closed Aston Villa 1-2 Chelsea

[Vesper 30,181]

5 minutes ago, Bosnian Blue said:

Nobody will get into this team before N'golo Kante, was absolutely outstanding again. If only we had a decent centre-back this team would be miles more solid defensively. I think every CB dreams of having Kante in front him shielding the back 4.

Christensen is trash, and Rüdiger is just mentally not at the level needed. 

all these people (including you) must have watched a different game

Kante was competent but no more

he offers very little creativity in that regista spot, 

the tempo was so slow until Pulisic and Barkely came in

he just is not a great passer nor a player who bends the play to his will

sure, he was fine defensively but look at what he was playing against

he gave away a lot of fouls as well

[communicate 2,703]

4 minutes ago, Vesper said:

because he affected the play more in the 2nd half

it wasn't like Kante had to shut down an offensive juggernaut

 

Pulisic came on and score. He did change the game but not because he played very2 well but because he replaced (i have no freaking clue why Lamp??) Ruben who was understandably very2 poor. If Ruben is your best player sure but he is not. I don't understand Lamp sometimes. 

Kante pretty much allow us to completely dominate the game by winning ball after ball. Villa barely threatened us except through long ball and set pieces. 

 

[Vesper 30,181]

4 minutes ago, communicate said:

Pulisic came on and score. He did change the game but not because he played very2 well but because he replaced (i have no freaking clue why Lamp??) Ruben who was understandably very2 poor. If Ruben is your best player sure but he is not. I don't understand Lamp sometimes. 

Kante pretty much allow us to completely dominate the game by winning ball after ball. Villa barely threatened us except through long ball and set pieces. 

 

he had 1 interception and 5 fouls

2 tackles

he did not

Quote

 

Kante pretty much allow us to completely dominate the game by winning ball after ball.

 

like I said, people must have watched a different game than I did

[Vesper 30,181]

In 2016/17 and 2017/18, Kante made an average of 3.6 and 3.3 tackles per league game

Kante also averaged 2.4 and 2.5 interceptions per league game

 

this was the game today

[BXL70 396]

It was difficult but we deserved the 3 points.

[BXL70 396]

Christian Pulisic is a goal machine. He is only 21 and it is his first year in PL.

[Tomo 21,751]

38 minutes ago, Vesper said:

all these people (including you) must have watched a different game

Kante was competent but no more

he offers very little creativity in that regista spot, 

the tempo was so slow until Pulisic and Barkely came in

he just is not a great passer nor a player who bends the play to his will

sure, he was fine defensively but look at what he was playing against

he gave away a lot of fouls as well

I think he played a lot better after we took the lead, which kind off backs up the point I've been making for some time that he's good for when the games end to end but not so much when the games Infront of us.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,075]

57 minutes ago, Alabama said:

This game shows the class and quality of Christian Pulisic....

Criminal he is massively underrated here.. looking up to 

Pulisic Werner Ziyech next season  against big teams away from home even if Havertz is added to the squad...

All four with Werner & Havertz playing the roles of Henry & Berkamp from the Wenger glory years. Two strikers; one part winger, part centre-forward and the other part second striker, part playmaker. Don't think the two Germans are quite in the same league, but I can see similarities in the way they might be deployed.

[Jase 43,479]

Gotta say, these Zoom Press Conferences are weird to see. Almost as if you and the manager are staring into each other's soul.  

 

[killer1257 3,282]

Gotta say, these Zoom Press Conferences are weird to see. Almost as if you and the manager are staring into each other's soul. [emoji38] 
 

At least I can understand their questions...
You could never hear what the question was

Gesendet von meinem VOG-L29 mit Tapatalk

[Jase 43,479]

 

[LAM09 7,056]

Celebrate all you can for the next 2-3 days because it'll be down to 2 again after Thursday. [emoji185]

Forever optimistic [emoji1]

[Fernando 6,585]

5 hours ago, Tomo said:

I think he played a lot better after we took the lead, which kind off backs up the point I've been making for some time that he's good for when the games end to end but not so much when the games Infront of us.

He will be a great sub then to hold in the result if we end up having 3 midfielders that don't include kante. 

Because of this or makes me wonder if it's better to keep him then sell. We always need depth. 

[Judy 52]

7 hours ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Hopefully the kills the Havertz rumor and we use those funds for a top CB. 

No thanks, imagine missing the only chance to sign a player like him and instead go for a CB who will be hit or miss.

