Rotation, Rotation, Rotation...

[Las7 951]

Are we running our attack into the ground?

It's a good question, we have a few lightweight wizards playing for the club - we know what the Three Amigos are able to do together on the field but are we running them into the Ground. Recently in the Carling Cup we gave time to our Reserve team but reverted to the three amigos to get the result we were looking for. RdM wanted to shift the focus off our controversial game against United onto the Carling Cup. We won the duel but was this match actually showing our short comings.

We saw Piazon for the second time this season and granted he was not particularly effective either defensively or offensively since that match he has only been in the match day squad once. The expectations might be a little too high for the lad, surely he is not at the level of Mata and Hazard but that doesn't mean he should not get any minutes this season as a substitute for either of these players.

Moses has proved us with key goals from set pieces since that game, but yet again since the Carling Cup match he is not used from the start in any of our fixtures giving a rest to either Mata or Hazard.

Oriol Romeu's brief two game stint lead to questions about what we will do when Mikel is gone for the ANC.

Marin and Sturridge have not had a rub of the green either.

Now these players might not be good enough in the long run to displace the three amigos; Mikel and Torres but that does not mean we should continue overexerting our midfield. There are two reasons for this.

The Fatigue: We all know Mata and Sturridge were two of our best players in the first half of last season - yet Sturridge went off the boil towards Christmas and was used sparsely since RdM's arrival; while Mata's constant brilliance was subdued. A lot of the reason is due to fatigue you need to figure out which games you can afford not to play your strongest 11 from the start allowing especially players who are more inclined to physically get worn off a bit of time to recuperate. We can also pinpoint mental fatigue as another reason, at a particular time when you are in a position at your work to be required to give 100% of the time due at a certain time there would be a bit of difficult to mentaly to prepare yourself for this every match and sometimes you would go off the boil - Torres is a perfect example of this, whether he is too tired to run or mentally exhausted during the second half in the last 4 matches he was a shadow.

Lack of Match Practice: Worse case scenario Mata or Hazard get injured, we need to bring in Moses; Marin or Piazon but due to their lack of match practice these players are no where near ready to actually play a full game. We end up using Ramires on the wing , because RdM decides that Marin and Piazon are unproven and Ramires has played that position before and has match practice. We end up destabilizing our unstable midfield further more and Ramires suffers on the wing because that's not a position in which he can be used when we are trying to break down defensive teams.

What other teams do:

Whether other top squads around the continent have a deeper squad is a matter of interpretation. I'm sure there is at least 10-15 teams that bolster better strikers than us, but in terms of overall width within the squad - it's a matter of utilization within the setup of what's available rather than the overall quality of the width a club might have. A good example of this is the use of O'Shea; Gibson at United or Johnson; Sinclair at City. These players might not be able to displace the first choice players in the squad but they provide an opportunity for the squad to be rotated.

Lets take a closer look at the amount of time attacking players have spend on the field(I won't take into account players who are mostly in central midfield):

Chelsea:

Mata - 1275 minutes

Hazard - 1402 minutes

Oscar - 1016 minutes

Torres - 1561 minutes( ECS against City included)

Moses - 447 minutes

Sturridge - 235 minutes

Piazon - 55 minutes

Marin - n/a

United(2 strikers):

RvP - 1135 minutes

Valencia - 912 minutes

Rooney - 917 minutes

Welbeck - 809 minutes

Cleverley - 740 minutes

Nani - 683 minutes

Hernandez - 641 minutes

Kagawa - 573 minutes

Young - 363 minutes

City(2 strikers):

Tevez - 1189 minutes

Nasri - 964 minutes

Aguero - 810 minutes

Silva - 766 minutes

Dzeko - 632 minutes

Mario - 589 minutes

Milner - 455 minutes

Sinclair - 160 minutes

I could pull out the statistics for other major clubs in Europe but the situation would be similar, by utilizing our best players so much we will render them ineffective. It's time some rotation is utilized otherwise we face the prospect of our best players burning out in the most crucial stages of the season.

It's a worrying development, we have 2 matches coming up in the WCC - where we will travel to Japan in order to test ourselves against Corinthians; Ulsan; Monterrey; Auckland City etc than we have to take into consideration that the hectic Christmas; New Years schedule is also coming up and if you don't see the rot at the moment it will become very clear around New Year.

RdM needs to start introducing our alternatives in a lot more games if we are serious about our goals this season.

[Kieran. 6,317]

We HAVE to start using Marin and Moses more, starting this weekend! Start them both.

[Leif 6,006]

Nothing to say really. Agree with everything here. Good job! +1

[Hutcho 8,443]

Are we running our attack into the ground?

