hjperdeath

KDB to start against City would be a brilliant troll.

Sadly they didn't treat us like the they treated Bayern. They aren't a defensive team cause they pretty much demolished Eintracht. The report was pretty much made taking into consideration that Schalke would be facing a team in the mould of Bayern.

True. Hopefully he's talked it out with Ryan, don't see him surprising the team by putting Azpi in there without explaining the reasons. Did the scouting report. Two reasons that spring to mind would probably be - a. To neutralize Schalke's wing-backs. Not sure why Bertrand can't do that, but Azpilicueta definitely has a special role to perform. b. Or we are playing a 3-5-2 and Jose's fucking with us.

Absolute master-class starting Azpilicueta. Could never have seen that coming.

Is there a book on him?

Woah didn't know that. Really need to keep myself updated. Can't wait for tonight.

Agreed. Maybe form wise, I would take Samuel. We don't necessarily need to field a certain strategy. Jose has many tricks up his sleeve and might just have one where we don't need Torres or any striker of his characteristics at all.

But Cardiff and Schalke are different. True their basic foundation is two blocks of four and deep defending. But there are tiny tiny intricate details that we miss out. Cardiff for one don't mark zonally in the middle, that would be stupid to do in the Premier League. That is where Torres can come in handy. It's much much tougher to do it against team's that will press zonal and mark man to man. But if you are going to press zonal and mark man to man, an English team will find it very easy with a striker that doesn't drift too much.

Personally we need someone whose strong point is movement. Drifting completely to the flanks is bad. Eto'o tends to do that a lot and that's purely on statistical grounds. His heat map shows a lot of side movement (not sure, willing to be proved wrong) . We only need part-drifting, which is enough to drag pivot players or at-least one of the center-backs. This would help the attacking midfielders to directly penetrate. In Eto'o's case, he would drift towards the flanks and play as a temporary winger, and whoever is on the wings will come in center. This wouldn't disfigure Schalke's structure, as they are smart enough to switch only roles. Mandzukick did it perfectly. By drifting and moving around the back-line left and right just a little, he let Ribery, Robben and Kroos directly take up the #9 position.

England can't even be compared. Would be an insult to the German FA's blueprint.

That is their strategy against strong teams, like Bayern.. a completely different team against Eintrach Braunschweig. Depends on how the first 15 minutes phase out. True. They employed it against Bayern as well. Got ripped apart due to Bayern's passing triangles. Bundesliga is really innovative, especially when it comes to tactics and philosophies they apply . Can honestly say that this is the first time I'm highly unsure about my own report. It's like they've different strategies in different games. God knows how much they train to perfect themselves. Think Jose will finally make a change. Just bloody hope so.

I'm a self confessed Stuttgart fan. but don't watch too many of their games. I usually start watching games I analyze a week or so before the game, for instance , I've already watched all the City games, except their last one. That way I'm always updated and well prepared. So weaknesses. Back line very erratic. We have 1 Luiz, they have 4. Thank god they don't employ an offside trap. The problem is they have wing-backs, so defending isn't their first responsibility. Other is facing a counter after a fail counter-attack themselves. As I said about the pivot covering the flanks, if Chelsea can switch play from side to side as fast as possible , then it would be completely ineffective. Plus most of Schalke's play is down the flanks. against Bayern the wide players and wing backs looked completely lost. Couldn't take their chances, sometimes drifted center, couldn't string a few passes together. Probably the pressure of facing a big team. Though it might not happen against Chelsea, there are chances it could. They also tend to suffer against teams that press high.

Aw thanks . I think the problem Torres faced was playing in a 3-5-2. I'm planning to right one on that as well as Chelsea have played it thrice already. But it's a possibility yes , but hopefully not . I'm out right now . I'll come back home and extend on the weakness part.

