The Conte Thread

[Tomo 21,681]

3 hours ago, BoyBlue96 said:

Of course Roman wants to learn 'bout football. Guy showed he knows absolutely nothing about it and the process about team building when he sacked Carlo Ancelotti.

 

Oh about Spurs in the coming weeks: hope they and Arsene FC are going for a draw coming sunday and for us, win against Everton and also easily against Boro so the lads are going into the Spuds game with full confidence.

Ancelotti second season was woeful.

[BoyBlue96 990]

42 minutes ago, Tomo said:

Ancelotti second season was woeful.

He's still the best we ever had after José. That double was amazing and I'm certain he could've given us more if he stayed longer. Second season woeful? Yes, not all managers are like Sir Alex Ferguson who could do a title win 3 years in a row. 

But good that it happened in a way because if he wasn't sacked we wouldn't have gotten AVB and later on Di Matteo with the UCL win... 

[Tomo 21,681]

1 hour ago, BoyBlue96 said:

He's still the best we ever had after José. That double was amazing and I'm certain he could've given us more if he stayed longer. Second season woeful? Yes, not all managers are like Sir Alex Ferguson who could do a title win 3 years in a row. 

But good that it happened in a way because if he wasn't sacked we wouldn't have gotten AVB and later on Di Matteo with the UCL win... 

Actually id say that was Hiddink the first time, and I already feel more comfortable with Antonio on a tactical level than I ever did with Carlo.

[BoyBlue96 990]

2 hours ago, Tomo said:

Actually id say that was Hiddink the first time, and I already feel more comfortable with Antonio on a tactical level than I ever did with Carlo.

Yes, Guus did a good job first time! Sad he couldn't repeat the FA cup win last season

Would've been epic seeing him like this again

[Unionjack 7,531]

Going back a couple of games but I cant get tired of watching the w of them so different. I wish we could see them after the 4th eh!!!

 

 Can just imagine Mou saying "Is it finished yet?"

 

[kellzfresh 7,226]

I found this nice insight to how we play the 3 at the back, including David Luiz role, wingbacks and hazards role. They also compare some differences between our 3-4-3 and Mancity using 3 centerbacks. Very insightful. 

 

[ZOS 580]

I wish we could improve on possession of the ball tbh

[Cosmin 2,484]

28 minutes ago, ZOS said:

I wish we could improve on possession of the ball tbh

Why? Our results improved as soon as our possesion dropped. The low possesion is not a bad thing, if you do it the way we are doing it now.

There was a time, during the previous seasons, when we didn't retain possesion and our playing style was ugly and boring. Can you say that Chelsea play ugly football now? No way. We look very strong and there are moments when we speed it up beautifully. The percentage is not as relevant as the quality of the time when you have the ball. The way we play now, sometimes you don't even notice that the opponent has it for a longer time than us. Because they don't do with it anything that comes even close to what we do with the ball during the shorter time that we have it. Look at the games against Man United and Soton. They had more possesion, but the great opportunities and actions were created by us.

My only wish is that we keep playing with the same discipline and wish for victory and, most importantly, we keep not using dirty tactics! Look at Costa, for Christ's sake! He looks like a lamb, so peaceful and quiet! 

[quickpassnmove 924]

On 10/24/2016 at 0:56 PM, akgw13 said:

I think we definitely need competition/backup for Alonso(im a big fan of how he has played), Baba maybe but if Conte wants to bring someone in I support that. Maybe someone who can play both RWB and LWB like De Sciglio

Another attacker/striker who can contribute goals from the right would be nice, Griezz has long been my dream but might be unattainable. Auba from dortmund i think could be absolutely deadly with our team, SO much speed and clinical finisher but he would be a backup plan if Costa isnt happy. 

Christensen, Luiz, Zouma, Cahill on the bench, could absolutely use another stud CB(preferably left footed)

A b2b as competition for Matic to keep him motivated also to have another option.

 

Conte has played ball and turned water into wine with our team (so far) Lets hope the board supports him fully in the market cause the Godfather is the real deal.

 

Agree, agree, agree. Dump the players of lower quality and get in some better defenders and CMs quickly. 

Trade a Willian for a better attacking player when he is found.

[Captain Ahmed 528]

1 minute ago, Mana said:

My gosh. This flew by me. I've forgotten how Costa is well-disciplined compared to the previous seasons. What has Conte done to him? (And I mean that in a good way).

