Manchester City 1-0 Chelsea: One of the worst Chelsea performances I’ve ever seen.

Chelsea were beaten by Manchester City for the second time this season in one of the worst Chelsea performances I have ever seen. 

I have not read anyone else’s post-match reports, I have not tuned in to hear what the post-match debate was after the final whistle blew and I have purposely kept my distance from anything to do with the game because I wanted to post how I personally felt about the game.

Taking some time to think about it, the game-plan was OK I guess. We turned up to stifle City, to remain compact defensively and to frustrate them by denying them the space to play their football. From that side of the game we played well. City were more than frustrated despite their dominance and think about it, how many times was Thibaut Courtois forced into a save?

However, the second part of our game plan, to hit them on the counter-attack failed drastically and made us look like a laughing stock. It didn’t work at all and Chelsea literally offered no form of attack until late in the game. For a club sitting fifth in the Premier League, a club that is the current champions and for a club with the attacking talent we have it was a complete embarrassment and I feel for the fans that made the journey up north to watch it.

Let’s go back to last season and compared the way we counter-attacked City in that second half. We were a goal down, we came out and hit City on the counter three times to win the game 3-1. You look at that team compared to yesterday and it’s remarkable the change it really is (more on that in my next post).

Our starting eleven was wrong if we were looking to play that way and deny City but look to play counter-attacking football. Either Alvaro Morata or Olivier Giroud should have started in place of Pedro who at the moment seems to be going through the motions and offering us nothing. As soon as the City left back was booked, the young kid, we should have moved Hazard to that side to torment him, to attack him down that side at every opportunity but it didn’t happen. We did not make any changes in the game until it was far too late.

Pedro could not pass a ball to save his life yesterday and he wasn't the only one, Willian is really frustrating me at the moment too. Yes, he has scored some important goals of late I acknowledge and accept that, but what I will not accept is throwing your arms around, moaning constantly at the Referee when you do not get a decision to go your way and then decide to literally sit on the floor or walk back rather than bust a gut to win the ball back as we have been so used to seeing. Both of them should be dropped for Palace next weekend.

I am all for playing defensive and compact in the first-half to frustrate City, to then come out and attack them in the second half as we did last season but we didn’t do that. The head-coach was more than happy to revert to type as far as Italian football goes and play defensive for 80% of the game which for me is unacceptable.

This performance yesterday will encourage a new level of criticism for the head-coach this week and rightly so. He refused to make changes to the system and the players who were not performing as they should in attack until it was too late despite the fact that it was obvious that something needed to be done. It was clear for all to see that we offered nothing going forward even when we conceded the goal just seconds into the re-start after half-time. We needed to change our approach as we were now chasing he game but nothing, literally nothing.

I can sit here and write all day long but I’ve said enough and will hand the rest over to you in the comments. My next post which has come out at the same time will be about the manager so make sure you check that out too.

All I am going to ask here, for those of you who would like to make your feelings known in the comments, is “What did you think of Chelsea yesterday?”