Chelsea just weren’t good enough today. Arsenal showed a difference in quality, control, organisation, and everything really. But Chelsea fans should know that Arsenal are a better side than Chelsea as of right now and if you don’t, reality should be kicking in for you right about now.
As is always what happens, some Chelsea fans have gotten fully carried away with Xabi Alonso being our manager. I gasped when I saw some of the predictions last week on where we would finish, and I gasped even more when I saw some of the higher ratings voted for our summer transfer window. There is a reason I only voted it a 6 out of 10. We have still ignored CRUCIAL areas on the pitch. We needed to upgrade what we have with another centre back as well as Maxence Lacroix, and AT LEAST two more new centre midfielders as well as Jordan Henderson, and the already signed Valentin Barco, who got ignored yet again today. If we improved our midfield rather than weakened it, and added another top new centre back because PLEASE, Wesley Fofana hasn’t been good enough since he arrived at our club, only then could this transfer window get rated higher than a 6 in my humble opinion. Some people call me negative, but I call myself a realist.
Of course, there is absolutely no need to over react this early. For Alonso, it’s early doors. We should not be making conclusions on him yet and also, we should be accepting that we were up against the Champions today; a team who have had a settled manager for some time now and have built something. We need to be real with ourselves. Alonso is hopefully building something that might take some time. So we need to stay calm here and just wait on it a bit longer to allow Alonso some trust and faith. It’s one game.
However, it’s also natural to highlight concerns. One of which is why on earth we had two right backs playing in centre midfield in the second half of this game against Arsenal, in our biggest match yet? I need to STOP seeing Malo Gusto play as a god damn midfielder, it’s painful. But also, is that just showing how desperate we were to sign a new midfielder in the summer yet failed to do so? I think so, Alonso was FAILED by Blueco in that department, nobody can convince me otherwise. I would like to go on record by also saying that Romeo Lavia is just NOT that guy. He had so much promise when we signed him. But now, at 22-years-old and having been plagued by injuries, he’s not enough. We should have cashed in this summer. Our squad planning and judgement is FAR from good enough still.
Arsenal should have had a player sent off and it could be a different story. Gabriel completely missed the ball and did not even near it. He actually aimed for Emi Martinez’s head if anything. It was the most obvious sending off. Then Mikel Arteta was filmed smiling at the officials after the game, who smiled back. Tell me this game is not FULLY corrupt with a straight face? The officiating in this country is shocking, absolutely pathetic. We were robbed in that sense.
But going back to Alonso, no manager is ever going to be immune from criticism for me. Yes, we absolutely MUST afford him much more time, and we should not be judging him at this stage of the season… HELL NO! But we can also give our opinions and challenge his calls, nobody should have any issues with that.
Nobody was really at it for Chelsea today, but our attack wasn’t at it especially, and that was the big issue. Remember, our attack alone has been winning us games so far. But when the attack doesn’t turn up collectively, we are going to struggle. Our midfield is weak without Moises Caicedo, our defence is a liability, and that becomes problematic when we play the good teams. I said that exact same thing last week, I said we cannot keep relying on the attack alone and the better sides will punish us. Today, Arsenal did that.
A lot to improve on, a lot to work on, but once again, Blueco have not completed a full squad build this window. Lame from them.
Simon Phillips
I'm sure I'm im the minority but all the corruption calls do my head in...
We competed well against the best team in the country. We are still short handed. We are getting better. We will beat them soon.
Onto Leeds.
Reading the self-adulating bullshit coming from the SD’s at the end of the window was sickening. They further weakened our midfield while simultaneously strengthening United and City. Enzo was always leaving so they simply HAD to drop the bag for Scott or Wharton to replace him. To not even get another body in is unforgivable and unfortunately I think that decision has dramatically reduced the ceiling of our season. But in Xabi we trust!