hjperdeath

Other half of the footballing world that clearly knows spelling and pronunciation is back again.

Girls, close your windows next time . Might want to get sound proof doors too.

A lot of people have asked me how I write down my points while watching the game, both here and outside. So not revealing anything but just a small look if anyone's interested . PS: It's written in copyright handwriting. Don't know how many people know that, but it's meant to be shabby -

Can anyone verify if this is true? 100 matches: Didier Drogba: 41 goals Fernando Torres: 39 goals

Submitted analysis.

A 3-0 away win against Schalke sends Chelsea to the top of their Champions League group. A resounding victory for the London club, despite not playing the way they were ‘expected to’. This was during Chelsea’s defensive transition. A 4-4-2, with 4 in midfield blocking off pass lanes and pressing low with the attacking midfielder and the striker pressing high on the back line. Chelsea didn’t want the ball, they only wanted to make it as tough as possible for Schalke to create a clear cut chance, which they did effectively. By playing a 4-4-2 (that wasn’t that deep), they pretty much had a particular opposition player being covered by one player in blue. A common misconception is that Chelsea were inviting Schalke into the defensive third. Wrong, cause if they were, Oscar wouldn’t be pressing high alongside Torres. Chelsea were forced deep, as Schalke kept the ball moving around quickly. Once the ball was retrieved, counter-attacks became a relatively easy option to take. Oscar receives the ball, and we already have two penetrable holes popping up. Interesting to note that Torres does drift sideways, allowing Oscar to carry the ball forward through the middle against two confused center-backs. He plays it to Schurrle, who wins the corner Chelsea end up scoring by. Schalke defend set-pieces using zonal marking, another reason Torres was able to win the header that ricocheted off the bar in the second half. To form a key, ones encircled in black are the one’s attacking the corner, the one encircled in blue messed up Schalke’s zonal system, the one encircled in red is ball watching and the one encircled in white ends up scoring. From the previous frame, we can see that Torres and Cahill are pretty much in the same zone of one Schalke player. The player encircled in red is adamant that he won’t have to block off Torres . As Cahill rushes inside, he takes one player away from his zone. Meanwhile, the player encircled in red has his eyes stuck on the ball as Ivanovic nods it back. His body language says it all. A horrible blunder and Chelsea are 1-0 up. I can’t stress how different the Chelsea side was when it came back for the start of the second half. Defensive transitions used the formation 4-4-2 in the first half were turned into a 4-5-1 in the second half. Oscar gave up his pressing. Meanwhile attacking transitions were usually a 4-2-4 in the second half. This was converted into a highly attack minded 2-5-3. After Torres grabbed his second of the night, the team reverted back to a 4-2-4. In the frame above we see Chelsea knocking the ball around in the middle. Oscar drops deep and forms an effective 4-3-3. The problem however is that the distance between the middle three and the front three needs to be reduced. This was a problem in the first half as well. Forget our sloppy passing, forget Lampard and Ramires having problems in creating passing triangles. Chelsea just couldn’t reduce the space between the attacking midfielders and the pivot. The 3 pushed up with Oscar on the ball. Instinctively both Torres and Hazard try to run behind their defenders. Chelsea began to be more assertive. They didn’t want the ball, but it wouldn’t look good if they ended up with possession stats that said below 30%. Here we see Chelsea pushing up, having 8 players up front. The 8th being Azpilciueta, just a little below the frame. The question is, what about the defenders? Considering that we are so upfront, there must be huge space for Schalke to exploit. Right? Wrong. We are going AVB mode. An effective 2-5-3. Chelsea are also employing an offside trap. It was far more effective in the first half, with the defenders playing deep, however the strategy continued till the final whistle. Now going back to the first half. This was quite a peculiar strategy Chelsea used, which involved the team acting as a well oiled unit, whose parts could only move in a direction relative to the other. In the first frame we have every Chelsea player on the pitch moving towards the ball. The white circle shows the Schalke wing-back’s head. Now this strategy has its advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantages first, and it can be easily shown here. There are a number of penetrable holes that pop up. A quick switch in flank and Schalke could actually cause Chelsea a huge problem. Advantage however is that it gives the full-backs a false incentive that they can push forward without any consequences. Torres’s second goal is an example, which we shall see. The ball is play to the center and Ivanovic along with Oscar start retreating back towards the flanks. Only two of them? Everyone moves towards the expected direction of the ball. What does this do on the other flank? You guessed it right! More open players with the wing-back having a false incentive that the can push forward while Schurrle can easily make a penetrable run if the ball is won back. Ball is switched back, and the wing-back is wide open . Football is bloody brilliant, isn’t it? Here we see an example of how it worked so well. Hazard has the ball, and Uchida pushed way too forward. We won the ball back and Hazard runs at the defense as Oscar , Ramires and Torres join him. The problem Uchida faces is that he needs to come back in time. We all know the answer to that. He clearly failed and paid the price. To summarise, this is the perfect example of setting up your philosophy for a must win European game. When Jose wrote up his game plan, he knew that it decided mainly on two factors. Please the crowd or win essential three points that put you on top of the table. Undoubtedly many people would think that the performance wasn’t good. True if you have your eyes glued at the possession bar. In a nutshell, Jose got it spot on with how he instructed his players to set themselves up. Score quick, defend well with lot of deceptions and take your chances. Two consecutive games where Chelsea’s strikers have scored. A crisis cannot get any better than this. Click here to view the article

True. Keller might be an innovative manager, but is very quick to shift around things. Oh well, even Mou tears up reports like this after every game !

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.

Changed my blog's layout. Opinion guys? http://scoutaficionado.tumblr.com/

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

Been out visiting stadiums and taking tests and stuff like that. Really busy, so I haven't had time to write anything about the Cardiff game. Hopefully Schalke's scouting report comes up by today.

^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?