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Post Match Reaction: SAINTS 0-3 Chelsea


Saint-Armstrong

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Good analysis IMHO.? plus a well-managed game from Jose's side.

 

Clyne looked slow on the ball and def. not happy at LB

Cork is tougher in the tackle, but his passing is not good.

Morgan looked really out of sorts today.

Ramirez looked OK - when on the ball, but drifts in and out of the action too much.

Jay Rod disturbingly absent as an attacking threat today.

JWP seems to have lost that sharpness / agression he had before Christmas?

 

Stats. OK ...good quality opposition. but EIGHT yellow cards in 2 matches shows some degree of panic has set in.

 

Even assuming Boruc is back soon we still have to wait Wanyama to get himself fit ...March ?

 

..meanwhile a quick look at the bench doesn't inspire much encouragement does it? , especially when you consider the players we have on contract who aren't there.

 

Has all this double-training gone a bit too far ?

 

Clyne was only one at it.

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Men vs. boys. Chelsea's gazillion pound attack was too much for us. No shame in that.

 

I hope MP doesn't field a too weakened team against Burnley. A cup run is really needed now, for confidence and to keep the season alive.

 

 

But usually we don't have too much problem dealing with those sort of attacks. Don't know what game most of you saw but I thought we looked totally out of sorts everywhere on the pitch. To me it looked like something unpleasant had gone down since Sunday. Why was Shaw subbed ?

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Well beaten in tough conditions but we worked really hard throughout and perhaps understandably, tired later in the match !

With Mata, Hazard, Oscar and Willian running at you on a soaking pitch it is far from easy !

Although we lost I see no case for criticism, not that it will hold back our resident WUM's I'm sure !

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Well beaten in tough conditions but we worked really hard throughout and perhaps understandably, tired later in the match !

With Mata, Hazard, Oscar and Willian running at you on a soaking pitch it is far from easy !

Although we lost I see no case for criticism, not that it will hold back our resident WUM's I'm sure !

 

did you not see how bad Schneiderlin was today ? He should have been subbed, we were awful, absolutely awful and I'm not usually the first one to say that. We just couldn't control the ball anywhere, every time we got near it it seemed to bobble up and end up with a Chelsea player, worst match of the season.

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Beaten by a much better, more expensive team with a quality manager. Chelsea are the only team to comprehensively outplay us this season, and now they've done it twice (and in the 2nd half after tactical changes on both occasions).

 

As others have mentioned, something seriously wrong with Morgan today. He looked like he couldn't be bothered. Very strange.

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Thought Morgan was absolutely awful, not even interested and he should have been the least tired player on our side (barring Davis and perhaps Gaston) something isn't right with him. Maybe he actually believed in the Top 6 dream.

 

I'm one of Morgan's biggest fans but I have to agree with this. Very disappointed in his performance tonight and same with Lovren, who although he's been fantastic so far this season, had his first very poor game for us.

 

Ahwel, I'm afraid if you're playing a team who's better than you, whilst you play badly and they play well, you're gonna take one.

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Well beaten in the 2nd half, you have to give credit to Jose who won that game tactically without a shadow of a doubt. He exploited our high line excellently in the 2nd half, with the agility and pace of Oscar and Willian - it worked a treat for them, and we had absolutely no answer.

 

To be honest, it was a fair result. We weren't at the races, and when your big players have off days, then against Chelsea we don't stand a smidgen of a chance. It was all just a case of keeping the score down in that 2nd half.

 

At least that ***** of a run fixture wise is over, now let's start consistently picking up some points again - and get Wanyama back in the side!

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Well beaten in the 2nd half, you have to give credit to Jose who won that game tactically without a shadow of a doubt. He exploited our high line excellently in the 2nd half, with the agility and pace of Oscar and Willian - it worked a treat for them, and we had absolutely no answer.

 

To be honest, it was a fair result. We weren't at the races, and when your big players have off days, then against Chelsea we don't stand a smidgen of a chance. It was all just a case of keeping the score down in that 2nd half.

