- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
The Football.....
- Thread starter Spartak
- Start date
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Pro Tour Punditry
Guru
Just brilliant. Loved watching the highlights. This is what fitba is all about.
Pro Tour Punditry
Guru
Dennis Wise WTF
swee'pea99
Legendary Member
Just watched MoTD, amazing. Can't recall a day like it, ever. Well done all the minnows - especially, obviously, Bradford. To come back from two down. Really, amazing.
Pro Tour Punditry
Guru
Despite the best efforts of the BBC in trying to get Gabby Logan to concentrate on the negative aspects the pundits did well.
Pro Tour Punditry
Guru
F*ck me, there's an awful lot of miserable managers in the lower divisions. Lighten up you nobbers!
Accy cyclist
Legendary Member
- Location
- The hills of Accrington
Man City spent the week in a "warm weather training camp" in Dubai before their defeat to Middlesbrough. Their holiday didn't work then!
Bradford's win must be the shock of the round. Did Chelsea field their reserves?
Bradford's win must be the shock of the round. Did Chelsea field their reserves?
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Quietly chuffed at my team's performance in ending Hearts unbeaten run.
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
Man City spent the week in a "warm weather training camp" in Dubai before their defeat to Middlesbrough. Their holiday didn't work then!
@Accy cyclist
Our first team would've have included Courtois, Ivanovic, Terry, Matic, Fabregas, Hazard, Willian, (probably) and Costa from the off. None started.
Of these eight, two (Fabregas & Willian) came on at 70 mins and Hazard came on at 76 mins.
We started with two very inexperienced 'kids' in defence (Christensen & Zouma) - both of whom have promise esp' Zouma imo. This was again imo Jose's fatal flaw - our defence was absolutely shocking. To let in four at the Bridge is just ludicrous.
To answer your question then technically it's a no. It was far from our 'A' team more like B and a bit.
What went wrong for Chelsea?
Jose got it catastrophically wrong at the back.
He used the sub's too late and then played a very high line to win the match leaving an unusual, for Chelsea, amount of space at the back and Bradford City took advantage of this.
In all honesty I am glad Bradford beat us in lieu of eg City etc - that would've been more painful.
I hope Jose got a kick up the butt on this one.
And whilst our best eleven is astonishingly strong it exposes our small squad ethos (which Jose loves) - our second string players are a gulf away from our first. But, to be fair to them they don't get much playing time as Jose's rotation policy is all or nothing and it failed him yesterday.
To be fair to Jose, and apart from the two poor choice defenders. the selected team should've have beaten Bradford.
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Roadhump
Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted
- Location
- The flatlands of South West Lancs
To be fair and in no way dissing Bradford who were ace on the day, even Chelsea's second string should have the quality to beat a League 1 side. However, it isn't as straightforward as that imo, a lot of PL sides come a cropper against lower league opposition when they put out a side that on paper should cope comfortably. I think it is the fact regardless of ability, the players are thrown in for a big game without having had time to gel as a team, and having no opportunity to get a rhythm or momentum going. Managers may counter that by saying they train together but it can't be the same. One of the things that infuriates me about Roberto Martinez this season is his unpredictable and ever changing team selection, as far as I'm concerned put out your strongest 11 for every game and if you get injuries deal with it. As Robbie Fowler said on MOTD last night, why can't players play 2 games a week? Mollycoddled prima donnas the lot of them!!
And we scored two more after. There are no excuses.
The thing that makes it so remarkable is that it was not a lucky win, Bradford City were better than Chelsea.The Chelsea fans were given a lesson too.
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
And we scored two more after. There are no excuses.
The Chelsea fans were given a lesson too.
@MarkF
Yes, you did score two after the sub's and good for Bradford. But we did too little from the start and then when the sub's came on, as I have already posted, we went for the win and left a ludicrous amount of space for you to attack compounded by a totally sub-par defence.
In reality it was a great day for the FA Cup and a fantastic day for Bradford.
Not sour grapes as we were well and truly done over but I think with our best eleven starting it would've been a different story. With Ivanovic & Terry in the centre with Matic in front it would've been a very different story.
No idea why Jose did not start strong and then taper down towards the back end.
Epic fail!
NB: a large portion of CFC fans paid tribute to Bradford at the end which was a really nice touch too!
Smokin Joe
Squire
- Location
- Bare headed cyclist, Smoker
Yesterday's results could run in our favour. Any complacency among the players will have been well knocked out of them and a certain amount of pressure now shifts to Bristol City, their fans will have much higher expectations than normal.
