closed RB Salzburg 3-5 Chelsea

[Pizy 18,927]

Some big time positives (Pulisic, Barkley, Emerson) but also some big time concerns.

As great as we looked on the break, we looked really poor with the ball in possession. Just constantly playing sloppy passes and giving the ball away. We also really struggled against their high energy pressing. That for me is the biggest concern. Loads and loads of teams all over Europe play that way now, even the smaller sides. 

Luiz was probably our worst player. He looked like the Sideshow Bob version of Luiz that other fans make fun of him for. Really poor decision making.

I just have to assume our defending will improve drastically with Kante back in. I hope so, anyways.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,076]

Some great goals among much keystone coppery. Keppa did very well, good moments from a few others but the play in our own third is shocking. We need at least another month of preseason.

[Strike 7,491]

The Good

No sign of Bakayoko, Drinkwater, 

Pulisic, Pedro and Abraham pressed well, attacked well on the counter, Pedro goal was excellent and worth seeking out

Barkley had another good game, took a good pen as well

Devastating counters

No injuries, decent run-out for most

The Bad

Shaky defense, midfield. Struggled to break their press at times

Mixed day out for Zouma at CB

Not sure if the team can afford to be so open at the back in the league

Set piece goal conceded again

Zappacosta comes on and concedes penalty

 

 

[Vesper 30,195]

Just now, communicate said:

It is a bit worrying. Our pressing also need work, it only looks good when we won the ball otherwise it was a nightmare. The only good thing is Kante is not playing. 

Offensively, hopefully like you said gladbach play a more conservative defense so we can test our offense against a deeper backline 

they have a great CB pair, 

 

and a superb young DMF

the last two are stars for that really solid Swiss national team

[Jase 43,479]

The last 10-15 minutes of the first half aside, we were so bad. Couldn't string passes together, kept giving away the ball and defended like clowns with no organization. If this is a sign of things to come, I'm not gonna survive watching our defending this coming season!

[Vesper 30,195]

6 minutes ago, !Hazard! said:

Rudiger can't come back soon enough

he and AC are our two best CB's

Luiz is fading

Zouma, well, meh

hopefully Reece heals quick and can replace Azpi and Azpi be the 3rd CB option, or 4th (or Reece at CB, but he is more needed at RB, as Azpi is just never going to be dynamic there)

unlike Emerson, Zouma (as I have been saying since I joined) still does not look fully recovered from that devastating knee injury

he looks to still have lost a step, and his positional play is just not up to level

[Jase 43,479]

Salzburg had 23 shots, 9 on target, 3 goals.

We had 10 shots, 8 on target, 5 goals.

Nice to see us being clinical after last season but allowing 23 shots...CHRIST!  

[MoroccanBlue 5,383]

Yeah. Now I’m worried 

[communicate 2,703]

8 minutes ago, Vesper said:

they have a great CB pair, 

 

and a superb young DMF

the last two are stars for that really solid Swiss national team

I am more concerned with their approach. We need a game against team who play 9 man behind the ball

[Pizy 18,927]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

Salzburg had 23 shots, 9 on target, 3 goals.

We had 10 shots, 8 on target, 5 goals.

Nice to see us being clinical after last season but allowing 23 shots...CHRIST!  

And so many of those shots and dangerous scenarios came from us being terrible and irresponsible on the ball. Schoolboy stuff at times.

 

[Laylabelle 9,535]

Some positives but some less so. Its gana be a looooong season 

[communicate 2,703]

8 minutes ago, Jason said:

Salzburg had 23 shots, 9 on target, 3 goals.

We had 10 shots, 8 on target, 5 goals.

Nice to see us being clinical after last season but allowing 23 shots...CHRIST!  

I was concerned when Lamp said that we want to play faster.

Our transition defense was quite bad last season but we play slow possession football that limit transition opportunities to both side. Conte solved it by playing 5 defender protected by 2 destroyer. 

Lamps still has tons of homework to do with this team. 

 

 

[Jase 43,479]

Just now, communicate said:

I was concerned when Lamp said that we want to play faster.

Our transition defense was quite bad last season but we play slow possession football that limit transition opportunities to both side. Conte solved it by playing 5 defender protected by 2 destroyer. 