 

At least that ***** of a run fixture wise is over, now let's start consistently picking up some points again - and get Wanyama back in the side!

 

J rod and lallana were v poor esp j rod. Can't play upfront on his own.

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The worst second half I've seen at home this season - by some distance.

 

We took our time getting our minds together from the first whistle, but after 10 minutes or so, we began to improve and by the end of the first half, we could even claim to have shaded it.

 

But then early in the second half, Mourinho brought on Oscar and Willians and that changed the momentum firmly in Chelsea's favour. Our substitutions? To take off Cork yet again, when he was the player showing most intent to close down their midfield players and regain possession whenever we lost the ball. The player he should have taken off was Ramirez. Having heard how good he had been against Everton, I was expecting to see some improvement on the player I had last seen, but it was the same old Ramirez, flattering to deceive, losing us possession, easily knocked off the ball, not on the same wavelength as his team mates.

 

Presumably Shaw took a knock again to be substituted for Clyne and he showed good composure on the left flank. God alone knows knows how many Chelski would have scored had Fox played there. Chambers was solid on the right.

 

Lambert showed some promise when he came on, but after they had scored, our effort and desire diminished with each succesive goal. We lacked urgency, strolled about half-heartedly and never looked like scoring in the second half. Frankly that second half performance was unacceptable. It is one thing to be beaten by the better team knowing that you have done your best, played out of your skins. It is quite another walking away from the ground feeling that the players have not given their all and didn't have the pride to go all out to get at least one goal back.

 

We have an opportunity in the Cup Match against Burnley to get a result that will give the players a confidence boost. After this run of poor results, albeit against some of the top teams, we need to stop the rot and turn ourselves around.

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I'm one of Morgan's biggest fans but I have to agree with this. Very disappointed in his performance tonight and same with Lovren, who although he's been fantastic so far this season, had his first very poor game for us.

 

Ahwel, I'm afraid if you're playing a team who's better than you, whilst you play badly and they play well, you're gonna take one.

 

 

I am Morgan's biggest fan and I was absolutely dumbstruck to see what he did today, he's either on his way out, ill or injured (or both) or he's been drastically fined by the club for getting a 5th booking and missing the Everton game and has put in a transfer request. No idea but something just wasn't right today, never seen him like it before.

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J rod and lallana were v poor esp j rod. Can't play upfront on his own.

 

Jay Rodriguez and Lallana both had nightmares today, and when you have a player like Lallana having that sort of game...we haven't got a hope in hell!

 

They'll have better games, that's for sure. But I'd agree from what I've seen, Jay is not a central focal point striker - he's best deployed as part of a 3, or as a 2. He doesn't do a job on his own at all.

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I am Morgan's biggest fan and I was absolutely dumbstruck to see what he did today, he's either on his way out, ill or injured (or both) or he's been drastically fined by the club for getting a 5th booking and missing the Everton game and has put in a transfer request. No idea but something just wasn't right today, never seen him like it before.

 

Or.....he´s human and can have a bad game?

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For me, the only way we can compete with teams with Chelsea's kind of talent pool is to play our high-tempo pressing game, coupled with lots of off-the-ball running and rapid ball movement. One key component of that team concept (Wanyama) is injured, and another (Schneiderlin) was off the pace today. As soon as I saw Ramirez in the line-up, I was pretty much resigned to a loss. For all his undoubted skill, he's not strong on consistent, off-the-ball running and he often wants too long on the ball; his presence certainly brings some dimensions we lack, but it also damages our ability to press and play quick feet-to-feet passes.

 

When we took Cork off we were set up to try to play a high-skill team at their game rather than ours, and the outcome was inevitable.

 

I'm very interested to hear why Shaw was taken off. He could be genuinely injured or ill (again), or MP was keen to see how we'd fare without him, because he might have his eyes on a big cash inflow at the start of the window.

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We lack strengh in depth which is highlighted when we have a run of injuries, and no real gamechanger to bring on from the bench who can add a little something else.

