Chelsea 2 - 0 Wolves: The Verdict

[Alan]

There was something romantic about playing Crusaders last summer.

Can someone remind me what our Europa League schedule is now? We really, really looked like a team in need of a vacation. Raul especially looks completely fucked (and, honestly, he has every right to be).

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Thu 6th - Olympiacos
Tue 11th - QF
Mon 17th - SF
Fri 21st - Final

I do not want to play the likes of Crusaders again, we've done it once and that was enough.

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

There was something romantic about playing Crusaders last summer.

I was at the game in Belfast and romantic was the last thing I'd call it...

@Kenny - I acknowledge Nuno and his team have conditioned the lads well, but we have been lucky in terms of in-game injuries. I really cant remember anyone being stretchered off this season or anyone having any long term injuries caused during a match

 

[Law's Bus]

Qualifiers are only one leg this year and we may well miss out on at least one round compared to this season as we have our own UEFA coefficient now.

Unfortunately not - the round you start in depends on the national co-efficient, so, say, Liverpool would still have the same path.

Besides, our UEFA co-efficient currently stands at 12.000, which doesn't mean much as it's less than the national co-efficient of 17.635 - so any theoretical seeding next season would be pretty much the same as this.

Two points per win, one bonus point for reaching the QF, SF and Final (so 3 available in total), so we would have to get to the semi-finals at least for our own co-efficient to be higher than the national one - and of course, as the national co-efficient is basically an average, the futher teams progress, the higher it goes. If it goes above 18, then we would need to win the semi.

If my maths is right, our co-efficient would be:
* 12 as it stands
* 14 if we were to beat Olympiakos
* 15 for getting to the Quarters
* 17 if we were to win in the quarters
* 18 for getting to the semi final
* 20 for winning the semi final
* 21 for getting to the final
* 23 for winning the competition

The only question would be around the single leg format - normally there's up to 5 points available for each round starting with the quarters (2 per victory, 1 per draw, 1 bonus for qualifying), but this year there's only 3. UEFA might need to adjust the co-efficients to stop this season being worth less than the standard, co-efficient wise.

 

[Norman Deeley]

What a sad end to the Premier League season. I don’t mind losing – well, I do – but I’d prefer to go out with a bang rather than the tamest of whimpers.

I thought we were very poor yesterday. No fight, no desire, poor team selection and tactics and whoever gave Jota 1/10 for getting his boots on the right feet probably gave him 1 too many.

You don’t get to pick and choose when opportunities turn up in life or in football and I suspect we’ll look back on this season as an opportunity lost. I’m not going to moan about refs or VAR (Christ, Bournemouth have been relegated by a complete VAR failure in the Villa/Blades game). For me the ‘fault’ lies in too many home draws against teams we should have beaten and the number of times this season we’ve simply been too passive and/or conceded the first goal.

The bulk of this team – Boly/Coady/Saiss/Doc/Neves/Moutinho/Jonny/Raul/Jota – have been together for two years now and I think the squad needs some freshening up. None of Boly, Coady, Saiss, Doc, Moutinho and Raul are going to be better players next year: they’re all at the age where an extra year is starting to make a difference.

So a big four weeks lies ahead for the recruitment team. And Nuno & the team need to sort out the approach before August 6th. We cannot approach that game like we approached yesterday’s where, in a game we needed to win, we had an xG of 0.21 which was the lowest of any Premier League team yesterday.

 

[Premier Quality]

Have to say - as much as we didn’t play well yesterday, Chelsea defended really well - they were aggressive and pressed really hard - all our strikers had someone right up their backside all the time, and they clattered through Raul a few time’s, made it really hard for us to build anything.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Yesterday illustrated perfectly why the policy of containment in the first half is a very high risk approach. We are only ever one mistake from one of our players or the referee from going behind. Everyone knows how we play now and it appears from results that the better teams coped a lot better this season compared to last despite Traore stepping up a couple of gears. The better teams are far more likely to press us when in possession and too often we cannot cope.