I hope we go all out for Havertz, if anything I hope today shows Ruben is no where near his quality.

[communicate 2,703]

8 hours ago, Jason said:

Perhaps I am just being too fancy here but given Werner's versatility and others', we can try playing him upfront and create a fluid front 3/4. Werner starts as ST, drifts to the left > Pulisic from the LW, drifts into the space vacated or the No.10 charges into the space vacated by Werner and Pulisic drifts to the No.10 area etc. Am sure Lampard would experiment and/or play him there once in a while, going by his comments on Friday. 

L I think we had this discussion before regarding Pulisic, essentially you can't ask player to be good at everything. So super fluid tactic is very 2 difficult to implement unless you have complete player everywhere.

With Werner you can ask him to occasionally drop but he need to spend the majority of his time running behind otherwise if you ask him to play almost like firmino he will struggle big time. 

Of course there is an option of creating system that rely on central striker running behind but essentially we are building our team around Werner, he is good but he is not that good. 

[Jase 43,479]

3 hours ago, communicate said:

L I think we had this discussion before regarding Pulisic, essentially you can't ask player to be good at everything. So super fluid tactic is very 2 difficult to implement unless you have complete player everywhere.

With Werner you can ask him to occasionally drop but he need to spend the majority of his time running behind otherwise if you ask him to play almost like firmino he will struggle big time. 

Of course there is an option of creating system that rely on central striker running behind but essentially we are building our team around Werner, he is good but he is not that good. 

It is not a case of building a team around Werner but finding different ways to play when the lineup is different. How then would you line up and play when Lampard plays Werner upfront? 

[coolhead23 1,147]

3 points! Sigh of relief! Was the first reaction once the game was completed. 

Rusty which was obvious however there are still quite a few issues which still needs to be filled. And part of the solution are the new recuirts which will join from next season however we need to find a temp solution so that we maintain our positions.

Our gameplay was smooth, transistion was fluid till the final half. Didnt drop our shoulders after going behind. Subs were timely and had a huge impact on the game. Pulisic looked sharp which was a good to see. RLC was rusty but good to have him back. Felt Kante played more as a CDM which was great because that is the best place for him and he has still loads to offer in that position. 

Final third performance is an issue which has to be rectified less we will keep ending up like the first half. Attack only came from right side for majority of the game it was only irony that the goal came when we strenghten the left side. Defence is still dicey, cant blame Kepa yest but where was the defence to guard the goal. Set piece remains an issue while defending but even in attack it is not strong. Would have started with Pedro (not sure if he is injured) rather than Willian. 
 

All in all 3 points, would run with it specially when the others failed around us. Next game would be a strong one against City ... we would need to atleast improve our final third performance to score goals and put City in some pressure. 

[Jase 43,479]

 

[communicate 2,703]

9 hours ago, Jason said:

It is not a case of building a team around Werner but finding different ways to play when the lineup is different. How then would you line up and play when Lampard plays Werner upfront? 

I am not so sure because of Ziyech and Ruben. If Ruben came back healthy , probably him as no 10,cho from the left wing to help with keeping the ball and to feed Werner, Ziyech on the right maybe (i have never watched dutch league so we'll see) . Not sure it will work, defensively it is atrocious, it does put pressure on Ruben to be the physical force up top. 

Forget to add if you watch yesterday's game ,  in Lamp system his left wing play narrow  high  more like a forward which suit Werner, you can watch where willian get the ball compare to Puli. 

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

I rewatched the goal conceded a few times and i noticed that it was probably a fucked up offside trap (actually rüdiger fucked up the trap), which is why the players were so far away from the villa guys and stopped moving altogether because they were somewhat disjointed. clearly not well enough re-hearsed but also looked like a chain of individual errors not to close down the rebound, everybody was simply ball watching. I dont think we will concede such a stupid goal again with so many errors but it really does not bode well for our set piece routines.

Also for that late chance were Kortney Hause has almost a free header, there was simply no one picking him up. Some of our players were simply marking no one, including both Rüdiger and AC. We were lucky cos Giroud somehow managed to grip both their CB's shirts (which would have been a penalty in bundesliga) so Hause blasted the header over.

 

So, even rusty individual errors aside there are still lots of positioning and communication problems when defending set pieces: i would really like us to hire a specialist defensive coach for this. It really should not be a big deal but our current coaching team has not managed to iron it out somaybe someone else should take care of it as it is something you can train on an isolated basis.