The Conte Thread

[King11Didier 916]

I don't care about the formation as long as some players like Ivanovic and Mikel are not in it.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

1 minute ago, Tomo said:

To put my mind at ease, how will the two man midfield cope against 4-5 men? will the wingers or even one of the forwards drop into midfield off the ball?

Well we don't really know how they will be tactically deployed. Where you start on the pitch doesn't always dictate your assignment. 

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

6 minutes ago, Tomo said:

To put my mind at ease, how will the two man midfield cope against 4-5 men? will the wingers or even one of the forwards drop into midfield off the ball?

Well in defense Conte's 4-2-4 is just a regular 4-4-2. So i'd assume we'll see our wingers drop deep and tuck inside helping out our midfielders by protecting the central midfield area and essentially becoming "a cm".

Both our strikers will likely drop deep and act as buffers in front of our central midfield forcing the opposition to go wide while also making it more difficult for them to switch play.

 

[Blue_Fox_ 2,086]

41 minutes ago, Tomo said:

To put my mind at ease, how will the two man midfield cope against 4-5 men? will the wingers or even one of the forwards drop into midfield off the ball?

Im sure Conte has a plan round it, if we had one of the members of purist FC I would be worried.

The same way you would expect a normal 4-4-2 to work during the defensive phase. Both strikes will help out also more likely than not.

[Tomo 21,751]

6 minutes ago, Blue_Fox_ said:

The same way you would expect a normal 4-4-2 to work during the defensive phase. Both strikes will help out also more likely than not.

That's good then, my biggest fear in a 4-4-2/4-2-4 is getting overrun in the centre, happened a lot to City in 13-14, Chelsea, Bayern and Barca all battered them at the Ethiad with that extra man in the middle.

[Tomo 21,751]

Is it just me or was he very reluctant in saying Mikel's name in this clip?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-rkWMq7Ct0

 

[Milan 17,965]

Quote

And Conte's message to Hazard and his team-mates is clear: 'Follow me, and I can take you to Lionel Messi's level'.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/10504153/antonio-conte-challenges-eden-hazard-to-reach-lionel-messis-level

[Blue_Fox_ 2,086]

One very good manager, arguably a top 3 in the world, already tried that; Hazard subbed himself off, he needed a siesta.
Hopefully this time around the manager will be ruthless.

[Miguelito 459]

One very good manager, arguably a top 3 in the world, already tried that; Hazard subbed himself off, he needed a siesta.

Hopefully this time around the manager will be ruthless.

I hate it when someone is injured and has to come off.....

Move on! He was injured.

[Unionjack 7,531]

2 hours ago, Belgiannutt said:

Well in defense Conte's 4-2-4 is just a regular 4-4-2. So i'd assume we'll see our wingers drop deep and tuck inside helping out our midfielders by protecting the central midfield area and essentially becoming "a cm".

Both our strikers will likely drop deep and act as buffers in front of our central midfield forcing the opposition to go wide while also making it more difficult for them to switch play.

 

That sounds all well and good and on paper it works. But Cescy needs coverage. He needs some time and space and the problem we have is one of those wingers that will drop deep and tucking inside will be Hazard.

Now I'm pretty sure that Mou tried to drill defence into him and it didnt seem to do nothing apart from make him (and the rest of our AMs) scared to take shots at goal.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

3 minutes ago, Unionjack said:

That sounds all well and good and on paper it works. But Cescy needs coverage. He needs some time and space and the problem we have is one of those wingers that will drop deep and tucking inside will be Hazard.

Now I'm pretty sure that Mou tried to drill defence into him and it didnt seem to do nothing apart from make him (and the rest of our AMs) scared to take shots at goal.

I think the problem was that apart from defence Mourinho didn't drill anything else. When it came to the attack the players were left to improvise on their own. Basically just telling hazard to "go out there and express himself" for example.

A lot of times our gameplan seemed to be pass it to Hazard and hope he does something with it.

Now about the defensive side. I think it can work as it did for the first 5 months of our title winning season. As long as our attacking players are in form we can dominate the opponents and force them back.

Problem is when players go off form or when we go up against teams that have equal or more quality in their squad.

Personally i don't think we'll play the 4-2-4 against the top teams and simply revert to a 4-3-3 with Matic taking the place of one of the strikers.

 

It's all just guesswork for now. We'll have to wait and see how it all comes together.

[Unionjack 7,531]

3 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

I think the problem was that apart from defence Mourinho didn't drill anything else. When it came to the attack the players were left to improvise on their own. Basically just telling hazard to "go out there and express himself" for example.

A lot of times our gameplan seemed to be pass it to Hazard and hope he does something with it.

Now about the defensive side. I think it can work as it did for the first 5 months of our title winning season. As long as our attacking players are in form we can dominate the opponents and force them back.

Problem is when players go off form or when we go up against teams that have equal or more quality in their squad.

Personally i don't think we'll play the 4-2-4 against the top teams and simply revert to a 4-3-3 with Matic taking the place of one of the strikers.

 

It's all just guesswork for now. We'll have to wait and see how it all comes together.

Course it is man. Thats all we can do is guess.

Ive said it before but imagine the fans running the club using polls! It would be interesting.

