The Rotation

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

There is a thin line between having depth and being overloaded with talented players, some of who will rarely play and Chelsea have crossed that line so who will be the players left out?

Last season, Real Madrid regularly used 5 attacking players for the 3 attacking midfielder/striker roles with 2 other players getting semi-regular time. That's 7 players for 4 spots. Chelsea have 9 players for those 4 spots which means that 2 or 3 our attacking players are likely to rarely play. Madrid used 3 regular players for the central midfield with a 4th occasionally playing. Chelsea have 5 players there. I think at defence, we have the right balance of depth with Luiz, Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill, and Azpilicueta covering 3 spots and Cole playing almost all the time. It will be interesting to see. Who would you leave out?

[Despiadado.Maleante 1,046]

Chelsea A - Willian – Mata – Hazard

Chelsea B - KDB– Oscar – Shurlle

Chelsea C - Moses –T.Hazard - Marin

Chelsea D - Atsu - Piazon – Traore

Chelsea E - Kakuta – Feruz - Cuevas

[Sidzeret 2,257]

Hazard- Oscar- Mata compliment each other well. This should easily be our best midfield setup.

Shurrle- De Bruyne-Hazard are a stronger lineup for counterattacking football.

Haven't seen Willian enough to comment

The CM rotation is not a big deal as we lack serious depth in that area. Ramires always takes up one spot which leaves only Lamps, v.Ginkel and Essien as serious contenders for the other spot. Mikel, for me, is more like a second half sub when we lead to hold the ball. Rami- v. Ginkel pivot is likely our most versatile setup. Lamps- Rami also works well which could be employed in the CL.

Luiz is arguably our best CB. It is important to build a strong partnership without much rotation at the defensive lines. Terry seems like he is doing well after a bad season and should make a great team with Luiz.

[themightyblue 443]

There is a thin line between having depth and being overloaded with talented players, some of who will rarely play and Chelsea have crossed that line so who will be the players left out?

Last season, Real Madrid regularly used 5 attacking players for the 3 attacking midfielder/striker roles with 2 other players getting semi-regular time. That's 7 players for 4 spots. Chelsea have 9 players for those 4 spots which means that 2 or 3 our attacking players are likely to rarely play. Madrid used 3 regular players for the central midfield with a 4th occasionally playing. Chelsea have 5 players there. I think at defence, we have the right balance of depth with Luiz, Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill, and Azpilicueta covering 3 spots and Cole playing almost all the time. It will be interesting to see. Who would you leave out?

One thing which you have to remember is the politics in the Madrid dressing room which meant that Ronaldo virtually HAD to play majority of games (as well as being one of the best in the world). We don't have this problem at Chelsea with any of our AMs so I think we'll see much more effective rotation in the attacking midfield positions, with all of them getting enough minutes. Out of those 9 players, Ba will suffer though unless there is an injury.

In midfield, obviously Essien will be the one who doesn't play as much and I think Lampard will start to be used less and less as the season progresses.

In defence, Kalas will get minutes in the cup games. Azpi will rotate with Ivanovic etc and so like you said, we're set there

[meetdoscar 335]

Unlike madrid we have four trophies to compete for and moreover teams like bayern, madrid, barca, Manu are just about as loaded in those positions as we are.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Unlike madrid we have four trophies to compete for and moreover teams like bayern, madrid, barca, Manu are just about as loaded in those positions as we are.

Madrid played 60 games last season. That's about what we'll play this year. Also, Barcelona played 9 players last season for midfield and attack. 9-11 players for 6 positions. We have 14 for those positions. Essien and Ba will probably not play much, but there is also a log-jam at attacking midfield and we simply aren't going to get 6 players into 3 spots. We aren't 1 or 2 players over a normal rotation, we are about 3-4 players over a normal rotation in midfield and attack.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Im sure we will all know the value of this squad size when injuries start to kick in. Look at arsenal and podolski case now

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Im sure we will all know the value of this squad size when injuries start to kick in. Look at arsenal and podolski case now

Jesus...there's a difference between having a little depth and tons of depth. Arsenal has very little depth and we have more than we need. There is a place in between. We have 9 players for 4 positions. Ideally, you'd have 7 or so.

