martin1905

Pretty obvious really, we had the 11th best defence last season now we have the 5th. And before anyone goes on at me about how we were tthe3rd or 4th best team from January, It's irrelevant because in that same time we lost 4-1 at Liverpool, 5-0 at Arsenal and 4-2 at home to Wolves. All three of those were absolutely shocking. So was the 4-3 win against United. The 2-2 draws with Brentford, Burnley and Sheffield Unites also came in this 'run', which were some of the worst performances I have ever seen. We also lost City in the FA cup Semi, Middlesbrough and Liverpool in the League Cup final. So, this incredible run people always want to bring up includes 6 loses and 3 draws which were completely and utterly embarrassing and the United win which we scraped but we're atrocious, so 10 games when we were an embarrassment. And that's before I even look at games like Leicester and Leeds, Forest away, Brighton away off the top of my head. We may have won those games but we were rubbish. If people can't see the difference between this year and last, don't want to remember how truly awful we were for the vast majority of the season, including lots of games during our apparent 'good run' then there really is no help for them. Hanging on to a statistic rather than seeing what actually happened is a pretty desperate way to try and make a point.

11th best defence in the league last season. Joint 5th best this year. Huge improvement, especially after such a short time, we are only 7 games in. We keep improving at this rate and who knows just how good we can become. Exciting times.

Brilliant performace, loved it. Came up against a team that is up there with the most defensive I have ever seen. A lot of talk about Arsenal and the 'Dark arts', Forest were a different level. This will 100% be one of my favourite games of the season. Showed so much character and never gave up. Absolutely brilliant. Levi Colwill MOTM by an absolute mile. Colossal with and without the ball. His best performance in a Chelsea shirt by far.

So 10 games in.... Nkunku. Goal contribution every 53 minutes Palmer. Goal contribution every minutes 55 minuites. Sancho. Goal contribution every 58 minutes Jackson. Goal contribution every 67 minutes. Felix. Goal contribution every 91 minutes Madueke. Goal contribution every 121 minutes Neto. Goal contribution every 146 minutes

Depends on the messenger, or more importantly the message. Constant negativity is always going to be challenged and so it should be. It's a Chelsea forum for Chelsea fans. Some of us don't want to be negative about everything. By nature I'm a very positive person, I couldn't bear seeing the negative in everything, I live my life the opposite way and always try to find positives, in everything.

Good job he's talking about physicality and not height then.

I can only echo others thoughts about how nice if is to be looking forward to games again although I never thought I would ever look forward to a conference league game but with the clear 'A' and 'B' teams we have implemented this season it's almost like supporting two teams and I absolutely love it. It's very unique having two different line ups depending on the competition, obviously teams have made lots of changes for the competitions deemed of lesser importance over the years but I can't remember anyone ever having two cleary different first teams. It's made me really excited to be a part of the conference league, something I never thought I'd say. I'd have liked us to not participate in it or go out early but the opportunity to see a different Chelsea team every other week is wonderful.

Or maybe we are only 6 games in? Maybe it will take a little time? 4th in the league, top scorers in the league, second highest GD in the league. Just imagine we may actually improve as time goes on, maybe it takes a little more than 6 games. Just think, if we are doing as well as we are, after 6 games, but statistics tell us we are not that good at something, there's a chance we will get better at it. Already top scores and sitting 4th in the league, whilst apparently being really poor at something that the manager will no doubt work on day in, day out so who knows how good we can be.

Still, can't judge him until the end of this season, hey?

Agree with all this. Fofana and Colwill have the potential to be a very good partnership. It's easy to forget how little top flight football they have played. They are only 23 and 21 years old. Fofana has started 54 premier league games, Colwill just 39. They have only started 5 games together at CB. They are basically a brand new partnership who are both young but with so much potential. We've got two of the best right backs in the league, although one of them permanently injured plus the best left back in the world, this year. Sanchez is clearly a problem but overall I like our defence. I can't remember too many times we've struggled in a game this season. Individual errors aside I'd argue we've been pretty solid and that's with very young, inexperienced players, who are adapting to a new system and a new coach. We were totally shambolic defensively last season, even during our apparent good run, always looked like conceding goals at any given moment. Like all our players, both individually and as a unit we should be seeing progress and improvement at a fairly upward trajectory. Average age of 22.7 for our outfield players against Brighton. A proper coach with a proper philosophy that coaches on the training ground. We are just going to get better and better. Being together for a number of years will only help, when this same set of players average 27 you'd imagine most, if not all, will be quite a bit better than they are now. It's incredibly exciting to be a part of it.

Did you not write off Madueke as a Championship player? Jackson as a Bournemouth level player? Claim our squad was all dolly mixtures? Pretty sure you wrote Maresca off before we had played a game under him and were one of those that was very critical during pre season? Now you claim it's too early..........

Some big games coming up in the same period for all our rivals. Tottenham play West Ham, Villa and City. Newcastle play us, Arsenal and Brighton. Villa play United, Tottenham and Liverpool. Liverpool play us, Arsenal, Brighton and Villa.

Seems weird that some keep brining up Poch. Interesting that the only people mentioning him are those that have been very critical, especially this year and this was happening even during pre season. Difficult for some to climb down from that I suppose. We've had a great start but far stiffer tests await and soon.

I think the fact that the only thing those that went early this time have to talk about is how similar or not it is to the previous manager says everything.

Unfortunately this forum is going to be like this all year. Far too many went far too early with some very strong views. We have a very tough run of fixtures coming up I would put my house on this place being far busier with lots of criticism and people saying I told you so, because we will drop points and almost certainly lose games in the coming weeks. I could literally name the names, to be fair we all could. Very quiet when we do well and always looking for excuses the latest one being it's just like last season, which it absolutely isn't.