Pointing The Finger

[Swoopz 183]

Plagiarised content removed by Alex.

Don't do it again, really not impressed.

Consider this a formal warning.

[gary gordon 1,777]

Nice observation. I'm sure Villas Boas will be working with the staff over the break to figure out ways to adjust the defence in this situation.

[Tomo 21,751]

Ill rep you for the thread because it's very detailed and correct but i don't think we need to see too much into that goal or this current run of clean sheets or lack off shall i say.

We have always occasionaly had a similar run like that lacking clean sheets, even in the Jose years there was a spell in each season were we went a month sometimes more with very few if any clean sheets so i wouldn't worry too much.

[manpe 10,861]

Watching the pictures, the zone where Terry was in and the backpost zone in general was lightly marked. I'm surprised to see not one, but two players stayed unmarked and this was the zone from where Boyata finally scored... with him included, there were 3 unmarked players, while Ramires, Lampard, Meireles, Drogba and Bosingwa didn't seem to be marking anyone in particular, while Luiz and Terry obviously were. It does seem like a rather poor mix between man and zonal marking, at least in that situation.

[Madmax 9,219]

One of the things even my shitty school instructor taught us when defending set pieces was to have a man on each post. I'm surprised at the amount of goals conceded by professional football teams playing in the best leagues in the world which could very easily be avoided by having either post covered.

You don't do the basics right, you pay. Simple as.

[RaoulQuaresma7 16]

nice done, but dont get the point tbh=/

[GodZola 630]

Nicely done Swoopz but I became coloured blind at the end of your post!

Tomo has pointed out that we have had these problems before notably for me when we started the 09/10 season, we addressed those problems then & we still have the same players bar Luiz in our defence, so there is no reason why we cannot rectify them now. At that time it was a combination of Cech not commanding his area & our defence having a high line so it was a combination of the 2. It's a little different this time round but I always feel more comfortable defending dead ball situations when Alex is on the pitch. It's a strange one as we didn't concede against Stoke & their masters of getting goals this way.

Yes we should improve defensively especially from free kicks, corners, however I have no doubts AVB will be on this during the international break but I think the way we are set up to attack & score more goals we are going to leave ourselves open at the back & would much rather we play this way as its far more attractive to watch, despite the odd blip. AVB stated as long as we score one more goal than the opposition then he is happy - couldn't agree more.

[GodZola 630]

One of the things even my shitty school instructor taught us when defending set pieces was to have a man on each post. I'm surprised at the amount of goals conceded by professional football teams playing in the best leagues in the world which could very easily be avoided by having either post covered.

You don't do the basics right, you pay. Simple as.

Thats ok Max but you can only put men on the post when you not trying to play offside. If you put men on the posts then this gives the opposition an advantage to get on top of the keeper causing problems for him & they can do this because they won't be flagged offside. Obviously there are occasions when you cannot play offside as you will have to defend the ball like a corner as the ball is high up the pitch but like the Smalling goal that should of been disallowed you can get it right but it is a fine line.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Nice post, and we do need to do something about the defence.

But I'd rather see us score goals at this moment in time. We are not alarmingly permeable at the moment, but I do agree our set piece vulnerabilities must be addressed. However winning matches is the most important thing at this stage of the season - our outlook of scoring more goals in the opposition is refreshing and some vulnerabilities in the defence will be exposed because of that.

The simplicity of it all is we should adopt a man-for-man system instead of this stupid zonal one.

[Krypt 241]

Nice Detail.

We defiantly need to work on our set pieces , i worry now every time a team gets a free kick around out box. I think the main culprit for some of the goals this season has been the high line we have been playing. as our defenders are not used to it after Carlo.

[SeB 1,281]

Yes we should improve defensively especially from free kicks, corners, however I have no doubts AVB will be on this during the international break but I think the way we are set up to attack & score more goals we are going to leave ourselves open at the back & would much rather we play this way as its far more attractive to watch, despite the odd blip. AVB stated as long as we score one more goal than the opposition then he is happy - couldn't agree more.

I do agree ; conceide a goal like that does not worries me, I will gratify you a typical french idiom: we can't have butter, butter money, and the dairywoman... Considering we play with a high team bloc, press high and try to project ourselves forward quickly when we have the ball ; concede one goal when we score 4 or 5 is an almost inevitable consequence.

Of course, what I just said is applicable in domestics competitions and of course not in Europe where a more pragmatic approach is required.

What worries me the most is our absence of threat on offensive set pieces, it's paradoxical to say that after Sturridge's first goal but the team has no movement and no inspiration and it's the reason why we never score on theses phases (only Ivanovic is clever in these situations). Being dangerous on set pieces can bring an extra 15 pts in a season and it's the same with realism in front of goal.

Those two points which were our offensive weaknesses last season are on the road to be corrected so it's very encouraging for the future

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Observing our last few games, it really does look like we're going towards Zonal Marking.

