Closed Chelsea 1-2 Basel

[didierforever 7,349]

Listen, it has indeed been poor so you've got the right to be pissed, but why do you think things won't change?

We managed to play a lot better with lesser quality last season, there is no reason to think a manager like Mourinho won't find a way to get them to play properly.

This is the kind of panicy reaction you'd expect after a few months in to the season of bad football.

there is a reason why i feel things wont change. last season, we dint have any options. the onus was on mata and hazard (mainly) to be our heart and soul. the team was far more settled with each and every player knowing their role. moses put in a decent shift whenever needed etc etc. right now, their seems to be no spine to the team which is very strange as mou has been with us for 3 months(?). u would expect him to know how to play and who to play and all that jazz. i know things are not always ideal, but we have been BAD/PATHETIC.

hull city- 15 minutes of goos football, after that absolutely nothing.

aston villa - on another day, we would have lost the match. no way did we deserve to win it.

man u, bayern- lets not even go there.

everton - good performance, but not the first time we have been done due to our finishing.

basel - uninspired, un-motivated, and horrible performance.

so its not just one thing that has to be tackled with. the defence looks in shambles everytime we try to play the possession game. the midfield is uncreative, the bulid up is slow. the strikers are ....

these same problems were their last season and yet nothing has been done to improve it,

[bluezola 7]

It concerns me that JM felt the need to play Eto'o, who for all intensive purposes isn't up to speed. The same could have been said of Willan. The Russian league isn't a patch on the Premiership and both these boys need time, they were certainly not ready to play against European opposition. The Swindon game should have been their first introduction to English football. Remember Zhirkoz had the same problem. It also looks like desperation from JM playing Eto'o who quite frankly doesn't offer much in his present condition. Remember he was definitely off the pace against Everton. JM needs to return to having Mata, Hazard and Oscar as his main attacking midfielders with either Torres or Ba ahead of them. What people seem to be forgetting is that the attacking midfield players formed a great understanding last season, from continually playing together. Aided by Victor Moses. What was build between these 3 needed to be enhanced. Mata for me is a nailed on starter. Especially as he seem to orchestrate everything that was great about our play last season. JM needs to have a look at what we did last season and use that as his platform. Remember we played more games than any other English side with a relatively small squad and lack of a real goal threat. Yet just look at what we achieved. Some of the players we have need to be introduced slowly but only if they have the level of fitness and sharpness required. Schurrle and De Bruyne, are ready given that they have been playing in the German league and should be the obvious replacements to fill in for either Mata, Hazard or Oscar. Come on JM go back to the foundations built on last season. It's evolution not revolution.

[The Skipper 20,593]

mvg offers more goal threat than josh!!!!! wow, people are on a high here...

You've never seen MVG outside of Chelsea so how can you possibly deduce that it's inconceivable to think that MVG is a bigger goal threat than JM?

Believe it or not but Van Ginkel is a B2B midfielder, not really a DM. I've watched both for a while and I comfortably agree with TOPTB. Last season Van Ginkel got 12 goals - 8 in the Eredivisie, 1 in the cup and 3 in 4 appearances in Europe.

How you're making a final conclusion on said player's goal scoring ability after only partially seeing it in pre season is pretty crazy especially when you haven't seen him before his days at Chelsea.

[Stats 7,060]

i have seen josh play for middlesborough, and for chelsea when he was 17. josh even at that age offered far more goal threat than mvg. mvg is more physical and a better cm for a pivot, but it seems so unfair on josh to say that he offers lesser goal threat than a player who must have put in about 10% of his passes in the forward direction, had a touch so bad in the last and only match that he could have been yellowed twice while trying to get the ball back.

does that explain it? to say mvg offers more goal threat than josh is criminal because mvg offers NO THREAT. he dint in any of the pre-season matches, or his 5 min sub performance or yesterday. meanwhile i remember josh controlling the tempo of one of his only games in pre-season and completely bossed in his short performance.

