TorontoChelsea

A few points 1- Mikel/Ramires doesn't work as a partnership because neither can distribute. 2) You can't compare Mikel's defensive stats to Lampard's because they play different positions. Mikel is a defensive midfielder and Lampard is supposed to be a deep-lying midfielder. They are supposed to have different roles. Lampard has 14 key passes and 2 assists and Mikel has 2 key passes and 0 assists. We all know Mikel is much better defensively than Lampard 3) BTW, using Sqwaka stats, you'll probably notice that Lampard has our third highest overall score. I'm not saying that is accurate, just that the level of blame assigned to him is crazy. He's had a few excellent games (passing 90%, making key tackles, setting up chances, everything you could hope from your central midfielder) this season but I come on here and I'll see "Lampard let the game pass him by" or "Lampard was awful" It's almost pointless discussing it because people have gone blind to when he actually does good things which is fairly frequently. . 4) Azpilicueta didn't go forward also because he is right footed playing as a left back. It's very difficult to attack like that because you can't cut in like wingers are allowed to do so you have to cross while running on your wrong foot. 5) Look at the area of Ivanovic's unsuccessful passes. 5 of them were right in the middle of the box. He is not a great crosser but he's not nearly as bad as people make him out to be either. 6) You can also see by that chart how much better Ivanovic was sticking to his lanes than Azpilicueta was to his. He drifted in to the middle a fair bit and it almost cost us a few times when WBA got players by him on the left. Not his fault, it's a new position for him and being on his wrong foot, he has to cut inside, but I don't really like him on the left for those reasons..

They do support the attack. In fact, our RB and central midfield get more involved in the attack than most teams. When Ivanovic is attacking on the right, there should be someone overlapping him but there almost never is. There should be players making runs at the front post but there almost never is. When Lampard or Ramires get the ball, there should be players spread out all over the pitch, moving in different directions to give them options, not 4 attackers within 15 feet of each other standing still. No, it's not all our attackers' fault for not scoring more, but it is more their fault than anyone else's. They get the glory when they score and get the blame when they don't.

I am so sick of this simplistic and reductive nonsense. Blaming our deficiencies in attack entirely on the central midfield is absurd but people keep doing it. It's like people don't even watch the games they just have this belief and stick to it. Our attackers get the ball a lot and they get the ball in the attacking zone a lot. Against WBA, Our attacking players had literally hundreds of touches and aside from one Hazard move and shot, they practically did nothing with them. Yes, our central midfield could be a lot better at moving the ball but our attacking midfield and strikers have to shoulder most of the blame when our attack fails. One player can be isolated and unable to do anything, but four players? They have to be able to create space and chances without relying on the central midfield to dictate the offense. That's never going to happen. We need a player who can switch play up and pick out passes from the centre but even then, it will be up the attackers to score. Attackers have to create space and chances. (BTW, our central midfield has as many assists as our attacking midfield this season.). Watch a replay of the WBA game or any game where we struggle offensively and you can see what complete disarray our attack is in. Look how slowly the attackers move the ball (even slower than the central midfield in general). Look how they provide no width. How they stand around aimlessly waiting for god knows what. Look how they try to create things entirely on their own. I get it, we need to upgrade central midfield. We all know that, but it's gotten to the point where almost every chance against and every failed attack is blamed on the central midfield and it's completely divorced from reality.

This is it. Ivanovic should not be such an important part of our attack. He is not a good crosser of the ball but neither really is Azplicueta who is only slightly better than Ivanovic in this regard. Also, unlike other teams, we don't have attackers who are great in the air so even good crosses are almost all won by defenders who are taller and stronger. There is also almost never anyone overlapping with him to create space or give him another outlet because whoever is on the right will always drift into the middle. We also don't have attackers making runs towards the goal. Instead, we have a whole bunch of players standing static in attacking areas waiting to be picked out by perfect passes. Spending about 250 million pounds on attackers in the last 3 years, and you're expecting the RB and central midfield to provide your offense?

