closed Lille 1-2 Chelsea

[Jase 43,479]

Just now, LAM09 said:

First part is right; we should be winning all our home games.

Putting Lampard's first CL game aside.

Yeah well, I don't think we can take anything for granted these days. We make any supposedly easy game look like the hardest one in the world. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

Lille was a diffcult opponent.
They will be dangerous at the bridge too.
 

[Vesper 30,184]

3 minutes ago, Stats said:

Zouma done well. Especially when you consider the amount of flack our own fans have been given him. Won majority of his aerial duels and also put in an excellent slide tackle.

he still is a heart-stopper with his passing

its like rolling the dice in a Tower Hamlets dodgy club

sooner or later you are going get stuck

[Vesper 30,184]

7 minutes ago, Tomo said:

I do like how natural we look playing out from the back and it was (alongside RLC development) the best thing Sarri did for us. Yes with such a high risk strategy we will occasionally cock up like Kepa did late on (and made amends) but in general we look very natural at it, compared to Arsenal for example who look lost at sea when playing out.

that makes sense, save for the fact that none of our 3 CB's were CB's with Sarri (Azpi) or not even on the team then (Tomori and Zouma)

[Superblue 6,372]

That was a massive win tonight. So many players making their first away trip in the Champions League with a pretty intimidating atmosphere, I thought we did a good job.

Take away the last 5 minutes of nerves at the end, and Tomori was once again outstanding. I really hope Rudiger gets back to full fitness soon because I'd love to see what these two are like with a run of games because the potential could be there to make an excellent pairing.

Tammy again too continues to develop. Took his goal superbly, but his all round play continues to improve and he always puts a real shift in for the team.

And for all the moaning about some of the players I thought the experienced players stepped up in the second half when they needed to. Willian's goal was a fantastic strike, Azpilicueta and Alonso I felt defended more solid when we reverted to a back 4 and Zouma too won everything in the air when Lille tried pressing in the last 15 minutes. 

Very pleasing all round, and let the positive momentum continue...

[LAM09 7,056]

Yeah well, I don't think we can take anything for granted these days. We make any supposedly easy game look like the hardest one in the world. 

Slight changes would do wonders. Man marking and we aren't sweating till the 80+ min.

Lampard needs to adapt

[1905didierblue 748]

LGood team performance. Away nights in CL are always tough no matter who you are playing. And this win for the young lads is something massive.

Kepa - 10, what a performanxe. Couple of good saves and those positional saves at the end were just Immense. Motm for me. 

Tomori - 7, well he was a 9 for me until the 80th minute. The last 10 were nightmarish. Still got to say, brilliant from the lad. With kids, there will be mistakes, today it did not cost us, tomorrow it might, does not change the fact that he has been outstanding so far.

Zouma - 8, thought it was a weird selection playing zouma in the sweeper role. That is tailor made for Andreas. Perhaps he is not fully fit since the pool injury and lamps did not want to risk. Never the less solid performance. Important to see how much his on the ball game is improving. Definitely put in the hard work in training.

Azpi - 8, good solid performance. 

Alonso -6, got into some really good positions but its so irritating to see him pull the ball back in his typical weird fashion rather than cross it in. Defensively a decent game, but given that he is majorly played as an offensive threat, and the time and space he is normally offered there is literally no end product. 

Reece - 6, started so poorly. The first 30 minutes, really had a stinker. I am a fan, so was very excited seeing him but I can understand why. Still, a big night. And most importantly improved after the yellow. His crosses were gems. I have no doubt he will have 10 times a better night than today.

Kante - 9,brilliant as always. Interesting to see how much his offensive play has improved.

Jorginho - 7, solid. Not as good as Brighton but still a good performance. 

Mount - 7, you could instantly see how much more of a threat he becomes when he plays as a 10. That touch and turn towards the end was beautiful. Sad that he could not get a good shot. Should have scored. Industrious as always, and with CHO coming back, I hope we play 4-2-3-1 with mount central. 

Willian - 7, as usual surprised to see the OTT comments from people on here, but what else is new. Had a good solid game and got the winner. Should shut up the haters for a while I hope.

Tammy - 8, brilliant link up play, brilliant hold up play, brilliantly taken Goal. What more do u want from a striker. Absolute gem.

CHo - 8, we all knew his talent. Now we can see it. Should start this weekend. Will be a phenom. 

Pedro - 4, let Renato run into dangerous area, gave the ball away every time he touched. 

Lampard - we all knew lille's strengths. Good way to counter it with 3-4-3, pro-actively changing to 4-2-3-1 for the win and then a 4-3-3 to shut up shop. Only issue I have is when both of our mids are way up the field when playing a pivot. Atleast one has to be behind the ball. Needs to be addressed as I feel going forward 4-2-3-1 is our best formation.

Lastly, to end on a negative note. What the fuck is going on with set pieces. Why are we so so poor at both the ends. Seriously needs sorting. Even if it means dropping the zonal as it's clearly not working.

[Tomo 21,751]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

that makes sense, save for the fact that none of our 3 CB's were CB's with Sarri (Azpi) or not even on the team then (Tomori and Zouma)

It's more than just who the defenders are but the whole positioning of the team. There seems to be a lot of options and avenues for our players to exploit playing out to the point not even Zouma is being totally exposed in that area.

