Squad Utilization

[BLionheart 516]

The European champions had the most impressive transfer season , Roman Abrahimovic switched from picking world-class peaked players like Ballack , Shevechenko , Torres Etc. , to potential world class players like Hazard , Marin and Oscar .

Given a look at chelsea's squad this season and you have a lot of new quality additions in the past 2 years , it started with Ramires , Luiz , Torres , Miereles , Mata , Cahill , Romeu and ended with Hazard , Marin , Oscar , Moses , Azpiculatalektawaa , also don't forget about the rising talents of Sturridge and Bertrand.

Those are 14 players , 8 of them has been superbly integrated to the team (Hazard - Mata - Torres - Ramires - Cahill - Miereles - Bertrand ) while others are still struggling to know their role (Sturridge - Romeu ) , new additions might have no idea how they will fit in (Marin - Oscar - Moses ).

Di Matteo has made it 100% clear during the impressive start to the league that he will be using 4-2-3-1 more often than not , and it's a great formation to utilize the quantity and quality of attacking midfielders we have but there are still questions to be answered regarding every line in that formation with two exceptions : GK and CF .

Di Matteo IMO is blessed with the best back line in the EPl his starting back 4 are all world-class players and their understudies are just as impressive , but the real question in the back 4 currently is whether Terry still deserves to start ahead of Luiz and Cahill or not Terry was never known for his pace but his lack of it is making him and us some problems right now and while his experience and commitment helps him to avoid making errors , his lack of pace makes it very difficult for him to recover from his occasional mistakes , so for me , i would like to try the Cahill - Luiz partner ship for a while specially against low table teams ,

Also Ivanovic can now expect some competition on the right side of the back 4 .

Then we have our most average line which is midfield , where we have a lot of quantity with mediocre quality , Mikel - Lamps are Di Matteo's 1st option but Miereles if not the answer has proved how great it would be to have a disciplined DM next to Mikel , Lamps is a very good player and i don't think age is really catching up with him as he still runs his ass off every game but his senses are always to go forward making his legendary late runs , Mikel is decent but still miles away from being classified world-class , the bench is full of other midfielders like Essien who is past it , Romeu who disappeared after his impressive cameos , Ramires who isn't a DM , Inconsistent Miereles , no mentions for Malouda and Benayoun .

The forward line is lead by Torres and he will have 3 players supporting him Mata and Hazard are definite starters so we have Moses , Marin , Oscar fighting for the 3rd spot , except that Di Matteo prefers to use either Ramires or Bertrand to keep the team balanced , this has proved it's worth time and time again but then why do we need three top notch players on the bench with the potential of Oscar , Marin and Moses !!

Is this a gradual transition before we play a fully attacking line-up with 3 attacking midfielders behind Torres ?? Will Oscar be deployed next to Mikel as a deep lying play-maker ?? If we use an attacking line-up with Oscar next to Mikel and Marin/Moses next to Mata and Hazard , Can Terry withhold his place when we play a high defensive line ??

Di Matteo has a lot of options to choose from , those are not problems , they are solutions but Di Matteo will regularly need to get the optimal solution .

YOUR THOUGHTS ?

[zolayes 14,489]

an excellent post . one of the major tasks for RDM is rotating his team to prevent injuries and fatigue. But also tactical selections treating

each match as a slightly different problem. So far imo he has made an excellent start carrying on from last seasons incredible climax.

I would have liked to see one extra striker or perhaps Lukaku brought back in January if he is judged ready.

[Strike 7,217]

I think we should take it game by game. Bertrand did an excellent job against Newcastle to nullify Ben Arfa from the right and also added balance to the team.

but when we face a weaker team, rdm will sacrifice him for a more attack minded player. it depends on the opposition. mata and hazard have shown they can combine very well without the need of a 3rd attacking player although a 3rd attacking player like oscar , marin or moses wouldn't hurt one bit when we are trying to break down a stoke city for eg