closed Man United 0-0 Chelsea

[Atomiswave 6,072]

1 hour ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply before heading off.

Yes, I've seen countless cases of poor decisions being made against sides of every stature. It's about the conclusions to be drawn from that evidence however. Personally, I have always dismissed the idea that there was anything other than error involved but Saturday's incident made me pause. It is very, very hard to see how an honest viewing of the VAR replays can have reached any conclusion other than to award a penalty. So, what's to be made of this? You have a very wide ranging list of culprits there.

I'm not saying that I believe this because without actual evidence I don't believe anything, but an individual in the pay of a betting cabal is a circumstance we could all understand. Someone who has been got at, or who can't resist the money to be made is the kind of thing which we know happens. Even if we didn't know it, we could still imagine it. An individual sitting in front of a TV monitor making bent decisions, and being backed by another person higher up giving him cover does not come under my definition of powerful or corrupt however. It's just a criminal activity. On the other hand, The FA does come under that heading so, if true, its involvement would indeed be corrupt. I have to tell you though that I think accusations of their involvement should be filed under crackpot conspiracy theory.

One problem with conspiracy theories is that they always imagine the conspirators to be way more competent than they could ever be in real life. A group of individuals might decide to line their pockets but for the FA to do so as an organisation would involve the knowledge of dozens if not hundreds of people. It would leak. It always does. Trump is a criminal backed by entire organs of the state which are complicit yet his crimes still get exposed. The FA's power by comparison is tin-pot. If they did this we'd know about it sooner rather than later.

In any case, what does the FA as an organisation gain from this behaviour? Money? It would have to be huge amounts to justify the risks and how would they hide so much loot? Any attempt to hide it would have to involve something like fake sponsorships which are really funded by the betting rings. More people in the know, more money chains more certainty of eventual exposure.

Until I see evidence, and supposition is not evidence of course, I will continue to dismiss these allegations. I think we all should. 

Well said, on the topic of sponsors: This doesn’t change the fact the league is inevitably going to be corrupt because there are huge sponsors who need to be kept happy. There are worldwide TV rights at stake, including huge markets such as China and the USA as well as money from other Middle Eastern states such as Qatar). There are also TV rights for Saudi Arabia themselves, with the country being one of the richest on the planet. But the biggest thing for the Premier League, who market themselves as the best league in the world, is the image. For me personnely its clear the league is bent. For how long must we say the refs are bad, how incompenet can you become before your replaced? None of that is happening. Theres not 1 rule, no consistency at all and blatant BS gets swept under the carpet. Udt last season were pushed to get CL, by one BS pen after the other.

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3 hours ago, communicate said:

I am quite confused with people who criticize our midfield. They weren't great but they were fine.

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1 hour ago, NikkiCFC said:

I think mistakes happen due to some refs refereeing favorite teams and due to incompetence. 

If we had challenge like they do it in tennis, NBA, Atkinson would have to go to the monitor and he would 100% give the penalty.

The first sentence is an understatement.

Had it been the other way round, the penalty would have been given immediately.

Instead, no penalty was given, there was no VAR check, there were barely any TV replays until much later on and VAR checked the subsequent challenge from Silva (IIRC) on Rashford god knows how many times after that.

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, kellzfresh said:

Our progression of the ball only coming from the fullbacks is making our attack predictable. We have to find a way to make the midfield contribute to forward movement

The midfield was so deep, one of the front 3 played deeper and there was barely any passing attempt from midfield to the front but the midfield is fine apparently...

[Fulham Broadway 16,408]

3 hours ago, Atomiswave said:

Well said, on the topic of sponsors: This doesn’t change the fact the league is inevitably going to be corrupt because there are huge sponsors who need to be kept happy. There are worldwide TV rights at stake, including huge markets such as China and the USA as well as money from other Middle Eastern states such as Qatar). There are also TV rights for Saudi Arabia themselves, with the country being one of the richest on the planet. But the biggest thing for the Premier League, who market themselves as the best league in the world, is the image. For me personnely its clear the league is bent. For how long must we say the refs are bad, how incompenet can you become before your replaced? None of that is happening. Theres not 1 rule, no consistency at all and blatant BS gets swept under the carpet. Udt last season were pushed to get CL, by one BS pen after the other.

There was that Secret Life of a Footballer serialised in the Guardian. A Premier League player. He alluded to betting cartels in Asia that determine results on the macro scale, that the FA, Premier League, UEFA would never reveal as that would shaft their revenue big time, and as you said tarnish the image.  At team level he said it was so common for players to test positive for cocaine - the clubs always deal with it 'in house' (Mutu an exception), they fine the player usually about two weeks wages, suspend often for a couple of games - then put out a press release about a pulled hamstring/groin strain etc

Remember Fowlers goal celebration

 

[kellzfresh 7,226]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

The midfield was so deep, one of the front 3 played deeper and there was barely any passing attempt from midfield to the front but the midfield is fine apparently...

