Ratings & Reactions: Chelsea v Villa

[Sulberto21]

6 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

There is some very strange MOTM voting on here, I'm convinced some people do not even watch the games and they also make some stupid wind up idiotic comments. **** off back to you're own clubs forums.

I voted for to be added later turns out it was Steer lol.

[danceoftheshamen]

So the FA (represented by Atwell) and Sky got the result they craved. 

Poor finishing from us throughout, good finishing by them, sloppy mistakes from us (Norm) and a Ref who couldn't wait to dish out yellows to our players but was petrified to give them to their players being a scummy 6 side & all.

So a totally normal Premier League game away at a Scummy 6 club basically.

Thank God it's out of the way as it might actually be worth watching the next one.

 

[AntrimBlack]

We were very good first half, but their keeper was excellent. It was a mixture of missed chances and very good saves by their keeper.

Mings with one of his frequent balls ups killed us. Uphill struggle after that against a very good side with many excellent players.

We won't face a team of their quality many times this season.

A number of our players are still getting up to speed, but we showed some promising signs today, and we can and will get better..

[Okonokos]

1 minute ago, Tayls said:

Four points from 12… let’s face it it’s probably going to be four from 15… I’d say we are quite close. 
Teams are capable of looking great for certain periods of matches. However we still made mistakes which lead to conceding, and we failed to score despite all the attempts. Wins are going to be very few and far between this season. 
If Chelsea has put away two more of their attempts on target, making it a 5-0 score line, would people have been happy? I don’t think so.

I mean there's focusing on the negatives and then there's focusing on negatives that didn't even happen. Staggering.

[maqroll]

5 minutes ago, Brumstopdogs said:

A really promising performance from Jacob Ramsey I thought. Think he's getting better this season and love the way he isn't scared to run with the ball. Certainly an exciting one for the future.

An exciting one for the present!

[Tayls]

Just now, Okonokos said:

Play like that and we'll win more than we lose. We were great.

We lost 3-0 having made defensive errors again and failed to score despite a large number of attempts. Please, I’m struggling to see why that is great and worth celebrating? 

[HanoiVillan]

Baffled by those who've put Steer as man of the match, is this an inside joke that I've missed?

[sheepyvillian]

15 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

The performance was better than the result.

Thank God for that. Can you imagine the meltdown on here if we had been really poor ?

[Tayls]

Some individuals played well. But as a team it was miles away from where we need to be. 

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Baffled by those who've put Steer as man of the match, is this an inside joke that I've missed?

At one point before the poll had been finished off there were only two options - both of which said "to be added" - those were the top two options - many people voted before the players names were added. 

 

[Xela]

1 minute ago, Tayls said:

Four points from 12… let’s face it it’s probably going to be four from 15… I’d say we are quite close. 
Teams are capable of looking great for certain periods of matches. However we still made mistakes which lead to conceding, and we failed to score despite all the attempts. Wins are going to be very few and far between this season. 
If Chelsea has put away two more of their attempts on target, making it a 5-0 score line, would people have been happy? I don’t think so.

We lost to the European champions. Plus you're predicting we're already going to lose next week when there is noting to suggest that at all? 

If we had scored with our 5 shots on target, we would have won so not sure what point you are making? It's not been a great start I agree, but we're not 'awful'. Thats just hyperbole. 

I appreciate some posters will always look at stuff from a glass half empty view but we're not a bad team in the slightest. Have more faith! 

[sheepyvillian]

1 minute ago, Tayls said:

We lost 3-0 having made defensive errors again and failed to score despite a large number of attempts. Please, I’m struggling to see why that is great and worth celebrating? 

No one is celebrating and no one is saying we were great. What they're saying is, we can take a lot of positives from that performance.  Let's have it right. 

[Shirtman]

A lot to be positive about.

We bossed midfield.

Defence need to cut out errors,

Ings and Watkins need to learn to find each other

[HanoiVillan]

If the game had ended at half time, I would be in here strongly agreeing with the brilliant defeat/play-like-that-and-we'll-win-more-than-we-lose takes, but we were poor second half, didn't create many clear-cut chances.

I do agree it was a very good first half performance, but before people get too excited, it's worth remembering we won't be playing a guy who's never kicked a ball in English football every week. Once he went off, our main avenue for building attacks was gone, and we really didn't have too many other ideas IMO.

[Okonokos]

Just now, Tayls said:

We lost 3-0 having made defensive errors again and failed to score despite a large number of attempts. Please, I’m struggling to see why that is great and worth celebrating? 

We played well and created lots of chances against a top defensive team, proving we don't need Greasy to create chances. We also did so playing a totally new formation and still not being at full strength with several key places either missing or not being fit.

It was not a 3-0 game at all. Not even close. We could have scored 4 in the first half alone. Our pressing was superb and shows real promise. We'll cause lesser teams a lot of problems playing like that.

Not sure how you can't see that.

[May-Z]

9 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

I think the tactics were a gamble. Smith put all his cards on going all out in attack and getting enough goals to counter Chelsea’s own goal threat.

We couldn’t score, we gave away two soft goals, we were tired out by the second half. 

There was a sort of heroic nobility in the way we went on attacking but I’m wondering if the selection, team formation or tactics weren’t quite right, or if it’s just that individual players didn’t quite come up to the standard required.

I think there may have been a better way to try to deal with Chelsea, particularly since a number of their players were having poor games. But most people commenting here seem to have enjoyed the performance so maybe Smith got it right.

I don't think it was a gamble.

Smith would have  looked at our last match against them, analysed the fact they had shit loads of the ball in the centre and built from the back, and played two up front (plus an extra CM) to press and cut that off.

IMO, it worked very well. We went down by an insanely good ball from Kovacic, a mistake, and a last minute worldly. I don't think that's down to the tactics.

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

Tuchel very complimentary of us then in his interview

[May-Z]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

If the game had ended at half time, I would be in here strongly agreeing with the brilliant defeat/play-like-that-and-we'll-win-more-than-we-lose takes, but we were poor second half, didn't create many clear-cut chances.

I do agree it was a very good first half performance, but before people get too excited, it's worth remembering we won't be playing a guy who's never kicked a ball in English football every week. Once he went off, our main avenue for building attacks was gone, and we really didn't have too many other ideas IMO.

Once he went off, we conceded a goal from a mistake within two minutes. I think that had a bigger impact rather than Saul going off.

[TomC]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

[snip]...it's worth remembering we won't be playing a guy who's never kicked a ball in English football every week. Once he went off, our main avenue for building attacks was gone, and we really didn't have too many other ideas IMO.

This is an excellent point. I praised how many of Chelsea's players were world class, but Saúl clearly was not.

The good news is that at least half the teams in the Premier League will field players who will play like he did, and won't have anybody better to bring off the bench.

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by TomC
Changed "played" to "will play"

[HKP90]

Chelsea xG 1.22.

Villa xG 1.17.

Nothing in it.