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This is Joe Cole and you're listening to the London is blue podcast. All right, Josefans, welcome back. That's right to another episode of the London is blue podcast. International break is almost over for Chelsea playing on Sunday against Bournemouth. We're recording this on Thursday evening, September 14th. And Nick, no, Brandon, he's taken a nice walk. He's enjoying life. He's getting out there. And we're the saddest who are saying we should talk about Chelsea this evening instead of doing something else fun with the time that we have. Yeah, it's back. We're back from an international break. No, there's only, I think, seven or eight more of these this season to come. So get used to it. We're going to enjoy the international breaks back in our lives for reasons passing and understanding. But that's okay. Yeah, I mean, it's good to have Chelsea back this weekend. I'll say that because there is nothing worse than pointless European or pointless conquer cat football on our screens during an international break. So excited for the boys to be back. And we're edging closer to the start of the women's season too. So hopefully we get on a decent stretch of Chelsea football in our lives. Well, before we talk about that, we're going to get into a couple of things, which are about how some of the blues perform while they were on international duty. We're also going to get into the Bournemouth match talking about some predicted lineups and also going through what the narratives are heading into the match for Pochettino and team and for Bournemouth as well. But Nick, two things of note one, Chelsea dropped their third kit. And as we all know, you are the aficionado of the pod when it comes to all things style. So I want to get your opinion on that in just a moment. And then we still have not had confirmation or finalization of the infinite athlete deal. So it seems like these kits are still shipping without any type of sponsor on the front multiple weeks into the season. So that is also a nice perk for people who are looking to potentially get a bit of a collector's item. So should they be getting the third kit as a collector's item is the question? Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I think the kit itself looks fine. It's called Eaton Blue. And as you've heard on the famous CFC before, Rick Glanville and Gary Barone have both mentioned how Chelsea's royal blue is not the color that we started out playing in 1905 into 1907. It was this kind of lighter, more turquoise-y or minty looking blue that really rides the line between blue and green. I mean, it is, you could be forgiven if you're looking at this shirt and why did they get a mint green shirt. I think it's a decent enough looking shirt. It's pretty plain. It has some black trim around the neckline and I think down the sides or whatever on the sleeves. It really depends on your skin tone, I think, whether you can rock this shirt or not. I think, for example, I'm not particularly fond of it for me, but I think for some people, it will look good. I myself opted for the AWAY shirt, which is that black and blue kind of 90s vibe shirt they put out a couple weeks ago. And I know many, many, many people are fond of the home shirt, although I hate the freaking neckline on that shirt. It just bothers me. What Nike's done on that weird panel that they have on the front. But I think I believe the black shirt is the best looking one of the bunch, followed by the home kit and the third kit would be third. What about you? I think the goalkeeper kit is actually a sneaky good kit this year too. It is. It's the total collection that we have when Chelsea posted the information about the Eaton Blue kit that Chelsea will be dawning as a third kit. I wonder with no European football how many times we'll actually see that kit worn during a match. I'm going to guess it's sub three would be mine against point born with apparently. Like that's okay. Yeah, so that's I'm still in the we're not going to see this more than like if we see it more than three times like we have done Nike a service in trying to get these kits sold. The post though from Chelsea was that the color actually prominent on this season shirts shorts and socks is named mid foam providing a contrasting canvas for a black trim in a wolf gray pattern adding a touch of modern emity not an emity to a timeless classic. A vision stemmed from our past to say you know I think it's fine. I think it's a fine kit. I think that the home kit is the one that will be classic that people will look back on 10, 15 years from now and wish that they had gotten that kit. I do think the one that probably looks the best on most average people like myself or you is probably the away kit in just terms of a general darker tone you know. But again we're not a fashion podcast we're just offering up some opinions. Let us know in the comments on YouTube if you're watching there. What your thoughts are on all the kits which one are you getting? Dan who did you get on your shirt this year? Enzo had to be Enzo. Enzo okay. So easy. So easy. Okay. I went with