Chelsea 1-3 Man City - Sunday 3rd January, 2021

[Stan]

Mendy

Zouma - Silva - (other cb)

James                                          Chilwell

Kante - Mount

Ziyech                          Pulisic

Werner

or

Mendy

James - Zouma - Silva - Chilwell

Kante 

Ziyech - Mount - Pulisic

Werner - Abraham

Is it time to move away from 4-3-3? Have a more flexible team/formation and something which gets the best out of your attacking players, but at the same time having enough defenders/defensive-minded players to provide that 'balance'. 

Everyone knows how good Kante is and what he can do. 

That defence is fairly solid (on paper anyway in the 2nd formation). Not sure if a 3-at-the-back works or if it's something Lampard has ever considered/tried out?

You have the option 2 agile, pacy strikers in Werner and Abraham and height in the latter (not necessarily a target man, Giroud can do that if he plays) and then most of the creativity coming from the 3 just behind them. I know Havertz hasn't really found form yet hence starting Ziyech. You could have Mount as the one to 'support' Kante if required but he should be dictating games further up the field which is where he is better. 

I also don't know what Kovacic and Jorginho add apart from racking up the yellow cards and a bit of aggression. Hence not being in either tactic.

 

Just my non-managerial, unqualified Sunday night musings which probably make no sense  

[LFCMadLad]

1 minute ago, Cicero said:

You're saying midfielders have certain roles to effectively execute a 433. Luke is saying our midfielders have been mismanaged where they can't effectively execute their roles. 

Different points, but the premise is the same. 

P is for Precious? 

 

N is for not got a clue and wants everyone sacked, loves a player then hates him. 

Nighty night.

[Cicero]

P is definitely for Precious. 

[Burning Gold]

17 minutes ago, carefreeluke said:

Maybe my wording is wrong? Midfielders with an attacking threat? What do you call Mount? Barkley? Havertz? Loftus-Cheek? Those type of players?

They're just midfielders to me, which is kind of my point. You spent £250m on attacking players but how many of those you've listed there are good enough? You can count Havertz, but do you want to restrict him by playing him as an 8 in a 4-3-3?

You should have invested there for me, and I'm still not convinced by Mendy. He may be an upgrade on Kepa, but who isn't?

[Cicero]

8 minutes ago, Burning Gold said:

They're just midfielders to me, which is kind of my point. You spent £250m on attacking players but how many of those you've listed there are good enough? You can count Havertz, but do you want to restrict him by playing him as an 8 in a 4-3-3?

You should have invested there for me, and I'm still not convinced by Mendy. He may be an upgrade on Kepa, but who isn't?

Virtually every signing this summer is good enough. 

Werner did his best work playing as a ST or second striker. What's Lampard done? Have him hug the touch line and is asking him to create chances vs being on the end of chances. Ziyech and Havertz are among the best chance creators in Europe. What's Lampard done? Result to a one dimensional play where the only player that really benefits is Giroud. 

Questions need to be asked why Lampard even bought them if he isn't going to utilise their strengths. I honestly can't see who benefits from this style of play/system. This isn't me hating Lampard despite what delicate little flower says. Virtually every issue we see within the team goes straight back to Lampard. 

[Spike]

3 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

I do think loaning out Barkley was a mistake. He does bring something, I feel he’ll go through his whole career without fully realising his talent. Partly his own fault because he’s always on the piss.

Is that true? shame that, ruined better players than he

[Spike]

What is Havertz? People seem to have a good hold on him but he has never consistently played in one position in his career so far. CM, CAM, LW, RW, ST, better figure out what he wants to do

Also Werner plays through the left channel, watch his RBL goals, nearly all of them come from that position. No matter what he will congest the left hand side, with another winger and the attacking fullback. Play him as a lone striker and he still will move towards that left channel, because that is what he does, ideally he’d play with another centre forward, and maybe not a winger that moves inside towards the box. All it does is create traffic with Pulisic/whomever, Werner, Chillwell all moving in from the left side. I don’t know what people expect or want from Werner when his entire career so far has been as a striker moving in from the left channel towards the box when he has space to sprint

[Devil-Dick Willie]

2 hours ago, Cicero said:

Virtually every signing this summer is good enough. 

