Ratings & Reactions: Chelsea v Villa

[TRO]

Not enough from Too many tonight....but we didn't get mullered, is something.

in boxing terms totally outpointed.

I thought for the first time, that was mega poor from Wes.....and a few others were poor too in many aspects of the game.

I would sooner play Hause at centre forward, than see a display like that again.

Dean looked far from happy.

I thought their goals were poor from our point of view.

However, I did think we would lose that....couldn't see Chelsea losing 3 on the bounce, they upped their intensity and we got outplayed.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2019 by TRO

[Nigel]

Heatons save from Willians free kick was so good I felt sure we were going to steal a draw!

No complaints here, Chelsea deserved the win, as they should have!

Ref was crap though, Chelsea got away with loads that should have been punished.

[chappy]

Heaton excellent and Douglas Luiz was good off the bench too.

I thought Chelsea were fantastic, especially for ten mins before Luiz came on - looked the best we’ve come up against all season. Frustrating that they sound like they had an off day at the weekend!

Wes is trying hard but really needs something to fall for him because the ball is just bouncing off him at the moment. Tammy was fantastic, really showed us what we’re missing!

I think we missed Guilbert (although Elmo wasn’t bad, especially going forward) and El Ghazi. 
 

The season won’t be defined by games like tonight. Tough game on Sunday against Leicester but hopefully we can get at them at a rocking VP.

[turvontour]

23 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

We play Norwich, Southampton, Watford and sheff utd in December, these will be our crunch games, not Chelsea or Leicester.

But this is becoming the problem. If we dont take any points off the top half of the table teams then theres huge pressure on us in these games.

[sheepyvillian]

Your never going to win a game when you surrender possession so cheaply. The central defenders were appalling on the ball tonight. Mings gets more casual with each game, if Smith dropped him, I, for one, wouldn't raise a noise. 

[TRO]

45 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

we do seem to stand off players too much from what i have seen, almost like we show players too much respect, like when pulisic rand and ran towards goal and we just kept standing off, we need to be a bit more........combative?/dirty?, dunno........but we cant just let players do what they want.

Also, willian had the ball on the edge of the box, and the players literally stood there for 5-10 seconds, and let him just stand there, i think as part of our improvement, we need to be more.....in peoples faces.

for mounts goal we just stood off in the build up, similar for the other goal, just a lot of standing off.

i just feel like teams run through us at times.

You see the same as me....we lost too many duels and second balls.

They were just simply better than us in so many ways.

[PieFacE]

4 minutes ago, turvontour said:

But this is becoming the problem. If we dont take any points off the top half of the table teams then theres huge pressure on us in these games.

That's football. Of all the top teams we've played one at home, which we were winning til the 87th minute. I'm sure we'll pick up points against the "bigger" teams when we play them at home. 

[southcoastvillan]

Heaton 8; Elmo 6; konsa 6; Mings 6; targett 7; nakamba 6; hourihane 4; mcginn 5; trezguet 5; grealish 6, wesley 3 

Poor performance in summary, although we managed to stay in the game until the end, on the balance of play we were some way off it. It’s an indictment of the weakness of our bench that a few (Wesley in particular) are seemingly immune to being hooked; mcginn too needs a breather as his form has dropped lately. Conor proved today why smith ultimately does not trust him, off the pace, shadowing their players without ever effecting the ball. All that said we have a very good core, a few tweaks in January and I think we will be absolutely fine. 

 

[TRO]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

Of course they weren’t....nobody ever is in this a league. Although it’s been mentioned that they were.
But just wait and see the usual moans about our lack of character/ fight/ bottle and all the rest of the cobblers.

There were aspects of our play, that was poor tonight Terry, even you should be able to see that.

Our ball retention and ball winning was poor, we had too many players below par, some just chasing shadows.....i think we done exceptionally well to keep the score down...albeit their goals were soft.....once again beaten in the air at a duel by an opponent showing more initiative and desire.

You could clearly see Dean was not happy with the poor defending for their goals.

