hjperdeath

True. Maybe we'll go through with what we have this season, and get another central midfielder by summer.

Football tournament tomorrow. After that overseeing my first training session with the under-19's of Al Rayyan. They sent in my kit and equipment. The notepad looks bloody official. I feel like Jose already.

ah, I didn't note them down as exploitable zones though. For the second and third I talked mostly about their organization , didn't want myself to sound like I was saying that they could be easily exploited or anything. And agree. I've used them before at clubs, but that was via USB's and a projector. For Chelsea, I need to get them up on youtube. Copyright always takes me down, so I don't find it worth the hassle. :/ For a second I actually thought Nathan Redmond would score against us. Thank god that didn't happen.

I didn't note them down as flaws really, it was more like deceptive holes that on first sight look exploitable. Norwich had a very good defensive structure, and were unlucky to concede the two goals !

Things just get worse for Chris Hughton though..

I nominate myself .

hmm interesting way to look at it. Yeah Eden's movement was noticeable and exceptional. Debatable about what Tettey tried to do though..

We mostly struggled due to their organized pressing. In most phases when Chelsea were knocking the ball around, Ramires and Lampard had problems. Usually when chasing a winner, Chelsea have no problem keeping the ball moving in the middle due to a simple reason that the opposition won't press as they want to take at-least a point back home. A hungry Norwich came out in the second half. Their pressing involved the striker as well, so the ball had to be moved swiftly at the back. When the ball entered the middle of the pitch, the wingers came in narrow and pressed. Pilkington was immense as I've mentioned in the article and worked his ass off. Fully deserved the goal. The problem is Chelsea don't have the type of midfielder that can calm things down at a faster rate and move it to people to initiate attacks that have a higher chance of ending up at the back of the net. Gundogan as we've talked about on his thread is the perfect kind of player. At the back they have Luiz, whose technical ability easily lets him initiate attacks and play that incisive pass. I wish I could have analyzed the Norwich goal, but I would have blasted away my word limit. Anyway I can brief it here. A long ball from Cech and Norwich were able to get the ball back. But if you look at Pilkington, he sticks close to Ivanovic and drifts in as fast as possible. This means the entire right zone of the defensive third is wide open. Oscar comes back but fails to do so in time as Olsson gets the ball. Pilkington on the other hand then sticks to Luiz. Ivanovic here has problems now as he literally is in no mans land. He decides to press at Olsson. But too late, as he whips in a beautiful cross which meets a terrific header. A well well deserved goal if you pay attention to the tiniest of details. Literally tore apart our defense with that move.

we need more of this in this thread. perfectly put.

That was my view, he could have laid it to Oscar but instead drifted wide instead of going straight at them. Agree completely !

Just got up, school now. So bump.

Submitted Norwich-Chelsea analysis.