Right now, we have players who can play

Striker: Eto'o Torres, Ba, Schurrle

Attacking midfield:. Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Schurrle, De Bruyne, Willian, Ramires (and all the strikers can be used in 2 striker sets)

Central Midfield-Lampard, Ramires, MVG, Mikel, Essien, (And in a 4-3-3 Oscar, De Bruyne)

That's not just depth, that's players who won't get to play.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Jesus...there's a difference between having a little depth and tons of depth. Arsenal has very little depth and we have more than we need. There is a place in between. We have 9 players for 4 positions. Ideally, you'd have 7 or so.

Right now, we have players who can play

Striker: Eto'o Torres, Ba, Schurrle

Attacking midfield:. Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Schurrle, De Bruyne, Willian, Ramires (and all the strikers can be used in 2 striker sets)

Central Midfield-Lampard, Ramires, MVG, Mikel, Essien, (And in a 4-3-3 Oscar, De Bruyne)

That's not just depth, that's players who won't get to play.

You put schurrle twice

Bayern munich last season

strikers: Pizaro, mandzukic, gomez, Patrick Weihrauch

Attacking mid: robben, ribbery, muller, shaqiri, kroos,

central mid: gustavo, schwienstiger, martinez, tymoishook, emre can, Mitchell Weiser

defence: rafinha, lahm, alaba, contento, vanbuyten, boateng, badstuber

http://espnfc.com/team/squad/_/id/132/season/2012/league/ger.1/bayern-munich?cc=3888

We slagged them for having too much, they won the trebble

I know having excess doesnt guarantee titles but every single time we won the premier league have you seen how much depth we had that season???

Hazard just picked up a knock training for belgium, so what if he's out for months were back to struggling without qualities again.

Injuries are part of the reason for big squads not just keeping fresh legs

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

You put schurrle twice

Bayern munich last season

strikers: Pizaro, mandzukic, gomez, Patrick Weihrauch

Attacking mid: robben, ribbery, muller, shaqiri, kroos,

central mid: gustavo, schwienstiger, martinez, tymoishook, emre can, Mitchell Weiser

defence: rafinha, lahm, alaba, contento, vanbuyten, boateng, badstuber

http://espnfc.com/team/squad/_/id/132/season/2012/league/ger.1/bayern-munich?cc=3888

We slagged them for having too much, they won the trebble

I know having excess doesnt guarantee titles but every single time we won the premier league have you seen how much depth we had that season???

Hazard just picked up a knock training for belgium, so what if he's out for months were back to struggling without qualities again.

Injuries are part of the reason for big squads not just keeping fresh legs

Bayern does have way too many players especially because they play fewer games in Germany. They still only had 13 outfield players who started 20 games and another 4 who started at least 10. You can have 15 backups at each position, but it's utterly pointless because no matter what, you're only going to play around 15-18 players with any regularity. Anyone who is outside that 15-18 will almost never play so you can have 10 of those players like Bayern or you can have 4 and it really doesn't make much of a difference. Depth is fine when that someone like Ferriera or Essien who can fill in and be happy with that or a young player getting a few cup games for experience, but for Chelsea, it's going to be also someone like De Bruyne or Mata who barely plays and that just doesn't make sense.

Weiruch didn't play a single game, Pizzaro started 11 games, Gomez started 13, Rafinha started 8, TCan started 24 games, Tymeshook started 8, etc... That amount of depth becomes completely pointless 5 players starting 10 games at the same position could easily be covered by 2 or 3 players. Bayern won because of Robery, Kroos, Mueller, Robben, etc..., not because of Contento and Rafinha. They could have had a much smaller squad and still won.

What if Hazard is out? We can have Schurrle, De Bruyne, Mata, or Willian cover for him. That'd still leave De Bruyne, Mata, Oscar, Willian, Ramires for the other 2 positions., We have so much depth that even with a major injury, we still have too many players.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Bayern does have way too many players especially because they play fewer games in Germany. They still only had 13 outfield players who started 20 games and another 4 who started at least 10. You can have 15 backups at each position, but it's utterly pointless because no matter what, you're only going to play around 15-18 players with any regularity. Anyone who is outside that 15-18 will almost never play so you can have 10 of those players like Bayern or you can have 4 and it really doesn't make much of a difference. Depth is fine when that someone like Ferriera or Essien who can fill in and be happy with that or a young player getting a few cup games for experience, but for Chelsea, it's going to be also someone like De Bruyne or Mata who barely plays and that just doesn't make sense.

