Ibn Battuta

I disagree, strongly. He clearly has lost a step. I don’t remember the game, maybe Bournemouth? I witnessed him losing a running duel which he never would have lost prior to his injury imo. I know there is a big difference between tall and heavy NBA players and little Odoi but this article is a good read on how severe the injury is: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sbnation.com/platform/amp/nba/2018/1/27/16940178/nba-achilles-injury-history-kevin-durant-golden-state-warriors-future What made Odoi pop before his injury was his quick explosiveness from 0kmh. I believe he will need more time to get back.

An Achilles tear is absolutely horrific for a player like him. He needs a full year under his belt to get back at least. Meanwhile we should not be using him other than as an impact sub in the final minutes when the opposition has tired.

Love that final goal, could watch it again and again. Look how Tammy opens up his body as he receives the ball to deceive Mustafi as if he is going right. Italian dark arts that. Very intelligent but subtle play by Tammy.

If there are two games you would want Jorginho to play, it’s the two against Arsenal. This league is super competitive and the margin for error is small. The coaching staff simply can’t make such fatal errors. It almost costs us big time. 5 at the back is also crazy with two FBs who can’t cross well and neither are a back room threat of significance

Three at the back with two of the least offensive full backs in the league in Emerson and Azpi. That is hard to understand.

Willian is a very good player obviously. He has a great combination of power, pace and technique. Talent wise he is up there with the best wingers of the world. And I guess that’s one of the reasons he draws so much criticism. He delivers consistently good performances but the great ones should come more often. But I believe Lampard has had an amazing effect on him this season. He has elevated Willian and Willian has responded with great emotion to that. He isn’t just a follower but actually takes a leadership position in the team and is the one who sets the standard for the other players. Long may it continue.

I don’t know about this. To me the obvious way to defend us is to stretch the team as much as you can. Play with great distances between players and avoid playing a very low and compact defensive block. I thought Aston Villa got it right tactically in the first half by doing exactly that. The tactic left acres of space all over the pitch but with no Jorginho, and Kante/Kovacic in the middle, it wasn’t very risky. We depend a lot on Jorginho. Especially as we don’t have any good ball playing CBs.

Give credit to Frank. Willian is such a moody player. He needs to feel loved to perform I feel. And loved Frank has certainly made him feel. He has been overly positive when talking about him and if you follow our Instagram account you will see a tremendous amount of positive posts about Willian. I wouldn’t be surprised if Frank instructed our social media team to hype him up. Long may it continue. He looks fantastic.

Nobody could see this coming. This Chelsea side is so far making a mockery of common football wisdom. Playing this well this early with two of our best players out for so long (Rudiger and Kante) with unproven players in key positions. Very very impressive. Kovacic is looking like a different beast, just as I said he would be before the season. Not surprised and long may in continue. Our record against the top teams may not end up looking good, but that may not be such a bad thing. It seems Lampard is refusing to play the sensible cynical game against the top teams in order to develop a team that he wants to achieve greater things in the long run. That means growing pains with humiliating and frustrating results. I’m sure he could play it more safe but I really think he understands that in order to be more than “good”, in order to become European elite, you have to sacrifice for growth. He could probably get 5 or 6 points more by being more cynical but he would lose 11 or 12 points next season by doing so. Think big.

1. Lampard is impressing me with his game management. We played with a lot of distance between midfield and defence but I think it was a deliberate tactic in order to stretch Ajax and prevent them from playing their kind of fotball. They never looked comfortable and couldn’t adjust. 2. Balls of steel to hold Pulisic back for so long when the game was screaming for him. So much space to attack. It was a game made for him. Once he came on though he not only had the benefit of the game fitting him, the opposition was also walking on sand at that point. 3. Bats looks so much better this season. Biggest weakness was probably his positioning and lack of impact off the ball. Good movement. Right place right time. Looks like a proper striker now.

Very good spot. The fake movements from Abraham are clever Italian striker aged 32 worthy. Disguises his movements and attacks players like a Picasso painting. If you look very closely at his final goal you can even see how he twists his foot in all directions before coming at full stop and then making the defender look like prime Torres is coming at him. Exciting player for sure. As for the game; I was disappointed not to see Pulisic start. Felt the game was made for him. Credit to Alonso for coming in and going the business after being left for cold so far. Smart player who will deliver when given the conditions to do so. He is not Ashley Cole, but he is sufficiently good at specific roles. Biggest worry for me is the amount of naive errors we make. Our biggest enemy is ourselves. If you are up by three do you really need to play hero ball in the most dangerous areas of the pitch? Some of our players just don’t play the game in context.

Kovacic, as I precicted, is looking much much better when told to use his natural ability to run with the ball. Much harder to defend now. Pulisic is a fun one. Lethal with the ball and a danger even with his back to goal. We still commit way to many men in front of the ball. Leaving our defence exposed to the bone.

People talking about VAR but what put me over the edge was Atkinson not giving a yellow card for the clearest yellow card of the century. Appalling.

Very weird as Luiz seems a good fit for the way Lampard wants to play. Much better on the ball than Zouma for example. We got worse by selling him. Arsenal got better. But the dressing room effect is hard to predict. Lampard knows that better than us.

Legs have gone for several players.