Wishlist Hulk

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

if we play attacking wingers

Since when were wingers Defenders? FFS This defensive mentality alot of you have is worrying. Alot of you have become deluded. Wingers are meant to attack and support the striker. If they can defend a bit great, but attacking is what they're on the pitch to do. Sure for a few games we can Play Ramires on the left or right but most of the time we will play with the attacking wingers. How does Bayern cope with Robben and Ribery? How does Madrid cope with Ronaldo and Di Maria? Wingers are not defenders. We are not going to play defensive, counter-attacking football anymore FFS.

[Strike 7,265]

Since when were wingers Defenders? FFS This defensive mentality alot of you have is worrying. Alot of you have become deluded. Wingers are meant to attack and support the striker. If they can defend a bit great, but attacking is what they're on the pitch to do. Sure for a few games we can Play Ramires on the left or right but most of the time we will play with the attacking wingers. How does Bayern cope with Robben and Ribery? How does Madrid cope with Ronaldo and Di Maria? Wingers are not defenders. We are not going to play defensive, counter-attacking football anymore FFS.

What is the basis for that? In all likelihood we will be the same team as last year but with Hazard instead of Kalou on the wing. can't see how that will bring about a radical change in our tactics. atleast at the start of the season, we will be incorporating few things from last year's counter strategy and to your question - since when were wingers defenders? we just played the champions league final, semifinal and the FA Cup semifinal with defensive wingers and I am certain that we will play Ramires on the wing if we face Barca, Real, ManC or Bayern even if we get Hulk.

EDIT: reason for why bayern, real cope with attacking wingers? - their double pivot is much better than ours. also, they have a better team overall and to be fair we play defensive wingers whenever we face bigger opposition. the same goes to real and bayern. when real faced Barca, they played deep counter strategy and bayern would do the same if they face barca as well

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

What is the basis for that? In all likelihood we will be the same team as last year but with Hazard instead of Kalou on the wing. can't see how that will bring about a radical change in our tactics. atleast at the start of the season, we will be incorporating few things from last year's counter strategy and to your question - since when were wingers defenders? we just played the champions league final, semifinal and the FA Cup semifinal with defensive wingers and I am certain that we will play Ramires on the wing if we face Barca, Real, ManC or Bayern even if we get Hulk.

EDIT: reason for why bayern, real cope with attacking wingers? - their double pivot is much better than ours. also, they have a better team overall and to be fair we play defensive wingers whenever we face bigger opposition. the same goes to real and bayern. when real faced Barca, they played deep counter strategy and bayern would do the same if they face barca as well

We won't be anymore. Get that out of your head. It's clear Roman wants to play attacking football. The only reason we played so defensive against Barca and Bayern was because we didn't have the players to play any other way. Why on earth would we need to play Ramires on the wing against Man City? They don't have alot of width anyway and would have to deal with our threat first (Hazard and Hulk). If we don't get Hulk we will probably get another RW. We may yet still get a CM like Cabaye to play as one of the double pivots. All in all our wingers should not step on that pitch with the thought of 'Defending' (unless it's Barca/Madrid). That would be a load of rubbish.

[Blue Armour 4,323]

Speed is a huge advantage at winger...It's a must at the position. Strength is not a drawback anywhere, but for a winger, to me it's like having a defender who can take shots from distance. Sure, it's fine, but it's a minor aspect of the position. (Behind things like speed, endurance, passing, finishing, etc...) If you're a striker, you can use your strength to hold off a defender with your back to the goal to get into a better position. If you're a defender and you're strong, you can stand your ground and force the striker into a worse position. You generally don't have those types of positions as fullbacks or wingers. When you get the ball on the wing, it is almost always in some space and usually with forward momentum. Defenders will try to keep the wingers from getting into good positions to pass or score which means cutting certain angles out. They'll try to force them wide and maybe out for a throw. Or, they'll try to close off any forward pass and to try to force the winger to pass back into their own half. They are rarely going to directly attack the winger because it's too risky.

Physical battles can happen on the wings but they are rare and they usually are, like the Coentrao/Jiracek battle from a couple of days ago, more chippy than anything. You mention Ashley Cole and Cole has been one of the best LBs ever and is quite a small guy. It's rare to find big fullbacks or wingers. I'm not saying that physicality is useless as a winger, just that it's a pretty minor advantage. (Hulk has skills that are much more relevant to the position-speed, creativity, a great shot)

I mentioned Cole, because he rarely gets taken advantage of by the likes of Ronaldo or Messi but he struggles against Valencia. Look at Ivanovic for instance, he has no natural pace but he powers his way down the wing to put in crosses.

