Too little too late: Sanchez denies Everton's rearguard action

Beto is in for the unavailable Broja.

Palmer not scored for 16 games is it? Jackson no goals — I wonder what will happen today?

Should we go at them or defend for 90 minutes? Sheep or lamb time?

McNeil is obviously not fully fit yet - and Alcaraz isn't really a wing / forward and hasn't impressed there.

Tough game ahead - with Chelsea likely to dominate and cause problems with their technical ability, pace and mobility.

Still - we will get our chances. COYB.

What is the matter with the man? Why the fuck does he not like flair players who can change games?

Alcaraz has not been given anything like a proper opportunity to become fully integrated and show what he is I'm sure really capable of.

Whereas I'm sorry but Ndiaye is another who is flattering to deceive.

Only 1 win in 8 matches. That is a very poor record. Prove me wrong, Dithering Dave.

I mean, why not try other players? How the hell are we ever going to find out if they are good enough if they never get a chance to play?

Dwight McNeil has been our best player for ages, he should be back in the team.

I'm absolutely sick of Doucoure and Harrison.

Never like the idea of Pickford being captain, I understand the initial team selection but as things don't work out let's hope we see some early changes.

Doucoure and Patterson sounding like they should take an early bath?

But both Doucoure and Harrison are headless and Beto coming deep is not a good idea. Need changes at half time, if Everton can by luck keep it 1-0.

His follow-through clips Beto and brings him down.

They are giving Chelsea all the space they want between the lines. It may also be why they got such an easy goal, off Beto and away with no bother at all.

Harrison and Doucoure are not having much of a game but then it's difficult to see who is with little idea or support up front and most of our passing seems to lack any crispness whatsoever, the ball almost stopping on arriving at its destination.

Moyes has to do something and all I can think of is playing Ndiaye wider in place of Harrison and bringing Alcaraz on and maybe trying to link Beto and Chermiti up front in place of Doucoure. Mind you, I haven't seen Gana do anything of note.

However, this is contrary to Moyes's DNA, but surely, nothing to really lose and potentially a fair bit to gain. No shots in first half does tend to speak for itself.

Michael #18 Beto touch so poor.

Let's face it, we're losing and unless we start winning the ball we are not going to get anything. Alcaraz on!

Problem is turning the ball over relatively easily and deeply, ball not sticking with the likes of Ndiaye, Harrison and Beto.

Really tough game for Patterson to come back in and have to try forging a brand new partnership with O’Brien.

Need to keep Beto upfield so any turnovers don’t put them in a quick and easy attacking position.

I think McNeil’s chronic lack of pace (and what will be limited fitness) would have been cruelly exposed if he’d started. Give him 20 minutes at least to work some magic.

Just got to keep it tight and give us a chance to make it a game in the last quarter of the game.

Presume Ndiaye has taken a knock.

How did Mykolenko get a foul given against him when their keeper took him out with a reckless follow through?

Wouldn’t trust any of the big broadcaster commentators to give you a nuanced view. One central defender’s distribution has been near faultless and yet only Chalobah got name checked for an ambitious but inadequate long ball.

For fuck's sake, Moyes.

Alcaraz has changed the game for us. Good ball retention and better distribution.

The chavs offered fuck all.

Take the positives and move on.

But Moyes squandered the first half by having them play utter shite with his horrible team selection. He finally put it right, but only after the hour mark and we finally started to play football.

Very very annoying. Just not good enough from Moyes.

Remains to be seen if we can finish top of our mini league of 13th for a few extra million quid. I would prefer to just fast forward the next month and get to the summer rebuild.

Patterson isn't a Premier League right back.

O'Brien and Branthwaite looked pretty good together as do Gana and Garner.

The puzzle is trying to fit Ndiaye, Alcaraz and Doucoure into the same team.

Mykolenko another solid defensive game.

I also thought I was watching Chelsea TV but it was TNT Sports. The media really are pretty clueless with impartially.

Ref was pretty home bias, that little Cucurella has to be the biggest shithouse in the league.

Roll on next week.

I hope Moyes saw something in his substitutions but my first thoughts were that Chelsea must have felt a slight shudder when they saw Young coming on. I couldn't work out how that was going to get us anything.

Perhaps he might have gambled on playing Chermiti with Beto rather than instead of. We did have a couple of chances but still nobody to put them away.

I suppose we are safe from the haunting of relegation but I would like to see Moyes try something more adventurous; on today's performance, we are just making up the numbers.

And finally, where did we get that awful colour kit!
I'd even prefer the washed-out grey look to that.

Hands the opposition the initiative.

I think that was down to a negative set-up by Moyes, another what if...

Chelsea have quality but no finish, no bottle either. We should have been more positive from the off... Damn, this feels like déjà vu!

Harsh, as I thought the Manager tried to give the starting line up a chance, realized it was not effective so changed it; that's the sign of a good Manager. Dyche wouldn't have changed anything until the 80th minute.

Moyes will have learned a lot from the changes.