Weiruch didn't play a single game, Pizzaro started 11 games, Gomez started 13, Rafinha started 8, TCan started 24 games, Tymeshook started 8, etc... That amount of depth becomes completely pointless 5 players starting 10 games at the same position could easily be covered by 2 or 3 players. Bayern won because of Robery, Kroos, Mueller, Robben, etc..., not because of Contento and Rafinha. They could have had a much smaller squad and still won.

What if Hazard is out? We can have Schurrle, De Bruyne, Mata, or Willian cover for him. That'd still leave De Bruyne, Mata, Oscar, Willian, Ramires for the other 2 positions., We have so much depth that even with a major injury, we still have too many players.

Thats what i really want for us. Ok maybe im a bit spoilt, but i just know the team with the most depth always come 1st or 2nd in the league.

And we really need this to finally get through the november period where we loose so many points because of tiredness playing 3 matches a week.

That wont happen this season again, hopefully.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Thats what i really want for us. Ok maybe im a bit spoilt, but i just know the team with the most depth always come 1st or 2nd in the league.

And we really need this to finally get through the november period where we loose so many points because of tiredness playing 3 matches a week.

That wont happen this season again, hopefully.

The teams with the most money always come near the top of the league. ManU last year actually didn't have much depth last year. They had fantastic depth at striker and attacking midfield but everyone else they were bare. We had our best season overall under Ancelotti where were we had pretty poor depth.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

The teams with the most money always come near the top of the league. ManU last year actually didn't have much depth last year. They had fantastic depth at striker and attacking midfield but everyone else they were bare. We had our best season overall under Ancelotti where were we had pretty poor depth.

Are you sure we had poor depth? i think i remember after that season, we let ballack, deco, beletti, and 3 other senior players go and only replaced them with only two players (ramires and someone i cant remember) which cost us to go trophyless

[Sheva. 5,373]

Why are Madrid the reference point though? i know it was Mou's last team, but it's not like they won anything with the fewer options they had.

If anything, our squad right now is built to last a whole season - something we couldn't have said last season. We had to play Bertrand or Ramires on the wings more than a few times, and that hurt us due to how restricted both are in the position. Not to mention Yossi and Marin who never did anything of note while coming off the bench.

Now we can still field good teams when we have games every 3 days, or an away trip in Europe and not lose a tremendous amount of quality.

Finally like Mourinho said - I'd rather have a team with too much options and quality than one with few like last season or even worse, the season with Carlo when all we had on the bench were youth team players.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

You put schurrle twice

Bayern munich last season

strikers: Pizaro, mandzukic, gomez, Patrick Weihrauch

Attacking mid: robben, ribbery, muller, shaqiri, kroos,

central mid: gustavo, schwienstiger, martinez, tymoishook, emre can, Mitchell Weiser

defence: rafinha, lahm, alaba, contento, vanbuyten, boateng, badstuber

http://espnfc.com/team/squad/_/id/132/season/2012/league/ger.1/bayern-munich?cc=3888

We slagged them for having too much, they won the trebble

I know having excess doesnt guarantee titles but every single time we won the premier league have you seen how much depth we had that season???

Hazard just picked up a knock training for belgium, so what if he's out for months were back to struggling without qualities again.

Injuries are part of the reason for big squads not just keeping fresh legs

I think you actually just proved his point because, last season, some of those players barely got a few minutes for Bayern all season.

[English Freak 456]

To the original poster, I feel that until January, we will have too much depth.

Ba and someone else will leave and that'll leave us with 7 options for 4 positions.

My guess (after January):
Strikers: Eto'o, Torres, Schurrle (fill in when needed)
Attacking Mids: Hazard, Mata/De Bruyne, Willian, Oscar, Schurrle
CM's: Ramires, Mikel, Lamps, MvG, Essien

[Term-X 7,891]

Willian - Oscar - Hazard

[hjperdeath 2,226]

I see Wilian - Mata - Hazard eventually playing as the main ones. Bring back the Robben and Duff days. Oscar settling in deeper.