Chez

we were fortunate to be leading considering how shit we were first half, so don't see it as dropping two points. Fought hard in the second half and made life harder for them. Didn't do much going forward, but the balance between attack and defence hasn't been right so we had to be more reserved.

thank god we leave 29 points goodbye

Djenepo has defended well, and worked hard, but thats lazy and almost cost us.

lovely skills from Djenepo. Should be anther yellow.

great workrate and block Romeu

excellent stop

Excellent Redmond. Simple stuff, drop the should and get a cross in. Great header too. Unlucky Saints.

another good tackle from Djenepo. He doesn't mind a slide tackle does he. Coem on Saints. Chelsea can go to sleep at times.

got the byeline for the first time in about 3 years. Nice

Djenepo's putting in a decent shift defensively.

good play Romeu. More of that needed.

I'm not talking about that challenge. You are right, that may have been painful. I'm talking about almost every time anyone touches him in past Saints games.

I know Djenepo has been caught a couple of times, but in general, boy does he make a meal of things. He rolls around crying like a baby then a minute later he's fine. He basically tries to con the ref, maybe not with the Kante challenge, but others and I think the refs are wise to him. He's perhaps become the boy that cries wolf

don't think you can request yellows via VAR can they?

Get in there. What a brilliant finish. Football, bloody hell.

we are getting run ragged. We are wide open everywhere. We look likely to concede with every attack. Thankfully we haven't. Got to adjust quickly.

I've wondered if this would be beginning of the end of football as a live spectator sport? The thrill of witnessing a goal is what going to games is all about. Without the thrill, what are you left with? Its fine for TV viewers as you get to see the replays and dare I say it, you are less emotionally entwined in the action. If I was an owner, I'd be slightly concerned that VAR may be damaging my product in the long term, assuming people stop going to games because of it.

every season is the same, they moan how shit he is for the first ten or so games, then he wins a shed load of games to get them in the promotion hunt, they lose in the play offs and then he is back to being shit again. It must be difficult for their fans to know if this is good or bad news.

the save from Mane is top draw. I don't recall ever seeing that. Fair play, but most of the others are just good saves and ones you'd expect him or anyone else to save. I recall discussing Forster's ability at length on several previous threads. I have said in the past that he gets himself into good positions. He is a big old lad and that makes him hard to beat if strikers just hit is hard. He's an imposing figure and at times he is a bit of ball magnet. On the flip side though, for low shots in the corner he just doesn't get down quickly enough. For a big guy his command of the box is woeful. He has never come off his line to claim catches - and that worked well with VVD and Fonte (and Morgan and Wanyama and Ricky etc.) as everyone knew where they stood and won everything. Less so when we didnt have that strength on the air. Maybe with vestagaard and Bednerak it can work again.

we use a hell of a lot of energy chasing after the ball when we lose it. A lot of energy is spent by midfielders working hard to fill gaps and in the first half of games we often look pretty tight at the back because of that. In the second half, gaps open as those midfielders get a bit more tired and can't race across to fill gaps when opponents wor the space. That's when our defenders face more one on ones, without any cover, and that's perhaps why we concede more in the second half (not sure how true that is) - individuals, like Vestegaard, get done by quality attackers. It would be good to be able to sub central midfielders a bit more often.

he wouldn't be on our bench is he had done it in the past.

I notice there aren't any comments today about Ings not trying.

McCarthy is a massive problem because he doesn't save pens and is beaten from 8 yards? McCarthy is no world beater (I'm not his biggest fan) and has certainly been at fault for some goals (what keepers aren't?), but he has also made a lot of outstanding saves over the last year or so to keep us in games. They of course are forgotten, although I guess that is his job. I'm still waiting for Foster to make what you'd call an outstanding (world class) save.

cheers. Vestagaard made to look as slow as he is.

Have to ask if there was an offside in the build up. The guy who heads it seemed to come back from an offside position. No replay on my stream. Anyone else get one that went that far back?