My Blood Is Blue

Top 4 side right there and it has actual subs!

That injury list is unbelievable. Teams got matches called off for less during Covid!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ce96wzkgzpgo Maybe we’ll sign Mount back for cheap!

Once Silva departs, that will leave us with only James, Chilwell and Kepa from the Champions League winning squad. Incredible how quickly that squad got disassembled.

I understand the logic and what you’ve set out does make a lot of sense, however, I would want to see him have another season in the PL, ideally with Burnley, to see whether what you’re suggesting does actually come to fruition and whether they genuinely do improve or not. I don’t have any other names to really put forward at the moment, I think we’re in a sticky place in terms of who we could realistically get in. It’s also all a big IF at the moment as well, as Poch may not even go. The other key question is, what do we want the new manager to come in and do? That for me dictates who we look for. Do we want someone to get us back into the CL for the season after next? Do we want someone to improve the current players under a limited budget and get top 6?

Completely agree. Use technology to help where it can, but using it just to invite more humans into the decision making, makes no sense to me. We still have just as many inconsistencies, if not more, than we had before using VAR. Even the offsides I’d leave alone until technology can give a definitive answer. If they are going to do it, then they should have a look how other sports implement it so well.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/thiago-silva-to-depart-chelsea-at-the-end-of-the-season We were lucky and blessed to have him at our club for four years. It sounds like he’ll be back in a different role in the future. Good luck for what’s next Thiago, can’t wait to have you back home soon!

I agree he’s much better more central and with Gallagher now playing as part of the midfield 2, I could see an option of playing Jackson left and then Mudryk and Palmer central, alternating between the ‘9’ and ‘10’.

It does explain why they’ve all been out for so long, I don’t think you’re allowed to play contact sport for 6-9 months after getting implants.

I want to believe he can become a good player and I have seen moments where you can see some talent in there, but more often than not he just looks very much out of place. If he wasn’t earning so much, I’d actually feel quite sorry for him (I still do to an extent). I think it was the wrong move at the wrong time and he’d have been better off going to a club that had a much clearer structure in place to support him as he moved over to this country and learnt the league and the culture. He signed for Chelsea when we were in even more chaos than we are at the moment. I don’t see who in the squad would have and could have taken him under their wing whilst he was trying to settle.

@boratsbrother @RDCW let’s leave the discussion there I think.

Yep, completely agree. I do buy into the fact we have more injuries in the game nowadays due to the ridiculous demands being put on players, but this is an entirely different level and added to that, it's the nature of the injuries. Players come back and then injured again after minimal or sometimes no playing time, that just can't be right, not as often as it has been this season anyway. What then winds me up, is that the club are sending them all off on a tour of the US following international tournaments for a lot of them in the summer. I bet we lose at least 1 or 2 players to long-term injuries during that tour.

Villa went well, so by form, this will horribly wrong. Unless we have any miraculous recoveries before Tuesday, I think the team pick itself as we'll only actually have 11 first team players available plus Gilchrist and Casadei, because Silva didn't look comfortable coming off. Therefore it will be: Petrovic Chalobah - Disasi - Badiashile - Cucurella Gallagher - Caicedo Madueke - Palmer - Mudryk Jackson This injury list is unbelievable and I am shocked it's not getting more media attention, we literally have 11 fit first team players.

Glad to see quotes like this from Poch. Should have been doing it months ago, but he seems to be realising what life is like for Chelsea with the officials.

Burnley and Forest meet on the final day of the season as well, which could well be the decider.

Inconsistency, yes, absolutely, but some of the lows we’ve had this season have been down to poor management and coaching, which shouldn’t just be ignored because of the other circumstances. Poch has had a bad hand dealt to him this season, but he hasn’t helped himself on quite a few occasions, in my opinion. Last night was one of his good nights though, for sure.

Yeah, I hate it. It’s the time it takes as well, so you’ve done all your celebrating then you sit down again, only to be hear the dreaded “VAR are having a look at this” and you know at that point, it’s not good news. It must be so hard for the players to deal with that during the match as well, to retain composure and go again.

I’m not suggesting it was a tactical masterclass, but Emery has rightly been spoken about a lot this season for the job he’s done at Villa, but in that second half, Poch outsmarted him and quite considerably, which is definitely a positive. I also don’t think this is some turning point for Poch, what’s gone before has still happened and is unacceptable. But it’s only right to acknowledge when things go well and he’s responsible for it. The team tonight showed heart. We were down to the bare bones tonight, we could do very little to nothing from the bench and our last match was a 5-0 thrashing by a London rival. We went 1-0 down to an unlucky own goal and then went in at half time 2-0 down, which felt harsh. It was easy for the players heads to drop and the game to just pass us by again, but they stood up and were counted and took the game to Villa. That level of effort tonight is what most fans have wanted to see for most of the season.

Yeah, exactly. This wasn’t a foul where the actual contact was out of the ref’s view, he had clearly seen it and decided it was fine to play on. The whole sending them over to watch a replay is just for show, the outcome is always the same.

Caicedo brilliant tonight, he is so much more productive when partnered with Gallagher, I think it was possibly his best match in a Chelsea shirt. Cucurella is arguably our number 1 left back now, really impressed with him again tonight. Badiashile had a good night, which he desperately needed. I imagine it helped a lot having Silva alongside him to guide him through. Pochettino outsmarted the manager that’s been getting all the praise this season… hats off to him for that.

Slagged him off a lot after the Arsenal match and rightly so, but Poch deserves a lot of credit for that second half.

Yeah, the sheer unadulterated joy has gone from the game now. Every goal scored has a celebration, then a pause as everyone waits to see what VAR thinks.

Would you have given a penalty for it if it was the other way around?

Yep, that should be what we build around moving forward IMO. If we can sort the wide players and striker out, we’re laughing.

Proud of our players tonight, I really am. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, get Gallagher the contract he wants and deserves.