Millie Bright continuing my streak of the last three years of getting a woman's player on my shirt because I frankly don't know which men's players are are yet going to be my favorite as I've said many many times on the show. So I went with an older liable and Millie Bright. Well that is a good one to go after as well. And you know speaking of good things to do leave a foster of you an Apple podcast or Spotify. Great way to support the podcast helps people find the show. You can also follow us and subscribe on YouTube hit the Notify button get notified when we have new video drop getting closer and closer to 29,000 subscribers there. We'd love to hit 30,000. You can help us do that. That'd be great. And he also could support us patreon.com forward slash London Bupaj during our wonderful discord community. They haven't had fun with all other things not related to Chelsea during this international break. A lot of chatter about the NFL and college football and Nick will just not talk about those two things. We'll just bypass. No need bypass that fully. Nope. Nope. All good on that front. Thanks for asking. No problem. We'll take our first quick outbreak get it out of the way and we'll get right into how all of Chelsea's international stars performed during this break. So stay tuned. We'll be right back with the busy fall season already in swing. You might be looking for wholesome convenient meals for jam packed days. Factor America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit can help you fuel up fast with chef prepared dietitian approved ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. You'll save time eat well and stay on track with your healthy lifestyle. Look, I just moved right and we got a conveniently time box of factor meals to the house. My wife and I loved having these not frozen quick to microwave. Actually threw them in the toaster oven the air fryer and they heated up really quick and they were delicious. I'm telling you if you're moving or if you're busy having eight, nine, 10, 12 meals in your fridge was perfect. It was the ultimate convenience. They tasted well. You had your main Andre with the protein veggies on the side. You were good to go. Make sure you go check it out. Honestly, life is too busy to not have a healthy meal in your fridge ready to go. And again, like I said, they are fresh. They are not frozen. They come in a refrigerated pack. They were great. And you can also not only this start to add some breakfast in there. They've got bacon and egg breakfast skillet, bacon and cheddar egg bites, potato, all of this good stuff. Like I said, it's going to energize you throughout the day with clean, healthy energy. So anyways, this September get factor. Start enjoying it. Use our code. Go to factor meals.com. Ford slash London is blue 50 and use code London is blue 50 to get 50% off. That's no joke. Right now, use the code London is blue 50 at factor meals.com. Ford slash London is blue 50 to get 50% off. What are you waiting for? Hi, Nick. So no surprise. Chelsea attracts international stars, international stars. Go out for international duty. And they do things. They get a job done. So we have bunch of players who had a chance to get into maybe better fitness, find themselves a goal. If they've been lacking goal and assist, if they've been lacking assists showing that they can do it, it's just maybe a matter of getting all the parts and pieces to work together at Chelsea at the moment. But in their claim from the club to their national teams, they were able to maybe start a bit of a spark that they can bring back to Chelsea in the weeks ahead. But people will start off with Enzo. We mentioned previously. Goal. Goal for Enzo. He's looking. He just wants to score now. It's fantastic. Let's hope he takes the scoring form that he has with Argentina and moves in on over to Chelsea. He's been a little lackluster in that department for us, missing some key chances at the start of the season. And I think the goal that he did get was a little bit of a lucky draw for him, but they all count the same. So let's hope that he's able to do that and hit him in the top corner for the Blues. But yeah, pretty interesting goal. It was off of a lot of interchange play. He ended up scoring it like he was a striker near the goal. His nice old tap in your post. So very interesting. Yeah, good cross from Demoria. So they won that game three nothing against Bolivia. So they're getting though their qualifying action their way. Keeping it in South America will go to Ecuador. And I think there were some really interesting things that happened for the Ecuadorian players that Chelsea have. And not just Moisés Caiseido, but Kendri as well, who had his rise is incredible. I think the funniest thing to me was that someone, a Liverpool fan during the break was indicating that before Brighton go snap up this player, we need to go sign them now. We need to go break get them because they're going to be a superstar. Not knowing that Chelsea and actually already signed Kendri and he's going to be joining us in two years when he turns 18 credit credit to that guy for leaving his