All the more confusing for me...putting the game in the hands of Mustafi, Sokratis and Cech. Auba and Ozil with Ramsey and Lacazette to come on with Chelsea’s defense looking really vulnerable. Obviously Hazard makes a big impact, but that was anyone’s game at HT and we didn’t even try to win it.

love Arsenal ****ting themselves as soon as Hazard came on.

Some awful awful defending in the 1st half from both sides.

Seems like huge overreaction over Kepa but I guess when you splash 80M on a GK nobody knows, people are dying to lol at him.

I would gladly lol @ozil for another awful performance in a big game but i'm afraid to be labeled an islamophobic

Lol "big game"

what is your definition of a big game?

World Cup finals for example. Trophies being played for in general. Neither Arsenal or Chelsea have a chance of winning the league.

By your logic there are no big games in this league. Or the league of your home country.

City vs Liverpool i guess. Since only those have a reasonable shot at winning the league as it seems.

This is similar to defining "worldclass" as being Messi or Salah though.

Well a PL game vs another member (and local rival) of the big 6 is within my definition of a big game. if you want to restrict yours to games with a trophy on the line only and keep the sample ultra small and consider that there are going to be 2 big games this season in the PL that's your right.

but per my definition of big game and including today, Ozil performs really poorly on average and I know I'm wrong because muslim antibias/ ex-schalke player/sick off the ball movement but I'm going to stick to what I've seen on the TV having watched pretty much all of the top 6 confrontations in the PL over the last 4-5 years

Anyway important 3 points which keeps burnley a point ahead of their rivals with a game in hand.

Yep

Also lol at accusing me of keeping too small a sample when the big game narrative in and of itself is an exersise in trying to find patterns within small samples.

Ok I'd say derbies are prestigious games too but no one cares about Arsenal vs Chelsea or Fulham right? There's the NLD and then everything else.

I think there is a decent sample of big game per my/the general definition within the premier league. We're talking about what in Ozil's case? 40 to 50 games? Can also add his CL performances vs Bayern to that I guess + FA Cup finals.

I'm sure he's been good in some of them, he's a good player and I don't think he's lazy but I can say pretty confidently that his average performance in those big games is poor and definitely way below what you'd expect from a world class player.

Also sample sizes in football are small but if I say that Ozil goes missing in a lot of big games and he performs poorly on average, that does not make a narrative nor wrong. If I stretched to say that Ozil sucks, you may have a point but as it is, it's just FÄCTS as SN would say

Goatdouzi need better players around him.

I do get that and I haven’t checked the data on how ozil performs in ‘big games’. I’m sure ozil has the odd poor game against weaker sides too. I’m sure all players generally find less edges against better opposition. This isn’t too hard to deduce. Or perhaps Ozil has a psychological block and if he had just taken your logic that this is an irrelevant fixture between two europa league bound sides he would’ve strode onto the pitch and taught chelsea a footballing lesson; except he viewed it as another big game and meekly surrendered again as the is the narrative that is forced upon us. I dunno, I don’t really have an opinion, I didn’t even watch the game.

Changing subject I read that Eden Hazard has 41 goals and assists against other top 6 opposition in all competitions. I’m unsure of number of games but seems good.

It was not some collective half time decision, it was how Arse reacted to the presence of Hazard, basically ****ing themselves at the idea of him running at you and then breaking into space behind.

Chelsea v Arse not a big game is a hot take.

16/17 summer window

bought
Xhaka - 45m
Mustafi - 41m
Lucas - 14m

sold
Gnabry - 5m

#dreamsummer

Eden Hazard in being an absolute bloke shocker

he's french so obviously he's a sick ****

I will defend Özil to the end of the earth like in the GER-SK game, but yeah...these two games have not been his finest. He’s still finding his place in Emery’s system, but we need a whole hell of a lot better from him.

Even in the 15 minutes before he and Kovacic (who predictably looks great btw) were introduced, it was noticeable.

Thanks man. I’m gonna go kill myself now.

Was Mustafi really £41m?

figures in euros.

Just finished all or nothing. Thought it was great. Mendy and Bernardo come off so well. So likable. The scene with kompany with his FIL watching the United west brom match was awesome. Kompany is an all timer seems impossible not to like him

This is like Jimmy Saville calling out someone else for being a pedophile, but possibly even less self aware. He's a special one for sure.

I guess my #brand on this forum nowadays is Özil homer but while I do think the "big games" narrative is pretty dumb, and I thought he had an ok game yesterday, I could definetly see him just being done not too far from now. After all he's around 30 and has been playing top flight football for twelve years already. Football will need to adjust it aging curves from when players broke in when they were like 22.