I'm not sure how much fatigue - mental as much as physical - has impacted recent performances but far too many simple passes have gone astray. Jimenez has generally looked poor since the restart with moments of outstanding play such as his goal at Burnley papering over performances well below what we expect. With next to no break before next season we surely have to bring somebody in who can play as a centre forward and take some of the pressure off him. Ideally someone who can play alongside or in place of him so they get more than odd few minutes here and there. If that means letting one of our four wide forwards go so be it.

 

[jd1981]

Current squad would again have us challenging for Europe again next season but I agree a bit of a freshness is required 2 good signings would do that comfortably.

 

[sycophantia]

Yeah, think its been noticeable especially post lockdown that we struggle a bit when pressed hard, probably our worst performances have been Chelsea and Arsenal, Sheffield and Burnley also but they didn't really hurt us apart from one last gasp set piece and a dodgy pen. I'm hoping Nuno has a plan to combat that.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

What a sad end to the Premier League season. I don’t mind losing – well, I do – but I’d prefer to go out with a bang rather than the tamest of whimpers.

I thought we were very poor yesterday. No fight, no desire, poor team selection and tactics and whoever gave Jota 1/10 for getting his boots on the right feet probably gave him 1 too many.

You don’t get to pick and choose when opportunities turn up in life or in football and I suspect we’ll look back on this season as an opportunity lost. I’m not going to moan about refs or VAR (Christ, Bournemouth have been relegated by a complete VAR failure in the Villa/Blades game). For me the ‘fault’ lies in too many home draws against teams we should have beaten and the number of times this season we’ve simply been too passive and/or conceded the first goal.

The bulk of this team – Boly/Coady/Saiss/Doc/Neves/Moutinho/Jonny/Raul/Jota – have been together for two years now and I think the squad needs some freshening up. None of Boly, Coady, Saiss, Doc, Moutinho and Raul are going to be better players next year: they’re all at the age where an extra year is starting to make a difference.

So a big four weeks lies ahead for the recruitment team. And Nuno & the team need to sort out the approach before August 6th. We cannot approach that game like we approached yesterday’s where, in a game we needed to win, we had an xG of 0.21 which was the lowest of any Premier League team yesterday.

Great post and spot on. Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of head in the sand thinking on this at times. It's simple. If your top scorer converts one chance in three you need to give him three chances to get a goal. You can't moan he does not score if there is no creativity. We had more shots on target against Everton than we managed in 270 minutes against Sheffield Arsenal and Chelsea.

 

[Norman Deeley]

Great post and spot on. Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of head in the sand thinking on this at times. It's simple. If your top scorer converts one chance in three you need to give him three chances to get a goal. You can't moan he does not score if there is no creativity. We had more shots on target against Everton than we managed in 270 minutes against Sheffield Arsenal and Chelsea.

I don't know if you have seen the Infogol site, Cyber https://www.infogol.net/en Their stats - based on xG - have us as the 5th best team this year, with an xG well above the number of goals we actually scored. Their slope graph shows the teams that have over/under performed.

 

[sycophantia]

Don't think there's much 'head in the sand' thinking on here, most understand where we need to improve but its not going to happen overnight, its going to take some new players and a few tweaks in tactics to move to the next level....not easy. The mythical upgrades at CB, AM and competition for Raul are going to be very difficult to find. As for the tactics, Nuno has put our style in place to get us where we are now, I'm fairly confident he knows we need to change some aspects of our play and isn't just going to decide, this is the way we will always play. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out. However it wouldn't surprise me if we go backwards a little (in league position) to eventually go forward. We're going to need to be more patient imo.......thats obviously not going to happen with a load of over entitled fans ( thats all fans not just ours)

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

A hell of a lot of babies being thrown out with gallons of bathwater here.

 

[Kenny]

It was no shock that we set up to be a little but more defensive yesterday. The main strength of Chelsea is their attack and we were controlling that. Obviously it doesnt help when your front 3 have stinkers of the highest level so we couldn't break out on them.
I do feel the free kick was the kick in the bollocks that finally knocked us over. We do seem to have had a lot of shit calls this season and chuck in the recent 94th min goals you could see our heads went. Coady looked like his legs had gone when trying to defend Giroud. I wouldn't say we showed no fight or desire, I will never say that about this team but we had no spirit in the 2nd half, we couldn't raise our game any more and that was that.

