. It was a clumsy challenge. Yes Mo drew the contact, but its a foul anywhere else on the pitch.

While we're on **** decisions - NFI how anyone can say that wasn't last man on Jota. He was clearly through towards goal had he not got hauled down. Colwill is a good 5 paces behind the play and only catches up because Jota gets dragged back. If he is allowed to run he'd be through on goal with Colwill trying to chase him down. Whether Colwill has the pace to catch him is irrelevant.

The apologists saying there aren't parallels with the Saliba one because there was another defender in the vicinity. Yep, but he was behind the play so it's irrelevant

[BG1973]

I'd need to see it back but I think a difference was the direction of the pass. Arsenal one was played directly towards goal whereas yesterday the ball was heading wider.

The Sanchez / Jones one is another example of inconsistency in what's a foul inside and outside the box.

There is obvs an unwritten tolerance for **** that goes on in the box which is the only way to make sense of it.

[Mr Pink]

I'd need to see it back but I think a difference was the direction of the pass. Arsenal one was played directly towards goal whereas yesterday the ball was heading wider.

I think it’s times like this that we’d benefit from hearing the var/refs rationale for decisions. Either hearing the communications live or in a post match report or referee interview/press conference.

Even if we don’t agree with a decision, we should at least know for sure what exactly we don’t agree with!

[BG1973]

Yeah totally.

[Norbs]

I'd need to see it back but I think a difference was the direction of the pass. Arsenal one was played directly towards goal whereas yesterday the ball was heading wider.

The Sanchez / Jones one is another example of inconsistency in what's a foul inside and outside the box.

There is obvs an unwritten tolerance for **** that goes on in the box which is the only way to make sense of it.

I'm not sure the direction of the ball makes that much difference when near the halfway line. If it's near the corner and the ball is going out, but Jota would've adjusted his run towards the goal. The ball was not running away or going out of play

[Irishnev]

[ame="https://twitter.com/skysportspl/status/1848436124152119798"]https://twitter.com/skysportspl/status/1848436124152119798[/ame]

[Doc_Piptorious]

https://twitter.com/skysportspl/stat...36124152119798

Caicedo deciding to mark an empty space and then deciding to run towards two of his own defenders with his back turned to the direction of play is what makes all the room for Jones to run into though.


Caicedo takes a second to check his own movement and look across his own back line, then he sees the big gap you would have thought.

[Buzzo]

The run and the pass in are superb. Curtis points and asks for it, Salah sees the space and makes the pass. The whole thing is made to look easy, but isn’t. A great goal.

[BigChief]

Yeah, it's strange Caicedo getting plaudits in some quarters. Sure he's got a nice turn in tight spots but he didn't really offer much to the forwards, one assist aside. He didn't get into dangerous forward positions, or create enough havoc for Palmer to benefit.

But when Jones scored my first instinct was why has Chelsea's midfield allowed our midfielder to walk through? Now I realise it was Caicedo. If that was Gravo I would be spitting venom for hours/days.

[Doc_Piptorious]

The run and the pass in are superb. Curtis points and asks for it, Salah sees the space and makes the pass. The whole thing is made to look easy, but isn’t. A great goal.

Not knocking our play at all, but the main culprit in that clip is Caicedo. He turns his back to the play, jogs into an empty space then proceeds to move towards two of his own team mates.

He looks totally switched off in the clip and him moving where he moved and where he then moved after that is what created that gap within his own team.

Our guys were switched on enough to spot the gap and to exploit it but the £115m man seems to avoid a hell of a lot of criticism in general from pundits, this season and last.

[Irishnev]

Not knocking our play at all, but the main culprit in that clip is Caicedo. He turns his back to the play, jogs into an empty space then proceeds to move towards two of his own team mates.

He looks totally switched off in the clip and him moving where he moved and where he then moved after that is what created that gap within his own team.

Our guys were switched on enough to spot the gap and to exploit it but the £115m man seems to avoid a hell of a lot of criticism in general from pundits, this season and last.

I think he was partly at fault and I thought he was their best player by far on the day, in fact this season he has been showing signs of his Brighton form. He was a car crash last season which is understandable given the chaos around that club.

I thought he snuffed out a lot of our attacks and got around the pitch well, doesn’t make him worth 115m though and I’m glad we missed that boat

[labourRed]

https://twitter.com/skysportspl/stat...36124152119798

James doesn't come out of this too well. He obviously had Gakpo to contend with but at the point he seen Jones on the move he needed to plug that gap instead he relied on the cross being cleared and holding the line. Which they seem to be using the box as a physical one.

Salah played a perfect ball and Jones times his run to perfection. Caicedo offered nothing either. Perfect.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I think he was partly at fault and I thought he was their best player by far on the day, in fact this season he has been showing signs of his Brighton form. He was a car crash last season which is understandable given the chaos around that club.

I thought he snuffed out a lot of our attacks and got around the pitch well, doesn’t make him worth 115m though and I’m glad we missed that boat

Think he is the main problem for them during that transition. He marks neither zone nor player and turns his back to the ongoing play for a number of seconds.

He leaves his position, which is where the gap is, and then wanders towards a zone that already has two blue shirts in it.

Chelsea numerically are fine across the back line as the play is being built.

Their back four line is set. The LB is standing off Salah a bit, the two CBs are close together with one I presume being ready to double up on Salah should he go on a dribble. Reece James is with Gakpo and cannot commit to going into central channel as that would mean leaving Gakpo in another wide open space ready to receive a pass.


Caicedo is the one guy not switched on to Neto following TAA and not switched on to the entire phase of play after that ( Ball getting to VVD, then out to Szobo and then out to Salah with Jones starting to make his run as soon as the ball is passed to Salah), he misses all of that as he has for some reason turned his back to the play.


He is still facing away from the play even after Salah has played the pass that ends up with Jones.

£35m for Gravenberch vs £115m for Caicedo. Easy to snigger in hindsight but still gets a from me.