Mattoon

It's too early to be calling for Howe's head, there are a lot of mitigating circumstances that have led us to this point. I'm not going to rehash the injuries, fatigue, confidence thing, it's been done to death though it has played its part. But I think at this point you have to look at mistakes made by Howe and the players, it's an horrific gumbo of issues, uncontrollable, external but also controllable and internal. Maybe an international break and warm weather training can bring us a new lease of life for the run in. Perhaps it will take a summer of renovation to reinvigorate us. Either we finish strong and clinch a European slot or we wipe the slate clean and have an easier season to concentrate on the league, I'm OK with either BUT we have to see major improvements next season either way.

I've backed this team through some rough displays, even held on to the fact that exhaustion can and does take a long time to shake off. But there is zero excuses for what we've witnessed tonight, totally unacceptable levels of ineptitude across the pitch.

I'm done for the night, insipid, uninspiring and discombobulated, we deserved this on tonight's display.

Livramento is trying to carry this game on his own. Don't know how he's still walking with the amount of fouls he's received today.

We look more dangerous here we should nick this

Isaaaaaaaaak!!!

Doesn't help Chelsea are getting away with murder here though, this ref blind?

Waited all weekend for this insipid display, so disjointed, frustrating.

Chelsea are extremely good in the middle of the park but toothless upfront and useless at the back, I think they'll have a lot of the ball but not do much with it, we'll nick this 1-0 or 2-1

From the official accout too

Wrap Tino in cotton wool!!

I maintain that 6th is ours to lose, I think 4th/5th are out of our grasp as I can't see those teams dropping 10/15 points more than us in 11 games.

Surely FMV should be deemed by the one thing that a business would be interested in, exposure?

Just saying

Hard to get any speed up when the opposition is just sat in front of the ball in 2 banks of 5

Man City will win this in the 2nd half 3-1

Celtic 1-0 up Disallowed

I was thinking this last night, if you look at the respective run ins, I think 6th is ours to lose, top 5 probably just out of reach now.

What I thought was comfortable win, we didn't look in danger at all and I felt no nerves at 1-0 or 2-0 up, we held then at arms length the entire 90, we're well disciplined and looked dangerous going forward. Light years ahead of what we've witnessed in the last few months and hopefully the green shoots of recovery. Bruno was titanic, Willock made our midfield 3 dimensional again, Livramento slotted in at RB seamlessly when he was called upon, Botman and Isak looked sharp again, Gordon is tireless and Almiron caused problems off the bench again. With options across the pitch on the bench now and a confident 3 goal victory and a shutout hopefully we'll now see one of Howes good runs of form.

Suck on that Guardian hit piece!

Hopefully just precautionary but more than happy for Livramento to have a run in the team.

We've been comfortably in control of this game, never felt like we were in danger in that first half, more of that and it should be a stress free afternoon. We're good for the score line too which is a welcome change.

That's not how fatigue works, it doesn't just disappear because you're not running at the same level anymore, it can take a few months to recover. It also causes brain fog, difficulty making decisions and being slow to react to situations. The more you look into it, the more signs you will see in some of our players.

Blackburn did their research, they packed defence, stayed organised, limited space and hit us fast on the counter. I don't think we were horrific, we were disjointed, had a tough time finding a way through them and left gaps between the lines. They played well to our weaknesses. Definitely nowhere near our best but we still found a way to win, which has to be a positive.