TrippingStep

I disagree, we need two intelligent defensive midfielders good on the ball to recycle the possession and compensate the position of a cb or fullback leaving his position moving forward. Add a forward who is better all-around. We need to dictate the tempo of the game, mixing the tempo for change of rythm to mess up the opposition. And without two good defensive midfielders, it's impossible to do.

Last year if you except the champion's league against Barcelona and Bayern Munich, where God seems on our side, it wasn't much better. We have the same problems defensively. We need two defensive midfielders who are also good with the ball. Without that, we won't be able to press better defensively and will continue to defend too deep when the opponents is on our half. We don't press because if one player is going out, there will be no compensation and clever subsitution of the guy leaving his zone to close down an opponent. We have no pattern of play to allow our fullbacks to do more runs without leaving huge space to the opponents. Two defensive midfielders, a striker who is better all-around to combine quickly with the players behind is a must. ----------------Azpilicueta--------------Ivanovic----------------Luiz--------------------Cole---------------------------- ---------------------------------------------Two defensive midfielders---------------------------------------------------- -------------------Mata------------------------------------Oscar--------------------------Hazard----------------------------- ------------------------------------------------New Striker----------------------------------------------------------

One player i feel bad for was Marko Marin. Coming for just a few minutes and it was like the other players didn't want to give him the ball. Two or three times he could have received the ball with a bit of space and he never received it.

That's not what we need to have a brazilian clan apart from the others.

We need midfielders and a more complete striker in front. With Benitez, when we have space, we try to go quickly behind the opponents and it can be good but we are worse than before to keep the ball. The lack of defensive midfielders mean also that our full-back can't do many overlap runs, can't really press their opponent knowing they don't have cover. By reading Seb, it seems to me he doesn't like when players are back to the goal, but against packed defense, one or two players moving in front of the defense with their back and releasing the ball quickly to a guy running or even a combination of two runs to ask questions to the defense could be useful. And that we can't do it because there are often too many people forward with no one there for the second ball if it fails.

Otherwise, I think the game plan of Rafa Benitez is to stretch their defense. They like to defend narrow and counter quickly on the side. My guess is that we will try to fix them in a a side of the pitch and play a diagonal to the other side if they defend narrow.

You don't have bbc2 or eurosport france?

Wow at this line-up. It's a huge surprise to me. My guess is that Benitez want to use the fact that Ralf their defensive midfielder doesn't do much when Corinthians are in the possession and is not great on one on one situation.

I would prefer him in the holding player in front of the defense position. David Luiz has more flair, technical ability to play just in front of him if Benitez decides to play him in midfield. With Capoue et luiz, I would not fear the long balls in the hole in front of the defense like West Ham and Sunderland used a lot.

Thanks for the answer.

Does someone know what are his new shoes? The last two matches, he didn't have the usual one like Mata's one. I wonder if it's because if he has a bothering knock on one of his foot.

The referee was weak. he seldom blew the whistle while the sunderland players were playing more with their hands and arms in defense. everytime one of our offensive players were trying to drive, the sunderland players would grab their shirst, wrestle them, lean on their shoulders and he didn't care.

I hope it's not too serious his injury. He's very unlucky to pick it up when Mikel have suspension games and had chances to prove himsef wich he did for me.

I'm wondering if it would not be better to play David Luiz as a defensive midfielder. Azpilicueta as right back and Ivanovic as central defender. Against West Ham, Sunderland and against Shaktar, our team seemed to have no answer when they were playing long to a man just in front of the central defense. Luiz often goes forward from his position but a bit late, is beaten in the duel, a full back covering in central defense and it messes us up big time, leaving big gaps on one side of the defense the full back has given to cover for Luiz. I think it must be the number one priority of our staff to have an answer to this sort of play. As Kojo said, we really need to buy defensive midfielders.

Well, there maybe more protection with Benitez but yesterday when Oscar came, there wasn't much more protection. There wasn't a defensive midfielder. Yesterday I think he tried that but on some occasions the referee wouldn't blow the whistle when the opponent foul him. There was two three times he was gripped, pushed on the shoulders by the arms and he would not get the fouls earlier in the match. His first half wasn't that bad yersterday and he made of lot of long runs of inside forward but he must lose a lot of energy with the sprints of 30-40 meters he make on counter-attacks. In the first half, I think the must be one of those who ran the more and made the most sprints.

You have a good point. Some of our players if they were at Man Utd would have not lost all their pace like it seems to happen in Chelsea. I really think our physical preparation is not good, when November come the last years, we are doing bad results.

I think a Busquets, Capoue would have been good to have against West Ham, our central defenders wouldn't have to try heading the ball in midfield. And with Benitez tactic, we miss even more Lampard who would be our best goalscorer in this tactic like Gerrard at Liverpool who was scoring a lot. What I didn't understand is why we were defending so deep, I think that we could have try to defend higher and asked Ramires to follow the run of the guy behind Carlton Cole. With their physical advantage, it was mad to defend so deep.

After seeing the last 3 half-time under Benitez. I'm worried. It seems that our offensive game is only about quick conter-attacks or crosses. When we must construct our actions, we struggle badly and the % of possession is not good. The only positive is that we are closing better in general but we won't be able to do it all season if we don't manage rest periods within the game by keeping more the ball and control the tempo of the game. Even at Liverpool, Benitez had problems to win against the smaller teams because his team lacked creativity and they had Xabi Alonso and Gerrard who can shoot, moving the ball quicky to the other side of the field.

What I like is that we have a new fitness coach. Improving the fitness of the players seems crucial to me if we want to play an organised and fast football and battling more in the midfield area, not defending in our box like the last matches.

I disagree. You say we shouldn't do it because the fa throw mud to John. But I believe we should do it because of all the mud thrown on JT. Anton did trash talking as well. I think it's only fair and everyone should do it just to show how absurd the fa is.

We would be great to have more options on forward. But I think even if we have lost againts Shaktar (the better team and Manchester united). I think that the team and Di Matteo will learn a lot and will improve our team. When he had good spells in both matches and bad spells in both matches, I think it came from the positionning of Hazard and Oscar. On the bad spells, they were both too high up in the pitch. When they were using better the left side, Hazard making runs on their left back, Oscar dropping a bit deeper to help in midfield, and vice-versa, when Hazard dropped, Oscar would go the left, we had a better balance. I think that's why we had difficulties on the left side on some occasions. On the right Ramires is deeper and help a lot more. That's why I think we can improve a lot, I think a 4-3-3, with Mikel in front of the defence, Ramires Oscar in front of him, Hazard left, Mata right is the best formation we can use. We need just a bit of tweaking to have better automatisms between Oscar Hazard and Ramires Mata to use the spaces better.

I don't know, on the first goal, Cahill position seems wrong to me. I think he could have played the offside trap on Van Persie, he was way behind everyone on that goal if I remember.

It's no surprise that Manchester United are always fighting for the title even with average teams. They have 95% of the decisions that can influence game for them. Offside goals, penalty for dives, players sent off like Torres, disallowed goals for imaginary offside. It's so obvious that Howard Webb is labeled their twelve player.

You're right on the first picture. But on the second one It was not a straight run from Hazard if I remember. He was coming more from the right drifting towards the penalty box and pulling Gallas to the left with him.

Ok but it would be stupid to play like that. You can do it with Drogba or even Everton with Fellaini but there aren't that many players. Dzeko I don't know what to think, I've not seen him enough. And what I've seen last year or the year before when he arrived in January wasn't that great. I remember him struggling a lot with his first touches, the other players trying to combien with him but he would lost the ball because of his first touch. Perhaps it was only because he had to adapt not having as much space as in the Bundesliga.