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It was a convincing display against Everton. What I notice: everytime most the core players are playing: Reece James or Gusto, Chalobah, Fofana, Cucurella, Pedro Neto, Enzo and of course Caicedo who was suspended and now Palmer who came back from injury: Chelsea play well.
But replace Fofana or Chalobah with Tosin or Badiashile, the balance is suddenly off. Or replace Cucurella with Hato. Or replace Enzo/Caicedo with Andrey Santos. Or even replace Pedro Neto with Estevao or worse Gittens. I underline once again the needs of one or two world class players to bring this young team to another level. We need one more centre backs. Clearly Badiashile and Tosin aren’t long term solution. Acheampong may be though.
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Aindro, think we all more or less agree our B team for want of a better word is nowhere near EPL standards. We have 5 or 6 classy players and another 5 or 6 just below them in class and then after that a well below standard bunch which Maresca plays in some games and those are the games we dropped points. They keep usuing the excuse rotation and rest is necessary. Well then we must accept defeat or maybe a draw at best. Its as simple as that “play your best available team in every game unless it’s a very poor 3rd tier team OR face defeat”. Tonight we play Cardiff away, we already know it’s going to be the B team and we could possibly be knocked out, depending on who plays. I think this is a huge problem and probably the reason why Maresca and the SD directors have clashed.
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Boy your 2nd string 11 stinks, baldy thinks they ok, hohoho
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Rover, I think we can agree on that. We almost drew with Cardiff City, a team from 2 divisions below. But I am happy to see Garnacho scoring. I watched the match against Everton and he should have scored at least 2. If our wingers like Garnacho, Neto and Estevao score regularly: it will help to alleviate the burden from Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer, who are supposed to be our main goalscorers. Delap was supposed to fix our no:9 problems, I see some flashes but I think now more and more that he is still lacking a lot of things. We need to address this no:9 problem in the summer. Together with centre backs problems.
It’s nice to be in the semifinal though. I hope we can avoid City or Arsenal in the Carabao semifinal.
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Villa were almost outplayed by an average United team yesterday and while Villa are a very good team the luck has been going their way for quite some time now hence their recod win run. Therefore I believe we can beat them Saturday if everyone that counts is available and selected. We are blowing hot and cold too much, some people blame the coaches, others say its the players, others blame the sd’s because of their lack of vision recruitment. If it continues we will not make the top 7 never mind the top 4 which already looks very doubtful and extremely difficult with only a couple of points separating about 7 or 8 teams. Even the carabao cup semi against Arsenal looks too difficult. Maresca has to select the strongest available team in every game now or face the consequences.
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The opponent for the Carabao Cup semi final is yet to be decided. Arsenal have to beat Palace first tomorrow. Stranger things have happened in football and Palace appear to lift in domestic Cups as evidenced last season when they beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final and that was an exceptional outcome doing that, so who knows!!
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I did not see the fist half against Newcastle, but I had to say that I was disappointed we did not come out with 3 points. Maresca & staff have to work a lot in Garnacho’s finishing. Garnacho has the speed and the skills but his finishing is very bad. He cost us 3 points. Still it’s safe to say that we aren’t in the title race. It’s still half-season but Arsenal & City are a class above everyone else and anyway: we’ve never been in it.
About the Cup, I think I am happy that we avoid City. Arsenal are stronger and more consistent than us for sure, they have been for quite some time. But I think they are beatable by our current team. I cannot see Palace beat Arsenal though with the injury problems they have (their squad is thin) but stranger things happened.
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There are ongoing issues at the club that refuse to go away, particularly the need for seasoned players with composure. In his post-match press conference on Saturday, Maresca addressed this concern. The club has implemented a strategy focused on acquiring young and upcoming talent, often at lower wages, with performance-based contracts. While this approach is beneficial for rebuilding a team for the future, we must not overlook the present. Building for tomorrow requires a solid foundation today.
One glaring issue that has been widely discussed is our lack of a proper striker—an ongoing problem since the departure of Costa in 2017. Coincidentally, that was the last time we truly challenged for the league title. Results speak for themselves. We can choose to ignore this reality, but it remains undeniable: a good and capable striker is essential for any team aspiring to compete for the league title. Look at Manchester City and what Haaland is achieving. Arsenal has recently signed Gyökeres, who, although he hasn’t hit the ground running yet, will prove valuable. Meanwhile, Liverpool, despite their challenges, are level on points with us, thanks to their attack—particularly Ekitike.
The Chelsea team desperately needs a definitive figurehead in attack, a vital asset that most of our competitors possess. It was short-sighted to turn down £75 million for a thriving striker like Ekitike last summer, only to spend £60 million on João Pedro, who scored a mere seven league goals the previous season. One doesn’t need a Ph.D. in business to see that this was a misguided decision by the club. Now, the management is scapegoating Maresca instead of addressing the real issues.