It's a good question, we have a few lightweight wizards playing for the club - we know what the Three Amigos are able to do together on the field but are we running them into the Ground. Recently in the Carling Cup we gave time to our Reserve team but reverted to the three amigos to get the result we were looking for. RdM wanted to shift the focus off our controversial game against United onto the Carling Cup. We won the duel but was this match actually showing our short comings.

We saw Piazon for the second time this season and granted he was not particularly effective either defensively or offensively since that match he has only been in the match day squad once. The expectations might be a little too high for the lad, surely he is not at the level of Mata and Hazard but that doesn't mean he should not get any minutes this season as a substitute for either of these players.

Moses has proved us with key goals from set pieces since that game, but yet again since the Carling Cup match he is not used from the start in any of our fixtures giving a rest to either Mata or Hazard.

Oriol Romeu's brief two game stint lead to questions about what we will do when Mikel is gone for the ANC.

Marin and Sturridge have not had a rub of the green either.

Now these players might not be good enough in the long run to displace the three amigos; Mikel and Torres but that does not mean we should continue overexerting our midfield. There are two reasons for this.

The Fatigue: We all know Mata and Sturridge were two of our best players in the first half of last season - yet Sturridge went off the boil towards Christmas and was used sparsely since RdM's arrival; while Mata's constant brilliance was subdued. A lot of the reason is due to fatigue you need to figure out which games you can afford not to play your strongest 11 from the start allowing especially players who are more inclined to physically get worn off a bit of time to recuperate. We can also pinpoint mental fatigue as another reason, at a particular time when you are in a position at your work to be required to give 100% of the time due at a certain time there would be a bit of difficult to mentaly to prepare yourself for this every match and sometimes you would go off the boil - Torres is a perfect example of this, whether he is too tired to run or mentally exhausted during the second half in the last 4 matches he was a shadow.

Lack of Match Practice: Worse case scenario Mata or Hazard get injured, we need to bring in Moses; Marin or Piazon but due to their lack of match practice these players are no where near ready to actually play a full game. We end up using Ramires on the wing , because RdM decides that Marin and Piazon are unproven and Ramires has played that position before and has match practice. We end up destabilizing our unstable midfield further more and Ramires suffers on the wing because that's not a position in which he can be used when we are trying to break down defensive teams.

What other teams do:

Whether other top squads around the continent have a deeper squad is a matter of interpretation. I'm sure there is at least 10-15 teams that bolster better strikers than us, but in terms of overall width within the squad - it's a matter of utilization within the setup of what's available rather than the overall quality of the width a club might have. A good example of this is the use of O'Shea; Gibson at United or Johnson; Sinclair at City. These players might not be able to displace the first choice players in the squad but they provide an opportunity for the squad to be rotated.

Lets take a closer look at the amount of time attacking players have spend on the field(I won't take into account players who are mostly in central midfield):

Chelsea:

Mata - 1275 minutes

Hazard - 1402 minutes

Oscar - 1016 minutes

Torres - 1561 minutes( ECS against City included)

Moses - 447 minutes

Sturridge - 235 minutes

Piazon - 55 minutes

Marin - n/a

United(2 strikers):

RvP - 1135 minutes

Valencia - 912 minutes

Rooney - 917 minutes

Welbeck - 809 minutes

Cleverley - 740 minutes

Nani - 683 minutes

Hernandez - 641 minutes

Kagawa - 573 minutes

Young - 363 minutes

City(2 strikers):

Tevez - 1189 minutes

Nasri - 964 minutes

Aguero - 810 minutes

Silva - 766 minutes

Dzeko - 632 minutes

Mario - 589 minutes

Milner - 455 minutes

Sinclair - 160 minutes

I could pull out the statistics for other major clubs in Europe but the situation would be similar, by utilizing our best players so much we will render them ineffective. It's time some rotation is utilized otherwise we face the prospect of our best players burning out in the most crucial stages of the season.

It's a worrying development, we have 2 matches coming up in the WCC - where we will travel to Japan in order to test ourselves against Corinthians; Ulsan; Monterrey; Auckland City etc than we have to take into consideration that the hectic Christmas; New Years schedule is also coming up and if you don't see the rot at the moment it will become very clear around New Year.

RdM needs to start introducing our alternatives in a lot more games if we are serious about our goals this season.

