27 replies to this topic

[communicate]

I like AVB philosophy with his possession football and high line however Is it just me or I feel like this season Chelsea is having a really major problem in term of creating chances. We play a slow build-up game which give time for our opponent to organize its defense and most of our attack come from crosses. Not only most of them are usually terrible crosses but they are floating crosses from deep. I just simply don't see Sturridge and Torres winning many ball in the air.

I saw a couple of goals for us this season when Cole/Mata was able to penetrate into the box and made good crosses, but I don't think they can do that consistently. Mata prefers to cut inside and do a link up play and cole is simply not 27 anymore.

Without Ramires who is great at counter attack, I really have no idea where the goals will come for us other than from set pieces or defensive mistake by our opponent.

[Sh0n3x]

We had a good pre-season. Team recovered from the previos season well and put it all behind. We started well and creating chances wasn't the problem. Problem is that we dropped the highline and lowered the tempo of our game since Andre's playstyle simply couldn't succed here with the players we have. If we won that game at Old Traford where we outplayed Manu I think our season so far would've been different, but a run of bad results has put AVB under pressure and he had to change it.

Team is under pressure and short on confidence. It reminds me of last season a lot.

I'm happy as long as we keep getting 3 points and grinding that top4 finish. Hopefully we will do it and then make radical changes in the summer and prepare for the 1st real season under Andre.

[manpe]

Build up is slow because we have no focal point in attack. A player gets the ball, gets closed down, opposition reorganizes and we pass back or side-to-side in hope that the next player has space and creativity to do something. It doesn't work very often because the players around the action of play usually just try to make themselves open for a pass in order not to give away possession, but rarely does anybody try something ambitious a la run behind the line and an appropriate pass. Crosses don't work because we simply don't have good crossers in our team and with Drogba out, we don't have the players to head em in... our best chance is hitting them low and hope that somebody gets a foot in. We do attempt low crosses more often and with greater effect too, as it was earlier pointed out by CareFreeChronic.

We've just hit a creative stalemate at the moment... it will be interesting to see how we tackle that problem with the current crop of player. This is the problem we face while not having a playmaker.

[communicate]

Sh0n3x, on 02 February 2012 - 08:39 PM, said:

We had a good pre-season. Team recovered from the previos season well and put it all behind. We started well and creating chances wasn't the problem. Problem is that we dropped the highline and lowered the tempo of our game since Andre's playstyle simply couldn't succed here with the players we have. If we won that game at Old Traford where we outplayed Manu I think our season so far would've been different, but a run of bad results has put AVB under pressure and he had to change it.

Team is under pressure and short on confidence. It reminds me of last season a lot.

I'm happy as long as we keep getting 3 points and grinding that top4 finish. Hopefully we will do it and then make radical changes in the summer and prepare for the 1st real season under Andre.

Interesting, so the problem lies on our team inability to play high line, however with Cahill I don't see AVB buying another cb in summer.

After our performance against MU, I was excited about this season. Torres scored and if we took our chances we could score 5 in Old Trafford.
It is just so depressing to see the way we play right now. I am just afraid our inability to score will cost us UCL spot

[Ollie]

Chelsea offensive problem is quite simple. Playing players out of their favoured positions and playing players who are hopeless.

[Sh0n3x]

communicate, on 02 February 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

Interesting, so the problem lies on our team inability to play high line, however with Cahill I don't see AVB buying another cb in summer.

After our performance against MU, I was excited about this season. Torres scored and if we took our chances we could score 5 in Old Trafford.
It is just so depressing to see the way we play right now. I am just afraid our inability to score will cost us UCL spot

It's not only the highline, but when we put our defensive line lower we usually build from the back and when we finally send the ball to midfielders they fail to do anything useful with it and they simply make the safest pass to the nearest player or backwards and it happens for most of the match. When the ball finally reaches our front 3, it's either Mata who is trying to do something, Sturridge trying to shoot and failing and Torres either faling or trying to dribble from the wing
That's one way we usually play, and the 2nd one is the doubling on the wing with fullbacks and trying to cross which usually fails as Torres is without confidence and out of position while Sturridge hasn't been good as before his injury. Now, without Ramires, we have lost drive in the midfield and speed in the counter attacks and I wasn't surprised with how dumb we looked against Real Madrid Swansea.

It's frustrating, predictable and uneffective, but we have looked stronger defensively a lot since we dropped the highline.

[Superfrankie]

Our pressing is non-existing at the moment. Torres is the only one who tries to do it, but he lacks support. Collective pressing is one of the most important things in modern football and teams who can play it successfully are very effective.

[manpe]

Superfrankie, on 02 February 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

Our pressing is non-existing at the moment. Torres is the only one who tries to do it, but he lacks support. Collective pressing is one of the most important things in modern football and teams who can play it successfully are very effective.

Exactly. When I watched El Clasico I saw how both teams pressed and was astonished by how far Chelsea is from that kind of level.

[YouNameIt]

Are you surprised? Look at our squard, our midfield most importantly. David Luiz is more creative than all of our midfield combined, so is Mata.

Yeah CHelsea is playing possession football, but there is one problem here. The players dont move, they pass the ball around but there is very little creativity. If we want to play that type of football we have to TRY to move like say Barcelona. At the moment we pass the ball around and then just try to cross it in or lose the ball.

And CEALRLY crossing is not a viable option with our current squard and playstyle. We havent got any wingers and we dont have any strong players (except for Drogba) to use that.

In short, we need like 2 midfielders, a really creative one and a left winger, also a forward.

[communicate]

YouNameIt, on 02 February 2012 - 11:18 PM, said:

Are you surprised? Look at our squard, our midfield most importantly. David Luiz is more creative than all of our midfield combined, so is Mata.

Yeah CHelsea is playing possession football, but there is one problem here. The players dont move, they pass the ball around but there is very little creativity. If we want to play that type of football we have to TRY to move like say Barcelona. At the moment we pass the ball around and then just try to cross it in or lose the ball.

And CEALRLY crossing is not a viable option with our current squard and playstyle. We havent got any wingers and we dont have any strong players (except for Drogba) to use that.

In short, we need like 2 midfielders, a really creative one and a left winger, also a forward.

I agree that we need one winger to back up mata and sturridge.
AVB will still want to play 4-3-3 and as I much as I hate Sturridge, I just don't see AVB dropping him.

Everybody mentions about a really good creative midfielder, I am just not sure where to put him in our current lineup.
Unless AVB is ready to declare Lampard as just a rotation player.

Meireles/Lampard --- Ramires
Romeu/Essien


I believe what we really need is a really good target-man. Drogba is still good player but he is 33 and I am really tired of Torres saga.
He is almost unplayable when he play in a high tempo team like Liverpool but he does not fit the way chelsea play and we will better of selling him or even trading him for carroll. We need a target-man, Liverpool need a poacher

[Beirut_Blues]

Why didnt we sign Tevez?

Would City have refused to sell him to us? We r no threat to citys title ambitions so perhaps our ppl should have bid for him.. Unless theres something i dont knw.

[Drogba11CFC]

The other problem is that people are taking offense at our existance.