#1025 | CHELSEA ARE SAFE! No Relegation Drama After Beating Bournemouth #CFC

This is Joe Cole. This is Ruben off this cheek and you want to listen to the London Blue podcast. Alright, Tails fans, welcome back to another episode of the London Is Blue podcast. This is Jose, your host Braden Joe, my host Nick and Dan in general. We've had a born with match review, which as you would expect means three points all day, every day, a lot of mixed feelings, Nick, a lot of confusion. We haven't done one of these in honestly over a month. I mean, we haven't done one of these in almost two months. The last win that Chelsea Football Club had was on March 11th. We were all traveling back from the UK at that point. That's how long it's been. So yeah, it was a very confusing, joyous even day. Was at the Belferi with my fellow Casey Blues down there, which was awesome. I got to meet listener Craig Jenkins, so shout to Craig. There are two of us down. He just seems to find Dan at some point. And you know, we celebrated the right way with the we are staying up chant. And I think that was the right thing to do, Dan. That sounds good. It sounds like the appropriate response after multiple games of pretty average to pedestrian football in the Premier League that we've been subjected to that now Chelsea are safe and sound. And we can enjoy the fact that the summer tour of Premier League teams is still going to include Chelsea. Yeah, officially part of it. We did it. Which is always a good place to remind everybody that we will be there. All right, Rex and sold out overnight, but we will be at what do we say for the five stops that Chelsea are doing. So if you want to hang out on the East Coast, we'll be there. More information starting to roll out live shows, guest spots and all of that fun stuff for super, super excited to reach out. If you have questions, otherwise we hope we will be seeing you this summer. What we're going to be touching on this one though, a little bit of breaking down Chelsea's key win over Bournemouth. Very important for that anti-religation situation we're in. Summer stock watches, we look ahead a little bit, but before we get into it, Dan, we have to run it to the audience, to our friends, to get their heads up on what's going on with a little three-word match view. It's always great to do it through a match view after a Chelsea win. Kate, just starting us off with a very simple, I mean, this is the margarita pizza of through match reviews. Thank you, Bournemouth. Thank you for not continuing the seven out of 10 games wins for Bournemouth, Ganes Geena with Better Than Coronation, out of Subscorination weekend in the UK this weekend. You had D-Rob with the hashtag NoMoreMath. Mark with the Wolf of Wall Street, not fucking leaving. You had Rob with the French big Ben good friend, Louis, with the insert Louis laugh. I don't know if Jake can clip it, but I'm sure we can find one pretty easily to put in there. Who's Louis then? Is that Louis maybe? That is Louis Ben event A.S. But I'm using the proper name as his own his Twitter profile. Swati with the, it feels good. Yes, indeed. We had bio molecules and mules with the first Chelsea win. It's the first Chelsea win that his daughter, new daughter, has witnessed in the last month. So it's all some good timing there. And then she's four. Thankfully, not that bad. She's just over a month and absolutely adorable. And that Chelsea onesie. I'm on with results over future question, Mark. This has always kind of been the situation of Lampard and is he looking for results or we build into the future? Where do we go? A little bit of both today, I'd say. What about you, Dan? So in the immortal words of just slightly adapted of Corona found our beach. Oh man, that's good. I was like, wow, big, big buildup here. Where's he going? I went with these summer begins. We don't have to pay attention for the rest of the season. Let's go. Let's look at the summer. Let's start getting some movement going on transfers. Let's start get, you know, let's get the coaching. Let's let's do a job now. Yeah, remember when we dropped that Matt lot episode? Me too. All right. Potches for sure. Still working on that. So huge shout outs to Eric who jumped in on Patreon. Enjoy the discord. Envy of seven on Apple podcast with mighty mouse and DJ and G page representing from the countries of United's the States and Kingdom and Spotify. Knock it on door. Hold on. G page doing the Lord's work. That's true. We should call this out. On I think his second work phone, he's left an Apple five star review. If you're like, hey, guys, how can I help you? I don't want to give you one cent of my earned money. Do it. Do it. G page is done here. borrow your significant other's phone. borrow your siblings phone. borrow your mom's phone. If you have a work phone, just dive on into that Apple podcast five star review. Leave one of those bad boys right there. It really helps us, man. It really helps us and G page your legend. Yeah, he's on like four or five devices. His like his work is updated and things like that mobile devices. So huge shout out. And then as I was saying, we're knocking on the door of 2000 reviews. Oh, no, no, no, Spotify, which is also we passed the door 2000. Well, on the road to three, let's let's liven it up. There you go. We appreciate all of that. But we got to jump in here. It was born with this past Saturday, the sixth of May in the Premier League. It turns out our favorite competition to be in this season. Because the one we're in the longest at Vitality Stadium score line, born with one Chelsea three. What? Not a script mom. The team not realized it was illegal to score more than one goal. What happened? Like, the whole goal to happen. I mean, authorities were in charge of this game. Well, thankfully Connor Gallagher was in charge. Ninth minute opening it up with this head. Getting the Goldilocks out of the way for that one. Vina equalized in the 21st. And then it was a long, long waiting game of up. Here we go again. Still one one. This is not going to end well. But Benoit, Betty Sheeley, 82nd minute gets his first Chelsea goal. And then second half sub Joel Felix, one person who's been interviewed by us scored in the 86 to seal all three points. And it felt good. So we're going to run it over to the fifth stand up, the official app from Chelsea FC downloaded. If