Yeah, rotation is very key especially with the number of games we have coming up. I would personally make 3 attacking changes for the west brom game, however the only point i do disagree with is when you said about the problem is the utilisation of the depth of squad we have rather than the quality. I agree that in the attacking midfield areas we have squad depth... Mata, Oscar, hazard, moses, marin (Not gonna really include piazon becuase he isn't really ready imo. However due to our lack of depth in the striker position we have to rely greatly on our attacking midfield 3 which is where our supreme quality lies. For example if we don't play mata/hazard/oscar our team is weakened... Man u/city can afford to rotate their attacking mids and strikers because they have other players who can carry the attacking weight if the team. We have 5 really good players in the attacking mid/Wide positions but the lack of flexibilty is a real problem. As you rightly said we have to rotate, but we have to be very clever about it and pick out games where we can afford to rest our main 3. I have no doubt we may have problems with this in the short term as we will juggle with lots of problems such as not being able to rest players in so called "must win" games etc. Hopefully RDM can realise this and manage it effectively and we won't have many problems but there only time will tell.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

why dnt we try fergusons method, he normally rotates by taking out the players off form. If nani loses form, he puts in young for some matches. When welbeck loses form, he uses hernandez, also anderson for cleverly. When the new people drop form, he then brings back the others who wil want to prove themselves.

This wil make us change just two people anytime we face bottom half teams, and use our main lineup for top half teams.

Top half

azpi iva cahil cole

rami mikel

mata oscar hazard

torres

bottom half

iva cahi luiz col/betra

mikel/romeu rami

mose mata/osca haza

sturridge

as long as just two changes are made from the main lineup, takin out pple off form for just a match, then the squad can be rotated with no much difference in style of play.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Agree with everything you said, but in this case, both Manchester clubs have more quality and experience in their reserve players. Much more.

That means if they play reserve players, they will still win match because they are as I said more experienced and overall better players (Chicarito, Nani, Tevez, Ballo, Dzeko, Kagawa,...) comparing to our reserves (Moses, Marin, Studge) who dont have such experience and form. And that means if we play subs, we could lose game and RDM doesnt want to risk a defeat just to play subs.

[Las7 951]

Agree with everything you said, but in this case, both Manchester clubs have more quality and experience in their reserve players. Much more.

That means if they play reserve players, they will still win match because they are as I said more experienced and overall better players (Chicarito, Nani, Tevez, Ballo, Dzeko, Kagawa,...) comparing to our reserves (Moses, Marin, Studge) who dont have such experience and form. And that means if we play subs, we could lose game and RDM doesnt want to risk a defeat just to play subs.

I don't want to say an obvious fact, but experience is gained by playing.

Besides guys like Marin; Danny and Moses aren't exactly inexperienced - the only player who I'd say really is devoid of experience is Piazon.

Either way this should have been a transitional season but to give ourselves the best chance to stay in touch with our rivals we need to involve our reserves a lot more. Daniel and Moses are the obvious candidates - Marin if he stays fit should start playing; RdM's weaknesses are he barely gives our bench a look in. We should be bringing in guys like Marin; Studge and Moses around the 60th minute not with 10 minutes left on the clock.

[manpe 10,861]

Completely agree. It could be put down to the manager not wanting to take risks because Chelsea seat is always red hot, so they may be scared of potential setbacks. I hope Robbie realizes soon that not doing so has its risks too. Moses, Sturridge, Marin, Romeu - all of them are being underused and it could fire us in the back if he is forced to use them.

It's funny that our second choice striker said after a game in November(or late October?) that he wasn't match fit, while our indefinitely out of form first choice striker is already probably suffering from fatigue. That just shows you what a joke it is.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

On the other hand you could say that Hazard and Oscar still need playing time as this is only their 1st season in this league. The fact is our squad is now much younger and everyone needs time. We won't win anything this year as much as I hate to say it.

We can only hope they are putting their all in training sessions.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Absolutely a legit concern. Good post. I think this also might be a side-product of too much pressure on a manager which means that RDM might feel he has to put his best XI out every game. Sooner or later, Chelsea are going to need expand their rotation.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

On the other hand you could say that Hazard and Oscar still need playing time as this is only their 1st season in this league. The fact is our squad is now much younger and everyone needs time. We won't win anything this year as much as I hate to say it.

We can only hope they are putting their all in training sessions.

What we need to win is CWC because its very special cup and maybe we manage to win FA/Capital cup too.

Probably going to end 3rd or 2nd (if we buy striker) in league, while I realy cant say for CL. So unpredictable and anything could happen there...

[Las7 951]

The thing is there is a difference between giving them time and over playing them. I feel especially Hazard is a player who does very well if he is 100% fit - being rested for our biggest fixtures will make him unplayable. These players aren't build like tanks even a guy like Messi doesn't play as often as it appears. Got to keep your best players playing at their maximum and with this type of schedule - it will be impossible if we continue on the same route. Very soon it would make them all ineffectual at the 60 minute mark and their substitutes will be out of sort and struggling out there because of lack of playing time.

There are reasons to excuse RdM obviously new players needing to gel, but what we are doing is not going to be very helpful in the long run. Especially substitutions need to come on a lot earlier - and certain features the three amigos will need to be rotated out of the side.