I thought they was better than us, but i thought we contributed to that with our poor play.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

That was ok. Not near our best, but we’ve had a tough run, especially away, and overall the performances have been decent.

We showed good character not to wilt at 2-1 when it looked possible.

Result doesn’t matter.

Terry, you can't be serious with that last line.

I thought we would lose, because they are a better team, particularly in terms of quality on the ball.....and more consistent with their good play, they have less off days than us.We had some poor performers tonight.

Never the less....I'm disappointed we lost.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, holteend1982 said:

Strange performance, we was good in parts terrible in others. We gift far to many goals though, both were sloppy from a defensive point of view but to concede two minutes after half time in a game we've managed to scrape ourselves back into is unacceptable.

Luiz was very good when he came on, grealish good as per and Heaton was top class. Trez is a terrible player and wes is getting worse every week. 

The thing that tickled me is......Chelsea are a better team than us, fact.......but why are they better in the air all over the pitch?

Dean did not look happy with that offering.....decent lead up to our goal, but just snippets to keep you warm.....No where near enough good passages of play from too many on the night.....the play was low quality at times, nowhere near the Man U form.

 

[siminjo]

We lack aggression, many times when there was a chance to win a second ball, or even the first duel, our players stood passively, awaitin for the ball, while the Chelsea players went in 100 % to win the ball. Also our pressing was non-existing in their half for most of the game, why we played like that, i can only wonder. Pressing, and limiting the opposition time and space on the ball is the modern footballs bread and butter. I thought Konsa was good at some aspects today, he generally looked at the right place at the right time, one massive exemption was Abrahams goal, were he already gave up when the pass was made. This ws my main gripe with him today, and the rest of the squad, the lack of aggression, he could have went into Abraham, and if not winning the duel pressing him enough so that he didn`t get the free header, instead he was to occupied with signaling for offside. With VAR i think defensive coaches should always tell the players to ignore signaling for offside, and assume it`s not, since it will be reviewed anyways so you don`t have to signal anymore. I don`t think he would have won the header, but i think he could have interupted Tammy enough so his header was weaker, and less likely to be a goal.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, terrytini said:

So far this season I’ve heard Spurs, Bournemouth, West Ham, Burnley, Liverpool, Man United and now Chelsea, were “ there for the taking”.

Utterly, utterly ludicrous way of viewing football.

I think they mean, they were winnable.

its not so far fetched to say, they have a point.....all those games, could have been won had we shown a better calibre of defending a lead.

The Bournemouth game was an exception after gifting them a 2 goal lead....we played ok.

I admire you positivity Terry, but wake up and smell the coffee.....there was some poor moments of play from us tonight.....despite a good passage of play for the goal.

 

Edited December 4, 2019 by TRO

[NurembergVillan]

Chelsea have now lost at home against newly promoted teams once out of the last 56.

Tonight they fielded the world's most expensive goalkeeper, a left winger who cost £58m and an England international striker who scored 26 goals for us last season.

Kepa and Pulisic alone cost more than our entire starting XI.

Apparently "they were there for the taking"...

[PaulC]

Didn’t deserve anything but it’s really tough to play Man U and Chelsea away in the space of a few days and it doesn’t get any easier with Leicester next. 

[jim]

Really poor performance. Once again we were strolling around with no urgency whatsoever. 
 

If we want to stay in this league we need to fight for every ball. Smith needs to show these players whose boss not be their best mate. 

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, siminjo said:

We lack aggression, many times when there was a chance to win a second ball, or even the first duel, our players stood passively, awaitin for the ball, while the Chelsea players went in 100 % to win the ball. Also our pressing was non-existing in their half for most of the game, why we played like that, i can only wonder. Pressing, and limiting the opposition time and space on the ball is the modern footballs bread and butter. I thought Konsa was good at some aspects today, he generally looked at the right place at the right time, one massive exemption was Abrahams goal, were he already gave up when the pass was made. This ws my main gripe with him today, and the rest of the squad, the lack of aggression, he could have went into Abraham, and if not winning the duel pressing him enough so that he didn`t get the free header, instead he was to occupied with signaling for offside. With VAR i think defensive coaches should always tell the players to ignore signaling for offside, and assume it`s not, since it will be reviewed anyways so you don`t have to signal anymore. I don`t think he would have won the header, but i think he could have interupted Tammy enough so his header was weaker, and less likely to be a goal.