you haven't, thank you for letting us share the highlights. They're good this time. Here we go. Lazy back for Lama. Who isn't normally a gold threat until this seat. Good turn. First time ball. See, I don't mind that. No, not at all. We want to see more of it. Oh, it's giving away cheaply here. Madam Wankake, can you get the shot away? Can. Netto stops it. Gallagher was ready to pounce. See, I haven't quite happy to drop deep. Then Connor Gallagher will go and run beyond the furthest forward. They're both in there now. Yeah. Players in the box to meet crosses. We've been waiting so long to see that. It's a dream start for Connor Gallagher and for Chelsea. Former come forward, Christie. And then the shot is a good one and it's into the back of the net. Vigna, curls, former level. No, OK now. Lovely drift. Can he find a teammate? Can he find a net? The side of it, rather than the back of it for Noni Madowake. Well, that was a beautiful drop of the shoulder. What a weight and pass. That is Vigna's in again here. Big stop, fruit pepper. It's a great weight and pass. Some fabulous savers. Grounded six-year-old box is over then. Dangerous salt over the top from Django Wartara. Should have done better. So glad he did. What an opportunity to win it. Buddy of Shale, please. And that is him round the back. Is he on side? That's the only question mark otherwise Chelsea are on route to a first victory under Frank Landfahr. As we always know, confidence. There's a lot of sense. It's a lot of exposure. That's all they've given us here. It's darling Monee Crew. Lovely job. We're going to do it. Off the bench and off to the scores. Jiao, Felix. All right, Dan, your turn with the lineup. Yeah, it was kept in between the sticks with a back four of Ben Chilwell. As we know him, Big Ben, Baddie Ischil, with the starting next to Tiago Silva and the Trev Chalba in the right back position. You're in a goal of content. Enzo Fernandez, a counter-gal as your midfielders. Mokayla Mudrick, Kai-Havertz, and Noni Madowake as your attacking line. Ruben Loftus-Chik and Rahim Serling came on along with Cesar Espo Kleta for the injured Ben Chilwell hamstring and Hakum Siesh and then Jua Felix came up the very, very tail end. And what I will say, one other item of note is Lewis Hall did make the bench for this one. Did not get an appearance into the side. Some thought maybe in the 75th minute for Chilwell. You might see that, but at least on the bench, so hopefully we'll get to see him for a few more minutes before the end of the season. Totally derailing this right away, Nick. Do you think that with Lampard's lack of an exit of the club that he maybe opted to asp in case he does leave at the end of the season, giving him chances to be out there until the very, very end, knowing that he probably could pull Lewis Hall and signs, hey, your career's ahead of you, man. Like, we need to respect asp and give him some opportunities if he's not going to be here. There may be a little bit of that. I would be disappointed if that was the reason. I think just as a person, like, there is no bigger say, so I was below quite a fan in the world than I am. I absolutely adore the man. I think he deserves a statue outside of the bridge along with many others. And I hope at some point we get to see that because he has just been an extraordinary captain, but he's struggled coming back from being kicked in the face about two months ago to find any sort of real form. I think the reason he was brought out if I were to take a guess, although I have no knowledge or inside track on this, is that he's experienced, right? And closing out games for 15 minutes should be doable for a person of his stature. And so my guess is that's why that happened. Now, would I personally have loved to see Lewis Hall straight swap for Ben Chilwell on the left wing? Yeah, but Lewis Hall is in the left back. I know we kind of pivoted and switched once as we came onto that like back five action instead of the 4-3-3. But yeah, I mean, look, we are all immensely impressed with Lewis Hall, and I think we want to see him play in the future. And that would just be something of note for you know, now that Chelsea is officially safe from the relegation conversation that I hope we see Lewis Hall start, man. I hope we see some of these young cats get rolled out in a way that gives them the experience of Premier League minutes before the summer starts and they start being graded by a new coaching staff. Well, some of the top line stats Chelsea with a 1.35 Xg to born miss 1.29. So pretty close there. We had 66% of possession though. So very dominant in that category. We had 11 shots there, 10. We had five on target to there for again, I mean, pretty even when you go down this, we didn't miss both of our big chances. They converted their only, or I'm sorry, they also missed their big chance. Or is this saying that we scored both of our stand? No, no, we scored both of our big chances. I can't interpret data that way. I know, I know. It's this crazy concept that Chelsea can convert a big chance, which is somewhere in the plus 25 or plus 30 goal, you know, effectively Xg for an individual shot, like me, you know, point ones, the point twos. But when you go to the point threes and beyond, that's usually deemed to be a big chance. And so yeah, two for two on the day. Yeah, that that is poor CFC central is going to be breaking all of his models with that. Well, we'll hit reset. Kepa had three saves out of the four shots, which we all know about one random stat though. Opta said 31 Chelsea need to score 15 goals in their final five games, just to equal their worst ever goal return in a Premier League season 46 goals in the 95, 96 season. That was before kickoff. So we are down to how many Dan? That's 12 now, Brandon. All right, just really cutting into that. That's eggs. We've we've laid a bunch of eggs this year. So yeah, yeah, maybe just pick them up. We'll get back and pet shit out some of the match. Yene. I don't remember there being anything of real intrigue here. Do you guys know? I mean, the supporters were talking about like we want to weigh like how shit are you like that. That's I mean, the way fans were up for it. They were giving it to all of it. Yeah, I'll give it to the away supporters. I'm because they were very audible in that small stadium with a very small allocation of tickets. And yeah, I think dominated the vocal reign. So, you know what? Shout out to them in the match. You guys, well done. All right. Well, we're going to take our first ad break. We get back plenty of pressure, but no final product that Taylor to have. Sing the sponsors for supporting the show. We'll be right back. Bet you didn't see this coming. I'll be ready to hear editor Jake's voice for a while in the ads. Ha ha. This time we're coming with shady rays. Kick off the new year with new gear built to last. 