tweet up. So we could all troll it all week. That was, you know what, respect. You know, when you're that Ron, just own it. That was pretty cool. Boy, I mean, I don't typically watch, you know, let's call it common bowl, you know, action that often. But we have a reason to now because Caiseido and Kendri together on the Ecuador national team, who, you know, again, we're good in this past world cup as well. Kendri is a player, man. And the father you guys did before, I think it was mid August with Jess and Nath. Just an incredible young talent that has a ton of room to get better and is already playing at the age of 16 with the national team. That's a massive deal for him. And the fact that he's assisting, the fact that many people thought he ran the midfield in a lot of different ways was fantastic. So, man, again, I know some of these young signings from, you know, seemingly out of nowhere. You know, there are a lot of us who are like, hey, but we need a striker right now. I think in a few years, we're going to be very, very happy that there was some forethought put into Kendri Pius. Yeah, the thing that I really liked having not watched a ton of him so far was just his tight ball control. Some of the moves he had, particularly at the touch line to work his way around defenders, really, really excellent to watch. So, I think that was something that, you know, for someone who had only watched, I would say, maybe five to ten combined minutes of him playing so far. This was a good education on what he can bring and where his trajectory has gone. Again, he's setting records left and right. You know, he's the now the youngest epiton for the Ecuadorian men's first team. He's, you know, the youngest like leaning score in like the national leagues. All these things that are just piling on another great thing, another great thing about the player. What I did like though is Moisés Caiseido getting back to full fitness because I think we felt like with his desire to get the move, with the situation, the prolonged negotiation, getting him to Chelsea, he really didn't have the same fitness regimen, the same opportunity to get up to speed and get in condition for this season. I think we even said that he was 80% and where he should be. This looks like he is back to fitness and I think Pachitino is going to be very happy when he comes back because he looked every bit the part of someone who is ready to get back into full form now after this, this international break. 100%. Yeah, and, you know, sometimes, you know, I think we've been a little tainted perhaps in the past with the French national team because, you know, they've always called in players and they've somehow come home worse for wear than they went. But sometimes going back to your national team as, you know, Mujerick has shown before, is a good thing, right? It helps you kind of advance a little bit and get the good feelings back and play with people that you have known for some time. And so, you know, hopefully, you know, again, it's, it's an all positive international break for our guys and they come back ready to take the ground running because we have a big, big, big couple of months coming up and Hasato is integral, right? I mean, especially in the midfield, especially when we're still having midfield injury issues in the form of Lavia, which we talked about with NAS on Monday. So, you know, this is a good thing for me. And again, he's probably still a few weeks away from being full fitness, just based on what we witnessed in the States for a season, how hard those guys were being worked from a fitness perspective, but he's also a young talented guy. I don't think it's going to take him years to catch up. This is not Fat Hazard from back in the day who Antonio Conte needed to train for an entire off season to get into his player of the year winning mode. Oh, abs are made in the kitchen. So we'll see what Pachatino is assigning to the team in terms of the diet. Let him cook. Well, speaking of players, maybe didn't get the same type of outing are trio that were in the England senior team. You had Gallagher, Cholwell, and Colwell all getting an opportunity. They did play against Scotland this past weekend or past couple days. And Gallagher did get an opportunity to make his ninth appearance, but Cholwell and Colwell went as unused substitutes. And you know what? I'm kind of okay with that. Given the fact that there's been knocks toward defenders or defender slash winger, depending upon how you want to call it or two left backs there. I don't know. Whatever you want to define them as in terms of what position they are to you, better that maybe they got some rest and good for Gallagher to get closer and closer to a ten number or a double digit number for caps for England. Is it fucking weird that South Gate still prefers Harry McGuire over someone like Levi Colwell? Sure. Is it an absolute circus at the English national team right now? Yep, sure is. Will it be that way for a minute? Of course, it will be. I am with you. I come back healthy. That's all I care about at this point. We have a lot of season to play. And you know, those