Since I missed the first 40 minutes of this match, the analysis will only cover the second half. Chelsea grabbed 3 vital points at Carrow Road with spectacular goals from Oscar, Hazard and Willian while Norwich's only goal came from Anthony Pilkington. Here we see Norwich’s defensive block ahead of the 4 defenders. The striker joins in, creating an effective defensive formation of 4-5-1. This enables them to move along the pitch laterally as a unit, thus reducing the amount of holes that can be exploited. Norwich were reluctant to press when organized. As can be seen from the screen grab, the yellow area is the zone of pressure, which no Norwich player is ready to jump into. Their first priority is blocking of passing lanes to the players encircled in white, who can attack areas encircled in red . The Norwich players, who have pressing movement (blue dotted arrows), are the one’s assigned to cut off direct passing lanes. We further explore Norwich’s second defensive line. Well structured, but gives false hope of an exploitable hole. They can easily be pressed when they try to directly penetrate it. The player encircled in white is isolated. If a ball is played to him, Norwich will pounce. Pilkington’s pressing in this phase of play had been fantastic. Here we notice Norwich’s reluctance to press until a player enters a zone (for instance the red circle). Hazard has the ball and evaluates his option. No doubt that he has the ability to burst right at them, and he tried to do so. The moment he enters, a red exclamation mark lights up on top of his head. The midfielder’s press and reduce his passing options. We can also note that by doing this, Norwich exposed themselves on the sides due to pressing too narrow. Hazard could lob the ball in Ivanovic’s direction, and we could have the ball in. Here is a note on Norwich’s defensive transition. The players retreat and form a defensive block before the attackers are able to organize themselves. This gives the defenders a numerical advantage if the ball is played narrow, and also help them cover each other by covering up holes with 80% zonal and 20% man marking. Moving on to Hazard's Goal. A poor, poor corner by Pilkington leads to Luiz clearing the ball away. Hazard had quite a jump as he head’s the ball towards Willian. Oscar begins initiating a counter-attack by making the first run. Willian's first header is too weak to pass it on. He then heads it again, but more powerfully and into the path of Oscar. Hazard has now realized that the ball will come to him at the end of the day and is beginning to make a run. Norwich meanwhile are retreating back as fast as possible. Oscar gets ready to curl the ball in. Tettey will try to reach it before Hazard, which he does. But could he have prevented the goal, or was it the fault of the two defender’s retreating with him? Tettey is a right footed player, but still opts to clear the ball with his left. -1 to him. The defender encircled in white makes a mistake of stopping his run. He should actually have continued and come alongside Tettey, Hazard would have had no chance of scoring then. Instead he slows down. -1 to him again. However it seems that it wasn’t too hard for Tettey to clear with his right, but that’s an opinion in hindsight. To sum it up, Hazard made a terrific run, and deserved a goal for the effort he put in. Tettey on the other hand could have made a better clearance, while the Norwich player could have kept retreating. A collective mistake. Everyone seems to have made up their mind that Willian’s goal was in fact the result of a counter-attack. For me though, a cloud of mystery still looms around it. Willian received the ball after Norwich were dispossessed. The best indicator of a counter-attack is that the common eye can spot is an exploitable hole, which in this case; is the area encircled in red that can be penetrated directly by Chelsea. However WIllian moves along with the ball. Willian passes to Eto’o and now we see another area encircled in red that can be directly exploited. The fact is that, over the two screen grabs, Norwich are retreating faster than Chelsea are pushing up players, which makes this either a lazy counter-attack, or just another medium to waste time. 7 Norwich yellow players directly against 4 in Chelsea white. Here we see Eto’o cutting in, losing the ball only to be picked up by Willian who curves it into the back of the net. A peach of a goal . However if you notice, the entire Norwich structure has been organized, removing the theoretical effect of a counter-attack. By definition - The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy during attack, whilst the specific objectives typically seek to regain lost ground or destroy the attacking enemy. The fact that whether Chelsea were trying to destroy the enemy is debatable. If they were indeed trying to, they could have been faster, considering Hazard and Willian were just brought into the game. Regain lost ground refers to pushing your players ahead and giving you a numerical advantage, which Chelsea fail to do so by the time the shot is unleashed. If I were to write this goal down in a file and put in a briefcase, I would print out a huge question mark and stick it on one of it’s sides. Let the debate begin. The end score: Norwich 1 Chelsea 3 Tettey -2 Click here to view the article

Both Mata and Willian made their PL debut against Norwich, and both scored the final goal in 3-1 wins.

Lamela - £30m Soldado - £26m Paulinho - £17m Eriksen - £12m Capoue - £10m Chiriches - £8m Chadli - £7m Spurs 0-3 West Ham - Priceless

Don't see Mikel starting against Cardiff. No point in starting from deep, we need to penetrate their defense. They'll also set up with two blocks of four. I see him coming back against City.

Twas bloody long wasn't it? The only one I have found. :D

edit : I'm done.

Technically he wasn't training at Cobham alone, cause um, you can't on a matchday. Perception. Meaning interpretation. Ways of interpreting a game? Innumerable. Correct ways of interpreting a game? Two or three max. Essien was on the bench as a right-back cover too, not just as CDM. The only reason we need cover in the pivot position for such a game is due to injury. There is no other reason, cause even if we were to change our entire tactical outlook, that position would be left unotuched. The story would have been different if Ramires started on the right wing again. So Essien was on the bench for a few games, and Jose has sussed him. brilliant analogy there. Special manager yes, agreeing with you? He'd probably having a right laugh after all he did to bring Mikel to the club.

Could not be trusted? I hope you don't become a manager and put a defensive midfielder on the bench who maintains possession and is not good at breaking down opposition who defend in blocks of four. Me the fanboy? Oh the irony. And the 'big problem' you keep going about wasn't Mikel. It was Ramires on the wing, which you would have seen if your eyes were open. He was brought in and voila, Paulinho and Dembele had problems. Obviously Mikel had to be substituted cause he won't be able to break down. Though Lampard was quite decent that game, the fact that you give Lampard the credit for the hard work Rami did brilliantly shows how the English media works.

^Against the mighty Norwich.

yeah passing was a bit off today. atleast in the second half.

Kinda felt Lampard was quite decent today. Ramires was running all over the pitch, so having Mikel on instead of Lampard wouldn't have made much of a difference.

Adds the fear factor. Whenever he is on, opponents shit their shorts. They know something will happen, and are praying they can stop it. All down to his amazing first few games.

Missed 40 minutes of the first half. How was he?