Since Hodgson became the manager we are the ONLY PL club of the 13 that have been in the PL for all four of those seasons who have a net PROFIT on transfers, we have spent less than we've received. Chelsea top the list of those 13 clubs with a net SPEND of well over £200 million.

Whether we like it or not, money speaks in the PL and we simply can't compete with most of the teams in our league on that front. Every PL team has bought failures during the 8 years we've been in the PL and some have paid a lot more than £30 million for them.

I suspect Hodgson loves this club at least as much as you and I and possibly more so, hence he's unlikely to be in the business of dragging us down.

As for today, we were totally outplayed in the 1st half by a team playing excellent football. We, at least made some effort in the 2nd (probably on the back of a rollicking from Lewington.

Edited by doombear (10 Apr 2021 9.47pm)

Edited by doombear (10 Apr 2021 9.47pm)

Bloody pathetic first half. Time to get rid of the deadwood. We need players with higher energy levels. Eze should be played further forward, lost possession for the crucial first against Chelsea.

It’s the same every week. Press us and we lose the ball, in the modern game we have to invest in players who can maintain possession under pressure.
Big centre forward ....inverted wingers...why. Schlupp gets the ball, heads to the line with pace , crosses , goal. First chance on or off target all game. Zaha, gets the ball , cuts in, tries to beat 3, loses it. Rinse and repeat..can we replace GladAll Over with I got you babe on continuous loop?

Absolutely.
One of the issues is that our movement is not the best when we are in possession, hence the player who is being "Pressed" has limited options.

Furthermore we just have no thrust at all down our right side.Ayew drifts inside and of course Ward is not a player to make forward bursts down the flanks so our attacks are either through the middle or down the left. We don't have that energetic overlapping full-back to provide us with an extra dimension.

There would be a lot more posts if that performance was in any way unusual.

Red and Blue Army!

You can't really base any conclusion on a sample of one. Every team has at least one bad game in them. Same as every team can have a game where they look like Barca.

Chelsea just have more quality than us and today it showed.

Success will lie to you but failure always tells you the truth.