two in particular with Gallagher as the third are critical. They played every single match so far. So they're critical to our success. And yeah, I mean, again, I the English national team is a circus right now. There is so much going on there between Henderson and McGuire and Southgate and all the news and stories and stuff like that. And Southgate's just not ever really played show well in a string of matches, which is very, very odd. I think maybe it was like 2018 or 19 was the last time you got like a real run out. So he's also had injuries. He's been injured over the past couple of years too. So I do think that that factors into it. I mean, but now you have Shaw, who's out as well in addition to Chihuahua being available. Maybe thanks Chihuahua's a winger. I mean, look, that could be the consensus at the moment. So stay tuned to see what Garrett Southgate says next about Chelsea's players, what it comes to the next international break in October, not that far away. Carter matches to watch, but there were you 21 matches as well for England. Yeah, Matt Awake and Palmer are both getting an opportunity to go out and get involved as well. Cole Palmer with a goal and assist. So just after the switch from city to Chelsea goes out, gets a little bit of a sub appearance and then also gets an opportunity to impress on international duty. And then Matt Awake had a goal as well. So just an opportunity or he might have had an assist. It was a assist. So the benefit being that these two young attackers getting opportunities to prime the engine as it relates to getting back into Chelsea's first team over the next couple of weeks. Yeah, I mean, they played well together at national team level along with Cole and that kind of under 21 team previously before he got the the major call up, right? You would assume at some point in, you know, I don't know if it'll be this Euro cycle, but maybe in the next cycle after the euros that Matt Awake and Palmer will get that sort of call up as well. In the meantime, you know, getting the goal-scoring boots and the assisting boots on for Chelsea is a priority, right? We know that that is a critical improvement area for the team. And, you know, without a ton of goal production coming from the wing so far this year as Sterling's kind of played more advanced than Jackson, you know, those guys could be critical pieces, whether it's Palmer playing a 10 and Matt Awake playing right wing or some combination where Sterling ends up on the left or whatever the case might be. So yeah, I'm happy for both these guys and anyone who can do well in an international play while not getting themselves injured. Well, speaking of the French national team, you mentioned earlier, we did see Gusto and Leslie Okochukwu getting an opportunity to play for France's under 21s. I didn't see much in terms of Leslie's contributions, but Gusto did register and assist against Slovenia. So positive things there, you know, we do see him, particularly with the Reese James injury, like his underlying stats have been extremely strong. And I think people have generally been impressed by his performances over the last couple of matches, deputizing for Reese James while he's out injured. And this just seems to be a continuation of that. So again, hopefully bringing it back can assist more, can contribute in the attack when we get back against Bournemouth this weekend. Yep, I mean, Reese James is not officially fit. And probably I think according to Naz are going to take their time with him, which is the absolute right call. So guess what, Mallow, you're in, you're in the game. And then we also saw maybe there's some more muted performances. So Nico Jackson didn't get on the score sheet in the 1-0 loss to Algeria and then Mikhail Moudrick did get a bout 60 minutes in the 2-1 loss to Italy, did not register and a goal or assist there as well. I think Moudrick got a lot of criticism, I think online for his performance, but he just looks like he still need to find that confidence, need to get back into a position to be, you know, the guy he believes himself to be. And you hope that that can happen over the weeks and months ahead so that he can get on with the football that he wants to play. And Nico, you would have loved a goal for him as well, just to get him into good situation, particularly after the miss that he had, that it would be good to kind of put him in right form there. But hey, you know, just the score against Bournemouth instead, you know, score against Bournemouth. We need streaky the other direction. This is what we need. Yeah, Moudrick's taken a lot of abuse over this start of the season, but particularly this international window, you know, again, somebody we've talked to Naz about, but let's just hope that he has smart people around him that are going to kind of help him take care of his mental health as well as physical health, because I know he pulled up with a little bit of a, it looks like a calf injury, I think at one point. So let's just, again, let's hope that the young man's kind of getting the support he needs at this point. Obviously, a lot in his shoulders, not only