D.Costa watches Gomorra

[Blue-in-me-Veins 4,067]

7 hours ago, Cosmin said:

Why? Our results improved as soon as our possesion dropped. The low possesion is not a bad thing, if you do it the way we are doing it now.

There was a time, during the previous seasons, when we didn't retain possesion and our playing style was ugly and boring. Can you say that Chelsea play ugly football now? No way. We look very strong and there are moments when we speed it up beautifully. The percentage is not as relevant as the quality of the time when you have the ball. The way we play now, sometimes you don't even notice that the opponent has it for a longer time than us. Because they don't do with it anything that comes even close to what we do with the ball during the shorter time that we have it. Look at the games against Man United and Soton. They had more possesion, but the great opportunities and actions were created by us.

My only wish is that we keep playing with the same discipline and wish for victory and, most importantly, we keep not using dirty tactics! Look at Costa, for Christ's sake! He looks like a lamb, so peaceful and quiet! 

 

Agree with all your points. 

Would also like to add, that if we kept possession and sought to dominate the opposition we would leave ourselves to be very exposed against teams. I mean just look at the Swansea match. It would also  mean players like Cahill, Luiz (whose been great for us but is always liable for a brain fart), and Matic (who again, has been much improved but may resort to his old poor play of dily dallying on the ball). 

I like how the 343 has stabilized our season so far, but it must be said we haven't been tested yet with pacy strikers who like to get on the end of long balls too much. Will be interesting to see how our back three deal with the sheer  power AND pace  of Lukaku and Bolasie. 

[DYC. 7,542]

ZOS is right. I don't care how good the results are right now, Chelsea's use of the ball has to improve. That doesn't mean aiming to keep 60%+ possession but to not give the ball away cheaply and pick moments to keep the ball. Failing to do so will eventually hurt you because it's quite tiring having to chase the ball and you can make mistakes. And I'm quite sure Conte knows that as well.

Conte did the right thing. Things weren't going well so he fixed the defence and the off the ball positioning. That's where it starts. Chelsea exude more confidence now and teams won't feel as confident of going at Chelsea. Now you start to improve the play on the ball.

Unless Conte is going down the Atletico route but I think a more controlled approach is needed to achieve sustained succes.

[!Hazard! 3,394]

36 minutes ago, DYC. said:

ZOS is right. I don't care how good the results are right now, Chelsea's use of the ball has to improve. That doesn't mean aiming to keep 60%+ possession but not give the ball away cheaply. Conte did the right thing. It will eventually hurt you because it's quite tiring having to chase the ball. And I'm quite sure Conte knows that as well.

Things weren't going well so he fixed the defence and the off the ball positioning. That's where it starts. Chelsea exude more confidence now and teams won't feel as confident of going at Chelsea. Now you start to improve the play on the ball.

Unless Conte is going down the Atletico route but I think a more controlled approach is needed to achieve sustained succes.

Replace Cahill with Zouma or Christensen, replace Pedro with a world class right winger and maybe replace Alonso with a Filipe Luis-type player and you will see how our possession play will magically improve. Also, I'm not sure whether Matic is the answer for the midfield. Sure, right now he's bossing it but he will always be that one legged Serbian with awkward first touch. He's no Gundogan or Verratti.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

40 minutes ago, !Hazard! said:

Replace Cahill with Zouma or Christensen, replace Pedro with a world class right winger and maybe replace Alonso with a Filipe Luis-type player and you will see how our possession play will magically improve. Also, I'm not sure whether Matic is the answer for the midfield. Sure, right now he's bossing it but he will always be that one legged Serbian with awkward first touch. He's no Gundogan or Verratti.

Horrible take that makes little sense. Instead of trying to replace 1/3 of our starting XI, why don't we work with what we have? That is what Conte, a proper manager is doing. I don't see Zouma working in our current system. Replace Alonso (why?) with "Filipe Luis-type player and you will see how our possession play will magically improve". What does that even mean? Incomprehensible drivel with zero depth of thought behind it.

