Thomas Tuchel | Gone to & from Bayern (In Summer)

It's farcical but circles back to you guys having such a huge squad of players with PL experience. You guys are the last team in the league that will ever be able to have grounds for postponement.

Like I mentioned earlier check City's squad size and what they've been putting on their bench for the last few GWs.

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Did you check what we were putting on the bench during much of December?



Kante and Chalobah went off injured during this game because they were forced to play due to a COVID outbreak amongst our other players.

Also I suppose I have a different definition of squad depth - City have the best depth in the league not because they have the most players who have played in the PL previously but because they have the ability to rotate in 6-8 players at any given time without dropping a level. I appreciate your argument vis a vis PL experience but I don't think that's the most relevant metric at the elite level.
 
Did you check what we were putting on the bench during much of December?



Kante and Chalobah went off injured during this game because they were forced to play due to a COVID outbreak amongst our other players.

Also I suppose I have a different definition of squad depth - City have the best depth in the league not because they have the most players who have played in the PL previously but because they have the ability to rotate in 6-8 players at any given time without dropping a level. I appreciate your argument vis a vis PL experience but I don't think that's the most relevant metric at the elite level.

Yeah my point was regarding having experienced players at both club and country level as compared to inexperienced academy players to come on.

Can you count how many total senior squad players were missing for you to field that bench that includes Saul, Barkley, Kovacic and Kepa?

Because id like to deduct the same amount of first teamers from city and Liverpool and check what their 18 man squad would look like.

In terms of quality obviously City have the best squad but both them and Liverpool would end up in far more trouble if they missed the same amount of players as you would have to even reach 1-2 younger players on your bench and none in your starting 11.
 
Yeah my point was regarding having experienced players at both club and country level as compared to inexperienced academy players to come on.

Can you count how many total senior squad players were missing for you to field that bench that includes Saul, Barkley, Kovacic and Kepa?

Because id like to deduct the same amount of first teamers from city and Liverpool and check what their 18 man squad would look like.

In terms of quality obviously City have the best squad but both them and Liverpool would end up in far more trouble if they missed the same amount of players as you would have to even reach 1-2 younger players on your bench and none in your starting 11.

I suppose I just fundamentally disagree. I'd rather have a youth player coming through City under their established regime than the likes of Ross Barkley. We've also been generally unable to call up youth players as there has been an effort to isolate the squads from each other - though this has been relaxed since the turn of the new year.
 
I suppose I just fundamentally disagree. I'd rather have a youth player coming through City under their established regime than the likes of Ross Barkley. We've also been generally unable to call up youth players as there has been an effort to isolate the squads from each other - though this has been relaxed since the turn of the new year.
Mate I appreciate your opinion but usually the depth of a squad is measured by the number of senior players. Unless you are bringing on a highly talented player who is expected to play at the senior level from the age of 17-18 in 99% of the cases any manager would rather have an actual senior player on the bench.

And it's not like those senior players you have are 40 year olds or something. We know what squad you have and you aren't gonna convince that having someone like Kovacic who dropped a motm performance vs Liverpool is the same as having academy players who aren't ready for first team football physically or in terms of ability which is what City has had multiple times in the PL. So we are not discussing and fundamental rule to measure squad depth. We are simply comparing what City get to bring on vs what Chelsea get to bring on.

You guys played each other few days back. These are the squads and this is without city having any sort of injury crisis.

XI | Ederson, Walker, Stones, Laporte, Cancelo, Rodrigo, De Bruyne (C), Bernardo, Sterling, Foden, Grealish

SUBS | Steffen, Dias, Gundogan, Jesus, Fernandinho, Mbete, McAtee, Lavia, Wilson-Esbrand

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City second keeper is around the level of Chelsea third keeper.

As for outfielders they have these guys:Mbete, McAtee, Lavia, Wilson-Esbrand while Chelsea have the likes of Havertz, Werner, Mount, Barkley etc. The guy who finished third place in ballon d'or is your substitute cm.
 
Mate I appreciate your opinion but usually the depth of a squad is measured by the number of senior players. Unless you are bringing on a highly talented player who is expected to play at the senior level from the age of 17-18 in 99% of the cases any manager would rather have an actual senior player on the bench.

And it's not like those senior players you have are 40 year olds or something. We know what squad you have and you aren't gonna convince that having someone like Kovacic who dropped a motm performance vs Liverpool is the same as having academy players who aren't ready for first team football physically or in terms of ability which is what City has had multiple times in the PL. So we are not discussing and fundamental rule to measure squad depth. We are simply comparing what City get to bring on vs what Chelsea get to bring on.

You guys played each other few days back. These are the squads and this is without city having any sort of injury crisis.

XI | Ederson, Walker, Stones, Laporte, Cancelo, Rodrigo, De Bruyne (C), Bernardo, Sterling, Foden, Grealish

SUBS | Steffen, Dias, Gundogan, Jesus, Fernandinho, Mbete, McAtee, Lavia, Wilson-Esbrand

City second keeper is around the level of Chelsea third keeper.