from a price tag standpoint, but from a kind of nationality standpoint right now. As this country's in a little of a war, I think we forget that at times, you know, for him that there's a lot going on in the homeland right now. So yeah, I just wanted to kind of call that out, because you know, look, I think it's fair to, you know, have some constructive criticism over what he could do better, but there were apparently the English quote-unquote Chelsea fans who were shouting all sorts of nonsense at him during the center national break. And it's just, it's really, really fucking bad form to do that. So yeah, disappointing to say the least. Well, again, it's important to make sure that we can separate the performance from the person and challenge the performance and, you know, comment on it with the merits that we have, whether for or against the performance and then make sure that we consider the person as well. But that's going to do it for our little bit of international review. That's kind of the, the topus for this episode. We're going to take our last ad break and then we're going to get back and talk about Bournemouth, the match ahead for Chelsea this weekend on Sunday. So say tune will be right back. 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Just go to indeed.com slash blue wire sports and support the show by saying you heard about it on this podcast indeed.com for slash blue wire sports terms and conditions applied need to hire you need indeed. All right, Nick. Jason Bourne, myth up next. Ooh, boo this man. Yeah, in prior seasons though, like we would be that character watching the video seem born with coming. We're like, oh, shit, like we're in trouble. My God, that's Jason Bourne. Yeah, I mean, the fact that we beat then last year at their place was astonishing as it was the last win that we had in that season that secured our safety, baby, in the primary league. So yeah, it'll be interesting. I mean, this is not, you know, the 18th place team that I think we're used to kind of saying in the league. I mean, they're better than that. You know, I think they only finish one place behind us in the league last year if memory serves, which is more indicative of us in our performance than anything. But so far this year, I mean, they've definitely played some pretty decent football and the fact that Dom Salonky is still there and scoring is wild to me because I think a lot of people wrote him off a long time ago. But, you know, it's an interesting match up kind of straight after the international break. They're under new management this year, you know, that controversially they fired Gary O'Neill in the off season and have brought in a totally new thought structure and everything like that. So I'll be really interested in Dan to see kind of how they play on Sunday Sunday Sunday. Yeah, I think that we should just maybe start by dispelling the fact that like they're really not a true bogey team for Chelsea. Like there was a stretch in 2019 through 2020 where it was a loss for no loss, a 1-0 loss and a 2-2 draw that was really unfortunate. There was also that wonky 3-0 loss in 2018. But in general, I mean, Chelsea's record, we've won 13 games against Bormath, one draw and five games lost. One of those losses was in 1988. So let's just couch that one and say it's four losses. Like it's still more losses than you would hope for against the side like Bormath. But in general, we have we've letting goals against them, which is maybe the other kind of concerning factor like that 2-2, the 4-0, the 1-0. We haven't been able to keep a ton of clean sheets against them in the past couple of seasons. So maybe that's more of a concern. Like we did have a 2-0 win in late December, but to your point you made earlier, like we did have a 3-1 win against them at the tail end of this past season. So it would be nice to get back to the historical standard of Chelsea winning against Bormath and also doing so without letting in a goal as well, which is probably the harder of the two tasks to accomplish. Yeah, indeed. And I know they are 16th right now, not 18th. Sorry about that earlier, but they are not playing nearly as bad as their contemporaries around them. I will say that. They've had a very interesting start to the season. You know, I think you look at results against Liverpool who go down a man and somehow just continue to beat them. You look at their draw against West Ham to start the season. The fact they drew Brentford away as well. They advance to the EFL Cup against Swansea. So, yeah, I mean, sure. They have two points in the league and both of them, you know, are against West Ham and Brentford. But, you know, I think, you know, they haven't played that bad, you know, to my eye this year, they're not a team that should be taken lightly. Max Goodspurz, when it was unfortunate, it was not a good game for them. The others, they were at least hanging in and around. So let's just look at their narratives. So, Dom Sill, here's the narrative storylines we have to consider heading into this. Former Chelsea Academy star, Dom Salonkey, signs a new deal through 2027. That's an odds on the