Why don't we sign Aguero, Bonucci and Bale while we're at it? It's easy to say that right? Aside from the fact it's absolutely stupid and almost impossible to want so sign every top player that breathes (It's not Football Manager, you know), someones money is being spent I know you're entitled to your opinion, but sometimes it's better to actually have a well thought out comment. It just drastically lowers the quality of posts on here.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

1 hour ago, DYC. said:

ZOS is right. I don't care how good the results are right now, Chelsea's use of the ball has to improve. That doesn't mean aiming to keep 60%+ possession but to not give the ball away cheaply and pick moments to keep the ball. Failing to do so will eventually hurt you because it's quite tiring having to chase the ball and you can make mistakes. And I'm quite sure Conte knows that as well.

Conte did the right thing. Things weren't going well so he fixed the defence and the off the ball positioning. That's where it starts. Chelsea exude more confidence now and teams won't feel as confident of going at Chelsea. Now you start to improve the play on the ball.

Unless Conte is going down the Atletico route but I think a more controlled approach is needed to achieve sustained succes.

While there are other factors that play a role in our low possession i think the biggest one is the lack of real quality passers in our back 3 and 2 man midfield. Of those 5 how many would you call great passers. David Luiz, and that's it. Kante does a good job too but he's not great at it.

Even if we count Kante that's 2 players out of 5. That's not enough for a top team. Imo we need to look for a LCB that can rival the passing ability of a david Luiz while still doing what is required defensively. Same in our midfield. We need someone in there that's a great passer while still able to do the dirty work. Verratti for example. 

I'm sure Conte will be working on improving our possession but there's only soo much you can do as a manager. You can train as much as you like you'll never get the likes of Cahill, Azpi or Matic to pass the way David Luiz passes. 

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

50 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

While there are other factors that play a role in our low possession i think the biggest one is the lack of real quality passers in our back 3 and 2 man midfield. Of those 5 how many would you call great passers. David Luiz, and that's it. Kante does a good job too but he's not great at it.

Even if we count Kante that's 2 players out of 5. That's not enough for a top team. Imo we need to look for a LCB that can rival the passing ability of a david Luiz while still doing what is required defensively. Same in our midfield. We need someone in there that's a great passer while still able to do the dirty work. Verratti for example. 

I'm sure Conte will be working on improving our possession but there's only soo much you can do as a manager. You can train as much as you like you'll never get the likes of Cahill, Azpi or Matic to pass the way David Luiz passes. 

You can't complain about possession in a two-three game sample size. Prior to the formation change we were a top 4 team in possession av per game. Since we went 3-4-3, we've been 8th. We've also scored very early goals in almost all games in  that time span which has contributed to us playing counter-attack.  I'm personally not a fan of playing on the counter and I don't think this team can play that way conistently (and shouldn't) but neither is Conte. http://www.football-italia.net/85476/conte-i-dont-do-counter-attacks He adapts his stategy to the requirement of the game. For instance, we scored early against Leicester and continued to dominate possession and take the game to them. This is because Leicester themselves are a counter-attacking outfit and it was the right tactical approach.

As for the point about having real quality passers, the stats disagree. Kante is averaging a 90% pass success rate this season and Matic 87% pass success rate. They are rarely giving away the ball and they aren't simply making routine back and sideways passes either. Matic is a fairly ambitious passer. I think you're confusing two different things here. There is a difference between "a real quality passer" and having a comprehensive passing range. Kante and Matic are quality passers but they don't have the same depth of passing range as say a Gundogan, Verratti or Fabregas. The question is whether having that type of deep lying playmaker will work in this system or any sort of system Conte is comfortable in. The answer was presented in the case of Fabregas. No. 

And there's no reason now to clamour for deep lying playmakers of that mould. They won't help us win more games or make us a stronger team in our current 3-4-3 system. Teams are struggling to make any progress through our midfield duo. We averaging the least amount of shots faced per game of any team in the league right now. We've kept 4 cleansheets. We're creating many chances and were it not for profligacy, we would have crushed Southampton as well. 

Can things change for the worse with our current system. Yes. Will we continue to perform to this level all season long? No. Can we improve in certain positions? Yes. Right wing. CB. Clearly. But now is not the time to be lusting over other teams' players. Conte is right now is doing an incredible job. Doing what a manager is supposed to do, which is MANAGE and maximize the full potential of what he has, which he has done brilliantly. That should be the major talking point now. His tactical adjustments are worthy of significant praise. 

