TorontoChelsea

The importance of width is not only about being able to cross the ball in. Width does not= Boswingwa. You need width to create space in the middle of the pitch. Otherwise, defences become almost impossible to break down. It's very difficult to get past decent defences no matter what, but if you are telling them "we won't attack wide", defending becomes too easy. We've seen this so far this season. We scored against Stoke only once we brought Moses on. We scored both goals against Juventus on individual plays and we scored both goals against Arsenal on set pieces. In those games, we passed beautifully, we were generally excellent to watch, but we couldn't create scoring opportunities at all. Even Barcelona who play one of the most narrow games around, use Alexis or Pedro for natural width. I don't think it's possible to have long-term success with no width. Now, this is possible in a couple of different ways. Either someone like Moses or Marin steps up or we move one of our attacking midfield 3 in a wider position. we can beat poorer squads with virtually any system because the gap in talent is so enormous, but our lack of width is absolutely something to watch out for.

Agree with you that this could become an issue in the future. Right now, not sure. We won against Stoke and Arsenal but weren't really able to create scoring opportunities from open play. The last two matches, we've been able to. Whether this is because they were weaker sides or because our front three are working better together, time will tell.

If you did it that way, players would never get a proper break. Season ends, a few weeks off and then to National team training camps and then games and then right into the season.I have no problem with the way it's done now. If you're going to have international football tournaments, you're going to disrupt domestic leagues. No way around that. The break we had right after the Euros was pointless mind you.

Bale often cuts into the middle which makes him trickier to mark, Dempsey and Dembele can make runs, and even Vertonghen and Walker can get in there as well The other issue is that they wouldn't necessarily need a target man. If Lennon and Bale are able to pull the defence apart (say if Cole or Ivanovic get caught up-field, our central defenders would be forced to cover the attacker), then there would be massive avenues for Defoe and Dempsey to run into. That means that Spurs can got caught on the counter on the wings as well, but we are likely going to need some width to be able to score.

Saw the Van Persie incident. He doesn't elbow him, he sort of puts his arm across his face and Cabaye went down as if he's been shot. Realistically , I can see maybe a game, maybe nothing.

If RDM does start with Mata, Oscar, and Hazard, he needs to put Oscar on the right. Mata providing cover for Bale and marking Vertonghen (who gets forward a lot) would be an awful idea. Anyway, it will be interesting to see.

It certainly wasn't Mikel's fault. It's not his job to mark the striker. Oscar lost his man a little too easily on the right (although, to be fair I am not sure whose job it was to mark him. Could have been someone else's that Oscar was covering). and then Cole, Terry, and Luiz sort of made a mess of it. There were three of them defending and three Norwich attackers (including Holt). Cole was too central allowing his man to head the ball back into the box and Luiz was marking no one. It's sort of hard to tell who was at fault because I don't know how Chelsea were supposed to be marking, but it was some combination of the back 4. You can't let Holt get that kind of space. It was one of those goals which was a few small mistakes rather than any one single massive one. Hopefully, we'll learn from it so it doesn't happen again.

El Clasico has lost a lot of the magic it used to have for me. They played each other 6 times last season and have already played each other 3 times this season. It's just too common an occurrence to have the same tension. Still fun to watch mind you, just not the same.

I think some of that has to do with being a central defender. Defenders mostly get attention when they do something wrong because what they do right is hardly ever flashy. They hold their lines well, they intercept passes, they communicate well, they position themselves well, etc... Good defending is inherently dull. How many gifs are there of "Hummels marking has man closely" or something like that? It's sort of like when you don't notice the referee, you know he's done a good job.

It's muddled because the line.as to what counts as an assist can be put anywhere. Is a shot that leads to a handball and then a penalty an assist? How about a player who wins a corner by taking a stupid shot from 50 yards out that deflects off someone and then the corner-taker scores directly from the corner? An assist? Why isn't a shot that deflects off a defender an assist? That directly lead to that goal. How about if it bounces off your head and straight to your teammate who scores? Is that an assist? The goal wouldn't have happened without you. An assist to me is a deliberate pass that leads directly to a goal. That way, the statistic about someone who is passing to set up goals/about someone who is creating, not someone who gets fouled or someone who happens to deflect a ball. I admit I might be biased because that's how assists are measured in basketball and hockey (except hockey gives two assists).

Haha! It was like a two part move. A nice cut inside where he genuinely slipped and then took a dive. Almost like he was doing "the worm".

ManU are playing with Van Persie, Rooney, and Welbeck all in the lineup. It's sort of a 4-2-1-3 formation....and they've scored 2 goals and both by defenders.