Lamps still has tons of homework to do with this team. 

I hope we improve with time because our play looks a tad frenetic. Not enough calm and composure when in possession.

[Vesper 30,195]

2 minutes ago, communicate said:

I am more concerned with their approach. We need a game against team who play 9 man behind the ball

that is not their style

they have a dynamic MF and they like to press

 

they bought just Salzburg's best fullback, Stefan Lainer

and these two MFers were looked at by us Neuhaus has star potential

Stindl, Embolo (new buy and another Swiss national), and especially Alassane Plea are dangerous up front and they just bought a great young LW, Marcus Thuram, 1.92m beast, 21yo from Gunigamp, who replaces Thorgan Hazard and they also have  a decent RWer in Patrick Herrmann

[Vesper 30,195]

spuds just beat Bayern on pens to win the Audi Cup

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Think its almost embarrassing that as a team with the players we have we really struggled to hold onto the ball in and around our own defensive third at times today (the contrast in building up tonight under pressure compared to some of Sarris or Contes early games is frightening). Dont think its purely on Kovacic and Jorginho they were given some daft passes but again even the amount of times Azpi tried to play clever passes inside or Pedro coming deep standing 3m away from a team mate who has a man within under a meter of him but still passes the ball there.... or David Luiz doing David Luiz things... some of it was just madness, stupidity and just laziness. Once we get from the half way line up we do look capable of causing some issues but again, I think our best chances of scoring goals this season is going to be from quick transitions and counter attacking situations, although a few moments from Kovacic and Barkley tonight were encouraging, as well as the pass for Pulisic's second goal, who knows. Still in possession in the final third, we can still be improved on, not enough composure and I feel that Giroud will be our main CF because you can fire passes into him and he can just caress it off to near by players, Tammy still a bit raw and bulky if thats the right word at times but again he tried to make a nuisance of himself despite not having much luck in front of goal. 

Also never want to see Luiz play like that again either. Think that is up there with the worst he has played for us since AVB was here. Not even joking.

 

My main concern though. The season starts very soon and we dont look any better defensively, in fact we look terrible and other than those handful of bad games last season I will stick my neck out and say that our defending has probably got worse. Lampard needs to sort the back 4 out or for all the talk of hard work, pressing, integrating youngsters and getting performances from other attacking players to replace Hazard... he will end up like most of the other managers weve had and that is the unfortunate truth. Its not even just that he cant buy defenders, if those 4 are gonna play vs United (depending on how Rudiger is) they clearly need to do a lot more coaching on the training pitch on the defensive side as they were all over the place. Yes Salzburg have started their season, they might be sharper than us but we are almost in August now and I am really worried by the defence. Also I dont think Kante being in the team is going to be able to completely make up for the defending weve seen in pre season. Fair enough the results arent the most important and weve played nothing special (maybe Salzburg tonight was our toughest match? Barcelona played a B team basically so excluding them) and have kept 1 clean sheet (against St Patricks or whoever the second match was). It is not the stat that weve only kept 1 that has me bothered, its the actual matter in which we have defended in these pre season games.

Anyways, Mochengladbach is a bigger team and a more difficult test, still think we will see more of the same when we are defending.

[MoroccanBlue 5,383]

There will be genuine cause for concern if we are as open against Gladbach as we were tonight. Shocking 

[Vesper 30,195]

Roman was there

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

tbf of the goals conceded only one was from open play which was indeed a cascading of errors. We defended corners poorly. Also our attacking set pieces were absolute rubbish. 

We kept giving away the ball easily under their relentless pressing, just too many errors. But they were a much fitter, sharper team. Their 23 shots were inflated because they literally shot from any distance into the stands. They never outplayed us and our tackling was quite ok. Yes there are worryign signs but we should not fail to see the promise in this performance. WE dismantled an average European side quite easily with our best 3 players missing. Whenever we managed to play out from the back or launched those deadly diagonals we looked deadly. There was such beautiful, elegant directness about our play I have not seen for a long long time. There will be painful moths ahead but if we get through them I think we are gonna see spectacular football next year. 

[Vesper 30,195]