You're absolutely wrong because you're missing the big picture which is sample size. All statistics are flawed if you look at them in tiny sample sizes. You can take 3 brilliant shots that force 3 great saves and one player takes an awful shot that the keeper whifs at and he gets a goal and you don't. Does that mean that goals are a useless statistic? You can get an assist when you completely miss a pass and it goes to the wrong person who scores. Does that mean assists are useless? Of course not and it's the same with key passes because we are not talking about one or two plays which may or may not be flukes, we are talking 30-35 games worth of play and over the course of that many games, the luck evens out. Chances created is extremely important. For example, last year, the top 5 in Key Passes in the Premier League were Silva, Baines, Suarez, Mata, and Gerard, All are creative players who set up chances. Players who are great at setting up chances always have high key pass rates and players that aren't, don't. It's actually incredibly indicative of a player's creativity which is why you see a lot of repetition among the leaders. Mata in his 3 years at Chelsea averaged 3, 2.7, and 2.1 key passes a game. Why? Because he is a creative player who sets other players up for shots. Ozil is averaging 3.1 key passes a game this year for the same reason. The super creative players get key passes and it's not a coincidence. Anyway, I don't even see your issue. A pass from the halfway line that sets someone up to shoot is almost certainly a good pass because at the very least, you're completing a pass from the centre of the pitch to a scoring position. What's wrong with counting that as an extremely positive play? (which it is)

I had two big concerns about Mourinho being appointed. 1) Fans attributed too much of our earlier success to him rather than the massive spending that Roman brought with him (we were outspending our rivals 10-1) and thought that we could repeat our dominance which is simply not possible now that many teams spend big. (Managers tend to only make a minor difference anyway) so expectations would be out of control. 2) Mourinho is a very good manager but he isn't suited to the players we have. We bought players to build a fluid, attacking system. Suddenly switching to a defensive-minded counter-attacking system didn't make sense with with the players we had. It's still a concern I think; To be fair, our team is an absolute jumble right now. We have so many different kinds of players who don't really fit together that any system we play will be flawed. Why we spent so much money and still didn't buy a proper central midfielder or any players who provide width will never make sense to me.

These are not complex stats. Goals and assists for an attacking player are a crucial indicator of their performance. Not everything mind you, but they matter a lot. Even if you just look at this season. 11 games, 4 goals 0 assists. Still not good although a lot better than last season. (And it's not just statistical, Oscar plays too much with his head down and doesn't read the play as well as top creators can.) And yes, poor finishing is always a part of low assist totals but Oscar's problem is that he just doesn't create enough chances. Oscar has created fewer chances than Mata despite much more playing time. (Also, the same number of chances as Lampard and Schurrle and fewer than Ramires). Your #10 needs to be creating chances and he isn't. I agree that most of the attack's problems are not Oscar's fault, they're no one's fault in particular but the team's fault as a while, but right now, he simply isn't doing what he needs to do. 3 straight sub-par games on a team loaded with attacking midfielders should earn him time on the bench. Mata hasn't started 3 games in a row all season. I see Chelsea in the middle right now as combinations of Oscar-Lampard and Mata-Mikel. (Oscar doesn't create enough so with Mikel, we are way too defensive. Mata is poor defensively and Lampard simply does not give enough cover.) Right now, I think the second combination needs a chance to see what they can do for a few games. Oscar will (and should) still get a ton of playing time.

Because he has the space and the least, he creates space for others. besides, people are exaggerating how bad he is going forward. He actually forced a great save today (off a beautiful tackle and run) and had a bunch of good crosses that our attackers couldn't do anything with. Yes, his crossing has been very poor, but he's actually been one of our better players overall this season.

This often the only option too as our attackers, just like last season are static and they have no width. It's the reason Ivanovic gets the ball so much. He makes runs and gets himself open. Nobody else does.

Strongly disagree. Work-rate is amazing, but you need your #10 to provide more than hard work. They have to be able to make a major impact on offense. He has now played 45 games in in the Premier League and has 8 goals and 5 assists. (11 games this season, 0 assists) That's abysmal. Oscar needs to play but like everyone else, he should have to earn it and hard work shouldn't be the only thing that matters.

Awful. Pretty much everyone was bad and Mourinho made a mess of this game as well. I really don't like the way we're set up for defensive solidity at the expense of creativity all the time. We have nothing going forward. All our attackers like to get the ball, look up and then stand there surveying the pitch by which time the defense has had time to set themselves. We have no width and no inventiveness. Our entire attack seems to be based on waiting for the other team to make a massive mistake. You don't have to play beautiful football, but for a team that spends as much money as anyone to play so defensively makes no sense at all. This is something fans don't want to admit, but we have been extraordinarily lucky with referees this season. I'm not talking about the 50-50 plays that all fans feel should be penalties and feel aggrieved when they're not called. I'm talking about a handball against Villa that should have been called and would likely have cost us 2 points, the penalty for Ramires that really wasn't that gave us a point (and no, it wasn't penalty), the goal Eto's scored that should have been a free kick going the other way that changed the game around completely. Big teams always get more calls, but this year we've had more than our fair share. Our record is actually better than we've played. How many games have we looked like a good team this season? Not many! @the skipper. I would actually like to see "no one" as well as "team effort" as options. Some games, nobody is great and you still play well and others everyone is awful.

