« on: January 21, 2023, 11:36:24 am »
Officials
Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistants: S. Burt S. Bennett
Fourth official: D. England
After the welcome win and good display against Wolves we get back to the bread and butter of the league. I was very impressed by Milner and Bajcetic against Wolves; we all know about Milner and how good he is at pulling out performance after performance. At the other end of his career is Bajcetic and he looks a very promising player. Against Wolves, he was always alert to where he should be and when to close down space. He, Doak and Elliott are very good young players who are still developing. My favourite player recently has been Konate. He rarely losses a tackle and is so cool under pressure.
Normally this would be a top of the table or top 4 clash but this season both teams have been struggling. Who would have thought that both sides would be behind Fulham, Brighton and Brentford in 9th and 10th places, 10 points off 4th. It’s going to be a big challenge for either team to get into the top 4 but let’s see how things pan out. We have stuttered and stumbled along and, to be honest, we were totally outplayed by Brighton in our last league game. Most of us believe that we need a major overhaul in midfield which may happen if we get new owners but in the meantime Thiago, Bajcetic and Keita look a good option.
Our forward line was once the most feared in Europe but this season we have suffered a lot of injuries. Jota and Diaz have been a big loss. Unfortunately both are still out.
I hope that Nunez will be back which should give us a big boost. He is a player who can run away from defenders and exploit any space behind them. Salah may have lost a bit of pace but he is still one of the very best at converting chances. We haven’t seen much of Gakpo yet and he has yet to show what he can do. Nunez gives us much more threat and will certainly get and make chances.
Skipping our midfield, which is what most teams do against us, our backs have looked all over the place at times so we need to tighten up and play as a cohesive unit like we did against Wolves.
Turning to Chelsea, if they loose then the pressure will come on Potter whose record since taking charge is only 42% win rate which is about 15% to 20% less than Chelsea would expect; only Hiddink has had a worse record in recent years. Admittedly it would be harsh as he has only had about 20 games in charge but Hiddink only lasted 27 games.
Then there’s their ridiculous scattergun approach to transfers this season. I think they have spend over £400M since the takeover which is astounding.
A list of recent transfers includes:
Mykhailo Mudryk from Shakhtar Donetsk, £88.5m
Wesley Fofana from Leicester, £75m
Marc Cucurella from Brighton, £60m
Raheem Sterling from Man City, £47.5m
Benoit Badiashile from Monaco, £35m
Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli, £33m
Carney Chukwuemeka from Aston Villa, £20m
Andrey Santos from Vasco da Gama, £18m
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Barcelona, £10.3m
Gabriel Slonina from Chicago Fire, £9m
David Datro Fofana from Molde, £8m
Denis Zakaria from Juventus, loan
Joao Felix from Atletico Madrid, £9.7m loan
It’s not a list that I would say is full of amazing players and I think Chelsea don’t have any idea of what they are doing. There appears to be no communication between Boehly and Potter and the manager seems to be kept out of the loop and is there solely as a coach. It’s not the way I want us to be managed. Klopp builds a team and looks for players who can play in his style.
Yes it would be great to have that kind of money for Klopp to spend but I have to raise at least one eyebrow at the length of the contracts that the new Chelsea players are getting. Their most recent signing, Mudryk, got an eight and a half year contract. The lengths of contracts will probably come back and bite them later. They will have quite a lot of players whose contract doesn’t expire until their early 30s. Some of these players will be hard to get rid of if their performances start to fall away. Anyway that’s their problem and has no bearing on the match.
Looking at the head to head record over the last three seasons in all competitions we have won 7, drawn 3 and lost 3. The last two wins in the cups have been on penalties with the League Cup win last February needing us to score 11 penalties in a row with Kelleher scoring the winning penalty.
Both teams need to win and to turn their league season around. Both teams do have the quality to win but we should be favourites at home. I expect that Potter will send his team out fired up as his job may be on the line so it will be important that we match their determination.
I think it will no surprise if I say that we need to win our midfield battles. We lost nearly every battle against Brighton and if that continues then I cannot see us winning even against a poor Chelsea side. The trio that started against Wolves have a nice blend of creativity and intensity and maybe they will start. We do have the players to hurt Chelsea and I expect that we will pull out a performance that shows the quality that we have. There would be no better way to go on a long winning run than to completely dominate this match and win comfortably.
Our manager has done so much for the club as have his players so let's see the passion and hunger back.
Support and believe.......make us dream Jurgen.
So who will start and how do you see the game going?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2023, 12:34:55 pm by TepidT2O »
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