Werner did his best work playing as a ST or second striker. What's Lampard done? Have him hug the touch line and is asking him to create chances vs being on the end of chances. Ziyech and Havertz are among the best chance creators in Europe. What's Lampard done? Result to a one dimensional play where the only player that really benefits is Giroud. 

Questions need to be asked why Lampard even bought them if he isn't going to utilise their strengths. I honestly can't see who benefits from this style of play/system. This isn't me hating Lampard despite what delicate little flower says. Virtually every issue we see within the team goes straight back to Lampard. 

Not true. Second striker only. He's dog shit as a focal point. I told you this. 

[Spike]

when a new feud starts

 

[Cicero]

42 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

I told you this. 

 I know. Believe me. I know. 

[carefreeluke]

@Stan

Lampard has shifted to three at the back on a few occasions with us normally to get us more defensive solidarity, he's done it already this season and played about with it last campaign as well. I personally don't like it, we looked good defensively but we didn't particularly look good in attack. Maybe there's a way it can be tweaked and adapted to give us something else offensively but that remains to be seen. History suggests that a bad run of form results in Lampard changing it up, be it with shape or personnel and it's worked in the past but how is that sustainable? We just get back to having bad results again eventually. The truth is we've always been incredibly up and down under his management. 

@Spike

When I posted my preferred team earlier in this season, I didn't have Werner in the starting eleven, he should be used more sporadically. Instead, he's played nearly every minute of every game, left-wing, right-wing, upfront, left on in games that were dead and in which we were comfortably cruising. I agree with your analysis of him, the problem is that he's been completely mismanaged and the fact of the matter is that a lot of our forward players have been as well. You mention him getting in the way of Pulisic but he's also got in the way of Hudson-Odoi who's also been unlucky not to have been used more, another example of Lampard's mismanagement. 

[Stan]

2 minutes ago, carefreeluke said:

Lampard has shifted to three at the back on a few occasions with us normally to get us more defensive solidarity, he's done it already this season and played about with it last campaign as well. I personally don't like it, we looked good defensively but we didn't particularly look good in attack. Maybe there's a way it can be tweaked and adapted to give us something else offensively but that remains to be seen. History suggests that a bad run of form results in Lampard changing it up, be it with shape or personnel and it's worked in the past but how is that sustainable? We just get back to having bad results again eventually. The truth is we've always been incredibly up and down under his management. 

 

So he's shown some flexibility in managing which is a good thing because not many sides go through a whole season just sticking to one tactic all the way through. But then like you say it needs to be tweaked/adapted to fit the right personnel to work. 

Making use of Chilwell's ability as an attacking left-sided player it might suit him. He's better going forward and dominating the left-flank and if Lampard wants to rely on crosses in to the box, playing Giroud with another striker could work in that sense. The 3 centre-backs need to have a good familiarity for that formation to work though. A very successful and experienced player like Thiago Silva is handy to have if he were to go back to it again. 

Is Lampard's game management still lacking? I remember @Cicero and perhaps yourself too mentioning it a while back in that he makes subs too late, and therefore hindering the ability to get results. You could be drawing and he'd make an attacking sub to win the game too late or you lose a lead because fresh legs didn't come on quick enough etc...

[carefreeluke]

I think a lot of people watched us yesterday and saw a lot of this:

As some of you mentioned on here our defensive shape, people filling in gaps, pressing, the defensive line was all over the place yesterday and I think a lot of people watched the game and thought that and they are right to do so.