Awful. Pretty much everyone was bad and Mourinho made a mess of this game as well. I really don't like the way we're set up for defensive solidity at the expense of creativity all the time. We have nothing going forward. All our attackers like to get the ball, look up and then stand there surveying the pitch by which time the defense has had time to set themselves. We have no width and no inventiveness. Our entire attack seems to be based on waiting for the other team to make a massive mistake. You don't have to play beautiful football, but for a team that spends as much money as anyone to play so defensively makes no sense at all. This is something fans don't want to admit, but we have been extraordinarily lucky with referees this season. I'm not talking about the 50-50 plays that all fans feel should be penalties and feel aggrieved when they're not called. I'm talking about a handball against Villa that should have been called and would likely have cost us 2 points, the penalty for Ramires that really wasn't that gave us a point (and no, it wasn't penalty), the goal Eto's scored that should have been a free kick going the other way that changed the game around completely. Big teams always get more calls, but this year we've had more than our fair share. @the skipper. I would actually like to see "no one" as well as "team effort" as options. Some games, nobody is great and you still play well and others everyone is awful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_poppy

Comedy of errors

Bad first half. We're not going to keep getting fluky goals off terrible defensive errors all year and we have to find a way to actually try to break down defences besides counter-attack.

Exactly. We`re 29 minutes into a 0-0 game where we are passing at a 93% rate and outplaying the opposition. Why stop at 2 changes? Let's make all 3 subs right now!!

A few thoughts 1) We weren't all that good but a win is a win. 2) I don't think Lampard should play with Mata in the middle but not having either of them means we have very little creativity. It was an extremely defensive lineup and we were lucky to get up so Schalke had to spread themselves because before Schalke opened up, we had a hard time breaking them down. 3) Willian was excellent and deserves to get some playing time based on that performance.

People reading too much into individual game lineups. We have a game in 3 days, the third in a week. We are going to have to rotate a lot of players. We beat Schalke 3-0 on their ground. Yes, we have to try but this is a game we should win easily . Not every game is Mourinho trying to put out who he thinks his best 11 players are. We will see a number of players not playing today start on Saturday.

You are falling into the trap where that groups of players with vastly differing skills into one group because they are deemed "good" or "bad' by people. "Not good defensively" is an enormous group where there is a massive scope of different defensive quality. Lampard is not good defensively but he's also not horrible. Lampard's problem is that he's lost his pace so he's a little late with tackles and can't catch up to people if they get by him. He defends willingly, intercepts quite a few balls, wins some headers, and is generally not nearly as bad as you and other people portray him on here. He's not a good defensive player, he's a poor defensive player, but he's not useless either..De Bruyne doesn't do anything well defensively. He can't tackle at all, he doesn't read the play well, he doesn't track back well, he is useless in the air, he lets players get by him constantly, etc..De Bruyne is not a bad defensive players, he was probably one of the worst defensive players playing at a high level in Europe last season. Already this season, he's been dribbled by the opposition more often than he's made a tackle or intercepted a ball combined. This year, Lampard has a 58% success rate on tackles overall (including fouls). De Bruyne's last season was 25% which is beyond atrocious. (43% this year which is the same defensive efficiency as Torres) He can definitely improve defensively, but he has many steps to take before being able to play in the centre of a 4-2-3-1 against any quality team. Hell, he has steps he has to take before being able to play at attacking midfield for Chelsea. Getting a paper cut and being shot in the face are both bad things but they are not even close to being the equal. @Barbara the problem is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that De Bruyne will improve our transition. His passing rate last year was low and this year it's low again.This whole discussion is some weird fantasy based on a player who hasn't shown he exists yet. Let him work his way into showing that he's good enough to play for Chelsea at all before we start discussing how we start trying to force him into an ill-suited role on the team. Anyway, it's the same old. Complex team problems get reduces down to one or two veteran players who people want replaced with a new toy.

