Rivals Football - Chelsea FC

We have a young inexperienced manager with a young inexperienced team. Games like yesterday will happen, whether Frank becomes a great manager will depend on how he reacts to these situations.

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All true, and I didn’t go into this CL campaign with expectations we’d go far, particularly given the draw (and I posted after it that dropping down to the Europa might actually be better for us in terms of getting CL football next year, when we’re more prepared to have a go at it). Plus, injuries are making a tough job even harder.
But I don’t think it means we should be happy with last night and allow certain standards to slip; Frank’s been in the game all his life and the players involved in the penalty melee are experienced internationals.

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We should be happy and I don’t think anyone is. We are short on creativity. I hope CHO, RLC, Pulisic even Kante can add something going forward.

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Hopefully Reece James as well, on the right hand side. I’m looking forward to seeing him.
No doubt missed Mount last night after he went off.

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Agreed, I think losing Mount made a big difference last night.

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Of course, I am not happy, but you have to be realistic, indeed just because it is Frank he is not above criticism.

Do you think what he said about Barkley being the penalty taker was true or damage limitation to protect the boy a bit?

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I think it’s because we’re a lot closer to being where we want to be than I thought we might be at this stage, that adds to the frustration a little bit for me. Frank alluded to it himself afterwards - even though we weren’t amazing last night, we still really should not have lost that game. It’s mad to think we’ve not won any of the 3 home games, given how we started each of them.

As for the pen issue, at first when I saw the quote I thought it was damage limitation and that it’d be dealt with in-house but having seen him say it in the interview, I wonder whether it’s true that Barkley is actually the penalty taker and once he came on, he was then first in line to take it and maybe the others didn’t realise that. If it’s the latter, then that’s still not great as it means the players aren’t clear on the manager’s instructions. There are so many things that can happen on the pitch which a manager and the players can’t account for but there’s no excuse for them not being properly prepared in situations like that IMHO.

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