The Conte Thread

[Muzchap 8,966]

16 hours ago, Fernando said:

Chelsea’s Antonio Conte says he has no magic wand to solve team’s problems

Chelsea manager points out 10th place last season shows scale of his task
John Terry to miss Saturday’s game at Hull after being kicked on ankle

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/sep/30/chelsea-antonio-conte-no-magic-wand

This is true! We cannot keep expecting miracles - the club has been badly run for ages and we are now reaping what we have sowed. 

We need to identify a football philosophy (it pains me to say, as Man City have) and then shape the club , Acadamy, coaches and players to suit that philosophy. The constant chopping and changing is doing us no favours! 

I believe this might actually be a reality under Conte as long as Roman can keep his itchy finger buried somewhere! 

[dimmas 126]

I just dont understand

To attacking the opponent, our left side (where hazard plays) most of the time is his best weapon when comes to attack.

But why he for so many games let hazard surround by useless player when attack ??

Hazard didnt have any help at all. No one to create good linkup. What he have around him is a inverted fullback which barely make overlap run, far from good to support like natural lb. Hardly create spaces or make excellent 1-2 combination. And Matic oh my god i dont know what to say anymore

Midfielder who consistently clueless and akward on the ball, poor tehcnique, didnt have passing range, cannot shoot, not really intelegent, slow and pathetic when get any pressure.

 

Why just why ??

 

So unfair when compare to sanchez and sterling situation

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Finally played a formation he knows best. I hope dropping ivanovic was for real, that would be fantastic. And most importantly, I hope he gives kante more freedom to go forward and play box to box like today and tells Matic to sit back and play the holding role, because that suited them perfectly.

Small positive steps at least.  

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

Best One?

[Fernando 6,488]

Hopefully he drops cahill with Terry back or when zouma is fit.... If he still got it. 

[Blue-in-me-Veins 4,067]

10 hours ago, Muzchap said:

This is true! We cannot keep expecting miracles - the club has been badly run for ages and we are now reaping what we have sowed. 

We need to identify a football philosophy (it pains me to say, as Man City have) and then shape the club , Acadamy, coaches and players to suit that philosophy. The constant chopping and changing is doing us no favours! 

I believe this might actually be a reality under Conte as long as Roman can keep his itchy finger buried somewhere! 

I would actually argue we do have a football philosophy in our Academy Coaches and Academy players. 

The problem is, the Board and Roman don't want to commit to that philosophy for whatever reason when it comes to the First team. Either they hire the wrong managers for possesion based football (Mourinho Mark II, Roberto Di Mateo) or Hire the right manager for that style of play but don't arm him with the correct players for that style (AVB, and Conte). 

This tweet sums it up. 

 

[Muzchap 8,966]

1 hour ago, Blue-in-me-Veins said:

I would actually argue we do have a football philosophy in our Academy Coaches and Academy players. 

The problem is, the Board and Roman don't want to commit to that philosophy for whatever reason when it comes to the First team. Either they hire the wrong managers for possesion based football (Mourinho Mark II, Roberto Di Mateo) or Hire the right manager for that style of play but don't arm him with the correct players for that style (AVB, and Conte). 

This tweet sums it up. 

 

Fair point - but our loan style is haphazard to say the least and not really helping any players break through - I guess that is linked to the first team manager spot being a merrygoround every season

[Fernando 6,488]

21 minutes ago, Muzchap said:

Fair point - but our loan style is haphazard to say the least and not really helping any players break through - I guess that is linked to the first team manager spot being a merrygoround every season

Merry to around would not be be bad if an average manager last 3 seasons. Can do a lot of damage in three seasons. 

Conte to me continues to show his good. Only reason to sack is if your bad and the only bad we had that merited short term sacking was Scolari and di Matteo. 

After that everyone should have had at least 3 years. 

[Henrique 9,133]

I have misgivings about perfomance against Hull. First half the team was REALLY bad and was easily one of the most unisnpired performances I've seem since AVB days. 2nd half the team really improved, but great goals from Willian and Costa came from individual plays, and most of our chances in the 2nd half came from long shots from outside the box. 

To be fair the team looked solid at the back, and there is no doubt Zouma, Terry and Luiz will make the back 3 when all of them are available. 

[Antonio8 736]

luckly there's conte as coach and not the coaches that fill this forum..

good game yesterday, as conte said the confidence is low at this moment, need some consecutive wins to gain confidence and play in a better way..

 

[Darogba 112]

Not gonna get excited about beating a relegation candidate. our next two games are against hull and Utd and with Terry back I do have high hopes for this.

[Tautvix 1,321]

26 minutes ago, iceboy said:

http://m.goal.com/s/en/news/11/transfer-zone/2016/10/02/28109592/hart-chelsea-bound-conte-spotted-watching-torino-v?ICID=HP_BN_9&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F

What makes these "journalists" believe Conte is there for Hart... It doesn't make any sense at all. Typical English media.

[Adnane 1,101]

On the other hand he might have been there effectively for a bunch of players, maybe not Hart, but he sure was there for someone. 

Not a former Torino or Fiorentina player/manager ( far from that as he is a Juventus legend ), plus ain't the biggest game in italian football, and certainly not a game you'd book a flight/day for. 

So yeah I like to think he was there for someone. 

[Barbara 15,149]

On 24/09/2016 at 3:52 PM, Adnane said:

Incredible

So you have been asking for Cesc to start all season long, once he does it and benches Oscar you criticize him for doing so ? 

Had he benched Fabregas and lost, you would have said the exact opposite. 