 

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

From that article, Conte said:

“I do everything except counter-attacks. I do not play on the counter. I never even train counter-attacks. It is not in my concept of football.

“When we have the ball, we have our ideas. When we lose the ball, we try to be tight, press the opposition and try to win it back as soon as possible."

That quote is interesting in light of our last two PL matches were we seemingly seemed happy to grant the opposition the ball, PARTICULARLY in the 1st half till we actually started to dominate more with the ball in the 2nd. I wonder if this is still a reflex from Mourinho's training methods in some of our players or if Conte has changed his concept of football in a span of months. 

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

3 minutes ago, MrExcalibur100 said:

You can't complain about possession in a two-three game sample size. Prior to the formation change we were a top 4 team in possession av per game. Since we went 3-4-3, we've been 8th. We've also scored very early goals in almost all games in  that time span which has contributed to us playing on the counter-attack. I'm personally not a fan of playing on the counter and I don't think this team can play that way conistently (and shouldn't) but neither is Conte. http://www.football-italia.net/85476/conte-i-dont-do-counter-attacks He adapts his stategy to the requirement of the game. For instance, we scored early against Leicester and continued to dominate possession and take the game to them. This is because Leicester themselves are a counter-attacking outfit and it was the right tactical approach.

As for the point about having real quality passers, the stats disagree. Kante is averaging a 90% pass success rate this season and Matic 87% pass success rate. They are rarely giving away the ball and they aren't simply making routine back and sideways passes either. Matic is a fairly ambitious passer. I think you're confusing two different things here. There is a difference between "a real quality passer" and having a comprehensive passing range. Kante and Matic are quality passers but they don't have the same depth of passing range as say a Gundogan, Verratti or Fabregas. The question is whether having that type of deep lying playmaker will work in this system or any sort of system Conte is comfortable in. The answer was presented in the case of Fabregas. No. 

And there's no reason now to clamour for deep lying playmakers of that mould. They won't help us win more games or make us a stronger team in our current 3-4-3 system. Teams are struggling to make any progress through our midfield duo. We averaging the least amount of shots faced per game of any team in the league right now. We've kept 4 cleansheets. We're creating many chances and were it not for profligacy, we would have crushed Southampton as well. 

Can things change for the worse with our current system. Yes. Will we continue to perform to this level all season long? No. Can we improve in certain positions? Yes. Right wing. CB. Clearly. But now is not the time to be lusting over other teams' players. Conte is right now is doing an incredible job. Doing what a manager is supposed to do, which is MANAGE and maximize the full potential of what he has, which he has done brilliantly.  

 

I agree with the first bit. Like i said there are other factors such as like you say we've scored early at times which has allowed us to sit deep and counter.

 

Disagree with your stats. Sorry i find passing success rates to be extremely useless. Kante and Matic might have high succes rate but most of their passes are straightforward. 

Maybe i should have been clearer but i'm indeed talking about passing range. About hitting those 50 yard diagonal balls,  balls over the top, into the corner, finding players in those tight pockets of space.

I'm talking about truly great passers. Right now i feel like the fluidity of the system is doing most of the heavy lifting and allowing Matic and Kante (and the back 3) to play easy and straightforward passes. 

But teams are going to start figuring out ways to deal with us and then we are going to need the players behind the ball to be able to make those quality passes.

 

"The question is whether having that type of deep lying playmaker will work in this system or any sort of system Conte is comfortable in. The answer was presented in the case of Fabregas. No. "

I did say "a great passer that could still do the dirty work". The reason Fabregas isn't playing has nothing to do with him being a DLP and everything to do with him not being able to do the dirty work.

If Fabregas was able to actually do his defensive work then he would be playing instead of Matic. 

 

I agree with the last bit. I think Conte has done an amazing job getting everyone up to their very best. Personally i'd say of all our starters Hazard is probably the only one who still has a higher gear to shift to (2014-2015 form) the rest are all playing at their very best.

But that's kinda the thing though. The way we've played so far is imo close to the best we'll ever see from this group of players so in order to improve even more we're going to need to buy quality players.

We can't settle we have to keep improving as our aim as a club is to go further then just the PL. 

Imo we can improve in four positions. LCB (Cahill), LWB (Alonso), LDM (Matic) and RAM (Willian & Pedro). I know that it's harsh on Alonso and especially Matic as they've done extremely well but that's just how i see it.