Team stability

[BlueLyon 9,359]

So I was just curious how stable our team actualy is?

I know there was lot of talk about our SUPER quality bench, but it looks its quite opposite. We have no proper players on bench to replace starters (and even some starters are doubtfull).

If you look at city, even igf they miss Aguero, Silva and Yaya, they can still nick a few wins in PL. Can we do it without Hazard, Costa and Matic/Cesc? Who will step up then?

Also our first team is far from stable. We should create team of 11 players who can cope against any team without alternating tactics and formations and players. But we all know that Oscar or Willian or Iva should not play in certain games and that damages our stability.

Usualy teams can name 11 unquestionable starters without problem when everyone is fit. But here, even if everyone is fully fit, Mou will still pick different team for different opponent.

Im not realy sure, but something in past month has struck me that this just isnt yet title winning team. We have plenty of quality, experienced coach, thought to be best defense in league, yet we have made some realy terrible results over past month. Either are the players too young, not experienced enough, or whatever, but the attitude and mentality as well as Quality on bench should change. We dont need quantity, but quality.

Im sure Mou doesnt rotate because he thinks our bench players wont perform good enough. And if we dont rotate, our players get tired and we lose games. Simple as that.

[Shakez 755]

So I was just curious how stable our team actualy is?

I know there was lot of talk about our SUPER quality bench, but it looks its quite opposite. We have no proper players on bench to replace starters (and even some starters are doubtfull).

If you look at city, even igf they miss Aguero, Silva and Yaya, they can still nick a few wins in PL. Can we do it without Hazard, Costa and Matic/Cesc? Who will step up then?

Also our first team is far from stable. We should create team of 11 players who can cope against any team without alternating tactics and formations and players. But we all know that Oscar or Willian or Iva should not play in certain games and that damages our stability.

Usualy teams can name 11 unquestionable starters without problem when everyone is fit. But here, even if everyone is fully fit, Mou will still pick different team for different opponent.

Im not realy sure, but something in past month has struck me that this just isnt yet title winning team. We have plenty of quality, experienced coach, thought to be best defense in league, yet we have made some realy terrible results over past month. Either are the players too young, not experienced enough, or whatever, but the attitude and mentality as well as Quality on bench should change. We dont need quantity, but quality.

Im sure Mou doesnt rotate because he thinks our bench players wont perform good enough. And if we dont rotate, our players get tired and we lose games. Simple as that.

Check my thread, its kinda similar.

[Tomo 21,681]

All teams have to adapt to be successful, no team is successful just playing one way, Pep s Barca being the exception to the rule and even then lack of plan B twice cost them a shot at back to back European Champions.

On the rotation stuff, people are overplaying this, we barely rotated in the double season and that squad were a lot older than this, Barca under Pep barely rotated. Of course there will be games where player's are tired, but the pros of having a settled Xl far outweigh the cons.

I mean look at the displays vs WBA, Schalke and West Ham, would we have performed as good as we did in those games if we constantly rotated the team? not a chance.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

All teams have to adapt to be successful, no team is successful just playing one way, Pep s Barca being the exception to the rule and even then lack of plan B twice cost them a shot at back to back European Champions.

On the rotation stuff, people are overplaying this, we barely rotated in the double season and that squad were a lot older than this, Barca under Pep barely rotated. Of course there will be games where player's are tired, but the pros of having a settled Xl far outweigh the cons.

I mean look at the displays vs WBA, Schalke and West Ham, would we have performed as good as we did in those games if we constantly rotated the team? not a chance.

Double season squad was extremely efficient in all areas. Cant say the same when you have Willian or Iva who are unquestionable starters and there is not a single player on bench who would step up if needed. Plus Mou dislikes to change anyway. Schurrle or Salah have zero improvement rate this season and how can you count on such players on bench. Even Milner in city puts more creativity in attack than Willian...

Rotation will be a must, but we also need to find stable 11 and I honestly think Willian and Iva shoud be benched, but problem is we dont have decent replacements.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I think we have some wonderful players, but we still have a lot of deadwood. We're not quite as close to being the finished article as we all thought.

[Tomo 21,681]

Double season squad was extremely efficient in all areas. Cant say the same when you have Willian or Iva who are unquestionable starters and there is not a single player on bench who would step up if needed. Plus Mou dislikes to change anyway. Schurrle or Salah have zero improvement rate this season and how can you count on such players on bench. Even Milner in city puts more creativity in attack than Willian...

Rotation will be a must, but we also need to find stable 11 and I honestly think Willian and Iva shoud be benched, but problem is we dont have decent replacements.

The double team weren't perfect, infact at times there were clear warnings that the team needed refreshing but the way we ended the season papered over the cracks.

Also Willian is a vital member of the team imo, if we can find someone who does the same donkey work with more end product then ok, bench him, but until then he is vital for team balance, despite the new years day kerfuffle we are playing our best football since 2010 and Willy is a key reason why.