 

Starting to feel that the big bucks spent on Ramirez and Osvaldo was a big mistake as they have not offered much, would have rather kept Puncheon who had a pretty good season last season with us, oh for hindsight.

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We lack strengh in depth which is highlighted when we have a run of injuries, and no real gamechanger to bring on from the bench who can add a little something else.

 

Starting to feel that the big bucks spent on Ramirez and Osvaldo was a big mistake as they have not offered much, would have rather kept Puncheon who had a pretty good season last season with us, oh for hindsight.

 

 

Puncheon wanted to leave on loan, he requested it, he needed to be in South London for his own reasons and we let him go.

If we'd have retained him against his wish then we'd probably have got less than nothing out of him.

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did you not see how bad Schneiderlin was today ? He should have been subbed, we were awful, absolutely awful and I'm not usually the first one to say that. We just couldn't control the ball anywhere, every time we got near it it seemed to bobble up and end up with a Chelsea player, worst match of the season.

 

Morgan had a poor game by his own high standards but he worked his nuts off as did the rest of them !

In those conditions (you probably don't realise just how bad they were!) it was almost impossible to rely on his trademark long passing game. It's pointless IMO to criticise one of our top players after one sub par performance against such a hugely expensive and talented squad like Chelsea.

All about opinions of course but that is mine !

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I am Morgan's biggest fan and I was absolutely dumbstruck to see what he did today, he's either on his way out, ill or injured (or both) or he's been drastically fined by the club for getting a 5th booking and missing the Everton game and has put in a transfer request. No idea but something just wasn't right today, never seen him like it before.

 

Well I wouldn't go that far! He's been one of our best players throughout the past 4-5 years and was just as instrumental in our promotions as Lambert. Still one of the first names on the teamsheet. He's earned the right to have one bad game (although make no mistake it was a very, very poor game.)

 

Changing the subject slightly what did people think of Kelvin Davis? Made a few good saves in the first half where he dived quite bravely at the feet of Ramires but probably should have got up to Oscar's deflected shot and as always, has a massive weakness when it comes to low, skidding shots, especially at his near post.

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He didn't just have a bad game... he just didn't seem to put the same effort in as usual. And that was after missing the last game though suspension, so you would expect him to be raring to go. I honestly think something's up, who knows what it could be though.

 

 

held back from every tackle, every crunch moment, there can only be so many reasons for that, either the club have punished him for his suspension and he's proving a point or he's on his way out. If he was injured we'd have subbed him.

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The first goal was decisive. If we had gotten that (we had plenty of chanse) then the match would have gone another way. It was an okay performance from us but in the end Torres' running killed us. He kept opening up the backline for others to run into. In the end Chelsea needed a fluke goal to get the breakthrough and counter-attacked themselves to two more. All in all it was a decent performance against an in-form team.

 

Our form is not that good but its not like we lost a lot of matches against teams we should be beating (the only really dissapointing result is Villa at home). Otherwise we got a point against City, a point at Newcastle and we beat Cardiff. Its not that bad, especially considering the injury problems we have had to key players. The start of the season when we were third was not an actual reflection of the quality of this team and neither is the currect form, it is something in between.

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Champions' League club comfortably beats weakened midtable team after slightly fluked opening goal allows them breathing space.

The End.

 

 

But as we were so outclassed in the 2nd half allow me to take one precious moment away from this game.

 

John Terry hurt in a heap?

No, even funnier than that.

 

It was Chambers absolutely skinning Ashley Cole and leaving him for dead.

Nice.

 

No doubt MotD will cut that out as it doesn't fit their little storyline of a pro-top four Jose lovefest, but I'll remember it.

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We wont be relegated because we have lost to the likes of Chelsea.

 

We need to beat the teams immediately below us and the ones at the bottom of the league.

 

 

I said that anything above 17th is fine and stick with my prediction of 14th to 16th. This will be fine for a second season.

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J rod and lallana were v poor esp j rod. Can't play upfront on his own.