score. That's going to be a bit of a challenge to go against that curse. They've yet to win. That's always a thing that Chelsea can do a favor for a team on. Hey, you need a win, charity FC. Let's go. You didn't mention the hard schedule to start and they have scored in three out of the four matches that they played. So again, they are finding ways to get in the score sheet even if necessarily they're not coming away with all points that they have. So, you know, the refresh, the new ownership, new minority investors, you know, new American minority investors. There's a lot of like interesting storylines that you can tie in here that would be like, oh yeah, this is not feel good on the expected narrative. You forgot one, too, that Tyler Adams is playing there. Chelsea were on the verge of signing, fed and backed out. He's now a born myth. Not like that's necessarily going to be like a dark marker or anything like that on our on our resume, but you know, just another one of those interwoven narratives between the two sides that, you know, who knows what will happen on that front. First, Premier League goaler, Tyler Adams, any time? Yeah, yeah, maybe. I don't know. So yeah, it's going to be interesting. Again, the smallest ground in the league, right? Not many away fans can make this one. So, you know, I know in the past Chelsea have been incredibly loud and boisterous. You know, the couple hundred fans who were able to get in, but you know, this is a weird place to go. It's a weird place to go right after an international break, too. Yeah, you get a little bit of a trip to the the seaside as it were and pull that one in. But let's talk about Chelsea's narrative. So the things that we have to consider for Chelsea, I mean, this match, we did not enter into the international break in the finest form. We were talking potentially if we could win against forest, that we would go in to the international break, jumping at the bit for Chelsea to come back. And I think everybody felt like, oh, it's okay. We enjoyed the time that we had to mentally reset over this international break. Like Chelsea are in desperate need to show up and show out, particularly against teams that you would just think that Chelsea should beat up on. I think that there's questions around who, beyond Sterling or Jackson, you know, obviously with, you know, DZC probably can't be counted on to score a goal every game, but from an attacking perspective, will someone like Joe Will or Palmer get on the score sheet as well, start to bounce out the contributions from a goal scoring perspective? And we know that they were you're still facing and looking down the barrel of injury concerns now with the Lovia knock as well. So I think those were the things that I think with the storylines that we're going to have heading into this match for them, you think you would add to that? Yeah, I mean, I think I think Jackson is the one that is probably going to have the most pressure on his shoulders in a match like this, right? I wouldn't say that Bournemouth are necessarily like West Ham and that they'll just set up in a block and stay there all game. I think Bournemouth do like to play a little bit more on the front foot than that, but even then, you know, Jackson's had a lot of touches in the box. He's had a lot of, you know, he's had some decent service, right? Some not so decent service, but I think he's unfortunately going to be the one that kind of makes or breaks the attack. And someone like Sterling in this case could benefit from the extra attention paid to Jackson or vice versa. So we'll just kind of to see, but someone there needs to be a third, right? Those two are right now what we got from a goal scoring perspective. So whether that's Palmer or that's Matt Awake, whether that's chill well, whether that's Gallagher who's shown that you can score a couple goals, whether that's Enzo, you know, potentially stepping up at a role like that. We need a third goal score. We need someone who's going to draw the defense to their side to open up space for someone else to go in at the back post and get an easy header or someone who's going to open the lane for a cut back to come into the box for an easy kind of slotted home goal like Sterling got against Lutentown. So just kind of thinking about that, that would be kind of the biggest storyline for me. I don't think the defense has been great this year, but I don't think they've been bad either. I think it's been frustrating. The midfield will get hummin, you know, the more time that they get together, I think it's the attack and that's and that's going to play into why I think the lineup is going to be a wee bit different for me, maybe as we go into our predicted lineups, then then maybe it has looked so far. Well, when you talk about predicted lineups, there's a lot of overlap between our two. So I'll let you run with your lineup and then you can differentiate, you can talk about why you have your differences and what we think the end outcome is going to be. And we'll see, you know, again, leave comments if you're watching on YouTube or tweet at us or, you know, z-data, whatever it is. I don't know, post at us. Let us know what you're thinking, but Nick, what's your, what do you think Pachitino is going to line up with when it comes to match on Sunday? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's going to look a little bit closer to what we saw in preseason. I think it's going to be a Gustav Silva, Colwell, chill well back for. I mean, back, chill well playing, left back again is something that, you know, I think we need for balance purposes in the team. You know, it's been well documented that Colwell as a stand-in has done admirable to the start of the season, but really doesn't offer anything and attack from that side outside of the occasional lobbed-over pass, which is great, but chill well will certainly provide a little bit more balance there. So I kind of expect more of a traditional back for in this one because we got to get some goals. So that leaves me with Enzo and Kaisato in the middle. Got to get used to saying that because that's going to be the future. And then I think some sort of interchangeable front four. So it could be a 424, it could be a 4231, maybe kind of a 4222 who knows like it could be a weird one, but I think it'll be Gallagher and Palmer kind of maybe playing two number tens and then Sterling and Jackson and I anticipate subs from Moodyric and Matt Awake as well in a game like this. So that's kind of where I'm going. A little bit more balance up top. I think you at this point have to make the risk assessment that, you know, we can defend with who we got, especially if Kaisato is in the team, but we should rely on maybe an extra attacker to help us get across the line. Yeah, so I think with the international break having occurred right around the same time that the deadline day finished, I just struggle with the idea that Palmer is going to slot in starting for the team. I could be absolutely 1000% wrong. And if Sunday the hour before the match, the lineups come out and Palmer starts, I wouldn't be shocked. I just don't think that that falls in line with the way that we've seen Pachatino work players into the team. Palmer was a way on international duty. He hasn't had that time necessarily to acclimatize. I think that this will be a copy and paste lineup from the last match. So you have Sanchez, Gusto, Disassi, Silva, Colwell, move forward, Kaisato, Enzo Gallagher benefiting from the fact that all of those guys look really good right now, particularly with Kaisato being back into fitness. And then I think it's going to be Sterling, Jackson, and Chilwell. I just I struggle to see even though any Chilwell has received a lot of criticism. Again, I think there's there's a lot of pointing fingers right now. There's a lot of pointing fingers out like this doesn't work. This isn't good. This is what's going on. The interesting thing to me is when you just step back and say like if you look at the whole of all of our performances, so actually philosophy puts out this chart that effectively is like your expected points, right? And again, we are who we are. The points that we have on the board are the points that we have. So we've got four points. If you just take out the luck-based element of it, which I think has played or the individual error component of it, Chelsea should be level with Arsenal and Brentford tied effectively for second place behind and two points behind City on eight points. So I don't think we are as bad as people want to make it out. I think it's easy to point fingers at this Chelsea side right now and say, oh, they're the incomplete article or they're not performing the level or those all this investment. Like, yeah, just because you invest a ton of money doesn't mean it automatically like this isn't Wall Street bets, right? Like it's not going to like double or triple or quadruple every couple days, you know, and you diamond hands it to the end. Like, this is a scenario where like it is a, you know, it's a long term. This is like the 401k or the like, you know, index fund type of experience. Like you're looking for compound on compound interest. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting that I mean, these expected points is just kind of a cut of shit, a wooda to me. And I understand the value of these charts, but it's part of the reason why I think that, you know, against team like Bournemouth, the team that you should be beating, experimenting with, you know, some of the resources that your disposal and potentially not being so defensive is critical. Of course, Chelsea would like a clean sheet, but what we really need this team to do is score goals because I think once Chelsea score goals, it becomes a lot easier for the team to get that defensive record where they want it to. But when you're so reliant on Gusto to bomb forward and provide that extra service from the right hand side, or you're so reliant upon and over the top ball from Colville to try and break a defense. I think it takes their eye off the ball defensively. Right. And in this way, it kind of restores a little bit of balance. At least in my hypothetical scenario, it restores a little bit of balance to the team, knowing