Because you're winning an opportunity to get a set piece. How is a corner different from a free kick? And the free kick thing is very problematic. If you get fouled and then the set piece is a beautiful pass that gets headed in, you no longer get the assist but if the set piece results directly in a goal, you do even though you actually did nothing different. It just gets ridiculous.

I disagree with it because things get too muddled. Is getting fouled and then your team scores on the ensuing free kick from an assist? Is winning a corner that leads to a goal an assist? For me, an assist is a deliberate pass that leads directly to a goal. Penalties won is obviously incredibly important and should just be its own category.

If you want to pay for Spike to go to games, I'm sure he'll accept. Just so you know, a flight from Sydney to London and back will be about 1500 GBP and takes like 55 hours (including airport time). Makes it difficult to get to the stadium on a regular basis.

Not sure where you got those assist numbers. Hazard has 4 assists, not 6 and Cazorla has 2 assists, not 3.

The poll needs another option "wherever I can get them" or something like tthat. I'll watch them on TV but if they're not on, I'll watch them online. However, I've also gone to bars, watched a match in the airport, watched at friends' houses, etc...

It's not just about the money. If you recall players from loan, teams might not be as interested in taking your players in the future. After all, it does put them in a bind. If they weren't using the player, you can just bring them back, but someone like Lukaku is important to WBA and bringing him back would hurt them. Obviously, if we get a major injury and have no choice it's one thing, but if you are just recalling people because you want some more depth, then you may find it difficult to work out loan arrangements in the future. Besides, he clearly still has things he needs to work on and WBA is a good situation for him to get some playing time and work on them.

Arsenal have wingers but they generally build up pretty centrally through Arteta and Cazorla. I was surprised by the way Arsenal came out to be honest. Podolski and Ramsey on the wings gave them no width at all then when they brought on Oxlade-Chamberlin, he was able to take advantage of the space some more but ended up drifting too centrally (and kind of all over the place). Still, thought it was surprising not to take advantage of what we were giving them. Spurs are different. They have Walker and Lennon on the right and Bale and Vertonghen on the left. Bale can drift in some but their natural width can really open up our side and allow for space for Defoe (Or Dempsey or even Dembele) to run into.. I'd actually probably prefer Ramires on the right for this game because I think Ivanovic's defensive positioning has been poor this season and Mata provides basically no cover for that. However, as you say, we might decided to take the game to them. If we do that successfully, we might force Lennon and Bale inside to defend and they'd lose some of their width. They are definitely beatable, but it will be tough. (I think the ManU/Spurs match makes for interesting scouting. Here's the MOTD if you haven't seen it. http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2012/09/29/manchester-united-vs-tottenham-2-3-highlights-2012-vertonghen-bale-nani-kagawa-dempsey-goals-video/)

Was thinking a bit about this. I'll be very interested in what RDM does for this match because Spurs are a team that naturally will be difficult for Chelsea. They have real width and they tend to attack from there. We haven't really played a team like that so far. It will be interesting how RDM decides to play it because his preferred lineup seems to fit very poorly in this match.. Mata and Ivanovic marking Bale and Vertonghen? Yikes. It will be interesting to see if RDM goes with what's been working recently or plays the matchup more.

I'm not bothered when he shoots and it gets saved. What bothers me was the first chance when he has a shot and then tries to be too cute with it and plays himself out of a chance. Just shoot!!! Still, I'm OK with where he is right now. He's scoring regularly and he's doing a lot of link-up play well. I doubt he'll ever be an elite striker again, but he's miles better than he was last season and probably good enough for us to win with.

No. I just discovered that app two weeks ago and was thrilled only to find that I couldn't use it. From their website "Initially, Stats Zone will only be available for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad run in scaled mode). However, hopes are high that it can be brought to other platforms, including Android and a bespoke iPad version at some point in the future. As with everything, the future development of Stats Zone will be based on how well this first version is received."

This is when it starts to get tough. In the next 10 games we're at Spurs, at Donetsk, home against ManU twice, at Swansea, home to Donetsk, Liverpool, at West Brom and Juventus, home to City. Not one easy match there and almost all very difficult ones. Looking forward to the challenge.

Was excellent today and noticed even in Denmark that he seems to be timing his runs well and it paid off in a goal today. Was responsible for a lot of the good build-up play and switched play up very well. He'll still be contributing a lot to Chelsea this season.

And Giroud is proving the case once again that small sample sizes can be ignored. 1 goal, 1 assist so far. Not saying he's going to turn out great, just that you can't call someone a flop after 2 bad starts.