As much as I blame the players for their performances, I mainly point the finger at Pochettino for going with such an open and attacking side. The biggest decision of all to play Alli in central midfield alongside Eric Dier was crucial as Alli (or Dele as he currently wishes to be known as) offers nowhere near the defensive cover that Dembele, Wanyama or Sissoko offers. It also took away from our attacking options as Alli's biggest strength is getting into dangerous positions. A friend of mine made a comment I think summed up the team selection brilliantly: Imagine Chelsea going into a game with Matic, Kante and Mikel all on the bench when fully fit and ready to play. It just wouldn't happen and yet that's exactly what we did in perhaps our biggest game of the season so far.
Still, there's a long way to go and hopefully we will still come through the group but it's going to be a much tougher task from here on in.
To answer a few of Gert's questions: With Stoke I think the problem comes with having maybe a few too many 'mercurial' players. Shaqiri, Arnautovic, Bojan are all players who look fantastic when things are going well and look good enough to play for any of the biggest clubs... However there's possibly a reason they aren't and that's when things aren't going well they haven't got the mentality to help the team grind out a result or at the very least up their efforts. I'd have faith in Hughes to turn things around, but they had a very poor end to last season and this has started in the same form. Bony looked ok, but obviously lacking lots of match fitness. He should improve them over the next few weeks.
Southampton are a curious one to me and honestly, I don't know what to expect. Not knowing much of Puel's history it's hard to say whether he could be another Remi Garde at Aston Villa or another Koeman. Encouraging signs in the Europa League last night, but it seems fairly obvious they are missing a top quality striker. Pelle maybe wasn't an outstanding striker but he'd always get a good return of goals. Leaving themselves with just Long and Austin, it looks very light indeed. Add in the departure of Mane and there is a huge cutting edge stripped away that hasn't been replaced. I'm looking forward to seeing Boufal in action though as he could be a brilliant signing for them.
Fantasy Football - remember guys that as there is the Chelsea v Liverpool game tonight, the deadline for transfers and team changes is later this evening!
My return of 89 points is I think my biggest ever single game week points return, so I'm certainly very pleased with that! I wasn't so confident at half time of the Everton game though lol. I was seething that Lukaku still hadn't scored and in jest suggested that I fully expected Bolasie to get subbed on 59 minutes (and thus miss out on a clean sheet point), Lukaku to not score and Defoe to nick a winner to take away my clean sheet lol. Thankfully for me that didn't happen and Lukaku's devastating hat trick in 11 minutes left me feeling very pleased ;)
Just the one transfer for me this week and one I made on Saturday night (so can probably guess who!) I'll be relying on Everton again v Middlesbrough but certainly not expecting the same returns! I'm kinda tempted to captain Benteke at home to Stoke as they really did look woeful against us last weekend. Zlatan has to be in with a shout also against a Watford side that has already conceded 9 goals. And of course Lukaku who tends to score in patches and so cannot be ignored against a similarly leaky Boro side.
Should be a good game tonight between Chelsea and Liverpool. Plenty of potential for goals, red cards and incidents! Plus it should give us an idea of where both teams are in relation to their real league form.
Can't go without mentioning Manchester United losing 1-0 to Feyenoord yesterday in the Europa League. United's starting 11 cost a miserly £385million to put together, so no wonder they came a cropper. They should have spent some damn money in the summer rather than keeping the chequebook locked away! I mean, how can they hope to compete on such a tiny budget compared to the other teams in the competition?
And not a very good one as was highlighted by the enormous amount of space that Watford's sub Zuniga found himself for their 2nd and 3rd goals. Did Mourinho really not have any instructions for his team to counter Watford's subs or did the players simply not listen to him?
On the subject of Steve Bruce have you seen his dramatic weight loss since resigning from Hull? All credit to him, although if ever there was an advert for staying away from football management, I think that was it!