Sanchez denied us with two great saves. We gave Chelsea with all their big money signings and depth a real scare. We're not far off it with a a few good signings.

For fuck's sake, change it up!! 😡😡

This is a squad riddled with very very average players, yet Moyes still persists with Harrison, Doucoure and others who do not affect the game at all.

I've cut Moyes some slack since he came back but, if he continues to play Harrison and Doucoure, I'll scream — the pair of them are shocking.

Yes, Doucoure got a late winner against Forest… big deal — but we need to start getting ruthless and stop offering the likes of him a new contract albeit, on reduced terms.

Doesn't this sentimental shit show of a club ever learn?

I said on the live forum that Hammers fans disliked him for the very same type of performance.

Why does he do it?... we had nothing to lose by taking the game to them from the off.

Very frustrated as Chelsea are shite at the moment, he really does himself no favours at times.

Need to find goals from somewhere. Maybe Moyes doesn't like Alcaraz because he makes the other players look awful.

He hasn't got it, never had and never will.

Apart from that, no matter how much these pundits drool over Chelsea, they don't look a Top 6 side.

And an away win against 3rd-placed Forest…

At least Moyes didn’t pick Keane and gave the Patterson-O’Brien-Branthwaite set-up a chance to bed in. The centre backs looked good and Patterson showed some good potential despite a couple of bad moments against a tricky opponent.

Now that the run of fixtures against the top 5 is done, Moyes has to change the outlook.

We should be picking: Pickford; Patterson, O’Brien, Branthwaite, Mykolenko; Garner, Iroegbunam; McNeil, Alcaraz, N’Diaye; Beto.

All of them are our players, contracted next season (except Alcaraz, who we should be buying) and the younger options for the future. Gana, Doucoure and Young have their qualities but none should be part of the rebuild, not even Gana.

Why wasn't that a penalty against Mykolenko. The keeper never caught the ball and he basically just flattened him.

I was wondering about that too. But the referee may have seen what I saw and what you apparently didn't: Sanchez did catch the ball but his impact with Mykolenko a split-second later caused him to lose his grip and fumble then drop the ball.

Still seemed like an unwarranted assault on one of our players. Penalty all day long.

No credit being given to a very talented and athletic Chelsea team who are still working on finding consistency but are getting it together generally.

I would like Alcaraz to start and play with Ndiaye to see if they can spark off each other.

I thought this was a difficult situation for Patterson to get his first start in ages (two completely new defensive partnerships needing to come together simultaneously). Some mistakes but only one that was really bad. Young wasn’t really tested too often (but absolutely left for dead on one occasion) as we seemed to be rattling their composure in other parts of the pitch.

I thought Mykolenko had a good game. Garner’s dead ball delivery was major disappointment but I thought his work elsewhere was solid.

Yes MK, Sanchez played ball first but Myko didn’t foul him in any way, shape or form. Ridiculous he was the one penalised.

Agreed, Alcaraz was good second half though, would have been interesting to see him in tandem with Ndiaye, perhaps Moyes should be a bit more adventurous, especially us being safe, he should be using these games to experiment with formations.

Branthwaite and O’Brien look like a decent pairing, and Branthwaite in particular continues to show exceptional poise on and off the ball. I thought Garner was neat and tidy and moved the ball well, even if his set pieces were poor. Patterson, Beto and Chermiti are just not good enough and need to be moved on this summer if we want to be competing in the top half of the Premier League.

I was with my cousin sat with him and Chelsea supporters.

I'll gather my thoughts. As always, I like a cooling off period.

I said before the match, with almost nothing to play for, go and play with freedom.

No chance. An average game between two average teams.

The bottom line is we have a squad that is good without being quite good enough.

I am normally critical of Moyes’ tactics and selections, but today he couldn’t have done much better, given the resources at his disposal. There were at least 2 incidents in the Chelsea penalty box that should have merited closer inspection by VAR, but surprise!, didn’t happen.

Major rebuilding needed next season, several areas need strengthening. I believe we have a good defensive base. Midfield needs massive reinforcements and we need to get lucky with a talismanic attacking signing who could help propel us up the table.

Disappointed with the result, but this game’s outcome was a massive motivation for one team, and not so much for the other, and the result reflected it.

Regarding the withdrawal of Ndiaye, he’s not really been on it since he returned from his injury lay-off, but, with so many other candidates who have been quite frankly rank, it’s odd that Ndiaye was first to be hooked, given his ability to turn things?

Which raises the spectre of the close season clear-out. Because the length of the list of candidates is quite frankly frightening, on the basis it includes more going than staying, which in my view should include the likes of Doucouré, Patterson, Mykolenko, Harrison, Keane, Beto, McNiel to name but a few.

Looking at Chelsea today, and the massive money they've wasted, they were very ordinary, and extremely nervous, and there for the taking, if Moyes picked a more attacking line-up.

But we desperately need a striker, Beto hasn't got a first touch, and Chermiti isn't a No 9 — more suited to two upfront.