Conte has probably told him to sit off, as that's what everyone else is inexplicably doing, and that negates his effectiveness. In the first few games he was easily our best player not called Diego Costa.
Conte has probably told him to sit off, as that's what everyone else is inexplicably doing, and that negates his effectiveness. In the first few games he was easily our best player not called Diego Costa.
That is my point. It is easier to be 'all over central midfield' when you concede possession and reduce the size of the midfield like Leicester did. In a team that expects to dominate most of its games you either get pulled around or you negate your main attributes by maintaining your discipline and trying to be a more rounded midfielder (like Roy Keane was). He looked good for France because he was the designated closer-downer in a painfully negative midfield; but if Chelsea want to defend and attack with theirs he might just end up being a less useful version of Nemanja Matic.
Pretty much.
Well I think you're underestimating the amount of ground he covered at Leicester, and also confusing the way they played as a team.
His positioning is fine. It's just Chelsea as a team at the moment.
Kanté is an odd one to pull up for positioning given the lunatic(s) immediately behind him as well.
It was more of a general point.
Did the great Chelsea Phantom Manager ever lose to Arsenal like that? This is like when 'LvG' got bummed by them last year and buried Alex Ferguson's lol hold over the fixture.
The Phantom Manager left at the same time as Drogba, not coincidentally.
Shut it.
Fight fight fight
Shame Crolla is fighting now because I'd actually like to watch match of the day for once.
I was at Villa Newcastle today. Villa were shit until about the 75th minute.
The boxing is good, watch that.
What happened to putting good games on Sundays? This morning was a massive pain with three good fixtures in a row.
I've noticed that, and I'm normally able to come up with a massively cynical theory for these things but I'm struggling with this one.
Maybe they want to avoid a ratings war with Songs of Praise.
It seems totally contrary to the general trend of putting big games out on their own (on Fridays and Mondays no less).
Today was stupid because all three games I watched (though I went back to sleep after half an hour of United-Leicester, whoops, not that seeing United score gives me great joy) ended up being terribly one-sided. Although it was nice that when Liverpool were finished the tv switched to Crystal Palace just in time to see Benteke score.
I've put Aberdeen v Rangers on, for reasons best known to myself, to find unspecified 'ugly scenes' between the two sets of fans. Scotland should just close its football down.
They absolutely hate each other. Aberdeen fans were doing a minutes appluase in the twelve minute to commemorate the death of Oldco
Why? I suppose Aberdeen need to manufacture rivalries as Peterhead don't quite cut it.
Two appalling sides, based on that half of football.
Scottish football exists purely to sate the bitterness of its people.
it scottish football particularly shite or is about the standard you'd expect for a country of its size?
Torino-Roma was fun and open. One of those 'where's the midfield?' games. Dzeko was rubbish. Roma have just gone backwards over the last three seasons, with Totti wearing down, Gervinho gone and a worse Gervinho (Salah) come in, and Pjanic now gone too.
I just watched City on MOTD. No real signs of losing, or drawing, yet, but they've got a bugger of a run to come after Celtic get pummelled: Spurs (a), Everton (h), Barcelona (a), Southampton (h), Man Utd (a) (EFL Cup), West Brown (a), Barcelona (h).
*checks where Gervinho has gone*
*lols*
As always in these Scottish things, I start out thinking the Old Firm are the problem, but then when you see how small time every other club is it puts it into a bit of perspective. Rangers just equalised via a completely indisputable penalty and Aberdeen fans have been booing for five minutes since, at I'm not sure what.
David Gold's 'license for 60,000' tweet might've just made my weekend.
Crikey the Olympic Stadium looks terrible on TV. As do Southampton.
It happens every year. They're obligated to cover each team a certain amount per season so they get all the shit offs in early before they have actual decisions to make on who to cover.
Dennis Wise looks odd, like baked skin stretched across a gurning little skull.
I thought this when they had a rugby match there last year. Between the distance to the pitch (and the general openness) and the crap acoustics, it is as if they designed it specifically to prevent an atmosphere breaking out. Hopefully that bubble machine can go some way towards addressing that, but everything you will ever do there will feel like a pre-season Chinese friendly.
It's a stadium for people who don't like sport, isn't it?
Less a clever dummy by Tadic and more just terrible by Adrian.
Redmond's looking like a smart buy.
The City of Manchester Stadium was built for the Commonwealth Games (lol remember that?), and that isn't a cavernous shambles. Stadium Australia is alright for atmosphere as well if you can fill it.
The Mancs evidently had half an idea of what to do with it afterwards (and being northern they looked to the resale value), the Olympic stadium was always going to be a massively expensive vanity project (plus instead of some oil soaked arabs they had a couple of Jewish businessmen to flog it to), kind of epitomises the olympics as a whole. Case in point: Seb 'Lord Sebastian' Coe.
Are they really pumping in crowd noise? That's just wonderful
I think Stadium Australia has had as much spent on refurbishing it away from being a vast cavernous hole as was spent building it initially to be fair.
That Burnley team is a joke.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37470381
Aurier sentenced to two months for elbowing a pig.