Ideally this team needs a couple of weeks off, no training at the club or home, just some normal life but that isn't going to happen. Huge task for the team looking after them.

Final negative part - yesterday also showed where we are weakest in terms of back up and that does need addressing if Fosun want this team to break into the Top 6.



Postive stuff - Absolutely loved that fact about this team becoming the 1st since the proper glory days to finish in the Top 7 2 years in a row. Despite of yesterdays 90 mins, this is a great team (sorry Mr R Keane, we don't get to use 1990's Man Utd as a reference point for greatness). In a few short years I have gone from watching us v Crawley, Gillingham & Stevenage to seeing us challenge for the Top 6 in the Premier League and play in a European Competition and we have players that are now constantly linked with moves to huge Euro clubs. I love this team and this project has only just started.

 

[sycophantia]

A hell of a lot of babies being thrown out with gallons of bathwater here.

Not really, just people giving their opinions about what needs to happen for us to progress, no doubt Nuno is having similar thoughts, of course he knows what he's doing so his opinions will be different and the ones that matter

 

[Jinky]

There was a great tweet posted on my timeline yesterday that sums it up nicely.

People seemingly don't understand the context of the situation.

Would I have taken seventh at the start of the season? Definitely.

Would I have taken seventh when we were sat in sixth, two points off the Champions League places, and five points clear of seventh? Fuck no.

It was accompanied by a screenshot of the table at 32 games when we were level on points with Utd, 5 points ahead of Sheff Utd, 6 points ahead of Arsenal and 7 points ahead of Spurs.

I genuinely don't get why people get so precious about some of the comments on here. It's ok to appreciate where we have come from, but to also acknowledge our short comings. That doesn't make anyone "entitled". It's the same after every single game and is extremely tedious to read through - no offence.

As for yesterday, Raul and Jota have completely lost the connection they had from pre-lockdown and I wouldn't be starting Jota in the EL. I also wouldn't be playing Traore at RWB again. Raul understandably needs a bloody good rest, but he isn't going to get one. Going in to the EL games I would like to see Podence-Raul-Traore as the front three.

The recruitment over this summer has to be spot on, because there's no way this squad can carry us through another 45+ game season next year with next to no break. No excuses from Jeff & co this time around. Otherwise with other clubs strengthening (Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs etc), we could well find ourselves slipping back in to that midtable group of clubs. Which again, isn't a disaster - but we obviously all want to keep moving forwards if we can.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

But that also ignores context. It was 6th with Arsenal, Sheff Utd (who started lockdown ahead of us on PPG), Burnley (hardly lost any games in 2020) and Chelsea to play.

If we get Albion, West Ham, Villa and Palace in our first four games next season, win the lot and are top of the league, is it then going to be a missed opportunity if we don't lift the title?

 

[sycophantia]

I agree we need some extra depth but my concern is where we will finf these players, upgrades on Saiss, Doc and backup for Raul, plus midfield would cost 100 million plus? Thats provided we could convince those grade of players to come here. I don't want squad fillers, prefer to give more gametime to the squad we already have

 

[Jabbawolf]

But that also ignores context. It was 6th with Arsenal, Sheff Utd (who started lockdown ahead of us on PPG), Burnley (hardly lost any games in 2020) and Chelsea to play.

If we get Albion, West Ham, Villa and Palace in our first four games next season, win the lot and are top of the league, is it then going to be a missed opportunity if we don't lift the title?

You beat me to it - the selective use of statistics and scenarios is staggering at times - what about when we were in the relegation zone? I'm sure if you plotted all clubs' highest positions, only Liverpool would be 'satisfied' with where they finished.

 

[Jinky]

But that also ignores context. It was 6th with Arsenal, Sheff Utd (who started lockdown ahead of us on PPG), Burnley (hardly lost any games in 2020) and Chelsea to play.

If we get Albion, West Ham, Villa and Palace in our first four games next season, win the lot and are top of the league, is it then going to be a missed opportunity if we don't lift the title?

We are capable of beating all of those teams on our day, so yeah, it's ok to acknowledge that it's disappointing to drop out of 6th place having had a 5 point cushion, without being called "entitled".