This is never a good thing. I hope AVB knows what he's doing here..

[CHOULO19 24,332]

I do think that we've a had a problem defending set pieces this season, but I believe it is something that can be sorted out easily by AVB. Bossingwa, more often than not, the guilty party in my opinion should not be on the far post but maybe the first defender (instead of miereles in the pic) because of his weak abilities in the air. Coupled with some better man-to-man marking, I think our defense will be fine this season.

[Badboy 1,526]

Bosingwa and Lampard are the two who let us down when we are defending a corner.

[GodZola 630]

I do agree ; conceide a goal like that does not worries me, I will gratify you a typical french idiom: we can't have butter, butter money, and the dairywoman... Considering we play with a high team bloc, press high and try to project ourselves forward quickly when we have the ball ; concede one goal when we score 4 or 5 is an almost inevitable consequence.

Of course, what I just said is applicable in domestics competitions and of course not in Europe where a more pragmatic approach is required.

What worries me the most is our absence of threat on offensive set pieces, it's paradoxical to say that after Sturridge's first goal but the team has no movement and no inspiration and it's the reason why we never score on theses phases (only Ivanovic is clever in these situations). Being dangerous on set pieces can bring an extra 15 pts in a season and it's the same with realism in front of goal.

Those two points which were our offensive weaknesses last season are on the road to be corrected so it's very encouraging for the future

You raise a good point here SeB about our offensive deficiencies from dead ball situations, at present a poor return. Although I think its largely to do with our poor distribution from dead ball situations but mainly corners, how many times do we see of one our players take a corner & it hits the oppositions first defender! Mind you I have to say JT gets fouled almost every time he goes up for a corner but the refs never seem to notice?! Definitely room for improvement though, again I'm sure AVB will be aware of it & something he will also get the team working on when they return from international duty.

[francozola 2,040]

I think our problem seems to be lack of concentration and awareness, which can be sorted out through practice etc

[Kieran. 6,317]

Observing our last few games, it really does look like we're going towards Zonal Marking.

This is never a good thing. I hope AVB knows what he's doing here..

Mikel confirmed we're going towards zonal marking.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Mikel confirmed we're going towards zonal marking.

Spanish Waiter became infamous for using ZM. Which every team manage to exploit.. Hopefully AVB will keep this defence very disciplined with it.

[manpe 10,861]

I'm not a fan of zonal marking, hopefully it will be an efficient mix of man-to-man and zonal, because biggest threats need to be marked tightly all the time.

[SeB 1,281]

I do think that we've a had a problem defending set pieces this season, but I believe it is something that can be sorted out easily by AVB. Bossingwa, more often than not, the guilty party in my opinion should not be on the far post but maybe the first defender (instead of miereles in the pic) because of his weak abilities in the air. Coupled with some better man-to-man marking, I think our defense will be fine this season.

I don't want to take that as a pretext to shoot at Bosingwa for fun, I used to defend the player for almost 2 seasons but I must admit I'm not really a big fan of Bosingwa's apparent personality, I feel a lack of commitment from him, some bad arrogance (You just have to compare his body language of 2008/2009 and how he used to behave after). Yes, Bosingwa is not Ivanovic in the air, but in my opinion he does not even makes the effort in these set-pieces or in his marking... We feel like if he does not gives a fuck about his elastic, neglected, sloppy, careless marking.

Defensively speaking, some player's careless markings the only thing that really wrinkles me, be between the attacker and the GK is not that complicated. Coach BlueLion can confirm it's a basic thing learned to kids.

Some teams in Premier League base their play in a direct philosophia and on their set-pieces (considering the average height of the players). No need to name them, they are Blackburn (even if with them they rather used to be), Stoke City, Bolton... It's not Chelsea's main asset, no need to think if there is a better style than another, every team plays with it's skills (except Blackburn ) so works mainly on thoses parts of the game to be better.

You raise a good point here SeB about our offensive deficiencies from dead ball situations, at present a poor return. Although I think its largely to do with our poor distribution from dead ball situations but mainly corners, how many times do we see of one our players take a corner & it hits the oppositions first defender! Mind you I have to say JT gets fouled almost every time he goes up for a corner but the refs never seem to notice?! Definitely room for improvement though, again I'm sure AVB will be aware of it & something he will also get the team working on when they return from international duty.

I don't know if that the lack of movement is a consequence of the lack of decent FK or CK taker = the players knows they won't have the ball and that Lampard... or Malouda... or Drogba... ... or ANELKA !!! will - as you said - completely miss the penalty spot zone

Or if it's because the taker sees no movement, so he decides to cross kick in the ball with no precise target. But I must admit it would be a little bit problematic !

Anyway we have Mata now, he is able to put great deliveries on set pieces on so it's a good point for the future