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All one word all caps for 50% off two plus pairs of polarized sunglasses. That's right. London is blue all caps spelled just like the podcast. You know, the podcast you're listening to right now you can see it in the title all caps one word 50% off two plus pairs of polarized sunglasses. Try it out for yourself. The shades rated five stars by 200,000 people. All right. So first half, if we kick it off, as Dan quickly deletes a lot of things that he writes. What's your what's your theme here, Dan? Do you want to redo your theme? Well, the theme was breaking offs. It was just a copy and paste. It was a transpose issue. I mean, the fact is, we did take our chances and we made them happen. A general feedback on the lineup was positive. I think from a lot of what we'd seen in the last few weeks, every time a lineup came out, everybody just kind of just groaned, right? We cringed a little bit and just said, all right, I don't know which bucket we're playing it. It feels like we have a foot in every bucket instead of like picking a lane and going. This time, Dan, a lot of people felt like good. COVID chit was out. Gallagher was in, Matt Awake, it was in right away. Mudrick is in right away. Obviously, Patty Shield making a first start in a while. The people seem to be pretty happy with this. Why were you so upset? I wasn't upset because I watched it back. I actually slept in. So I was very, very happy. I think the fact that you had four of your summer signings in, or not summer, but January signings in the lineup in Mudrick, Matt Awake, Enzo, and Patty Shield was very positive movement, particularly the Patty Shield one, as he had been seemingly put on the island somewhere and not allowed to make it into a starting lineup. But this, to me, Nick, represented an understanding that A, you have to play the players who are committed to going at it for 60, 75, 90 minutes, whatever they were allowed to provide on the pitch. But then an awareness that some of the players who did not make it onto the pitch or who made it for very, very small cameos are not potentially a part of the future plans or as concrete in their participation in the future plans for Chelsea. Yeah, I mean, I think we wanted to see a team give it a go. You know, based on record form and throwing a much better run a form, we knew playing down there was not going to be easy. It was between this match in forest is basically our last chance to get points for looking at finishing with United Newcastle and City. So it's just, you know, the pressure was on. Like, I think that, you know, everyone was very upset. We were very upset last week. We only, you know, we were upset because we only did two pods instead of five. We didn't really have a whole lot to say about the performance. So, you know, it's, it's a, it was a tricky one, I think, for Land Parton, negotiate here Brandon, because yes, there are plenty of experienced high paid players who have not done a job over the last eight weeks. And yes, we need some of those players to get, get their head out of their ass and play well so that we can get three points to avoid a relegation dogfight. And I think he generally mixed the experience and the youth pretty well and the youth being players like Mudric and Madawake and players like that. So, because our average age is only like 25 in this starting 11, something like that. So it was a pretty young lineup, but it was aggressive and it was, it was hungry. And, you know, players like Gallagher really set the tone for the game. You know, you're talking about Chelsea's great run of forms since March 11th. Bournemouth actually hit only lost three times and since our run of no wins. So from a form at a confidence standpoint, you know, their new manager balances real, doing well for them, you know, they essentially really climbed out of the relegation zone. You know, I think a lot of us thought they were done and dusted. And we are level on points going into this, which was, you know, good for the bands, right, but not for reality. And I think that to see a young, aggressive attacking lineup was important. If I stick back to the script and first half stuff, Connor absolutely everywhere, super influential. But this is kind of what we know of him. I'd say he's like, he's really good because he does a lot of different things. I'm still waiting to find out kind of what like his superior ability is. But the thing is, he doesn't let you down. He can score goals. He can throw an attack. We know like we love and go look, Hansai, because he is the interceptor and tackler extraordinaire, but he can't necessarily score goal. Connor's just Swiss army knife. I felt like his possession is positioning was good. And he really shined again today. And if I bet a frank, we're here longer, this would be like the new Mason Mount of the season. Yeah. You would probably see that. I think the way that he knew where to be in this particular game, in most critical, though, where he stayed for the goal, like he got into the front of the attack and saw that Chelsea had retained possession of the ball and made sure he didn't just drift back outside the box that he kept his position in that six, you know, yard box area to make sure that he was in a space that if a cross was left in or a ball was cut across, if his across the face of goal, that someone was going to be there. And there have been plenty of times this season where we've had all this possession. We've had plenty of players outside and around the box, but not in the location where if a ball came in that a player could just make a move, take advantage of a situation and put it into the back of the net. Nick, this represented to me that maybe there's been some positive movement within Gallagher's place within this side, at least in the moment, where