We have signed Gittens for £55 million, yet he does not surpass George, who is already part of the team. Why wasn’t that money redirected towards securing a competent striker? While I can understand the signing of Garnacho as a worthwhile opportunity, I remain skeptical of its immediate value.
Maresca also stated that, despite our spending, we have no replacement for Enzo. Are we serious? What is Santos doing in this context?
Many of our problems could be alleviated by acquiring a capable striker who can consistently score between 15 to 25 league goals each season. Otherwise, I struggle to see how we can finish in the top four.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish my fellow Blues a happy and prosperous holiday season. May your celebrations be filled with blessings.
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Wise-fan indeed!! The team is not so bad. An addition of one or two experienced players (one of those would be a goalscorer): I think the team can challenge for the title next season. I don’t think Joao Pedro was a bad investment. He is young, he helped us winning the CWC (money prize for the club) and he proved to be useful during Cole Palmer’s long injury. He is still our leading goalscorer. It’s Liam Delap who in my opinion hasn’t shown any return of investment. I was hoping Delap would be our answers for goals. He isn’t, at least yet. He was injured and got injured again, but he hasn’t shown anything good when on the field. We clearly missed on Ekitike. Young, has scored already a lot of goals so far.
For our next match against Villa, who are sitting comfortably above us on the table, Delap is available, Estevao is available. Hope we will watch an entertaining match and a victory for Chelsea.
Wishing you all happy holidays, joyous celebrations, good & happy family time in this holiday season. Best wishes
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Well, i’m sorry to say this, but Maresca is 90% gone now. I can’t see him survinvg. Maybe he knows his goose is cooked i don’t know. But it’s looking like that.
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Young Blue – we need to get rid of Maresca. At this point we’re at risk of losing our best players. Long contracts only ensure a decent re-sale value, they don’t shackle players to the club for the full term of the contract.
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Agree ed and young blue. If you heard willile callebro post match interview you would think he was watching a different game. Ie Chelsea played better than Bournemouth in all departments and created more chances what chances they just passed the ball as usual
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Pajero – we’re constantly being gaslit by the management and their cronies. It’s pitiful.
Anyway, I wish you all a Happy New Year and a fantastic 2026.
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First thing first, no big changes here: I think Maresca & staff need to address the tale of two halves. This has happened so often during Maresca’s tenure. Especially this season. First half Chelsea play bad and the second half good, like yesterday. Or the contrary, like against Aston Villa. So often like this. Not sure what’s wrong, his strategy, his rotations, the players, whatever. But this needs to be addressed. We cannot only perform well during a half game. We need to do both halves.
And I already said this in the past, are we missing a trick by not doing the long throw? We cannot do that but we cannot defend against that either. So many teams do it now: Brentford, Bournemouth, Sunderland …. when before only Stoke City did that. Not sure how many goals we took from long throws, but we took 2 yesterday, we took some before too, against Brentford for sure.
A positive note from our dire performance yesterday: Estevao. What a teenager, what a skillful player. His trickeries are a joy to watch. Probably the only player who played well from our side. Unfortunately as it has been Chelsea’s main problem since Diego Costa left in 2017: nobody can finish. We need to be more clinical in front of the goal. Keep it simple, a cross and somebody has to be in the box and finish it or outside the box like Frank Lampard to shoot.
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Looks like the penny is finally starting to drop:
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Well, well, i predicted this on Tuesday night,and i wasn’t wrong. Though i’m disappointed with how things ended up for Maresca and the club,ithink at wnd of the day, i’m a Chelsea fan. I havw to remain loyal to the club. It was no secret that i was a Maresca fan. Bit life mist go on.
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Young Blue – we’d all love to see a manager stay at Chelsea for a long time, succeed and establish a culture like Fergie, Klopp or Guardiola did/have done, but Maresca’s ‘system’ has been found out and our football is utterly putrid, not to mention the bizarre team selections and illogical substitutions.
We need a top manager now with a proven track record. I’d love to have Ancelotti back but it won’t happen.
I fear they will go with Rosenior which would be another foolhardy choice. We have some excellent players who deserve a top class, proven Manager to help them reach even higher levels. That’s the only way we succeed with this group of players – that and targeted recruitment for a top keeper, CB and striker.
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Chelsea sacked Maresca. It’s official
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Apparently rosenior is favourite!
So according to the official Chelsea web site maresca left because of results.
Over the last 7 games under maresca Chelsea won one game in the most competitive league in the world.
Rosenior has won 1 out of the last 6 and lost 3, in the french league which must be about the fifth strongest league in Europe.
He’s bound to get the job because he played for Brighton and likes his team’s to play the way as maresca_____________________________
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