[Strike 7,265]

We won't be anymore. Get that out of your head. It's clear Roman wants to play attacking football. The only reason we played so defensive against Barca and Bayern was because we didn't have the players to play any other way. Why on earth would we need to play Ramires on the wing against Man City? They don't have alot of width anyway and would have to deal with our threat first (Hazard and Hulk). If we don't get Hulk we will probably get another RW. We may yet still get a CM like Cabaye to play as one of the double pivots. All in all our wingers should not step on that pitch with the thought of 'Defending' (unless it's Barca/Madrid). That would be a load of rubbish.

roman has always wanted to play attacking football. its nothing new. the thing is implementing it. this summer we signed hazard but that doesn't necessarily mean attacking football. to play better attacking football we have to improve the ground passing and all we saw last season was dump it long to drogba. getting hazard doesn't mean that our ground passing and our overall play becomes better. we are like england. even though they have flair wingers they still play two lines of 4 players i.e Defensive football .

Also, you are operating under the assumption that we may get a player like Cabaye - whom we are yet to be linked to while there have been fellaini links still persisting. I do hope that we sign either cabaye or moutinho and another good attacker but as of now, we don't have a team to play expansive attacking football. get that out of your head

[Superblue 6,372]

No. I don't think anybody would say that Hulk is not good, but I have seen Hulk play about 20 games and I have an informed opinion that 38M is a ridiculous fee for him. That's the type of price you pay for an international star and Hulk is nowhere near that level.

Like Torres? Or Shevchenko? Or Ibrahimovic? Or Kaka?

Established stars sometimes don't warrant that price either.

Drogba and van Nistelrooy were strikers who came from weaker leagues for big prices in their day. Both thrived and excelled in a stronger environment playing with better players. There is no general rule.

Sorry, 3 years younger than Hulk who will be 26 next month. I never said that Chelsea were going after Hulk for marketing reasons, just that the reaction to Hulk is as a product. (And yes, marketing does figure into team's buys). And you're telling me you've watched most of Hulk's games? If you're Portuguese, I understand, if you're not, I just don't buy it. Most of us watch Chelsea, watch some other big Premier League matches, we watch our local leagues if we live abroad, and we watch other big matches (CL, El Classico, Milan Derby, etc...) Just that is an an insane amount of time spent on watching football. The amount of time you have to spend on football in order to regularly watch other leagues is ridiculous. You would have to have absolutely no life at all. It takes a lot of work and re-doing your life's schedule to watch just Chelsea play every game. Add to that the fact that Chelsea play their games at the same time as a lot of other teams (including Porto), it means you'd have to find a taped copy of all the other leagues's games.

Mata is 24 and Hulk is still 25 so there isn't 3 years between them. Although this debate is a waste of time IMO because a 25 year old should hardly be considered 'over the hill'. He should arguably be in or reaching his prime.

One of the things that Hulk does have on a par with established stars is the unique marketing opportunities available to us with him. He is also like 'one of their own' in Japan and Asia, and a huge draw over there. We obviously are not just buying him as a product, but it would take into consideration his price tag if more money can be made from his name and marketing potential.

Barcelona lost because they got unlucky and they couldn't finish not because they didn't have a plan B. If we played those two matches 100 times, Barca would have gone through at least 95 of them. They lost in Spain because Real Madrid is an amazing team. They don't need to change anything to continue their success. Secondly, you do need physicality in England, but you need it only in certain positions. You need it central defence, defensive and/or central midfield and maybe at striker if you want to play a physical attacking game. Having physicality at wingers is fine, but it's a not a major component of the game. You're not going to win because your wingers are physical. The physical nature of the game comes in fairly static positions where players are fighting for a little extra space which are in central midfield and striker versus central defender. Battles on the wings are won by positioning, speed, and footwork. . If strength were important on the wings, then coaches would put strong players on the wings. They don't. Pedro, Mata, Silva, and Navas are all 5'7". Alexis is 5'6".etc... Third, paying 38M for a player so we can beat Stoke? We haven't lost to Stoke since they've been in the Premier League.

Gone through 95 times out of 100? Well they haven't beaten us in the last 7 games over recent years so that doesn't really add up. And it's not just those games - they didn't win their league this year so something obviously went wrong in their results. I agree with the previous post, for all their pretty passing football, they lack a plan B. If they don't pass it through you they won't find a way through.

I'm not saying Hulk is the best player in the world or anything, but he will offer something which we don't seem to have now Drogba has left and Lampard plays much deeper. A genuine threat from outside the box. It scares teams from dropping too deep if we have a player who can bash a goal in from 25-30 yards. They will look to close him down which brings players out of a rigid formation and opens up spaces for others.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

roman has always wanted to play attacking football. its nothing new. the thing is implementing it. this summer we signed hazard but that doesn't necessarily mean attacking football. to play better attacking football we have to improve the ground passing and all we saw last season was dump it long to drogba. getting hazard doesn't mean that our ground passing and our overall play becomes better. we are like england. even though they have flair wingers they still play two lines of 4 players i.e Defensive football .