he feels the confidence. And he did talk about Post Match interview too about like the the fact that Frank wanted them to get further forward, to be in the box, to be in positions where you could take advantage and Connor did this really, really well today. Well, being the major difference for me is that he was playing as an eight and not as a 10 and not as a center forward. I mean, like, you know, he was the identical conversation. You've had about Mason. Yeah, like, so he looked very comfortable. Like he was playing behind mostly mudric on the left hand side. And I think was figuring out how to connect. You know, it's been kind of wild that Chilwell and mudric haven't been better connected since they've been playing together. Of course, the sample size is very small. But like, to me, that was a big part of why Connor looks so comfortable and confident. And, you know, it makes you wonder, you know, is this team meant to play some sort of 4, 3, 3, 4, 2, 3, 1, is that really how we get the best out of this group of individuals moving into a new season? But, yeah, I mean, of all the players that we have bagged on, Connor cannot be on that list. He gives it all. And I have always appreciated players who, even when we're down, three nil against Arsenal, even when cities beating the hell out of us, whatever, he's still out there fighting, putting in tackles, all that sort of stuff. I would agree that I don't, I don't know what his superpower is yet. You know, I don't know what he's going to be known for yet. But you also have to realize he's scored two of our four goals that we scored in the last month, too. So, you know, keep playing, man. And I know there's been rumors about him being the shop window, all this sort of stuff. But just on balance, there are many other players that I would sell in front of Connor, to Helikar right now, if you're looking at the summer, which we will talk about in Stock Watch. And look, he had the early red card against Lester City in the beginning part of the season. And we're like, uh oh, not a problem. Like, he's overcome that. Like, he's not rash in that sense. So, uh, he's done well. Um, the cup and debate came back, right? He got scored on great play from Bournemouth to be fair from them. A lot of people are frustrated with him. Um, but what is interesting, a little bit Nick is that a lot of the stats we're starting to see in our WhatsApp and stuff said that like Chelsea's defense hasn't been the problem this season, right? It's, it's very clearly been the offense. Like our defense is probably top five at times in the league, depending on what category you're looking at. Um, obviously everyone turns to me and I'm like, look, there's no conversation to be had. Like it is absolutely an area of weakness in this team. No matter who it is, we still haven't seen Mendy, which means he's still probably not healthy, but it, it drives the conversation of, of what do you do with that? I'm just kind of like, I think you just ride this out the rest of the season. It didn't cost us today. It is what it is. Like we should probably just, I think people maybe are just wasting too much time on it because nothing's going to happen the rest of the season. Yeah, basically. I mean, would I like to see that God got saludina in there? Yeah, I would. And I think now that you're safe, you can legitimately trot him out there and see what you got. Um, but do I expect that to happen? No, I don't. I mean, I think we're going to have a big conversation about goalkeepers, Matt Law on Friday, put out the Chelsea, you're chasing Onana from, from Inter Milan. I think that makes that, that sort of profile of goalkeeper makes a lot of sense for us, which we will have plenty of time to discuss as we head into the summer. So I'm not going to break that down right now. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think there's a general admittance that this is, you know, this DM and center forward are the three big serious weakness in the team. And everything else, you know, is just a player improvement scenario. And so that to me was a, you know, I think he played okay yesterday to be fair to him. It wasn't his best performance ever, but it was enough to get us over the line. And so I'm not going to bag on him today. Yeah. Um, I just left in the midfield. Like, you know what, with Enzoa and a fit and goal, I could probably pay in midfield. But anyways, they are just a gift. Dan, Madawake, a lot of love, a lot of praise saw you up in the big guy on socials, loving every post that he had. He's kept his head down. It seems like he's worked hard. You've, uh, I think you've probably been the biggest pusher of Madawake minutes hashtag it since he had that electric U21 tournament in the middle of the season. No, he looked good. He looks really good. And again, not a finished article. I think that that is probably where the biggest problem of Chelsea's approach has been is that we have gone after a lot of talent that has not hit its, their ceiling yet. And so we are very much working with a lot of unfinished articles, which is not necessarily a bad thing. If you have a coach who can put them in positions to be successful, to improve upon their skill set. Madawake, though, just he took shots. He took shots from range. He forced the keeper, he forced an arrow to make a save one went wide, but before the second one, he actually forced the save out of them. And that just made it brought people to him. It created space for others. He interchanged well. I think we'll talk more about stock on the rise, but I think that in general, Madawake has been a very positive or bright spot. And just in terms of getting minutes, getting an opportunity to show what he has, even if it's a little raw at the moment, that he is someone who can be a critical part of the attack moving forward. Yeah, what I like about Madawake is that he is unpredictable on the ball. He does not do the same movement every single time when he's down the wing. And I think we know he wants to cut in on his left, but he has many different ways of getting the ball into his left. He has a lot of tricks in his bag. The part yesterday that was a little frustrating about his performance is that when he got into the box, his unpredictability kind of, I think, it didn't let the team down, but it was just like a not a clear pathway to