As for outfielders they have these guys:Mbete, McAtee, Lavia, Wilson-Esbrand while Chelsea have the likes of Havertz, Werner, Mount, Barkley etc. The guy who finished third place in ballon d'or is your substitute cm.

You know what, that's fair enough - in my (flimsy) defense I was away all weekend and didn't realise the City bench was so thin.

Appreciate the back and forth mate! Although I don't appreciate your dispelling of my victim complex :mad:
 
Chelsea absolutely have a deep squad - but we don't have "by far the deepest squad in the league".

I‘d say you have the deepest squad in terms of the second players being at a similar level to the first. Early in the season Tuchel could rotate them in and out with no real difference. Your issue is that your top players aren’t anything like as good as those at Liverpool/City (Salah, VVD , Silva, KDB etc). The other issue is that Lukaku is a disastrous signing, who makes most of your other players worse and he thinks he’s above being rotated. He sort of cancels out the advantage of having that deep squad with everyone at a similar level.
 
They're in the final of the Carabao Cup, still in the FA Cup and Champions League and still getting enough points to finish in the top four. It'd be mad to let him go even if they are in a bit of a bad run.

City have created this idea that what they do every season under Guardiola is normal for a side trying to win the league. It's not. They're a freak of nature and if not for them and their insane standards then Chelsea and Tuchel would be fine in the league.

No team have ever won the league with the run of form Chelsea have been on. City or no City
1 win in 7. 3 wins in 11.
 
Chelsea PPG is 1.9 which is around 72 points season, he has enough credit though with CL win. Chelsea are pulled into battle for top 4 place.
 
Him getting sacked and us getting him would be a dream scenario for us as he's probably going to be a good fit to work with Ragnick. It would be very unlikely for him to be sacked though.
 
No team have ever won the league with the run of form Chelsea have been on. City or no City
But even with that run if you remove City’s incredibly consistent runs they go on, things don’t look so bad. I don’t think he should be under any immediate pressure but it’s Abramovich so he probably is.
 
But even with that run if you remove City’s incredibly consistent runs they go on, things don’t look so bad. I don’t think he should be under any immediate pressure but it’s Abramovich so he probably is.

Credit to Klopp for putting together 2 of those runs in the past few years too
 
The rate at which the Chelsea manager hits a crisis and gets spent seems to be accelerating wildly.
 
Losing both full backs have hit them hard.
Imagine City and Liverpool losing their fullbacks for most of the season.
 
Losing both full backs have hit them hard.
Imagine City and Liverpool losing their fullbacks for most of the season.

Indeed. Between them they had 13 goals and assists in the PL so far this season. Compare that to Lukaku, Pulisic, Werner, Havertz and Ziyech who only have a 16 between the 5 of them whilst costing £320m combined! Salah has 25 goals and assists so far this season and in Chelsea's squad Mount has 12 which shows how poor those numbers are.

The missing wingbacks and forwards going missing are Chelsea's biggest issues at the moment.

I do feel Lukaku is a big issue too. Whilst Havertz and Werner are timid in the final moment they at least offer the team some important qualities off the ball. Werner with his running in behind and Havertz has similar intelligent movement to Mount, those two players combine much better than either with Lukaku.
 
He's not wrong when he says the players are burnt out, the football calendar has been unforgiving. They also have a few players who played in the Euros until later stages. With the winter world cup and plans to do the world cup more frequently, clubs have to plan strategically to have separate squads for each competition or else simply treat the cups as U23 or reserve tournaments.
 
He's a fine coach but a big team like Chelsea can't play this type of football anymore. Starting with 6-7 defensive players is freaking ridiculous.
 
Surely if they finish out of top four which can be with their run of results we see, then Tuchel is out !
 
He's a fine coach but a big team like Chelsea can't play this type of football anymore. Starting with 6-7 defensive players is freaking ridiculous.

In what world are Jorginho and Kovacic defensive? They're midfielders.
 
For a lot of UTD fans it's anyone but Guardiola for whatever reason.

Pep is highly rated on caf. If you want to read posts that are cringeworthy with all poetry about Pep then you should follow some Pepism twitter accounts.
 
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Tuchel got to find a solution to James and Chilwell being out. We've looked so pedestrian going forward the last few games. Even the Spurs home game where we totally dominated the first half, struggling to create chances and relying on them making mistakes only. 5 at the back doesn't work without quality wing backs. Interesting he's tried 4 at the back. Alonso and Azpi are both so slow.... I think we've got to try and adapt Pulisic and CHO to play as full backs for the moment.

Also got to drop Lukaku, doesn't fit our system at all. The best he's looked for us recently is coming off the bench, we'll probably have to sell him back to Inter this summer for a considerable loss. Need look elsewhere for a forward that suits how we're trying to play.
 


Chelsea have played 8 games in that period, just for reference.

Managers moan. Whatever. It is what it is. This idea that managers have to behave exactly the same in similar circumstances is absurd. Potter isn't under the same pressures Tuchel is under.
 
Rumour is roman hugely impressed with tuchel after CWC triumph, he promised tuchel he has full backing from him in summer window.

Matt law also tweeted the same about summer spending to challenge city for domestic title next season.