Was this a problem in our previous games? No. If you look back on our previous games, the biggest problem was that we were so stale, predictable, and slow in attack, we couldn't create anything worthwhile. When that happens, the opposition grows in confidence in the game and our very own players begin to doubt themselves and mistakes happen, even more so when it starts to become a common theme and the results start going and you're in a bad run. Yesterday was a really bad day but it all started long ago with Lampard's mismanagement of the forward players we have. Our attacking play has stagnated which gradually has led us to fuck up everything else in the team.

[carefreeluke]

On 21/12/2020 at 21:48, Bluewolf said:

Also we spend too much time passing sideways and then back rather than pressing forward... It just invites pressure on us rather than applying it to them.. again we are too sluggish

 

On 21/12/2020 at 22:54, Cicero said:

One of the most boring, passive, and uninspiring games I’ve ever witnessed, and we’ve won 3-0. 
 

Needed the result but my god that was painful. Looked good defensively and despite the passive play we should’ve scored 5 if Werner didn’t fluff every chance. I’d drop him for Arsenal if Ziyech is fit. 

 

On 15/12/2020 at 21:38, Bluewolf said:

Sums up our performance when we can fail to have a single shot on goal in the first 45 minutes and we only managed 3 shots on goal against Everton for the full 90 despite all that talent on the pitch and if teams go at us we are essentially a non threat, just a passing side 

 

On 12/12/2020 at 23:18, Bluewolf said:

The other thing as well... In games like this where defences are packed out this endless pumping in of crosses is just a big fail every time, either they hit the defenders or there is no space to get into a decent goal scoring position.. Great if it's on the break sure but wasted otherwise. You need a couple of players who can take that ball and drive into the box and keep the defenders on the back foot which is where we lack creativity... 

 

On 29/11/2020 at 19:33, Cicero said:

Frustrating. 

We knew Mourinho's game plan from the beginning and couldn't do anything about it. Forced Spurs to a few mistakes yet couldn't capitalise at all. Attack was wasteful. Tammy has improved his overall game but connecting to crosses still an underlying weakness. 

On the plus, defence still looks sound. Long season ahead. 

 

These are all comments during the previous performances during the bad run, the defence is even mentioned to have looked quite good.

Lampard's mismanagement of the forward players and midfield is definitely where a lot of the issues lie. This mismanagement manifests itself in many different ways by the way and it's not just simply a case of putting them in the best positions possible. This is part of the problem but there are many different layers to it. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Werner hurting himself taking a corner is sort of a manifestation of how his big money move has gone

[Cicero]

When it rains, it pours. 

[DNA]

So many potential flops for Chelsea, Mendy is no upgrade for them of any sorts (albeit not a huge fee), Werner seems will never play in a formation suited to him or in a system, style or the right players around him. Havertz has shown some glimpses but all in all the transfer seems a total shot in the dark, a guy who was bossing it in a farmers club built around him. Good on them for being so well run, the flops (Kepa, Morata, Drinkwater and all them) never matter, as they’ll find a way to churn out player sales and make a profit somehow. A club like ours, too many flops is a disaster and sets you back like 5 years.

[carefreeluke]

On 06/01/2021 at 12:21, DNA said:

So many potential flops for Chelsea, Mendy is no upgrade for them of any sorts (albeit not a huge fee), Werner seems will never play in a formation suited to him or in a system, style or the right players around him. Havertz has shown some glimpses but all in all the transfer seems a total shot in the dark, a guy who was bossing it in a farmers club built around him. Good on them for being so well run, the flops (Kepa, Morata, Drinkwater and all them) never matter, as they’ll find a way to churn out player sales and make a profit somehow. A club like ours, too many flops is a disaster and sets you back like 5 years.

Time will tell if they end up as flops but a lot of them aren't being used correctly.

Kepa was that bad that anyone that came in who looked relatively competent in goal was always going to be a breath of fresh air. We spent a month cheering simple catches and stops, Mendy has been an upgrade simply because he's shown some sort of competence in goal. Also, the fact that he's very big and physical which a lot of fans will also take as a positive considering the form and stature of Kepa before him.