I tend to think on balance that Roy was right in his tactics today. He figured his best chance of getting anything from the game was to keep them out and hope for a breakaway goal . He had not much option based on the fact that to play any other way would need us to have a goal scoring striker fed by creative midfielders. At this point in time we have neither a goal scoring centre forward or creative midfielder. Wickham has not played for two years and Meyer is still adjusting to the Prem. so to expect them to be the salvation to our problems against a to a team like Chelsea is rather nieve.
If we are to be more attacking even if Benteke and Wickham recover and get their goal scoring boots on we still will need more creativity in midfield. JimmyMac Cheick and Luca as a trio are all defensive minded hence the reason Roy looks to get points on the counter.
Be it the forwards we have or ones we bring in to fully utilise them we need more creativity in midfield than we have at present.
If we do not get more midfield quality in then we must expect to generally look to win games on the counter.
COYP

Jimmy Mac has a great work rate, but he is not notably creative. He seldom seems to stamp his personality on a match.

I’m inclined to think it might be time for a Jason Puncheon recall.

Is it pointless to inquire about Johnny Williams? Is he out on loan?

We need a bit of spark.

Correction: a lot of spark.

Edited by merganser (30 Dec 2018 9.25pm)

I seem to remember Benitez getting some awful flak when he did the same against Citeh last season with the home fans cheering throw ins. Looking at the stats they managed 6 shots 2 on target that game which seems profligate compared to us today.

“ [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know.But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know. ”
—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

Does anyone agree that it might be the manager at fault and not the players? Has Roy had his day?

Course it’s not the managers fault

Zaha has to play as a striker as we had no body better to play central.

He wasn’t given enough funds to get the players the squad needed last summer

Now connors come in he can finally revert Wilfried as a winger again.

There’s nothing else he could’ve done for the up front needs

Yes we needed another striker in the summer but how do we know Roy decided to stick with? I’d second guess the board said we only have ‘this much’ and he knew he needed to replace two outbound midfielders. That was a big priority too you know? Otherwise McArthur and co would’ve been horrendously knackered by now.

If the money wasn’t there it wasn’t there. Ask Benítez how he feels

But hopefully now it’s january we have another smallish chunk of doe to spend,

Have to agree with this.. He was awful today, however he's been very good of late so was due an off day I suppose... Roy seemed to be playing him left midfield today which was really odd.

It's clear that Wilf is more effective and dangerous out wide.. This striker problem really needs to be sorted. Was just really disappointed at how much respect we showed Chelsea.. We made no effort at all to win this game.

In fact the moment I saw Meyer had been dropped for Schlupp it was clear Roy was going for the 0-0

Edited by kennybrowns leftfoot (30 Dec 2018 11.28pm)

Don't waste your time with jealousy. Sometimes your ahead, sometimes your behind, the race is long. But in the end it's only with yourself!!