Tactical Analysis

[BLionheart 516]

I expected real analysis when I read the title, Blionheart is great at that.

I am flattered

I was actually going to have a real analysis for our start of the season and AVB approach mainly focusing on the Man utd game ... but i ended up writing an incredibly huge article , and i feared it might be boring for some so i wrote only the conclusions.

[BLionheart 516]

For Lampard's case , now it's 100 % clear that he is becoming more of a liability but one point i would like to highlight is that a midfield of Mikel - Ramires - Miereles will suffer badly !! unfortunately we don't have many good options in midfield as for each player there is at least one very big weakness in his game :

Mikel : lacks any kind of drive and pace , also slows down our much needed quick tempo .

Ramires : the opposite of mikel but lacks any kind of technical ability , his passing game is abysmal , he costs us possession at critical moments .

McEacheran : A huge risk ( the risk is not his inexperience but risking him at such young age could block his development )

Lamps : discussed already

Miereles : good at a lot of things but very good at nothing

Essien : Injury prone , during last seasons he raised many questions about whether he will be able to cope with injuries maintaining his level .

3 of them are described as defensive midfielders as they contribute way more defensively than offensively ( Mikel - Essien - Ramires) any midfield we use should only contain one of those if we are to play attacking football .

so unfortunately due to lack of options we better get used to the fact that lampard with all his lost abilities , should be a starter untill we get a new CM or unless we are willing to risk McEacheran .

[dodojojo 510]

1. AVB great manager in the making, no doubt on that. The part i liked is that he is ready to chop the player if he is not performing no matter who he is. But i didnt think his strategy was any different than the ones that we have seen till now. Yes it was more of a free flowing football but then understand that we played into Fergerson's plan. Allowing us to come to them and then counter.

You're right. Man United are happy to play fast counter attacking football and not have some much emphasis on their central midfield. Playing without a DM and with Lampard only encouraged their biggest strength and glossed over their biggest weakness.

[SeB 1,281]

Ramires : the opposite of mikel but lacks any kind of technical ability , his passing game is abysmal , he costs us possession at critical moments .

Lateral passing and distribution is not his main role, he's a box-to-box and his vertical play with or without the ball is excellent. He really can't be blamed for lacking quality in passing in the midfield, it's like blaming Essien for not being able to cover properly the defense, it's not his main role and we all know what are their others strengths... He really has to do the link between midfield and attack, now he is the only player that has his precise role: help to defend, go forward with the ball or to provide support and cover Bosingwa's runs upfield.

When Mikel will have his precise role (because it seemed in the pre-season & start of the PL that Villas Boas wanted him not to stop his runs and making him available higher) and when we will look closer to the reconversion of Lampard, it will become clearer and that kind of observations on that weakness of Ramires could not have a valid reason.

5. If there's one criticism that I can think of against AVB yesterday, it would have to be the Lukaku substitution. I expected us to go 2 upfront but Lukaku was stationed on the right wing and he looked awful.

6. We did our best to get Torres firing yesterday. Balls played between their centre-half and full-back which Nando used his pace to latch onto (twice - for the Ramires chance and the goal). Nice to see.

It was the less worse choice, he did not lose the ball even if he was static. Kalou would have lost the ball in his deseperate will to try to make the difference and we could have been counter-attacked bloody.

Now Torres is in proper conditions to be judged (state he was not since January) we can begin to talk about his play. One more piece of evidence that he is the most complete #9 in the world. And his "Drogba style" performance against Leverkusen relays on the width is an evidence that he adapts himself to the play of the team, and the Manure game showed that he could also use massively the space. Two minds that he did not have at Liverpool, he was only the space-player enjoying the through balls of Alonso or Gerrard.

Pleased to say that his transfert to Chelsea is maybe the biggest step on his career because he has the ability to be the striker of a multi-modal playing team

Edited September 20, 2011 by SeB

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Good analysis.

4 is the best point you make. We need Luiz in the back with the high line we are playing, Iva just isn't quick enough.

[lentherussian 86]

for everyone who likes analysing football or reading others opinions take a look at zonalmarking.com sure some of you might have already but his 10 points on man utd game is very good IMO http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/09/18/ten-points-on-manchester-united-3-1-chelsea/

[Term-X 7,891]

Man United = 21 goals from 92 shots = 23% conversion

Man City = 17 goals from 114 shots = 15%

Chelsea = 8 goals from 102 shots = 8%

[zolayes 14,489]

Man United = 21 goals from 92 shots = 23% conversion

Man City = 17 goals from 114 shots = 15%

Chelsea = 8 goals from 102 shots = 8%

are you blaming Kalou for those stats ,,you usually do

[1chelsea 864]

I expected real analysis when I read the title, Blionheart is great at that.

My 2 cents -

1. I was very impressed with the pressing. We gave them next to no time or space on the ball. No surprise then that they couldn't play their high tempo passing game. If you see the match again, you'll find Rooney has to drop deeper and deeper as the game goes on because they couldn't get him on the ball. But there are a few individual culprits here. Sturridge and Bosingwa didn't close down well enough on the right and it allowed them to shift flanks with long diagonal balls. While most of the blame for their second goal has fallen on Mata, Meireles and Terry were the bigger culprits imo. They should have been breathing down his neck but allowed him to continue his run and Nani took his chance.