The other factor being our Champions League group which won't allow us any opportunity to relax - the way United have coasted through their group. Our Champions League group is probably 2nd hardest out of the lot, but that's mainly due to how well Donetsk are playing. Juve being obviously a tough opponent but they don't have the luxury of resting their entire squad before a fixture I don't have to remind you what we did in the CL last season and the reason why we finished so far down the table last season.

But even when you factor in these two reasons it's still perplexing why we are playing our players so much, they can build up chemistry without playing together every 3 days. While the minutes Torres has gotten are mindboggling.

[Jase 43,479]

Definitely agree with the point being made. RDM has to stop being stubborn and start trusting the so called 'squad players'. Those players weren't bought from League 1, 2 or some other small European Leagues. They have already played in some of the top European leagues previously and they are not exactly poor players either. Those players are more than capable of coming in and performing well for us. Additionally, with so many games coming up including crucial CL games and where we'll be playing every 3-4 days from now till January at the very least, he needs to be rotating the team. We can't afford to be running players to the ground and have them suffer a burnt out at this point of the season.

[Las7 951]

Lets look at our upcoming Schedule:

West Brom v Chelsea Sat 17 Nov

Juventus v Chelsea Tue 20 Nov

Chelsea v Man City Sun 25 Nov

Chelsea v Fulham Wed 28 Nov

West Ham v Chelsea Sat 1 Dec

Chelsea v FC Nordsjaelland Wed 5 Dec

Sunderland v Chelsea Sat 8 Dec

Two matches in the CWC in Japan between the Sunderland and Leeds matches...

Leeds United v Chelsea Wed 19 Dec

Chelsea v Aston Villa Sun 23 Dec

Norwich v Chelsea Wed 26 Dec

Everton v Chelsea Sun 30 Dec

Chelsea v QPR Wed 2 Jan

That's will probably be 14 matches in around 40 days!

[AndersonBLUE 819]

What we need to win is CWC because its very special cup and maybe we manage to win FA/Capital cup too.

Probably going to end 3rd or 2nd (if we buy striker) in league, while I realy cant say for CL. So unpredictable and anything could happen there...

Yes I would be happy with a domestic cup this year and the CWC, with a top 4 finish. I don't think we can win the league or champions league this year but early days.

[Muzchap 8,966]

Agree with everything you said, but in this case, both Manchester clubs have more quality and experience in their reserve players. Much more.

That means if they play reserve players, they will still win match because they are as I said more experienced and overall better players (Chicarito, Nani, Tevez, Ballo, Dzeko, Kagawa,...) comparing to our reserves (Moses, Marin, Studge) who dont have such experience and form. And that means if we play subs, we could lose game and RDM doesnt want to risk a defeat just to play subs.

Hmm if we hadn't loaned out 1,000,000 players we too could have had a nice squad depth

This is one of RDM's biggest failings... Rotation policy, Loan policy and really poor subsitutions (except Moses of course against Shakthar)...

If we don't rotate soon - we'll struggle for 4th place finish!

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

This is one of RDM's biggest failings... Rotation policy, Loan policy and really poor subsitutions (except Moses of course against Shakthar)...

I don't know if RDM is in charge of loan policy. Also, I don't get the criticisms of his subs. He has very limited choice in what he can do and usually makes the right choice (If we're down, bring on an attacking player, if we're up, bring on a defending player). Sure, it's conservative, but I don't think it's poor at all.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

And what is with Malouda? He is not anymore top player, but would be still great in cup matches and allow Mata/Hazard/Oscar some rest.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Lets look at our upcoming Schedule:

West Brom v Chelsea Sat 17 Nov

Juventus v Chelsea Tue 20 Nov

Chelsea v Man City Sun 25 Nov

Chelsea v Fulham Wed 28 Nov

West Ham v Chelsea Sat 1 Dec

Chelsea v FC Nordsjaelland Wed 5 Dec

Sunderland v Chelsea Sat 8 Dec

Two matches in the CWC in Japan between the Sunderland and Leeds matches...

Leeds United v Chelsea Wed 19 Dec

Chelsea v Aston Villa Sun 23 Dec

Norwich v Chelsea Wed 26 Dec

Everton v Chelsea Sun 30 Dec

Chelsea v QPR Wed 2 Jan

That's will probably be 14 matches in around 40 days!

We have to rest players against westbrom, fulham, FC Nordsjaelland, world club matches, and leeds... Wow I don't know how our tender attacking midfield trio can survive a burnout without rotation.

[Kieran. 6,317]

I don't know if RDM is in charge of loan policy. Also, I don't get the criticisms of his subs. He has very limited choice in what he can do and usually makes the right choice (If we're down, bring on an attacking player, if we're up, bring on a defending player). Sure, it's conservative, but I don't think it's poor at all.

The only thing I criticize him with when it comes to substitutions is the timing. He should use them around the 60 min. mark, instead of 75-80.