goal, basically, because he was kind of spaghetti, leg and people and all sorts of stuff. And I think there is there's somewhere in the middle, I want him to find, which is be awesome on the ball, but have a clear directive when you get into the box as to what you're going to do with the ball, unless you are just desperate to get fouled and get a penalty every single time that you go into the box, which frankly wouldn't be a terrible strategy if you can pull it off. But you have to be like the elite of the elite ball handler at that point. I just don't, I want him to have a kind of clear pathway with his teammates on how to interchange, because there are three or four scenarios where he was played through on the, essentially, the goal line and just couldn't really figure out how to shift the ball onto his left. And again, these are all solvable problems. Like he is electric on the ball. He is electric out of possession. I don't know if you guys noticed how many runs he made down the wing just to pull their defense, which was very tight apart a little bit. Like he did a lot of unselfish running. And I think paid the price with a little bit of, you know, he's had a little bit of a fitness issue the last couple of games because he's not used to playing this much. But, you know, I think overall, like I'm pumped about, Nani, I think he's going to be incredible. So just to kind of set the stage room to your point, he is a left footed winger playing on the right. So you point likes to cut in. Seb C was tweeting about him a lot of love for Noni, but also reminding people like, if you play him into space and hope for right foot across, yeah, it might not be his best, his best skill set there. He's 21, just turned 21 under two months ago. So obviously young, he's only played 381 minutes in the Premier League. And I know he came in just January, but he is the bottom four in minutes for this season. Like, Mudric is almost 600. Who else came in? Obviously about a shield different, but Joao Felix has played 810. He just doesn't have a lot of minutes yet. He does seem settled at this part of the season. He does seem confident. He is producing some things. He's only had a Lewis Hall Armando Broya and Carney Chuckle-Mica as far as minutes this season. So again, I think it's good to point out he's got a goal in next to nothing, right? So it's very bright early days. He's done quite a bit with not a lot. So good for him. If we shift ahead to the second half real quick, the kind of the win took out of the sale, Dan. It was 1-1. I think both teams were happy with that result at the point. Lampard made a couple changes. I think that's the interesting thing to kind of focus on right there is, all right, we like the lineup. Now, how about the changes? Do we still like the changes knowing that we are completely armchair quarterbacking this? So the changes for Conte coming off and Ruben coming on, it makes a lot of sense. Obviously, keep Conte healthy so that you can roll into him next season. And on a caution. He was riding that yellow big time. Ah, I mean, the ref was letting him play. And then you brought on Sterling for Mudra Koot. Again, raw talent has not yet been fully realized. It was a good opportunity for him to freshen up the side and try to make something happen. And when you think about it from like an attacking perspective, I guess it was really only Christian who missed out then in terms of an appearance. I would imagine we see him at some point in the next few matches before the end of the season. Do we though? Honestly, I don't know if we see him again. I mean, I know he's not been healthy. I'm kind of leading that way. Dan, I'll be honest with you. I don't, I think it's been pretty intentional that he hasn't played that much. Well, depends upon what we hear from Matt and friends from what happens during the summer. But I think those changes made sense. Sterling has scored this season. Shocking when you talk about players scoring for Chelsea. So yeah, I guess it's better to bring on somebody who has scored some goals this year as be again, we talked about earlier and then Ziech coming on for Medaway Gay. That was probably a question mark for some people too. But he was getting space. And the big thing that Ziech thrives on is getting space and time on the ball. And they were letting him have space and time on the ball. So he could do what he wanted to do, which was whip in crazy crosses from outside the box to put it in. And I think Nick, that's where you know, then Betty Achil came in and took advantage. Yeah, indeed. Yeah, I want to start with Ruben because this has been a perplexing one for me, given the midfield challenges that we've had. And I think the fact that Ruben's played overall, I think pretty well this year, given everything going on, all the positional changes he's been asked to make. Why we haven't seen him against Real Madrid, why we haven't seen him in any of these terrible Premier League games that we played. He's a ball carrying midfielder. Like he can do the job of of Kovachitch. And I think adds physicality to the mix. And the minute he came on the pitch, we started looking different. Because he was able to break the midfield line that they had set up. They were kind of in two distinct banks yesterday, or myth was. And I thought that he played really, really well. Now there are a lot of people out there who are going to be like, Hey, Nick, you're just you know, whatever you've always liked Ruben. So you're going to say that Ruben played really well. I just, I think he adds something different from a dynamics perspective to the midfield. And for me anyway, like that, you know, the fact that then you had him and Connor able to kind of do that, opened up some space and allowed, you know, your end zones of the world to make different passes and all sort of stuff. So all good on that front. I think Ruben played really well. Sterling's been perplexing too, because for me, obviously I'm not, I'm not been a massive fan of his work this year. But I was reading, you know, Subsea had a really great thread about just Transcration per game. And how Sterling is not our problem when it comes to Transcration. And it kind of, you know, I'm happy to be wrong about stuff. Yeah, I think I've shown that throughout the history of the show. I hadn't dove into Transcration as a number. But the one chance