2. I wonder if it would be beneficial for Sturridge and Mata to exchange flanks. Once Sturridge picks up the ball on the right you know he's going to cut inside, makes it predictable. Mata on the other hand can drift inside or beat his man on the outside.

3. I picked up on this pre-match and it was validated yesterday - Ivan shouldn't be a CB. He is reckless and has a tendency of going to ground to easily. Him and JT will be exposed by pace all day long so makes no sense to pair two identical defenders against the paciest forwards in the league.

4. Meireles yesterday had too much of his game taken away from him in the first half. He did alright in that position against Sunderland but he needs to be played in a slightly advanced role if we're to get the best out of his attacking talents. Ramires for all his industry and enthusiasm is shocking on the ball. Mikel is more suited for that DM role but he was little more than a slow paperweight after he came on yesterday, doing his cause no good. Yoiu could see Meireles was immediately more threatening and influential as soon as we switched to 4-2-3-1 at HT.

5. If there's one criticism that I can think of against AVB yesterday, it would have to be the Lukaku substitution. I expected us to go 2 upfront but Lukaku was stationed on the right wing and he looked awful.

6. We did our best to get Torres firing yesterday. Balls played between their centre-half and full-back which Nando used his pace to latch onto (twice - for the Ramires chance and the goal). Nice to see.

you are right about mikel when he came in his performance was too slow, he did add spice to the game. But for the rest of the team their mistake is what they should work on cos long way ahead of the team. Good Game

[Blue Armour 4,436]

Man United = 21 goals from 92 shots = 23% conversion

Man City = 17 goals from 114 shots = 15%

Chelsea = 8 goals from 102 shots = 8%

We aren't making the most of our chances..that's a trend that we've picked up since last season actually...

[zolayes 14,489]

We aren't making the most of our chances..that's a trend that we've picked up since last season actually...

last year Drogba had the worst completion record of any of the recognised top strikers

[1chelsea 864]

I expected real analysis when I read the title, Blionheart is great at that.

My 2 cents -

1. I was very impressed with the pressing. We gave them next to no time or space on the ball. No surprise then that they couldn't play their high tempo passing game. If you see the match again, you'll find Rooney has to drop deeper and deeper as the game goes on because they couldn't get him on the ball. But there are a few individual culprits here. Sturridge and Bosingwa didn't close down well enough on the right and it allowed them to shift flanks with long diagonal balls. While most of the blame for their second goal has fallen on Mata, Meireles and Terry were the bigger culprits imo. They should have been breathing down his neck but allowed him to continue his run and Nani took his chance.

2. I wonder if it would be beneficial for Sturridge and Mata to exchange flanks. Once Sturridge picks up the ball on the right you know he's going to cut inside, makes it predictable. Mata on the other hand can drift inside or beat his man on the outside.

3. I picked up on this pre-match and it was validated yesterday - Ivan shouldn't be a CB. He is reckless and has a tendency of going to ground to easily. Him and JT will be exposed by pace all day long so makes no sense to pair two identical defenders against the paciest forwards in the league.

4. Meireles yesterday had too much of his game taken away from him in the first half. He did alright in that position against Sunderland but he needs to be played in a slightly advanced role if we're to get the best out of his attacking talents. Ramires for all his industry and enthusiasm is shocking on the ball. Mikel is more suited for that DM role but he was little more than a slow paperweight after he came on yesterday, doing his cause no good. Yoiu could see Meireles was immediately more threatening and influential as soon as we switched to 4-2-3-1 at HT.

5. If there's one criticism that I can think of against AVB yesterday, it would have to be the Lukaku substitution. I expected us to go 2 upfront but Lukaku was stationed on the right wing and he looked awful.

6. We did our best to get Torres firing yesterday. Balls played between their centre-half and full-back which Nando used his pace to latch onto (twice - for the Ramires chance and the goal). Nice to see.

you are right about mikel when he came in his performance was too slow, he did not add spice to the game. But for the rest of the team their mistake is what they should work on cos long way ahead of the team. Good Game

[Kostas 1,468]

3 of them are described as defensive midfielders as they contribute way more defensively than offensively ( Mikel - Essien - Ramires) any midfield we use should only contain one of those if we are to play attacking football .

That's a strange definition of defensive midfielders. Of those 3 I'd rather call Mikel a holding midfielder while Essien and Ramires are Box-to-Box midfielders, who don't have to be always defensive. This may sound like semantics but we should be more precise when we're arguing their uses.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Kostas

[laeth 527]

I'd like to see us go to a 4-2-3-1; I think it suits the type of football AVB likes to play. Something like:

------------------Cech---------------------

Bosingwa --- Luiz --- Terry --- Cole

------- Merieles -- Romeu/Mikel--------

----------------------------------------------

Sturridge ----- Mata ------------ Anelka

-----------------Torres----------------------

[dodojojo 510]

Here's another good one.

http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2011/9/21/2437050/match-analysis-chelsea-1-3-manchester-united-tactics-stats