I don't want to rattle on about this but believe me, Josh is not more of a goal threat than MVG. MVG was a goal threat at Vitesse and on the odd times played in the AM position and got a near double figures. In first team, competitive matches I have never seen anything from Josh to suggest that he is a goal threat. He is a passer of the ball, but he rarely takes shots unless it is for reserves. Josh at Boro did not get one goal right? As Skipper said, MVG scored goals at Vitesse and had a bit more freedom and took some shots. At us for now he is given more of a restrictive role but if he is paired along Mikel and has a bit more confidence in himself and the call to roam a bit more I am sure you will see more of his ability to look for goal.

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

calm down folks! mou will get things going soon, he's been in the same situation in 2009 with Milano if i remember well. The team struggled in the first two or three matches in that Champions League group and in the end they managed to go through thanks to a win against kazan, i think, in the last match of that group. And, guess what? Milano ended up as being Champions League winners. In Mou we trust!

[Aliba 1]

calm down folks! mou will get things going soon, he's been in the same situation in 2009 with Milano if i remember well. The team struggled in the first two or three matches in that Champions League group and in the end they managed to go through thanks to a win against kazan, i think, in the last match of that group. And, guess what? Milano ended up as being Champions League winners. In Mou we trust!

I'm not so sure Inter struggled that season if memory serves me correct. He set out to make his team hard to beat - opposed to barca's score more than you concede mantra.

I think Eto scored against us with about 10 minutes to go effectively kill the tie.

I do agree that some are over-reacting so early. We haven't exactly set the heather alight.

Having said that... In Mourinho we trust

[ChelseaMyLove 0]

http://q.gs/4otp1

http://q.gs/4ou2Y

http://q.gs/4ou2l

[Weckerz 3,781]

Don't click those links

[Changingman_2000 876]

We were fucking awful and there is much work ahead. I hate to revert back to old days, but when we were as lethargic as that, Johnny Bumstead and David Speedie would have noised up the team. Just now, we ain't got that.

Fulham on Saturday..............we don't want to lose that

[Steve 10,227]

Match Downloads

http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16811-downloads-ucl-group-stage-1-chelsea-v-basel/

HQ Images

http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16806-images-chelsea-v-basel/

[Beirut_Blues 306]

Well if it's bullshit then how about adding your own take so we can all dissect what bullshit you post.

Two can play that game.

I did.

[TrippingStep 336]

Basle defender Behrang Safari said he was shocked at how easy it was to contain Chelsea and that Torres, who scored against them in the Europa League semi-final victory in April, was not in the squad.

“Chelsea are a top team and you can’t relax for one minute but, of course, they’re not playing at their top level and you could see that,” he said.

“We felt like while they were not on their knees, it could be a good time for us to beat them. We took advantage of the situation.

“Were we surprised how easy it was to keep Chelsea quiet? Yes. During the whole evening, even in the first half when they scored, they didn’t create many chances. It was a surprise [Torres was not in the squad]. He is a great player and has good technique.”

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-players-have-lost-confidence-admits-jose-mourinho-8826375.html

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Short analysis from my notes. I hopefully do a bigger one with screenshots later on -

for sportskeeda.com - http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/09/20/tactical-analysis-basel-trumps-joses-chelsea/


Basel shocked the European footballing world , by taking away 3 points at Stamford Bridge . Jose Mourinho’s eggs were left scrambling at the end of 90 minutes, as they wondered what went wrong. Let’s have a look at how the Swiss champions were able to achieve a historic first victory in the British Isles.

Basel’s philosophy and performance :

From a tactical point of view, Basel gave in a terrific performance. They sat back and defended hard, and initiated lightning fast counter-attacks from the flanks. Two banks of four (4 midfielders and 4 static defenders) is very hard to break down A perfect example of a European away performance. After getting the equalizer, many expected Chelsea to bounce back strongly, however Basel looked like the one most likely to score.

