The trouble is while systems might account for losing games systems don't account for professional players at the standards we have making as many simple and silly mistakes as we have made recently, nor do systems account for players not trying. If i honestly thought the problem was as simple as the system/tactics then it would not bother me but looking at the players and how they playing as individuals and as a team and they type of mistakes they making again as individuals and a team I think the issues are much bigger then that

I would love to see Chalobah play with Kante but for that decision to be made we need to decide where we want the club to be. If we want to be a top 4 team then that wont happen if we don't mind a couple of seasons outside of the top 4 then yes I can see that working. As often as been the case during Roman's time at the club we are making that decision to late it should have been made during the course of last season

I've been away for a week, so feel a bit out of the loop with our continuing failure to perform against the better teams.
But I certainly agree, we need to take a long, hard look at our transfer policy. It seems to me that buying to loan out or eventually sell-on has become almost a priority in the past couple of years.
It was fine as a sideline, buying a youngster, putting the Chelsea "stamp" on him and then (if he didn't make the grade for us, which was generally the case) selling him on for a nice little earner.
But that should have remained strictly a secondary project. We needed top quality, ready made players who could step almost seamlessly into our team, or at least the first team squad. We appear to have lowered our sights, even if the media does still connect us with the top targets in every transfer window. We seem forced to compromise while the other big European clubs are pulling away from us.
I think we need to decide where we are. If we're no longer able to attract and buy the best, we're also not going to be able to hold on to the best. So it will mean goodbye to Hazard, Courtois and maybe others. It's a sobering thought.

I don't even think its against the better teams we having problems. Look at West Ham game, We played "well" but at the same time looking at West Ham's season so far you could argue we made them look really good.

Performing and winning can be two different things, I think if you look at our wins even during those you see signs of our more recent performances in them. Take the Watford game and looking back at it and viewing it with recent performances in mind, While we as fans love games where we come back from behind and late subs make a great impact and get late goals but taking away from that, During the other 80 mins of the game while we played well in places you could see shades of the more recent performances.

I don't think we would have any trouble attracting the best players I think at the moment its more we either unwilling to pay the money needed or we don't have the right procedures (and or people) in place to do so. So Roman has to make a choice do we continue the current path and we continue to buy the types of players we have bought recently or keep the current procedures (or people) and he as to accept top 4 will be a struggle or we start spending the money or we rip up the current strategy (and or remove the current people in charge of transfers).

What ever the decision he makes it needs to be made quickly

That other thread is so funny. Moaning about player power yet when that supposedly happened with Jose it was fine. The Liverpool masked slipped again with Rafa as well.
Just can't help himself, such an obvious fraud

Back to today, 3 points are vital at Hull. Whilst it can't mask the problems, 3 points are vital coming into another break.

Yes, he constantly moves the goalposts to fit his agenda. Laughable. as you say.


Absolutely. We need to nip this bad little run of league results in the bud before it becomes any worse.

I know we're stuck with playing Cahill until JT returns, but it'll be very frustrating if Ivanovic is in the starting line-up again.

IVANOVIC HAS BEEN BENCHED!!!!!!!!!!



Courtois, Azpilicueta, Alonso, Cahill (c), David Luiz, Kante, Matic, Moses, Willian, Hazard, Diego Costa

Begovic, Ivanovic, Chalobah, Fabregas, Oscar, Pedro, Batshuayi

Not really much of a surprise Brana not playing today but still suspect if we played one of the better teams he would be back in the team

clear pen for foul on moses right infront of the ref gets absolutely ignored.

what a joke

Well, this is boring.......

11 men behind the ball from hull.

need cesc on

Not great. Loads of possession and next to nothing created.
Hazard looks interested, Willian doesn't.

Thought it would have been a bit soft personally.

Moses is trying to make things happen though. At least he looks to take opposition players on, Willian could do with taking note.

It was one of those that are rarely ever given, no major deal

Nice goal Willian.

Costa with the second.

A much needed 3 points. A good fixture to have as Hull were pretty woeful.

Yes, we saw an improvement in the second half but as you say the opposition were poor, so not much we can really learn from a game like that.

Still a win and a clean sheet, I'll take that. Shame there's another sodding international break now.

A clean sheet. Haven't seen one of those in a while. Willian was awful if not for his goal, whereas Moses looked dangerous for most of the game but still couldn't assist or score. If the two of them were fighting for a spot then Willian would probably win because he scores occasionally whereas Moses is not as productive atm.

Hopefully Terry and Zouma are back after the break

Yes, important 3 points. It keeps us In touch despite a couple of recent dreadful results.
All the talk this week has been about Abramovich giving his backing to Conte and accepting the need to overhaul the squad. That's all well and good, but the transfer window only closed a month ago, shouldn't something have been done in the summer ?
We're not going to change much in January, so Conte is basically stuck with what we've got.
The other rumour is that Kante was the only player on Conte's "wants list" that Emanelo & Co actually managed to sign for him. Perhaps Roman is finally getting the message that there's something not quite right on the transfer side of the business ?

I think the 3 wins we got at the beginning of the season actually did us no favours because they masked the fact that we really needed new players. Think the West Ham game was a deserved win but the other two were steals at the end of the match. If you watched the game it was obvious we were in trouble but the results seemed like we had started well.

Losing Terry before our toughest games so far this season didn't help matters and neither did Cahill's mistakes.

Yes, I agree. I don't like jumping on bandwagons though, most fans were reasonably pleased with our summer signings. But if you bring in a new manager to reshape things, it only makes sense to do the utmost (within reason) to sign the players he wants.
Did Emenalo do that ?..we don't really know. We were linked with a lot of players, did we try hard enough to sign them, or were they always going to be beyond our reach ?

Kante seems a perfect fit for us, no problem there. I like Batshuayi, but is he really a ready made deputy for Costa yet ? If Diego happened to be out for any lenghth of time, I'm not so sure. Then there's the late signings of David Luiz and Marcos Alonso. I thought Luiz was a reasonable compromise, but didn't know much about Alonso at all. I could understand it if Conte was disappointed with the hand he's been dealt.

Were they? After our defensive problems last season it's fair to say I wasn't happy at all with our transfer business. Kante was a great addition no doubt but we shouldn't have been going August without bringing reinforcements at the back and from what I could tell most fans were still crying for that.
Emenalo didn't do shit and he's not helping the club at this point. He's more concerned about doing favours for his mates. Roman has apparently promised Conte that money will be spent to fix the squad but if Emenalo is in charge of that then there's no hope.

Luiz has done well for his standards so far imo. His long range passes have also improved so we don't have to rely on just Fabregas for that long pass behind the defenders to Costa. If we stick with 3atb I'm interested to find out which defenders Conte goes with once Terry and Zouma are back

I see the Liverpool trolls are still peddling the Rafa was great stuff and also Brendan. The men who threw away titles. Couldnt make it up.

Just the fact that Rafa is a big fan of zonal marking is enough for me. It's an abomination in my opinion. The only manager (apart from Jose first time around) I'd like to have seen given more time was Ancelotti, always rated him.

In the end, not a bad weekend for us. Seventh in the table is obviously not great, but with only 5 points separating the top 7 clubs it could be a lot worse given the way we've been playing.

It's all the rewriting of history that's so funny when they go on about Rafa but I guess he has hero sratus with one of them so it's to be expected.

Yeah not so bad considering we haven't played particularly well. Important couple of home games coming up.