 

To be fair to JRod I think that he has played most minutes of our busy Christmas period and before (except late tactical changes post 80 minutes). Scored some cracking goals the last month or so.

 

I think that the amount of Xmas games needs to be reviewed 4 games in 11 days favours the bigger richer clubs and also puts pressure on managers to rest players for the FA cup which should be given a high priority.

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What has happened to our pressing game? I know we have had a few enforced personnel changes recently but I've seen no sign of the tactic that was working so well for us early in the season.

 

Our forwards got nothing today because Chelsea completely bossed the midfield after Cork went off. I'm really beginning to wonder about MO's subs lately. They always seem to have a negative effect on the team rather than a positive one.

 

This is very true. Our substitutions always seem to involve our best midfield player being subbed - it's more often AL or Cork and then the obvious happens. we lose control of the midfield and the game. MP's decision making is worrying me.

I would like three to be shipped out in Jan if pos - Rimirez, Fox and Jos. Rimirez is never going to make it in the Prem unless he plays for a West Ham style team where he doesn't need to retain possession in midfield....

Having said that MP is starting to struggle a bit, Chelsea are streets ahead of us player for player.....

It will be a year or two before we are capable of challenging for top five or six.

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We wont be relegated because we have lost to the likes of Chelsea.

 

We need to beat the teams immediately below us and the ones at the bottom of the league.

 

 

I said that anything above 17th is fine and stick with my prediction of 14th to 16th. This will be fine for a second season.

 

From this prediction it follows that you think that we are in a false position, and that between 5 and 7 of the teams below us are actually better than us.

 

Name them.

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I did not see the game but listened to the commentary by BBC 5 live. David. Pleat was the co-commentator and was very upbeat about us. He said there was nothing between the 2sides and we might rue missing our earlier chances. It was down to the different sub benches. They brought on Willian and Oscar, both would make the first 11 at any most PL clubs.

Jose knows how to play our type of football, get Torres to run the defence and t ire them and then add power and athleticism for the last 25minutes.

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The worst second half I've seen at home this season - by some distance.

 

We took our time getting our minds together from the first whistle, but after 10 minutes or so, we began to improve and by the end of the first half, we could even claim to have shaded it.

 

But then early in the second half, Mourinho brought on Oscar and Willians and that changed the momentum firmly in Chelsea's favour. Our substitutions? To take off Cork yet again, when he was the player showing most intent to close down their midfield players and regain possession whenever we lost the ball. The player he should have taken off was Ramirez. Having heard how good he had been against Everton, I was expecting to see some improvement on the player I had last seen, but it was the same old Ramirez, flattering to deceive, losing us possession, easily knocked off the ball, not on the same wavelength as his team mates.

 

Presumably Shaw took a knock again to be substituted for Clyne and he showed good composure on the left flank. God alone knows knows how many Chelski would have scored had Fox played there. Chambers was solid on the right.

 

Lambert showed some promise when he came on, but after they had scored, our effort and desire diminished with each succesive goal. We lacked urgency, strolled about half-heartedly and never looked like scoring in the second half. Frankly that second half performance was unacceptable. It is one thing to be beaten by the better team knowing that you have done your best, played out of your skins. It is quite another walking away from the ground feeling that the players have not given their all and didn't have the pride to go all out to get at least one goal back.

 

We have an opportunity in the Cup Match against Burnley to get a result that will give the players a confidence boost. After this run of poor results, albeit against some of the top teams, we need to stop the rot and turn ourselves around.