Schalke play a standard 4-2-3-1. Two solid center-backs who like getting forward as well. Think Luiz, but a little less erratic. And two wing backs on opposite sides who love charging forward and providing width. In the middle we have the pivot, both of them either defend or attack. There is no vice-versa role as it happens in Chelsea for Schalke. They defend together, or attack together. It helps Schalke in a way, which we shall see later.The front three function like interiores, as they drift a lot into the center. The striker has the ability to drift, which gives theinteriores and the #10 an opportunity to move forward and function as a #9. The attacking midfielder has also been noted to play as a second striker, especially when the #9 pulls back and links up with the midfield. Now we have their transition to defense. The wing-backs now squeeze themselves inside, as the wingers come back to ensure that the whole structure doesn’t become too narrow. Two blocks of four is what Schalke used against Bayern. Yet they suffered a heavy defeat due to not taking their chances by exploiting the flanks. The middle three press together at the ball, and have a peculiar relationship. Each of them have hybrid profiles in a sense that they can take up each other’s position while pressing. This gives them the freedom of movement with security in mind that the other two are covering. One out of the three never presses. He stays back and provide protection to the back four, and covers holes opened up by the pressing midfielders. Schalke always always always mark zonally. It’s like they are allergic to man marking. Even their pressing is zonal rather than charging right at the player. If the ball is won, Schalke charge down the wings. This is a strategy used by almost every team that likes using two blocks of four during defensive transitions. The wingers or interiores are the main outlets when the ball is won back, the striker being secondary. All of them push up, including the attacking midfielder and the wing-backs in a bid to create a clear cut chance. Now when it comes to transitioning to attack, Schalke aren’t afraid in committing men forward. The wing-backs play akin to Alaba and Lahm of Bayern. The wingers on paper show the true qualities of interiores by shifting in ward. This cramps up and causes congestion in the center of the final third. A quick switch of play to the flanks and the opposition have problems to deal with. Schalke can be threatening by frequently applying this strategy. If the play is switched back and forth too quickly, opponents who don’t have high concentration levels, pay the price. Considering that Schalke don’t exactly play full-backs, they are highly vulnerable on the flanks. To counter this, the pivot restrict their movements forward. They opt to stay back and defend ahead of the center-backs 75% of the time. If the ball is lost, most team’s play down the flanks to exploit that space. One of the pivot players intelligently closes them down, while the attacking midfielder joins up with the other pivot player in the center. The wingers meanwhile retreat back as well, giving Schalke further options to recover the ball back, or hinder the attacking transition of their opponents. This helps Schalke slowly regain its shape as they wait to counter the next time they get the ball back. One thing to be noted is that Schalke will enter the game without any fear. The plethora of players at their disposal could give Chelsea a run for their money. Chelsea will be forced into working really hard if they want to get anything out of the game. Not to forget that concentration and work-rate must be high. Schalke are going to make us run all night if they have to. I expect Azpilicueta to start the game. He seems to be much more clinical down the flanks than Ivanovic has been this season. Moreover Torres is also likely to start. One thing the Spaniard has to do is harass the German back-line. Only then will spaces open for Chelsea’s wide players to directly penetrate. I don’t see Eto’o having the capability of doing something like that. We don’t want too much drifting towards the flanks. There’s a slight possibility of either Essien or Mikel starting at the Veltins-Arena. Chelsea need a pure defensive midfielder to stay back during attacking transitions as this would limit the amount of damage Schalke could cause. Click here to view the article

^LOL.

Hummels and Subotic are so much error prone. Cringe worthy that Luiz is getting so much stick for a mistake. Let's get rid of Cech, Terry, Cole, Lampard, Luiz, Mikel. Bloody hell Hazard has been poor until the Cardiff game. FUCKING GET RID OF HIM AND BRING BACK JOE COLE ! They all make mistakes right?

>Sits next to Mourinho >Pulls out iPhone >Duck faces

nothing to say. good day to you.

Don't think you've read my second reply.. It isn't a work around . Exploitation of a loophole would be a nice way to put it again. As said before they approached Livorno to buy Mutu and in doing so dealt with illegal agents . If an enquiry is launched , as it looks like it had , Juve and Livorno will have to pay the compensation on behalf of Mutu.

That's a contract or transfer clause. You can adjust it to the limit you want. The player also has to put pen to paper to agree to it and only then can the clause be valid. In no way is it similar to the registration of a player in a team. It does break a rule, and looks like FIFA and DRC think the same.

There are similar rules in the EPL and La Liga as well. Does it happen there as well? It's a regulation. You aren't adhering to it. Instead you try to find loop holes and get past it. That's the kindest way you could possibly put it. and that still can be termed cheating.

it is a workaround an idiotic rule and doesn't break any? What? It's a regulation when you register a team for a competition. What the actual fuck is a work-around? He breached his terms of contract. Chelsea didn't ask him to snort cocaine, he did on his own will and that was against his own contract. The case is against Mutu , not Juve or Livorno. Have a look at the case ( Adrian Mutu vs Chelsea Football Club) at the Court of Arbitration of Sports. You can find it here - http://www.tas-cas.org/d2wfiles/document/3459/5048/0/Award%201644%20FINAL.pdf Go through this, FIFA regulations from 2001 - http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/status_transfer_sept2001_en_27.pdf The problem is with Mutu having breached his contract. So the money needs to be paid by him. Problem is Juve and Livorno seem to have dealt with unlicensed agents and also caused some kind loss to Chelsea . I think FIFA reopened the investigation and they found out that Juve and Livorno were both at fault for dealing with Mutu, and they'll have to end up paying instead of Mutu. Fine rises by 2,500 every day . Will rise more as Juve and Livorno have appealed to European justice.

Because Juve did not have enough space in their team to buy a non EU player from abroad. So they told Livorno to buy him, and then they bought Mutu from them. Absolute cuntish move.

I think he means that Messi , Pedro and Iniesta had a team before Barcelona.

So if you want to check out half of my case study on Belgium, you can have a look here. Mostly will be completed by tomorrow .Ignore spelling and grammatical errors. Not checked them. http://scoutaficionado.tumblr.com/post/64229093971/case-study-marc-wilmots-and-les-diables-rouges