Yes rotate one or two every now and again, but constant rotation will do this team more harm than tiredness can, Benitez would have won the league with Liverpool if he left the best Xl alone and didn't piss about with it for no reason.

[Henrique 9,133]

So I was just curious how stable our team actualy is?

I know there was lot of talk about our SUPER quality bench, but it looks its quite opposite. We have no proper players on bench to replace starters (and even some starters are doubtfull).

If you look at city, even igf they miss Aguero, Silva and Yaya, they can still nick a few wins in PL. Can we do it without Hazard, Costa and Matic/Cesc? Who will step up then?

Also our first team is far from stable. We should create team of 11 players who can cope against any team without alternating tactics and formations and players. But we all know that Oscar or Willian or Iva should not play in certain games and that damages our stability.

Usualy teams can name 11 unquestionable starters without problem when everyone is fit. But here, even if everyone is fully fit, Mou will still pick different team for different opponent.

Im not realy sure, but something in past month has struck me that this just isnt yet title winning team. We have plenty of quality, experienced coach, thought to be best defense in league, yet we have made some realy terrible results over past month. Either are the players too young, not experienced enough, or whatever, but the attitude and mentality as well as Quality on bench should change. We dont need quantity, but quality.

Im sure Mou doesnt rotate because he thinks our bench players wont perform good enough. And if we dont rotate, our players get tired and we lose games. Simple as that.

Who said we have a SUPER qulity bench?

[Spike 12,049]

I think it is more due to the fact that the players are never in form at the same time.

[Mission 97]

The squad lacks a severe amount of equitable rotation, let alone stability:

Look at the disparity here. It shows the extent of how expelled certain players are, such as Remy. To say Drogba almost doubles his time on the field is deplorable. After the Tottenham game, numerous users were quick to post about Cahill's incompetencies. He almost quintuples the amount of minutes Zouma has had; possibly these incompetencies are derived from being the most worn player on the team?

Mourinho needs to establish a system which slides towards sustainability, he needs to exhibit a higher level of critical awareness in the squad, and should reform his favouritism ideologies in order for this club to perform adequately in the latter half of the season.

[manpe 10,857]

The squad lacks a severe amount of equitable rotation, let alone stability:

Look at the disparity here. It shows the extent of how expelled certain players are, such as Remy. To say Drogba almost doubles his time on the field is deplorable. After the Tottenham game, numerous users were quick to post about Cahill's incompetencies. He almost quintuples the amount of minutes Zouma has had; possibly these incompetencies are derived from being the most worn player on the team?

Mourinho needs to establish a system which slides towards sustainability, he needs to exhibit a higher level of critical awareness in the squad, and should reform his favouritism ideologies in order for this club to perform adequately in the latter half of the season.

Jose doesn't rotate the defensive line, especially centre backs, so it's no surprise that Cahill, being the younger one out of the two, is the most used. And 34-year old Terry is not far behind in 3rd place. But tbh looking at this, it is definitely too disproportionate. It can't be about quality either, because it's not like for example Ramires or Remy are hopeless players. Jose is just the kind of manager who likes playing it safe and I imagined it would be like this when it was announced he'd become our manager, so I have no serious gripes, as long as Jose Mourinho is our manager. However, he seriously needs to look out for the overused players, because there are signs of burning out (most visibly Cahill and Ivanovic, who have been playing insane minutes). If this continues then I'm afraid it won't be long until the effectiveness of Matic and Fabregas will drop, and then we are in trouble, because the efficiency of our play rotates around those two.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

manpe, on 09 Jan 2015 - 2:18 PM, said:

Jose doesn't rotate the defensive line, especially centre backs, so it's no surprise that Cahill, being the younger one out of the two, is the most used. And 34-year old Terry is not far behind in 3rd place. But tbh looking at this, it is definitely too disproportionate. It can't be about quality either, because it's not like for example Ramires or Remy are hopeless players. Jose is just the kind of manager who likes playing it safe and I imagined it would be like this when it was announced he'd become our manager, so I have no serious gripes, as long as Jose Mourinho is our manager. However, he seriously needs to look out for the overused players, because there are signs of burning out (most visibly Cahill and Ivanovic, who have been playing insane minutes). If this continues then I'm afraid it won't be long until the effectiveness of Matic and Fabregas will drop, and then we are in trouble, because the efficiency of our play rotates around those two.

Yeah. It's the same with Hazard, but Hazard is younger than Matic and Fabregas, so he should be able to recover faster than the pivot lads. Fabregas and Matic are also in Top 3 in the entire PL when it comes to the distance covered (Fabregas is second -213.2km; Matic is third with 210.2km). It is kind of worrying, considering that we don't have adequate substitutes for them.