 

I have to completely agree with you on that

 

The crowd was embarrassingly quiet today - but that's because the team were awful for the first 5 - 10 mins and lost the crowd

 

After that the first half was pretty even - but second half we basically gave up - and completely surrendered once Chelski scored

 

We seemed to lose every 50-50 ball - and the 60-40 balls as well

 

Sat at the back of the chapel stand today and from there it was obvious we lack real pace and movement up front - we need someone like Torres who really worked over our back 4 today and ripped them apart with his pace, aggression and movement

 

By comparison JayRod was embarrassing

 

Too often we were static on and off the ball - with no one to pass too

 

Chambers was probably our best player today along with Cork - but he was at fault for one of the goals at least

 

Ramirez is and was pointless - he should have come off of Lambert - and taking Cork off was asking Chelsea to score 2 or 3 more

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Beaten by the far better team but all the fight seems to have disappeared. The number of goals that we are conceding is a real worry after the early season form, but we musn't lose faith. However several managers have lost their jobs this season for much less form than ours, does our owner have the patience?

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I am Morgan's biggest fan and I was absolutely dumbstruck to see what he did today, he's either on his way out, ill or injured (or both) or he's been drastically fined by the club for getting a 5th booking and missing the Everton game and has put in a transfer request. No idea but something just wasn't right today, never seen him like it before.

 

Yeah, those are the only explanations. He can't have just had a bad game against a very good team.

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I have to completely agree with you on that

 

The crowd was embarrassingly quiet today - but that's because the team were awful for the first 5 - 10 mins and lost the crowd

 

After that the first half was pretty even - but second half we basically gave up - and completely surrendered once Chelski scored

 

We seemed to lose every 50-50 ball - and the 60-40 balls as well

 

Sat at the back of the chapel stand today and from there it was obvious we lack real pace and movement up front - we need someone like Torres who really worked over our back 4 today and ripped them apart with his pace, aggression and movement

 

By comparison JayRod was embarrassing

 

Too often we were static on and off the ball - with no one to pass too

 

Chambers was probably our best player today along with Cork - but he was at fault for one of the goals at least

 

Ramirez is and was pointless - he should have come off of Lambert - and taking Cork off was asking Chelsea to score 2 or 3 more

 

Thought Ramirez was better tram lallana and particularly j rod who was awful.

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Its taken chelsea over 10 years to get to where they are now and God knows how many millions. They are a much stronger team than we are and today showed that. I am not expecting us to do better than 9th this season and would be disapointed if we ended up beneath 10th. This is a very tough league and will need a lot more money spent if we are to get any where close to breaking into the top 6 in the next few seasons.

Disappointing result but still feeling optomistic for the rest of the season.

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Thought we did very well in the first half and definitely looked good. The subs made by the unspecial one changed the game yet again. They were powerful and direct and they took complete control (The clash reference, good hey!). The conditions made it difficult for us to play our usual fast passing game and also Chelsea closed us down in all the right areas. No big deal, if we finish 9th this yr then I'm happy as we are a good team. Just imagine being West Ham in the bottom 3 (ha ha ha). COYR

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I think overall they will pick up more points than us.
how about us having a wager,the money going to a charity. Every team you list finishing above us, I give £20 to charity every one finishes below you give the money. The wagers given to Granty for him to administer
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The conditions made it difficult for us to play our usual fast passing game and also Chelsea closed us down in all the right areas.

 

These would be the same conditions that somehow didn't affect Chelsea's usual fast passing game? And why couldn't we close them down in all the right areas. We've become renowned for it under Pochettino, but we seem to have forgotten that in the second half.

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These would be the same conditions that somehow didn't affect Chelsea's usual fast passing game? And why couldn't we close them down in all the right areas. We've become renowned for it under Pochettino, but we seem to have forgotten that in the second half.
Well, let me think.....Oh I've got it, they are a better team than us.
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Bit similar to the game at Stamford Bridge where we looked the better side 1st half and then undone by some excellent substitutions from the Chelsea manager

 

We had some half decent chances 1st half (after a dodgy early spell) but credit to some good Chelsea defending

 

Real problem was the wind which we had 1st half and to Chelsea's advantage second half when the game opened out.

 

I really want Ramirez to come good but he ruins some good work by then giving the ball away. Two needless bookings in successive games too.

 

Just goes to show we are well away from top 6 quality

 

Need to get the required 13-15 points under our belts asap in forthcoming games before the natives start getting restless

 

Sub 10k crowd for the Burnley game?

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