I highly question all of his decisions lately, but let's not be hypocrites and see things as they are : Cesc is never a 90 minutes player for Chelsea and shouldn't be, at least not until we sort all our defensive issues. 

Dude, I don't know if you're lazy, can't understand properly basic English or if it's down to not using the gray part of your brain. I've NEVER said Cesc should start all matches, let alone play the entire 90 minutes. I've always been very clear that he suits some kind of games - like Burnley home, so I will restate my opinion again just for you. Cesc should always start against teams that will sit back and wait for us, having a defensive approach, against those we'll need to have creative players trying to stretch their defense. Cesc is the only player that can do that consistently in our team, so he should always start those matches. Any match that we need to win the midfield battle, be more solid defensively or rely on pace Cesc should NOT start. We can afford Cesc if the other team is more interested in defending than attacking us. There's a bunch of those in the league, anyone from 12th and lower and in those matches Cesc should start, do his thing, hopefully help us get ahead by 2-3 and then he can be shipped back to the dressing room.

I stand by my point. I did it against Burnley, I did it against Arsenal and while I think Cesc could start against Hull at home, but the three-man defense worked well (in the second half), so I don't think that was a bad choice at all leaving him out, Cesc should have played had he opted for the 4-1-4-1, 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 - all of which he already featured this season in addition to the aforementioned 3-man system (that's a lot of tactical approaches in less than 10 games, but I guess he has to try until he finds the one that works best).

I don't mind the discussion, I don't mind someone challenging my opinion, but I don't need to be notified about things I've never said... so be my guest for good arguments, but for stupidity, please, I pass.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

I have to salute Conte for ending an ugly spell by changing the shape of a very predictable team. 

Deploying Kante as a box to box midfielder was GENIUS! It allowed us to recover balls high up the pitch and keep them on their back heels.

3-4-3 is the way to go moving forward, I liked having two dedicated attack minded players on the flank in Moses and Willian, it looked so dangerous.

The shape can easily be adapted to a 4-3-3 too so its very hard to predict how we will play.

[Blue Armour 4,312]

2 hours ago, Chelsea Legend 11 said:

I have to salute Conte for ending an ugly spell by changing the shape of a very predictable team. 

Deploying Kante as a box to box midfielder was GENIUS! It allowed us to recover balls high up the pitch and keep them on their back heels.

3-4-3 is the way to go moving forward, I liked having two dedicated attack minded players on the flank in Moses and Willian, it looked so dangerous.

The shape can easily be adapted to a 4-3-3 too so its very hard to predict how we will play.

 

Maybe that's the way we should be as a team moving forwards. Different horses for different courses. Switching from 3-5-3, 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 and so on.

Felt we had kind of got ourselves into a rut with trying to fit players into that old 4-2-3-1 formation for the past 3 years.

[WNDS 502]

I love the potential that this new 3-4-3 formation appears to have when it comes to our current squad: it can provide the team with enormous tactical flexibility if we manage to apply it correctly.

Using Hazard and Willian as genuine hybids between '10's and wingers could be a way of getting the best out of both of them, whilst simultaneously negating many of their weaknesses. Both of them have the pace and skill needed to operate as wingers, but their insistence on slowing play down to receive the ball into feet and assess their options ensures that neither of them is consistently decisive enough when operating from the flanks. However, both have also struggled to make a consistent impact when deployed as the 'number 10', as opposition teams have frequently congested this area of the pitch and denied them the space that they need to operate effectively; because neither of them (Willian in particular) possesses Fabregas' vision, they have sometimes been unable to find a way of dealing with this. In the formation that we used against Hull, however, they can share the responsibility of a 'number 10' with each other, whilst also doing the same thing in the context of wing-play with the wing-backs.

I particularly like the Willian-Moses combo on the right, because I feel that they cover for each other's strengths and weaknesses very well: Willian has the technique, passing, and combination-play that Moses lacks, whilst Moses is far more physically imposing, direct, and effective on the outside than Willian. Meanwhile, Moses' defensive inexperience can be compensated for (at least in part) by having both our best 1-on-1 defender (Azpilicueta) behind him and Kante directly in-field from him. If we can get this formation working, the right side of our team actually has the potential to be extremely solid: Azpilicueta (right CB) - Moses (right WB) + Kante (right DM/CM) - Willian offers a huge amount of energy, and looks very well-balanced (on paper).

Hell, even if this right side (or our central CB in the back-three) is having a difficult time in any given game, having Marcos Alonso as the left wing-back and then Azpilicueta as the right CB allows us to shift into a 4-2-3-1 formation with Alonso and Azpi as the FBs, any two of Terry, Luiz, and Zouma as the two CBs, Moses as the genuine RM/RW, Willian as the '10', and Hazard as the inverted LM/LW; if this isn't working, we can then sub in one or both of Fabregas and Oscar for one or both of Matic and Willian.

So.... yeah..... I'm a big fan of the changes that Conte's decided to make. Although they may NOT end up working-out for the team, something had to be done after the Liverpool and Arsenal games, and full credit to the manager for actually doing something genuinely different; it's quite refreshing to see.

[Adnane 1,101]

5 hours ago, Barbara said:

 

How convenient of you quoting this post 3 weeks later when all his weaknesses have been (re)visited due to a poor, awful performance at Arsenal. He was also bad at Leicester, couple goals saved his performance. 

If we want Chelsea to reach the levels it is supposed to be in, the maximum role players like Cesc should have in this team is a super sub, at best, and that's what he's been brilliant at in the first couple of weeks : coming up when have complete control of the ball against tired legs and finding spaces in between.