Interesting view.....I totally agree with you.

However, I think Konsa had a poor game, looked very lightweight tonight, quite in contrast to his previois games.

We lack aggression in most of our games, its a feature of our play.

Chelsea, won most of the headed duels, usually a barometer of physicality. Another poster highlighted our standing off, which is also a trait....we are lightweight in the tackle by and large and thats where Chelsea started to dominate things.

 

[TRO]

23 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Chelsea have now lost at home against newly promoted teams once out of the last 56.

Tonight they fielded the world's most expensive goalkeeper, a left winger who cost £58m and an England international striker who scored 26 goals for us last season.

Kepa and Pulisic alone cost more than our entire starting XI.

Apparently "they were there for the taking"...

I think that is a fair call.

I think they meant Winnable.....The danger is most of our games this season, have been winnable.....after been in the ascendency of a winning position.....thats the concern.

We can easily drift in to a zone that suggests every team in this league is better than us....after all we was only 5th last season in a lower league, and they were all in this league, with more experience....we have to snap out of that mentality....we have to go in to game thinking we can win it.....but sadly our ability to defend is letting us down

but that is a bit defeatist to start analysing the oppositions teams and thinking a non win is ok under the circumstances....we won europes top prize, not having buckets of ability, but a will to win and compete

.sheff Utd have not shown that approach, nor has Burnley or Bournemouth when they came up....they took scalps on occasions, you have to do that, as other teams at the bottom will scrap.

we have to be careful we are not stuck in a style between a rock and a hard place.

Norwich flew up last season, but are now struggling, Sheff Utd have had better fortune, where both have spent no money in relation to us.....The difference for me is one has a more physical approach to winning the ball back and crowding the ball....the other is too open like us and too quick to play football....softer under belly.

You have to win the right to play football and we need to learn fast as sheff utd have.

Edited December 5, 2019 by TRO

[TRO]

2 hours ago, MadridVilla said:

Can't believe they didn't kill that game off, gave us a chance to steal a point which we couldn't take. Villa only looked decent in spells and couldn't sustain any pressure. Quite a few poor performances tonight, Mings was error-prone, McGinn ineffective going forward and even Grealish didn't offer his usual productivity. A deserved loss but at the same time frustrating not to take a point when Chelsea gave us the chance.

I felt for Jack tonight.

how they have the cheek to compare him with Mount and Madison and have no consideration, of who he is playing with......are they blind.

jack was trying to do it all again.....he was let down by too many tonight.

 

[VillaChris]

Surely if all these games v top 4-6 teams are deemed winnable and missed opportunities when we don't that shows we've adapted well to this level and far quicker than expected. Be honest in August I'm sure many on here were expecting more Man. City style defeats away from home (even that wasn't too bad) or even some like in the dark days of Lambert/Sherwood/Garde.

Norwich fans certainly don't see games v Chelsea as must win or whatever (even though they had that win v Man. City) and for their great start Sheffield United have only actually had Arsenal as a "big" win. They drew with Man. United as we did.

We're doing o.k especially as in the opening few games I wasn't seeing a huge goal threat from us so the next 10 games have been a big surprise with us regularly scoring at least twice in a game.

Of course you'd want to be more points clear from the bottom 3 but it has been a really odd premier league so far. Last season Huddersfield and Fulham were all but relegated so the standard is miles better at the bottom this year, even more so if Watford pick up a decent manager.

After their display at the weekend I thought Spurs would comfortably beat Man. United tonight. Looked at the stats after 70 minutes and Man. United had 7 shots on target compared to Spurs one shot. Man. United's wildly contrasting performances over the last three days sum up the weird nature of the premier league this season.

It's not like we're 10 points off 9th or 10th. I think with a good January window we could actually be in contention for those places in the final weeks which would mean a fantastic first season back up here.