that he was able to create yesterday was perfect for Felix to just pass the ball into the back of the net. And I think if I'm, if I'm going to be critical of him in moments where he's not played well, and he has not played well, more than he's played well this season, let's be very clear about that, then I have to give him his flowers when he does do a job. And he looked a lot more comfortable on that left wing to me Brandon, then he has anywhere else on the field. Do we think it's because pressure is off? It's the end of the season we are winning. Like you knew you're safe. It's been such a crap season. The players just were never in a good spot emotionally. They were never in a good spot. Maybe from a result standpoint. I wonder if just knowing that the season is essentially over, it's just there's nothing to lose at this point. They're able to play with that freedom. I wonder if that does play into it a little bit, because they're human. None of them will sit here, apparently accept aspie or not aspie kepa and say, hey, pretty good season though. You know what I'm saying? Like if I've enjoyed parts of it, not really anyone's going to do that. So I was thinking about that too. And it reminds us it's like, hey, actually in a different situation, we probably have a good squat. It's just nothing was going our way. And it just drained on the players. Speaking of Ruben, Connor, even Trevo, Chelsea, you Phil said today services a general reminder that you don't sell any of this lot. If you have to, if you have to spend a single penny to replace them. So he's saying, if you're going to let Trevo go, but you got to buy someone to come in, does not make sense. He says, this is how you build squad depth. All right, he's not clamoring for starts. He's saying squad depth. And it helps you afford to shop in the high end market. And it's so true. Lewis Hall would be a great example of that, right? You can add people in from the academy to give depth. You get good minutes to your point. We're talking about, uh, Ruben as well. They did a job. And again, like, are they going to be world beaters? Sometimes yes. Other times, no, but they're going to do the job and they don't cost you anything, which is important as we continue to figure out the path forward plus having that Chelsea identity is really, is really key. We talked about this, but obviously chill well. Don't the hamstring Frank pretty much said, Hey, done for the season, like go get healthy. No sense in risking it. We talked about Z. Ash and then the last goal. It was nice to see Felix take it first time as well, right? We didn't take a touch. Didn't mess around in the box. Shifted over to your other foot for no fucking reason whatsoever. Yeah, nice, tiny finish. It was great. It's great delivery though. Like, I mean, certainly basically said, like, please don't miss, please don't miss, please don't miss, please don't miss. I am putting it right on your path. Do not deviate. Just take the shot and let's get this done. Let the ball hit your foot and go in the general direction of the call. And that's it. All I need to do is bounce off it. It was perfectly fine. Great delivery, great movement. I mean, Sterling made his way to think through about four or five board members to put it in put Felix into a position to succeed and all and all worked out well. We're happy. We're happy. It's a win. We're safe. No more issues. No more problems. Do we pop champagne now? What do we do? What's our we haven't been here. You pop up. You pop a Miller high life. That's what you're thinking about that. You're like, Oh my gosh, I was like, we're really celebrating this when it gets born with, but you're just like, this is the way it's been like you just got to take what do you get? You know, I had a couple of interactions on Twitter. We're like, Oh, don't, you know, why are you celebrating? Don't let your standards drop. I was like, Are you fucking joking me, man? We don't want to game in two goddamn months. And I'm going to celebrate it the way that I want to. In fact, I encourage everybody go through yourself a party today. Who cares? There's two perspectives. Right? There's the short term saying, Hey, we haven't won since March 11, right? That's a thing. And there's also the macro where you're like, Oh yeah, we do have some tradition, some history. You know, we should be knocking around. But like, yeah, got to balance them at some point. Like we can't keep riding the O three oh four season and like being like, that's the status quo. Life happens. We got it. We got to roll with the punches. And it turns out we got punched a ton this season. So you know what? Suck it, born myth. Big win. Oh, it was nice to end the game without a feeling of here it goes again or despair. So anyways, that's going to wrap. We're going to move on to summer stock. Watch who look ahead, but we're going to take a last ad break. So again, thank you sponsors for financially supporting the show and we'll bear it back. All right, Dan, as we look ahead at who is making their case to stay, maybe become more crucial part of the team next season. You've got a little like said, Stockwatch here, right? Little Jim Kramer. Bye bye bye. Cell cell cell. Not because that's later, even though I have seen a lot of people doing it already. rookies trying to steal the idea often intimidated way to really never duplicated way too early to do KSL sillies. You got baddie, big baddie right at the top. You're saying on the rise, you like what you see. My only like counter argument is when did anybody not like what they saw with big baddie? Well, they just forgot that he maybe he was a part of the squad because he wasn't getting into matches and wasn't getting minutes. So it's just a reminder. It's the the word is back out on the street that Ben Robetti, a shield is going up at the moment to claim crosses to win headers and to score on the other side of the pitch doing it on the front and back side of it. Just a overall really great performance. Yeah, I think to me, this is just a it's really a conversation on this is one less position Chelsea has to worry about recruiting for in the summer because you are showing that you have potential individuals who can fill in a role, be available and really make the decisions for Pachatino or whomever the Chelsea manager is next season when they come in and baddie is she'll is doing that with his performances. I think it the dearth of centerbacks that this team has Nick puts us in a position where the back four or playing with four defenders feels more and more likely every time we take a look at it, particularly when you consider Levi Colwell coming back. You still have Trevor Chalba, Silva hasn't gone back to Brazil yet. Despite rumors from Ants cousins on Instagram that generally you have the right compliment of players to excel in this next season and baddie is she'll speak part of that. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think we're all kind of the only confusion around baddie is she'll is what happens with Colwell, right, which is a whole other conversation for a whole other day because they do play that left sided center back role. But as a player, what a steal at 30 million. I mean goodness gracious, the dude is built for tough. He has height, which is allowing us to do different things on corners. Obviously, you know, Z ish providing the service yesterday for his goal. And he exudes calm and confidence on the ball, which is huge for a team that has zero confidence heading into this game. It makes you wonder why we haven't seen him more. And I think, you know, if we're getting back to who deserves blame in our delegates, maybe a few more going lay in parts category since he's kind of come in. But, you know, between him and Silva back there, it was a little dicey at times. I think format did put on some pressure in the early second half and made it uncomfortable. But, you know, overall, it was a good performance. And, you know, if I'm Mauricio Pochettino looking at this game, I have a big circle around Big Batty for a potential starting spot next year. Yeah, he's 22. He's like six foot three. When he has played this season, 10, 10 matches, there's only one of those games he was below a seven from foot mob. And then that was Everton was 22. And he was a six point seven. He's been on average, like a seven, five or better born myth. He was man of the match with an eight, two. So high ceiling, really, really good recruiting there. The only thing we don't know, what is he doing Europe? Because he didn't make the cut. And he's got a great song, which Dan, you put in here, right? Talking about Todd Bully went to France in a Lamborghini, brought us back at center back Benoit, bada, Sheila. I love it. Phenomenal. Maybe the best song since the team of Verner's song. Maybe I still have a lot of time for that and go look on today. And I've already like blocked him out of my mind. Bucky. Oh, yeah. Those are fun times. Connor Gallagher, as if we haven't heaped enough praise massively on the rise, scored two of Chelsea's last three goals. Love a deflected goal. It's the effort. It's the hard work. It seems to be in the right space. So I don't know if there's any more we want to talk about Connor, but like I just I would be interested in hearing if someone's like, Nope, ship him like we're not really worried about that knowing that he is also super young. He is 23 23. Yeah. So. Got that going for us. And he's had a success of spell loans in the Premier League, too. So it's not like, Oh, he just kind of had a blip of a good season. Yeah, no, he's he's one that I think is really going to be fascinating for Poch to look at because I can see the effort and the enthusiasm and the never say die sort of attitude, the Mason Mount role being a very important role. I think if you end up playing with three midfielders, his chances increase if you play with two midfielders and some sort of back three formation next year, his chance to play and decrease probably. Just being honest about that. You know, I think he needs to play as an eight. And the the issue that you have is that we have a lot of eights, right? We have Enzo who's really an eight. We have Ingolo who's playing as an eight. We have Mason who will be, you know, hopefully not going to be back. New contract playing as an eight. And you know, any combination of Reuben, Connor, all these guys. So I really, we need to get that six figured out to figure out who's going to play the eight. You covered Chitch, obviously in there too. But you know, he's one that I would follow Chelsea use advice on and keep as depth, assuming that you're going to play a three. If you're going to play it too, I think he could be on the block. There just won't be the opportunities and that's not his best position. The third one up you have is Noni Medaway, Kay. I mean, not only inside of the Chelsea sphere, Dan, I think that he's universally liked. I think people accept and I think we again, Caviar out of this. He's not the finished article by any means, which just is that much better. Yeah. So Phil, Chelsea, you saying when you hear managers talk about having the right attitude, work, great and commitment, this stuff matters. Matt Awake, it worked hard at both ends of the pitch. The effort was clear there. The refinement will follow. I thought the more, I love Phil, but the more interesting comment was in right talking via BBC sport saying that he's got the kind of ability to go past people as time goes by. He will feed it in the box. He'll start getting that in his game once he does Chelsea will have a real prospect on their hands. Someone who knows about playing an attacking role in the Premier League. I do find that that is just some further endorsement that continues to validate what we are seeing on the pitch with the underlying stats or telling us in terms of where Matt Awake is trajectory is next. