First you get an absolute whiff from Simon in the first 8', ignoring a clear red card offense. You have Nicolas Jackson trying to score with his hand instead of his head on a perfect cross (he's since added a total bottling of another much higher chance goal). Meanwhile, Chelsea's defense has clearly closed up shop and headed home early, because yeesh.
After the City match nothing else to play for but next year and it showed.
Credit to Arsenal, I don’t think they will catch City but they played very well against a checked out side.
The outgoing moves this offseason will be interesting. Jackson has been given a lot of chances and hasn’t shown he’s got it. Throw in the penalty BS and his attempt to go at Drogba’s goal scoring first year record, and his form is garbage at the moment. He’s going to quickly lose the fans I don't care what color his hair is
Another thing I've noticed in the dozen or so matches I've watched this season is the performance of Enzo. Whatever they're trying to do with the midfield with him in it, does not work.
The Enzo/Caicedo midfield is expensive and disjointed.
I will say this, everyone loves to talk about the billion dollar bottlers, and they aren't wrong.
And Boehly was spending like a drunken sailor when he first showed up without a plan (which has created a ton of down stream problems).
That said, I do believe that they have the right people in Poch and Jurasek and Stewart and Wistanley. Unfortunately they haven't all been working with each other for too long (less than a year) and are having to unwind a ton of stuff that happened early on under Boehly when it was sort of a rudderless operation. I think this will get right, but people need to be more patient.
If I look back, I think part of it all was how quickly the sale from Abramovich took place. Boehly and Clearlake owned the club and literally had zero infrastructure in place (and not much time to plan or hire or recruit for it) before getting the keys to the club. That showed up in a ton of ways, where the owners just threw cash at the problem without realizing how much it would hamstring them down the road. Credit for being creative and using loopholes (long term deals to amortize the expense over a longer period and asset sales to offset losses) but those loopholes are being closed, and they will have to operate within much tighter parameters going forward.
The best news I've heard of late is that all signs seem to indicate a level of patience with Poch that would never have existed under Roman Abramovich. It's a new Chelsea in that regard, but if people are honest, this is going to take a few seasons to turn around, regardless of how much cash was spilled on the way.
Cycling managers is just kicking the can down the road. They're going to have to eat these problems until the squad and salary structure is in better shape. There is no way around it.
Otherwise they fall into the same pattern that United has been in since Fergi left.
This is the sort of thing that gives me hope that patience will prevail.
People can say what they want about JT (and have and will). But he's dead on accurate in this respect.
When a club legend is calling for patience, people should take note.
And I do believe, unlike the prior owner and regime there are smart people that see that.
It would be very un-"Chelsea"-like to be patient, which is why a lot of breath (amongst the Chelsea media and other talking heads) is about he's heading for the sack. If it was Roman, he wouldn't be here today. But I think the new guys understand this a little better, which gives me hope.
They saw enough to dump Tuchel, which buys them some time. They rushed into Potter, but I also think they could/should have been more patient there. But unlike Poch, he didn't have big club experience to fall back on. It also didn't help that the squad they gave him was hot garbage.
My only hope, as they eat these problems (you are dead on right about it) they don't act foolish and let Gallagher go.
The game was open, Chelsea created a couple of decent chances in the first half. Petrovic played out of his mind.
Once the second finally went in, yes, Chelsea lapsed.
They were superb today, White's luck on the last one notwithstanding. They could've scored 10.
How the referee allowed that tackle to stand without a booking, I have no idea, but even worse was the VAR not calling him to take another look.
I just wanted to pick on Chelsea.
They deserve it.
Second match in a row with a clear red not called.
There are UEFA referees and US national refs in that group. 100% red card vote.
What's shocking here is that VAR did not recommend a further review. Missing a call on the field happens, not fixing it when you already had a delay for the injury is just baffling.