They should stick to Celebrity Gogglebox. That’s more their speed.
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Bit rude that.
Excellent performance apart from the first 5 and the last 10 minutes. Complete domination, cutting them apart whenever we wanted. With better finishing, it would have been embarrassing for Milan.
Gravenberch might prove the most astute business we did last summer. That says a lot since Mac Allister and Szoboszlai haven’t exactly disappointed. He keeps this up, it’s only a matter of time before he becomes world class. Zubimendi might have done us a big favour.
Konate though was Man of the Match. Beastly performance by him to mop up everything at the back and score the equaliser up front.
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Could have rested him against Forest and started Endo but…
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When your ‘second tier’ players perform, this football lark is easy.
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Thought this game showcased how much we need to consolidate on our possession game to exert the kind of control Slot is looking for.
And if we consistently control games with quality possession, we will win.
You can see that there are still some technical leftovers in our game that once fixed, we potentially have the superior combo of player quality and clever tactics that I have seen of any team in the PL so far…
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We need to see how we deal with ultra defensive opponents who set out to frustrate us like Forest. Was that a blip, or will there be a succession of mid/lower table clubs able to stifle our game?
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Saturday should show us a bit more. Expect Bournemouth to sit deep and try to thwart us.
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I think we didn’t do the basics right on Saturday. People need a reason but it was just poor.
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That’s a good result to be fair, and an appropriate reaction to the disappointment of the week-end. Now back to the PL, and hopefully the lads can build on this good performance.
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It has been for a couple of years, Giroud just left in June. Having watched them at Milan, it makes some of Chelsea’s choices even more baffling.
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3-1 doesn’t really show a fair reflection on the game. We could have easily scored half a dozen but for their keeper making some smart saves and the woodwork denying Mo of a couple. I feared the worst after five minutes following the weekend result and the early goal but the lads pulled it back and all played well. I gave Gakpo my vote because I thought that was his best game for us. Let’s hope they carry that form into the weekend.
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Don’t like to praise the repugnants but Chelsea do have a good youth setup. 3 of the 4 were from their academy.
Yeah watched the highlights and frankly outside of 5 mins we basically looked like we dominated.
Slightly surprised as I was expecting a tough match.
In playing the CL in the new format, what it might establish beyond doubt, is that the standard of football outside of the PL, has dropped beyond a real competitive level, compared to the sides Europe produced a couple of decades ago
Not sure that can be said given that Atalanta won the europa beating the likes of us and Leverkusen.
Inter reached the finals of UCL
AC Milan are in a rebuilding stage and the chaos behind the scenes is reflecting in the play on the field.
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Yeah… but the number of ‘good’ sides seems to be dwindling season upon season. Apart from a couple of usual suspects (RM), there is no consistency from some of the great sides of the past, no fear factor seems to be in existence anymore.
I think there is a very good chance that it will show the opposite. AC Milan is in rough shape, their one win this season was against a newly promoted side at San Siro. Young Boys is in a league where teams have a fraction of the budget that the top leagues have, no surprise that Villa was too much for them. City-Inter will be a better indication, but even that is flawed. City just has too much depth of first-rate talent, and if they were a good indicator for the quality of the PL, they would not have the stretch of league titles they have.
Atalanta-Arsenal should be a better indicator, though Atalanta has had a shaky start themselves.
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There are more competitive sides in the premier league. A side finishing 9th could possibly be finishing 3rd to 6th in other leagues. But teams like Bayern , Real , Barca etc would still be comfortably finishing in the top 3 in the PL. The problem with the other leagues is that the tv money is too heavily skewed with the major clubs and the other clubs don’t get enough. Nothing to do with the quality of football.
But the likes of Everton will still be shit wherever they play.
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A decade and a half ago, the PL was routinely placing 2 and even 3 teams in the CL semis.
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