Taken from whoscored.com

Their effectiveness was remarkable. Chelsea dominated possession,having 59% in the first half. However when it came to converting their possession into chances, they failed. Basel had 6 shots in which 2 of them resulted in goals. This gives us a remarkable conversion rate of 33.33% . Further proof that possession doesn’t exactly win you games.

Basel did everything right , in the sense that they accepted that they were minnows, but weren’t going to back down. At the end of the day, Chelsea failed to live up to the expectations, but this shouldn’t take away credit from the Swiss side who were brilliantly well structured despite the huge pressure from the fans and players.

Chelsea will suffer without width and a target man

Taken from whoscored.com

This was the average player position for Chelsea. A very sorry state of affairs cause there’s absolutely zero width. Wingers are expected to play down the flanks, but do have the option of cutting in as well. Should that be applicable throughout the game? Any coach would say no. For a moment lets think that wingers can cut inside and stay there for the majority of the game ( think Pedro, Sanchez) . The role of providing width falls on the full-backs. Was that done? Ivanovic (2) and Cole (3) on an average, barely moved ahead of the half-way line. Hazard (17) and Willian (22) did their job of cutting inside, but the attacking third was theoretically very narrow.

Heatmaps show that Ivanovic made more runs than Cole, but that still doesn’t justify the problem. I would personally have liked Bertrand to start, as he provides an added attacking impetus, something Cole seem’s to have lost in the last year or so. The same can be said for Azpilicueta instead of Ivanovic.

Basel played compact, with the midfield four pressing and making the pitch smaller. In hindsight, if Chelsea were to restrict Willian and Hazard’s movement only to the flanks, I would see Chelsea scoring a lot more goals.

Having a look at the average position map again, see how Eto’o (29) is more left than Hazard (17). Too much drifting to towards the flanks has a huge downside. Whenever the midfielders look up, they have nobody making a run.

His heat map gives a very grim story. Rarely was he playing directly down the flanks. The philosophy that Mourinho’s trying to apply is way too complicated when trying to break down a well organized defensive structure. If he had stayed centrally, the problem of congestion would arise. It’s a huge possibility as Chelsea would be even more vulnerable to counter-attacks.

This map show’s the direction of attacking plays. While Chelsea’ tried avoiding width, they were forced to go down there, due to Basel making the pitch smaller. This made sure that Chelsea lacked clear cut chances as the wingers were more interested as playing midfielders. Attacks came down the flanks, but rarely with support. Hazard and Cole’s linkup play was quite horrible, contrary to how it was against Hull City and Aston Villa.

Basel on the other hand, only wanted to defend narrow as they highlighted Chelsea’s weakness. All they had to do was make sure that every counter-attack that started from deep, had to be played down the sides. This would give them a greater chance in converting their possession into goals, which at the end of the day, they did thanks to a remarkable performance from Salah.

A tactical master-piece, in which Chelsea fell short due to small reasons that can easily be corrected. Despite the over-reaction, there isn’t much to worry about, as the holes in Chelsea’s attacking transition can be plugged in time. Expect a very different Chelsea side against Fulham.

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

Carragher - Chelsea playing with 10 men

Jamie Carragher, Jamie Redknapp and Michael Ballack look at what went wrong for Chelsea after their shock defeat against Basel in their opening match of the Champions League.

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/champions-league/8929314/carragher-chelsea-playing-with-10-men

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

I'm not so sure Inter struggled that season if memory serves me correct. He set out to make his team hard to beat - opposed to barca's score more than you concede mantra.

I think Eto scored against us with about 10 minutes to go effectively kill the tie.

I do agree that some are over-reacting so early. We haven't exactly set the heather alight.

Having said that... In Mourinho we trust

yes, i know, they had a fantastic season in serie a, but i was only talking about that champions league group where they started with three draws out of three games and they had to win the last game of the group in Milano, against kazan, to qualify.

[hjperdeath 2,226]

wrong area.

[CMS 382]

Now