that show well and Gusto can both do that, but giving a little bit more of a nod to our attack to interchange. And that's why I don't know if it'll be like a strict 4-2-3-1, but could be kind of a fun little kind of swaps between, you know, Gallagher and, you know, wherever he plays versus wherever in my estimation, that someone like Palmer could play, who said that he can basically play anywhere across the middle three, right, which is right wing left wing or a number 10. We've seen him left for a city. I think that was just due to a personnel gap. And we've seen him on the right for England. We've seen him play number 10 for England. So lots going on there, but a very interesting kind of thought exercise to get going here. The other option to be Matt Awake, right, who is a tricky player, I think, who has started this season a little bit injured, but it's kind of coming into form. Wouldn't shock me to see that one of those. Is she saying either one of those to start? Yeah. I truly believe, I believe we need something else. Like, what has started this season while the expected points look great, and while the cut of shit of what is are high, it's not the reality of situation, the reality of situations that we have not scored enough goals to win matches that we should have won. And that's against Liverpool. That's certainly against Forest, and you could argue that we should have done better against West Ham as well. And so, my bias would be towards goal scoring, getting this team running offensively really well. I wouldn't mind winning games 4-3 at this point of the season, because I think the defense will take care of itself once the offense is scoring, but we can't go through another season where we score 38 league goals and 38 league games. You just can't win games that way. Please, no. I think if you're hedging on this, that Awake has appeared in three matches so far, including the lead cup. So, he got 80 minutes against Wimbledon, he got 16 minutes as a sub against West Ham, and then he got 29 minutes against Forest. So, I don't necessarily know if he's starter in Potsch's playbook at this moment. I mean, maybe you saw a little bit more from Palmer, the shot he took in the last match against Forest makes you feel a little bit better putting him in. Like, I guess, if CoinFlip, if you're like, hey, you have to start one of them. Gosh, probably Palmer, but I still don't think it's going to happen. Again, I'm happy to be wrong. I'm happy to be surprised by Potschettino doing something that I think is atypical, but I think he is more pragmatic than we want to give him credit for, and I think he's going to go for what he believes to be his safer lineup, you know, in opposition of like the fan belief that we need to replace Chihuahua. And ultimately, in the last match against Forest, when you take off Chihuahua, the left side of the attack actually got worse. Yeah, I mean, but you're already down at that point. I mean, you're already having to press at that point. So whatever happens at that point is in service of getting a goal. So I mean, maybe you're right. I would be extremely disappointed to see the kind of same kind of hammer and nail philosophy rolled out for this one, but again, either in either scenario, we have enough talent on the field to be Bournemouth. It's whether the players are ready post international break to compete in the Premier League again, because it's going to be a lot of these stop and starts this year as we illustrate it. I'd be having another international break in October coming up, right? So they coming back from these breaks is hard enough, especially if you do it every other month, it feels like. All right, and we're going to round out this episode with a little bit of a confidence metric. How confident are you Nick on a scale one to ten, one being no confidence whatsoever, ten being full body of confidence that Chelsea can get the business done? Let's give it a seven. See, I was right there with you. I was a solid seven. I think, you know, confident enough, some question marks, but ultimately there's enough talent. There's enough individual goodness in this team that you should be able to manufacture the result that you're looking for and get the positive vibes going once again, get Aura FC reignited. Yeah, I mean, God, you'd hope so. I could easily see this game going in a lot of different directions. I could easily see Chelsea with a 3-0 win. I could easily see it being a scrappy draw, and I could easily see another forest happening. So let's hope for the 3-0 win. Well, that's going to do it for this episode. So let's know your thoughts. Leave comments on YouTube, ZDATA, send us an email. I don't know. Find another way to get in contact with us if you want to talk to us during our Patreon and get in the discord. It's a great way to chat with us, but we will be back after this weekend's match, which is hopefully a win against Bormit to celebrate with you all on Monday. But until next time, Chelsea fans, you know what to do, have a great weekend, and keep moving five flying, huh?

#1112 | International Break Wrap Up + Bournemouth Away Preview! #CFC