Also, you are operating under the assumption that we may get a player like Cabaye - whom we are yet to be linked to while there have been fellaini links still persisting. I do hope that we sign either cabaye or moutinho and another good attacker but as of now, we don't have a team to play expansive attacking football. get that out of your head

The fact does not change that wingers are not defenders...I really don't know why you want them to be.

[Strike 7,265]

The fact does not change that wingers are not defenders...I really don't know why you want them to be.

i never said i want them to be defensive! i simply said that when we are facing a team which have talented wingers and attacking fullbacks - bayern - robben and lahm - the team needs to be balanced. something like the fa cup semifinal where ramires put a good shift in by helping bosingwa with bale and also got forward and Scored. we can't operate under the policy of "you score one, we score two" with the kind of players we have. the double pivot is too slow for having 4 players on the attack through out the game

of course, against the likes of wigan, west brom and even against everton, liverpoop we should look to attack and score goals but defensive responsibilities are just as important for the wingers when we lose the ball. especially against counter-attacking teams

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

Chelsea are ready to drop all interest in Porto striker Hulk as they refuse to become involved in a bidding war for the Brazilian.

http://www.clubcall.com/chelsea/chelsea-out-of-hulk-running-1440531.html

[The Skipper 20,593]

You know what, I don't think we're signing Hulk to play as your classic winger. I think it's pretty clear we're after Hulk so he can almost play as a second striker who provides width.

I wouldn't really call Hulk a right winger exclusively. I would call him a explosive goal scoring assist machine who operates the right instead of the centre. Sort of how Sturridge operated earlier in the season.

Imagine a more experienced Sturridge from earlier last season, who makes better decisions and is natural to the position and wants to play there. That's Hulk.

Sturridge played in that position for us last season and was very effective there due to his explosiveness. Hulk would work even better if you think about it. Basically the players responsible for getting our goals in a formation like this:

Torres

Hazard - Mata - Hulk

Mikel - Ramires

Would be Hulk and Torres, with Hazard and Mata being creators, Ramires being our ball winning midfielder and Mikel sitting deep to shield the back four. This would be the basic shape of the side. Defensive rigidity, pace, power and creativity. In attacking situations, the shape of the side would basically change to:

Torres - Hulk

Hazard - Mata - Ramires

Mikel

Pace and power all over the pitch, the problem we have of breaking down banks of 8/9 would automatically disappear.

This is why I think Hulk would fit in like a glove. There's no other player in world football available that would have such impact on our side. No ones's said Hulk is a world class player, but to me he's close being there. Who knows, maybe with better players around Hulk will step his game up even further.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

^ Agreed. Hulk can become world class with better players around him. Our attack would be overwhelming. I like the idea of Ramires as the ball winner and harrasser of the midfield while Mikel is the more calm, composed shield to the defence. If Mikel could improve his passing a bit it would be great as Ramires's runs from the deep are already a way we can link defence to attack. If not Mikel than Romeu or even even Frank can play there as the passer/deep lying playmaker. Ramires as a ball winner/tackler and with his powerful, driving runs could be devastating.

[YouNameIt 1,511]

No, it really isn't. It isn't acceptable to play Ramires and Sturridge out of position. You can't go into the season without a proper right sided attacker when you've had the chance to obtain one. We need to stop putting square pegs in round holes.

Im still asking, if it was luck when how come Barca hasnt beaten us for a long time and why are they always struggling against us?

And when it comes to playing Sturridge out of position, we had both Drogba and Torres last season and only one option on the right wing except for danny, ramires. Im sure Danny will get playtime as CF next season.

2 words. Defensive responsibilities. i can already visualise getting ripped apart at swansea with that team

Wingers arent defenders. Get that in your head. You wont have to park the bus if you can score 2-3 goals, then letting one goal in doesnt matter as much. Chelseas problem the last 2 seasons but mostly the 1st half of the past season was the inability to score. We were always on the edge of losing and often the other team could equalize after us being up 1 goal. We need to play attacking football and tbh our defense is more than good enough, we dont need the whole team to play defensive.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

We need to play attacking football and tbh our defense is more than good enough, we dont need the whole team to play defensive.

Exactly. I thought it was well known to all that we were playing defensive football not by choice but because there was no other way. I don't know how some did not see that. Like I said, they've unfortunately become deluded as to where to draw the line between defence and attack. Do you see the top teams getting their attackers to defend? That is a very small club mentality.

