Chelsea v Everton. 11th Feb at 19.45.

[AaronTheBlue]

Clearly jumping to his right to save, has to shift left once he sees the ball has gone through all three of his defenders' legs. One of them has to block it, otherwise Howard is seeing it far too late to react.

no, he doesn't make any movement to his right, he is darting to the left. no excuse not to stick his hand out.

 

[AndyC]

Overall, a solid if largely uninspring performance.
Wasn't happy that TH got the over Robles, but he did fine and was unlucky with their goal.
Ref spoilt the game by booking Mo inside 5 mins as it meant it was nailed on that there would be a red for someone.
Why wasn't Mirallas brought on at HT for Nais who contributed nothing?
Rom got too good a contact on the second half cross, if he'd mis hit it, he would have scored. And I'm sorry, but bringing Gibson on in effect put us down to ten men so when Barry got the red, we were in effect down to nine.

 

[Jimmy Flangemoth]

He didn't though.

It was hit straight at him.

Ace save, mate. Bestest save in the whole wide world!

 

[Blue Cheese]

I read these comments on here and I'm prone to a good fume myself. I honestly cannot fume tonight, wasn't long ago that I couldn't watch us play because I knew we would get beat. I don't feel like that now, we're improving.

Getting beat by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge 1-0 in the last minute is not fume material!!

 

[mrb85]

I would be happy now with a top 8-10 finish, and winning the EL. And I think we have the team and manager to do it. So let's not get too down eh lads.

Happy, I'd be f*****n delirious!!!

The men in white coats should be knocking on your door very soon......

 

[Del]

Wow! Amazing! We won't get relegated!
5th last season, £28m forward and people are happy we probably won't go down. Pathetic.

So your not happy we won't go down?

 

[Bilbo]

Hazard is a cheating cnut. He bought 2 yellows for us tonight.

 

[Big_nev]

We didn't have any chance's to score then?

Yes we did that's not what I was saying, I was more pointing out the fact that we never got players up the pitch quickly enough on a regular basis to have a consistent threat. Being so deep gave Chelsea free reign of the pitch and we never had a base to get going.

 

[PhilM]

I would be happy now with a top 8-10 finish, and winning the EL.

Eight or ninth would be difficult but possibly achievable, being eleven and seven points behind respectively. Tenth to twelfth is a fair prediction.

Personally, the whole we will win the 'Europa League' is a pipe dream. There are far too many good teams compared to our current state.

Right now I would purely take survival and some signs that this season is merely a blip, rather than more deep rooted problems.

 

[kenada_blue]

The type of performance that desperate relegation threatened teams put in. Make no mistake the manager and team are in fear right now, they realise we are in a relegation scrap and hope to grind out a few results. Villa will get a new manager and will pull clear if the drops one. You never know the same might be true of qpr. If we accept that palace and west Brom are safe that leaves burnley Leicester hull and sunderland as our only rivals for the drop. Leicester are probably gone but what if they sack Pearson and the new man galvanises them. Burnley hull and sunderland are all capable of stringing a few results together. We are in deep deep trouble and could go down as I can't believe the players believe in this kind of anti football.

Paul Lambert's free now isnt he?

 

[Jxg]

Re: Howard- maybe I'm being harsh- he was fine throughout. Just that goal had a whiff of some of his earlier 'attempts' at saves this season. Kneejerk from me perhaps though.

As far as the Liverpool reference goes- my disdain for Chelsea comes from the fact that their fans (all of the ones I've spoken to anyway) seem to have no appreciation for what they had before Abramovic. At least Man City had decent support before their money arrived (decent crowds when in Div 2.) Chelsea fans just seem arrogant and lack class- hence my 'history' jibe. Given one of our most popular chants is also 'Grand old team'- I would say we're pretty enthusiastic about ours too, rightly so.

We have one chant that mentions the word "history" once.

That's a lot different to a scathing attack on all Chelsea fans telling them that they have no history at all. (which is exactly what the team across the park does to City, Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and every other team bar United.)

 

[paule1981]

Don't think anyone is happy with that mate.

Some people seem to be mate. Martinez has lost the plot and he will not turn this around. People quoting that the morale looks great, couldn't disagree more. None of them look like they're enjoying their football.

 

[barneygumble]

I think the players did great today, i really do.

But again, the criticism lies with Martinez, it's easy to be kneejerk, but when they're playing a decent counter attacking game, why change the system? Then leave Naismith, who with each passing game, is become a joke, he does literally nothing anymore.

Lukaku had a good game, and typical for us that a world class save stopped us taking the lead today, but why did we need three holding midfielders on the pitch today, and crucially why after 3 consecutive clean sheets was Robles dropped? What kind of message does that give to Robles? Play well, and it's not enough? What about Howard? Doesn't matter how good you are (or bad!), you're a guaranteed starter.

Shame, as we played so well for 65 mins!

 

[keverton]

Apart from the two goal line clearances by their keeper. Yeah.

You're talking out of your arse. We're playing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge ffs.

Also are you counting saves by there goalkeeper as goal line clearances In that case how many did we have?

 

[Zwolle]

Had a good go tonight. Martinez will do something daft in the next PL game though.