I agree. Lampard has been OK overall this season. (Tends to get an insane amount of the blame when things don't go right) but he clearly should not be playing every game. He partners up better with Oscar (and for the matter, so does Ramires) but we miss Mata's creativity in the middle. Not sure why central midfield has not been addressed for years. Van Ginkel was an interesting young player but was/is more of a long-term project than an immediate upgrade anyway. I don't think we need to go chasing an elite central midfielder in January, spending big in the winter almost never turns out, but we definitely need someone who can play regularly in the centre.

Which is the way it should be. He has the talent to make an impact on this club and we will certainly suffer injuries/suspensions at some point which will give him a chance to work his way back up the depth chart to get more playing time.

A typical ManU supporter? I've been a Chelsea supporter since before Roman when winning any trophy was glorious (hint, look at my profile photo) and have never supported any other team . And having my fandom questioned by someone who clearly cares more about one player and their national team more than they do about Chelsea is patently absurd. I don't require De Bruyne do be sensational every match, I don't require him to be anything. Mourinho clearly requires De Bruyne to be better than he has been to get playing time and he's right. If De Bruyne is such a sensitive soul his confidence is shattered because he gets dropped for a few games, he is never going to make it in football. In football, you need to rise to challenges and on top teams, unless you are the level of Messi, you will always face challenges to your playing time. Every young player on a team like Chelsea will have to earn their playing time. Look at Drogba who saw off every other striker Chelsea bought for years.Look a Terry who looked on his way out but is now the team's #1 choice CB. Why? Because they damn well earned it with their play. And it wasn't like he was dropped. Chelsea just have a lot of options and those options were playing better than De Bruyne. De Bruyne got his chance to play his way back into the side and failed to do so. How is that Mourinho's fault? Chelsea is not around to serve De Bruyne's career. We're around to compete and to win and right now, If Schurrle or Willian or anyone has a better chance of helping Chelsea win, then they should play.

No, Luiz has been very poor in the league but he's been quite good in other competitions so overall he's been OK which De Bruyne hasn't been and unlike De Bruyne, Luiz proven what he can do at Chelsea so having a bad few games doesn't mean anything. Nobody is using statistics as a bible, but if a player who plays a position that is very stat-friendly is near the bottom of the team every single game, they've just been bad and I don't even see how you can debate it. The big issue with these sorts of stats is that they tend to reward offensive players. You can be a great reader of the game and a great defensive player but not get great scores so yes, it's hard to judge someone like Ashley Cole statistically because he doesn't get any of the offensive statistics that really add up your score. In other words, defensive players are hurt more by statistical analysis and De Bruyne is a terrible defensive player. (In his 5 games, De Bruyne has 3 tackles, 0 interceptions, has been dribbled by an opponent at least once, and has committed 4 fouls. That's atrocious). Players like De Bruyne should be getting overrated by statistics, not underrated. De Bruyne has not only been poor defensively, he was benched because of poor effort and poor training which shows a bad attitude. Basically, in every single measure of a player, De Bruyne has been bad this year and has been IMO pretty easily our worst player. He still has a bright future and it may only take one game or two to turn things around, but 1) he has to earn it and he has done the opposite. He doesn't deserve to play just because you want him to. It's not Mourinho that has let De Bruyne down, it's his own poor play 2) people need to stop pretending he has been anything other than poor so far.

I would say awful pretty easily. He has been probably our worst player in 3 of his 4 starts and if not our worst, he's definitely been one of our worst. Not sure how you can consider that average. Which Chelsea player has been worse this season? If you're an offensive player who can't defend and you aren't creating chances or scoring and you aren't a natural winger who creates space for others, what exactly are the positives De Bruyne has brought so far this season? Certainly not his 0 goals and 1 assist in 5 games. Certainly not his defensive work nor his work rate. So, what exactly makes his season so far average?

He has been utter dog shite other than the first half of the first game. People look and see "oh well, he made a dangerous pass", he was OK, but for an offensive player to make one or two good offensive plays a game is nothing. A player who is as weak defensively as De Bruyne is needs to be making an offensive impact. Just to show how bad he has been., De Bruyne has started 4 games at Chelsea. Here are his whoscored rankings on the team ( Despite playing in a position that lends itself to good statistical numbers) Hull-Second worst among starters although he was taken off earlier than anyone. ManU-Worst among starters and subs Swindon-Second worst among starters but only because Van Ginkel went off after 10 minutes Arsenal-Second worst among starters So, yes, he's been awful. It doesn't mean he isn't good enough for Chelsea or any other silly overreaction, it just means he doesn't deserve to be playing right now.