[YouNameIt 1,511]

Exactly. I thought it was well known to all that we were playing defensive football not by choice but because there was no other way. I don't know how some did not see that. Like I said, they've unfortunately become deluded as to where to draw the line between defence and attack. Do you see the top teams getting their attackers to defend? That is a very small club mentality.

I think they've become deluded after the Barca game. Obviousley they've forgotten the games where u got absolutley SICK watching Chelsea play, the slow build-ups, horrible passing, losing the ball and inability to score and losing to shit teams or being 1 goal up, desperate to score the whole game and then letting one in in the 85th minute losing 2 points.

Im not saying defense isnt important, but the offense is necessary if we want to be at the very top. Plus it'll be much more exciting football to watch. Having Hazard - Mata - Hulk for instance up front with a solid defense and DM will be devastating to most teams.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Im still asking, if it was luck when how come Barca hasnt beaten us for a long time and why are they always struggling against us?

And when it comes to playing Sturridge out of position, we had both Drogba and Torres last season and only one option on the right wing except for danny, ramires. Im sure Danny will get playtime as CF next season.

Oh, I'm in the same camp as you, it definitely wasn't pure luck against Barca. It was sheer determination more than anything.

Ramires works as a right winger against Barcelona. He doesn't work against the likes of Stoke. Sturridge would be effective there if he actually wanted to play there but he doesn't. That leaves us with no recognised right sided forward. That's why someone like Hulk is needed.

[Strike 7,265]

Wingers arent defenders. Get that in your head. You wont have to park the bus if you can score 2-3 goals, then letting one goal in doesnt matter as much. Chelseas problem the last 2 seasons but mostly the 1st half of the past season was the inability to score. We were always on the edge of losing and often the other team could equalize after us being up 1 goal. We need to play attacking football and tbh our defense is more than good enough, we dont need the whole team to play defensive.

you are not getting my damn point. there is a big difference between defensive wingers and defensively responsible wingers. get that in your head first. i am saying that we should go on the attack against the midtable teams and even liverpool, everton but when we face bayern, barca its different. listen to martin tyler in the CL final and don't tell me he is deluded as well. he clearly said that we should be wary of over-committing. yes, we may have better wingers next year but that doesn't mean we are a devastating attacking force overnight. even Ashley Cole himself said that when facing Barca you don't know who you are up against on the flanks. it may be iniesta, messi, fabregas, alves, cuenca, surely you are not suggesting we attack ALWAYs with the double pivot we have

[Strike 7,265]

Exactly. I thought it was well known to all that we were playing defensive football not by choice but because there was no other way. I don't know how some did not see that. Like I said, they've unfortunately become deluded as to where to draw the line between defence and attack. Do you see the top teams getting their attackers to defend? That is a very small club mentality.

we are a small club atm. we may be famous all over the world but our play is small club play. we don't go to barca, bayern real and attack, mate. that's delusional thinking. a neutral would say that our build-up play was shit last season. we sat back and defended against Benfica, Tottenham, Liverpool as well last season. don't expect it to miraculously change overnight. it will still be almost the same players with hazard on the left (maybe one more first-team signing will be made, but that's about it) we will be better against liverpool, tottenham etc and maybe even bossing some of them but even next season we will go to bayern, barca, real and play deep counter strategy. that's where defensive responsibilities are needed the Most. Listen to Martin Tyler in the CL final and educate yourself before calling me deluded

i am being realistic while you are being optimistic that we will play much better ground passing i.e attacking football next season. it may happen but with the players we have as of now - highly unlikely with the players we have and without a change in system. don't think di matteo will change the system. maybe he will add a new system but the deep counter is the way we will play against the big clubs atleast

[Stats 7,060]

Oh, I'm in the same camp as you, it definitely wasn't pure luck against Barca. It was sheer determination more than anything.

Ramires works as a right winger against Barcelona. He doesn't work against the likes of Stoke. Sturridge would be effective there if he actually wanted to play there but he doesn't. That leaves us with no recognised right sided forward. That's why someone like Hulk is needed.

Oh, I'm in the same camp as you, it definitely wasn't pure luck against Barca. It was sheer determination more than anything.

Ramires works as a right winger against Barcelona. He doesn't work against the likes of Stoke. Sturridge would be effective there if he actually wanted to play there but he doesn't. That leaves us with no recognised right sided forward. That's why someone like Hulk is needed.

The sad thing is Sturridge best performances were coming the right wing but his play seemed to be one dimensional and his performances level dropped. Hulk is expensive but no matter what league he played in I think he will be a brilliant signing. He is much better than Sturridge levek of ability and while many feel Hulk will be found out in the Premiership, I feel he can only excel with better players around him.