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think this is him and Mujaker probably to the biggest development opportunities for this club because if you get both of them rolling, like I mean, sincerely, like you get a nine between them, like a real nine, you have your eights rolling in a four, three, three format or four, two, three, one format with a 10, like in Kunku, for example, these two could just be studs and I think Mujaker didn't have his best game yesterday. Matt Awake played pretty well, but man, they're dynamic. They're interesting. They are different sorts of attackers than we've had in both of those roles over the last nine years since we've been doing this show. And I love the attitude. Matt Awake had a really great post after the Arsenal game that kind of showed where his head's at as a player for Chelsea and the pride that he has to put on the shirt. And I think that went a long way with people who have felt that lacking this season. So yeah, really pumped about him in the future that he brings because his heat map is right where we need him to be down the right wing in the opponent's half stretching the field. Yes. So yeah, two highly talented creative, Pacey, players that are creative out there, they're collaborative to you need someone like Oli G, Olivia Giroud to help bring them into the attack. And I don't mean you need to. Oli Glamville. We need Oli Glamville as the number nine. I don't come on. I don't mean you need necessarily a big unit like Giroud. What I'm just saying is he he unlocked Edna's art, right? Edna's art loved playing off of him because he could, you know, do give and goes. Olivia Giroud kind of was always looking to find them in again because, you know, he would get it back eventually. So, uh, what's the goes? But if you think we miss someone that's even higher up on the rise, let us know. And like I said, if you have a counter argument, they throw it away. We're open to hearing it and see if we should change it up. But Dan, the match. I know you haven't done this in a long time. I think you did okay. How much how much dust was on this that you had to wipe off, Dan? Look, it's like one of those movies where they're searching for a hidden tomb or scroll and they're fearful that any minute movement might break the actual binding of the book because it is that ancient. Look, in this one, we had Connor Gallagher and Golo Conte, Benoit Bettyaschiel and Noni Mado Eke. I probably thought that the Premier League actually got it right with Connor Gallagher for the overall impact, but the people spoke and they said, Mado Eke, 43%, you had Benoit Bettyaschiel with 34% Connor with 17. And then Golo Conte was six. Look, I'm just happy we got to run one. I could care less about who won it. It was a Chelsea player that is a really, really positive day that we get to run it in a Chelsea player wins it and it doesn't have to have a a meme option in there. We did it. It's probably the lowest in Golo Conte's ever seen before. He's going to be questioning the results of that poll, I think. Well, as we look around, he's going to be he's got smile and be happy for his teammates. That's the Ingolo Conte way. I agree with Gallagher, by the way. I think that was the right choice. As you look around the league, man city continuing their charge to the title with the two one win over leads, wolves beating Villa one nothing, Tottenham beating Chris Pallas one nothing, Liverpool beating Brentford one nothing and Arsenal just scored their second over Newcastle, which looks like they're going to get three points to keep the pressure on and Newcastle have no excuse for not having scored at this point. That is on them. West Ham United play later, full and Leicester City play on Monday, Brighton, Everton Monday, Forest, Southampton Monday as well. So they're really spreading out the games as they try to get them all in with the end of the FA Cup coming in and Champions League and stuff. So definitely a little goofy on the match days, but we're going to record on Sunday rain, shine or nonsense goal scheduling. And Arsenal just got a the benefit of an own goal. So it's two to nothing right now against New Year. I said they just scored their second. I didn't know Newcastle scored it though. You a bunch of dummies. Yeah, not good. He goes in the other net, the other net. So with that being said, City are definitely in first place with 34 played on 82 points. Arsenal are going to stay in second on 35 played. So again, City are up a point and have wiggle room. Newcastle state third on 65 points and United play a little bit later. They could actually jump into third if they win Liverpool fifth Tottenham sixth on the other side. Southampton still rock bottom of the Premier League. I really don't see anything happening there. They got 24 points off 34 matches. Everton are in 19th with 29 points off 34. They still have a chance to somehow escape. Nottingham Forest are in 18th. They somehow are on 30 with 34 pretending to tease that they may want to get out there. So you got 29 and 30 points, right? Above them leads big Sam 30 points. Leicester City 16 30 points on 35 play. Yeah. So they are leads in the worst case closer to yeah, leads are going down. Come on, let's bring it back. Let's bring it back. Yeah, it'd be the most incredible thing. Actually, they aren't they were included on the tour and then they got removed because there has been the consideration that like leads would actually go down. Well, I tell you what, they're in a you know, you're in a tough situation when when you're you're at the bottom with most points played and negative 25 gold difference. I mean, that could come back to hurt them. They're the same with Everton. Nottingham Forest, so negative 32 is really going to hurt them. Turns out Leicester City with negative 13 is is where they want to be. But a little knowing Liverpool and Tottenham still up and towards the the top six, right? Brighton still up there. Villa. Obviously they're on the beach. Brentford on the beach. Full on the beach Chelsea up to 11th if we can end in the top half of the table. What a surprise that would be. But we've got some tricky fixtures coming up. So anyways, at one point in the season, Chelsea and Liverpool were on the same amount of points right after the world. Yeah, it was like eight nine terrible. Yeah. And now they are 20 points ahead of us in the table. That's how fucking bad we've been. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you said we've gotten one win in essentially two months. So all right, that's going to wrap for us. Welcome back to the the good vibes gang. We're here to bring them when they are earned hard for us when we have no real impact about that. But with good vibes come good pod. So we have a jam packed week. I'm going to be recording with Phil here a little bit to cover the Dev Squad season and whole more guests, more episodes. A lot going on, right Dan? You know, never a dull day at London is blue HQ. Yeah, we love it. So make sure to take a take a moment catch up on everything this week. But we'll be back with more content as always. So until next time, show us me and June to do the blue flag flying high.