That thing I’ve been saying about jumping up and not giving the ref a decision to make? We did it again yesterday.
Watch the clip of the Mount assault. Watch his quick Kostas gets to his feet.
STAY. FUCKING. DOWN. Anthony Taylor is already a prick. Don’t help him.
My concerns are that we have players, particularly in midfield who look really out of sorts. It’s bizarre to find a whole unit in a side that is struggling, especially with the quality we have in the starting three yesterday. Positionally we were all over the show, in midfield in particular and I cant say why that is, especially from someone like Henderson who is Mr Reliable. Yesterday I saw him way out on our left wing conceding possession before finding him back on our right side a few seconds later. It may have been on the lead up to Chelsea’s second from memory. That’s not right and it’s not Henderson either.
Too often I saw Chelsea players in behind our midfield in positions where they could easily gain possession, turn and attack defenders in one on one situations. Again that is not right and it is not how we play. Fabinho was too easily taken out of the game with a single pass.
There is something wrong with the system or tactics somewhere along the line. It was too easy for Chelsea yesterday and we concede some really stupid goals of late. For me it’s not the players but something a little more nuanced, we shouldn’t be conceding a 2 goal lead, ever, let alone in less than 45 minutes. No need for overhauls just a decent look at what we’re doing and how we set up to achieve it. Payers coming back from Covid / injury will help.
That Mount girly kick was reminiscent of Robben diving when Pepe caressed his chin. At least Rafa gave a good soundbite post match
Mane jumps up in a challenge for ball. He watches the ball and ends up hitting Azpilicueta with his wrist. It’s clumsy and a bit reckless, but that’s all.
Mount clocks Kostas, and despite being miles away from the ball, runs as Kostas and forearm smashes him, then has a kick at him on the floor. It’s violent conduct and a clear red.
That’s the third? time this season we’ve been denied a clear red card and likely three points by a fucking bent referee.
Henderson had his best games for us playing as a sort of 8/10 hybrid. Now for some unknown reason he plays a hybrid 8/7. Why this change with Trent coming inside. It’s just not something you experiment with mid season.
I can come up with reasons, like it’s a way to cover up our defensive frailties if Keita gets to play a sort of 10/8 hybrid however if that’s correct why not just replace Keita with another.
We really need to concentrate on our left side though, defensively it’s strong but what we are getting there in attacking terms is quite poor. Our coaches imo need a good kick up the arse. Ok Salah is a great player but let’s not sacrifice the whole setup to accomodate him his strengths and weaknesses.
We also need to look at our pressing for me it’s suffering and we need to put limits on where our midfield should be pressing (and hence also our forwards). We definitely need to revise our zonal tendancies we end end all over the place and then all the opposition has to do is put 2 players in the exposed zone and we’re fucked. Chelsea were doing this all night. Some players need marking man to man at this level (as some are great players but not all).
Mané’s one is the kind pundits like to argue the other way, just to be argumentative. If he gets a red, they’ll say it’s harsh. Yellow, they say it should have been a red.
Mount could have seen red, but not sure that fuller replay of the first contact was shown at the time? That’s what makes it red, not the movement of his leg.
The fact that Chelsea fans are calling him out for being blatantly biased and hating them (sounds familiar 
) means he probably did ok.
As always, opinions in football depend on which tinted specs you happen to wear…
I sort of agree and disagree with you. Our left side attack wasn’t too bad yesterday. Time after time Tsimikas got behind Chelsea but there wasn’t an end product. That’s where the difference between left and right lies for me.
The lack of an effective press comes from a poor midfield shape. We’re too easy to play through at the moment and Chelsea did it time after time.
I personally don’t need to be wearing any sort of specs to have seen Taylor fuck us over time and time again over the years as he does his ‘didn’t see it’ routine and only gets it right having been told to view the monitor. Pity VAR wasn’t in place when he didn’t see Kompany’s lunge on Salah at the Etihad that time, we’d probably have 20 titles now and not 19.
There’s enough evidence if you care to look for it, I’ve given plenty of examples on here the past couple of years, but some prefer to bury their heads in the sand and believe a bloke from Manchester referees our games fairly.
Isn’t that a reason to concentrate more on going down the left, so we get to the point where there is an end product? Rather than persisting so much down the right where we know under what circumstances it’s effective. A more balanced approach!
Except for his goal, which was brilliant, thought Salah was particularly useless yesterday. Was late to everything. Late getting to passes he had called for, late to press, late getting back to help out. Really quite a poor performance and frustrating in a match we needed everyone pulling their weight and more.
Btw we were away to the 3rd best team in the league. A team who had evidently worked very hard to counter us, when was the last time you’ve seen chelsea play like that? agressive fast high press and all? This wasn’t the counter attacking Chelsea we usually see, I bet they are completely shagged after that so their next match (if it comes under 2 weeks time) will be interesting.
I hate to dig out Kostas, because he’s a dependable back up. But we really miss Robbo when he’s out or off form. Kostas likes a touch and slows things down a fair bit. Robbo is so direct.
If Robbo had been playing he probably would have got a red card for breaking Mounts arm when Mount made that agression! 
We missed that I think even if Tmisikas doesn’t shirk that side of the game there’s nothing like the agression and directness of our Robbo. 
Not an experiment; rather an evolution tweak worked on over preseason, and it’s been discussed on this forum before. When it clicks, we’re deadly. It’s a main factor why we’ve been scoring many goals per game.
But when we’re slightly off our game, we can get done big time. High risk, high reward. It’s fun when it all goes to plan.
If we could add the control element to our game, like changing gears (see seasons 2018-20), then I think this wouldn’t be so much of an issue. 2-0 up, a few minutes before HT, let’s try to passaround at the back.
Chelsea didn’t press hard up top at all, They were just positioning to be ready so that the midfield of Kante and Kovacic could intercept any forward passed balls, and then dink it into the runners. So there was an opportunity to do Konate-VVD-Fab-Kelleher triangles to make the Chelsea front three actually commit. Then there would’ve been space for the forward pass without being intercepted.
But what we constantly did, was make a couple of passes at the back, then try a progressive forward ball and lose possession and we’re again onto the back foot.
The irony is var ruled on all the 3 red card incidents. For me none of them were.
That’s why Kelleher was being put under pressure so often, right?
Hard to believe the referee gave them 13 free kicks and we only had 5. 
The Mancs call him Anthony ‘Scouse’ Taylor
Why am I reading that Kovacic’s goal was a fluke?
He watched the ball come down, adjusted his feet, volleyed it into the top corner.
It was really good technique. It’s not a fluke just because it’s an incredibly difficult finish.
That shot shut me up for 15 minutes, just wow! 