[hiterto 37]

Frightfully Happy to get our first CL win this season. However I was not happy overall:

 

1) We need to deal with set pieces, something has to change

2) Our back three made too many errors for the well being of my health

3) Kante was well below par today, and I am unable to judge Reece James from today's performance, I have high hopes

4) We need to start with CHO every game, period, no execptions. Like Hazard he changes games. Can't wait to have RLC, CHO and Mount in the same team

Lastly I honestly think our Academy players are worth over $200M, they are all so amazing

 

Happy time to have beer...............Cheers

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

Ecstatic about the win. Wednesday night in rainy Flanders, this was never gonna be pretty. After a great opener and once again a frustrating corner goal conceded, the game was growing increasingly flat as usually 90% of halftime draws in these kind of constellations remain as such in fulltime. But Lampard said "I am not having this" and made the proactive match-winning substitution. We needed a result and grinded one out. This is the mark of top teams.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

that makes sense, save for the fact that none of our 3 CB's were CB's with Sarri (Azpi) or not even on the team then (Tomori and Zouma)

A lot of the triggers and passing sequences in our own half look very like how we played under Sarri and also Conte at times.

I think the groundwork for Sarri was already there in a way because of how we played out under Conte despite using a different formation and again now for Frank because of how we continued to play out under Sarri. Even times when we play with a back 4, a lot of our football from the goalkicks and getting through teams in our own half is stuff we definitely seen under Sarri. Especially on the right hand side with Azpi, Kante and also Jorginho combining with one or two touch passing. 

[the wes 7,212]

Rio Ferdinand and Glenn Hoddle have blamed zonal marking for Victor Osimhen equaliser for Lille against Chelsea

https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/news/ferdinand-issue-chelsea-zonal-marking-17022486

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

Almost shoot ourselves in the foot with those individual errors (Kepa, Tomori), but in the end this is the beauty of this season really, if there is a time where mistakes are, let's say, accepted, it's this now, this very season of transition where 19 at 20 year olds get to play regular football for one of world's biggest clubs in both PL and CL. 

Talk about slowly introducing youngsters in the team, Lamps having none of that, it's so easy to enjoy this current Chelsea, I'm hoping some day during next spring all of CHO, RLC, James, Tammy, Mount, Tomori are on the teamsheet at the same time. 

[communicate 2,703]

How did Reece James play? 

Playing as wb usually suit attacking rb. 

[Atomiswave 6,117]

We are simply early in shifting gears.....it will come around nicely. Once we are more settled and have a full power team at the ready only then will we see our true potential....right now we are merely getting used to handling a racer car. Abolish zonal and set piece issues and we wont concede half the goals.

[Tomo 21,751]

3 hours ago, Atomiswave said:

We are simply early in shifting gears.....it will come around nicely. Once we are more settled and have a full power team at the ready only then will we see our true potential....right now we are merely getting used to handling a racer car. Abolish zonal and set piece issues and we wont concede half the goals.

I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as going man to man and everything will be fine, we have a small team with a keeper who is hesitant to claim high balls, that combination is always going to cause issues zonal/man to man/whatever. Infact I think statically zonal marking actually has lower goal and chance concession rates than man to man (it's only when it goes wrong with zonal it gets more attention hence people assuming otherwise) so if that trend continues here switching to man to man will only make things worse.

If we want to truly improve our set piece woes we have to work on not conceding them in the first place.

[manpe 10,861]

18 minutes ago, Tomo said:

If we want to truly improve our set piece woes we have to work on not conceding them in the first place.

Impossible, they are inevitably conceded every game several times. It's not a solution, a solution would be to defend set-pieces properly. I've heard that learning to defend zonal is harder than man-to-man, but yields greater rewards once mastered...so I'm willing to give them time to improve on that.

[bigbluewillie 1,930]

21 minutes ago, manpe said:

Impossible, they are inevitably conceded every game several times. It's not a solution, a solution would be to defend set-pieces properly. I've heard that learning to defend zonal is harder than man-to-man, but yields greater rewards once mastered...so I'm willing to give them time to improve on that.

God i hope you're right.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

56 minutes ago, Tomo said:

I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as going man to man and everything will be fine, we have a small team with a keeper who is hesitant to claim high balls, that combination is always going to cause issues zonal/man to man/whatever. Infact I think statically zonal marking actually has lower goal and chance concession rates than man to man (it's only when it goes wrong with zonal it gets more attention hence people assuming otherwise) so if that trend continues here switching to man to man will only make things worse.

If we want to truly improve our set piece woes we have to work on not conceding them in the first place.

Mixing zonal with man-to-man is for me the solution. For example, have 3-4 players standing on 4-5 yards from the near, far post and in the middle of the 6 yard area. Other players (even the smaller ones) should man mark opponents and try to make it more difficult for them to move towards the ball and leap. 

The biggest problem with strictly zonal marking is the fact defenders are jumping from a standing position whilst an attacking player is free to have a little run towards the ball and leap. Anyone who played at least semi-serious football knows how big of an advantage in aerial duels this is. 

[manpe 10,861]

1 hour ago, Bosnian Blue said:

The biggest problem with strictly zonal marking is the fact defenders are jumping from a standing position whilst an attacking player is free to have a little run towards the ball and leap.

Yep and yesterday was a prime example. Zouma and Tomori(?) got burnt badly because they didn't get any leap like the attacker.