I agree about the forwards maybe not being drilled enough offensively. But I'm not sure if those first 5 months was because we were playing so well or our opponents were just utter shite.

I'd love to see us use a 3-5-2 but we just dont have the defenders to do it. Our season depends on our back line IMHO.

[Blue_Fox_ 2,086]

12 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

Now about the defensive side. I think it can work as it did for the first 5 months of our title winning season. As long as our attacking players are in form we can dominate the opponents and force them back.

Thinking we can go one more year with a back-line of Ivan-Cahill-JT-Azpi is nothing but delusion and an alarming lack of care towards the defensive side of the game.
Cesc is going to be in front of them, Kanté, as good as he is, he's only one man, Willian can do so much against Ivan's ineptitude and Hazard is useless when defending.
We need, and I can't stress it enough, we need a CB and LB if we want to get into top 4 without doing miracles.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

2 minutes ago, Blue_Fox_ said:

Thinking we can go one more year with a back-line of Ivan-Cahill-JT-Azpi is nothing but delusion.
Cesc is going to be in front of them, Kanté, as good as he is, he's only one man, Willian can do so much against Ivan's ineptitude and Hazard is useless when defending.
We need, and I can't stress it enough, we need a CB and LB if we want to get into top 4 without doing miracles.

I wasn't talking about the personel of our defense. I was talking about the system, about the use of the 4-2-4 this season. The 4-2-3-1 which we used is very similar when defending as it's also relies on 2 banks of four. So i said it worked, with Fabregas and Hazard, because we were able to dominate the opposition.

Fairly obvious that our defense needs strenghtening. Ivanovic should be nowhere near our starting lineup and apart from Zouma whose still recovering from his knee injury i don't have any faith in the other cb's at our disposal.

So yes a CB and a LB are necessary and even then we'll have to pray that Zouma recovers quick and doesn't hurt his knee again otherwise we're stuck with 1 of Cahill, Terry or Ivanovic again.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

26 minutes ago, Unionjack said:

Course it is man. Thats all we can do is guess.

Ive said it before but imagine the fans running the club using polls! It would be interesting.

I agree about the forwards maybe not being drilled enough offensively. But I'm not sure if those first 5 months was because we were playing so well or our opponents were just utter shite.

I'd love to see us use a 3-5-2 but we just dont have the defenders to do it. Our season depends on our back line IMHO.

I do think we were playing really well in the beginning. After that it's difficult to say what triggered the drop in quality in our game as a lot of things happened.

Yeah i agree with your last sentence. We really need a quality injection in that area.

[Blue_Fox_ 2,086]

10 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

I do think we were playing really well in the beginning. After that it's difficult to say what triggered the drop in quality in our game as a lot of things happened.

Short answer is:Opponents figured us out.
We were playing ok, nothing truly outstanding, bar a few games we were never really, really fluid. It worked for as long as it could, as soon as opponents figured us out, José did the only thing that could've been done to deliver the title. Play low and reduce any potential damage; give ball to in form, flair winger and score (Only way this team could've played at the time.)
We went through this not so long ago.

[Fernando 6,602]

What does failure look like for top Premier League teams in 2016-17?

n that regard, the Premier League could transform into a league reminiscent of the Serie A of the mid-90s, when teams finishing as low as 10th place, like Gabriel Batistuta's Fiorentina, were still dazzling and worthy of great respect.

http://www.espnfc.us/english-premier-league/23/blog/post/2914014/what-does-failure-look-like-for-top-premier-league-teams-in-2016-17

............

Interesting read, and this is what I been thinking. That PL is becoming like Serie A back in the days. I remember those times in the 90s, the Italian League was the one to watch. Many good teams, and now it's change to the PL. 

[Styles 9,790]

3 hours ago, Blue_Fox_ said:

One very good manager, arguably a top 3 in the world, already tried that; Hazard subbed himself off, he needed a siesta.
Hopefully this time around the manager will be ruthless.

Lol. Funny thing is Hazard has almost certainly played through pain that would have you laid up in bed for several weeks. It's so easy to question a player's commitment from the sidelines.

[Tomo 21,751]

1 hour ago, Unionjack said:

Course it is man. Thats all we can do is guess.

Ive said it before but imagine the fans running the club using polls! It would be interesting.

I agree about the forwards maybe not being drilled enough offensively. But I'm not sure if those first 5 months was because we were playing so well or our opponents were just utter shite.

I'd love to see us use a 3-5-2 but we just dont have the defenders to do it. Our season depends on our back line IMHO.

It would be total carnage. Say it started in 2008 for argument sake, average manager would get appointed and he would have been given all the time in the world because the average fan is still stuck in the "give managers time look at Fergie" mindset, and that's the least of the rubble, judging by comments on here alone this summer id hate to think what our transfer outlay would be.

[Unionjack 7,531]

1 minute ago, Tomo said:

It would be total carnage. Say it started in 2008 for argument sake, average manager would get appointed and he would have been given all the time in the world because the average fan is still stuck in the "give managers time look at Fergie" mindset, and that's the least of the rubble, judging by comments on here alone this summer id hate to think what our transfer outlay would be.

hahaThats what I mean. Fuck FFP and homegrown. The club would be in liquidation. But at least our back 4 would be very different eh.