No matter how many times Werner or Pulisic made runs, the midfield never attempted to pass the ball in behind to them. Fabregas would get 20 EPL assists with Werner and Pulisic easily.

[Vesper 27,341]

19 minutes ago, kellzfresh said:

No matter how many times Werner or Pulisic made runs, the midfield never attempted to pass the ball in behind to them. Fabregas would get 20 EPL assists with Werner and Pulisic easily.

losing Fabregas has, over multiple years now, so fucked us

if only he had been 5 years younger when he got him

he was a fucking wizard of a passer

we so so so do not have that

we have Kante and Zouma who cant even get the ball onto the next person with a decent short pass

Havertz REALLY needs to step up with his passing

but even more so

Ziyech

he has insane passing ability

ad has simply hot showed it yet, other than the pre injury

[Jase 43,479]

7 minutes ago, kellzfresh said:

No matter how many times Werner or Pulisic made runs, the midfield never attempted to pass the ball in behind to them. Fabregas would get 20 EPL assists with Werner and Pulisic easily.

Exactly and unless teams sit off us, our midfield doesn't control games, doesn't dominate games enough to allow our attacking players to shine properly. 

[Muzchap 8,966]

6 hours ago, MoroccanBlue said:

All that is anecdotal. Not tangible. 

I truly believe refs in England are just shit. There's a reason they don't go to world cups any more. 

Issuing 3 yellow cards didn't help 🤣

 

[Muzchap 8,966]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

There was that Secret Life of a Footballer serialised in the Guardian. A Premier League player. He alluded to betting cartels in Asia that determine results on the macro scale, that the FA, Premier League, UEFA would never reveal as that would shaft their revenue big time, and as you said tarnish the image.  At team level he said it was so common for players to test positive for cocaine - the clubs always deal with it 'in house' (Mutu an exception), they fine the player usually about two weeks wages, suspend often for a couple of games - then put out a press release about a pulled hamstring/groin strain etc

Remember Fowlers goal celebration

 

So Pulisic loves the Bolivian powder then 🤔

[communicate 2,703]

6 hours ago, Jason said:

The midfield was so deep, one of the front 3 played deeper and there was barely any passing attempt from midfield to the front but the midfield is fine apparently...

Do you have the passing map for our play under Conte? 

I'll be surprised if our passing map is not similar as above unless cesc is playing. 

 

[Strike 6,965]

8 hours ago, Vesper said:

losing Fabregas has, over multiple years now, so fucked us

if only he had been 5 years younger when he got him

he was a fucking wizard of a passer

we so so so do not have that

we have Kante and Zouma who cant even get the ball onto the next person with a decent short pass

Havertz REALLY needs to step up with his passing

but even more so

Ziyech

he has insane passing ability

ad has simply hot showed it yet, other than the pre injury

Re: Ziyech. Think cameos don't mean much . Needs to play the Krasnodar game to see him and his passing game

[Jase 43,479]

3 hours ago, communicate said:

Do you have the passing map for our play under Conte? 

I'll be surprised if our passing map is not similar as above unless cesc is playing. 

I don't have the passing map but you're kidding yourself if you think it's similar to without Fabregas back then when (a) Conte is known to instill patterns of play into his team, (b) Fabregas was not even favored initially by Conte and (c) we played some of our best football under Conte and Fabregas didn't even play in some of them (e.g. Fabregas not playing half of our 13-game winning run in 2016/17). The midfield back then was not perfect of course but passing forward or creativity wasn't really an issue compared to now. And in some ways, I guess we're seeing now the difference between a manager who really instills patterns of play into the team and one who doesn't really do that. One has a proper team structure while another doesn't.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

9 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

There was that Secret Life of a Footballer serialised in the Guardian. A Premier League player. He alluded to betting cartels in Asia that determine results on the macro scale, that the FA, Premier League, UEFA would never reveal as that would shaft their revenue big time, and as you said tarnish the image.  At team level he said it was so common for players to test positive for cocaine - the clubs always deal with it 'in house' (Mutu an exception), they fine the player usually about two weeks wages, suspend often for a couple of games - then put out a press release about a pulled hamstring/groin strain etc

Remember Fowlers goal celebration

 

Didnt know that actually, will have a look later today thanks. Doesnt surprise me at all mate.

[Jase 43,479]

This article is about Kante but it also highlights our problem in midfield...

https://theathletic.com/2161142/2020/10/26/ngolo-kante-chelsea-frank-lampard/?source=emp_shared_article

Quote

The first six weeks of Chelsea’s season have been a decidedly mixed bag at both ends of the pitch, but there is one number that looks unequivocally positive for Frank Lampard: 532. That’s how many Premier League minutes N’Golo Kante has played — more than anyone else in the squad — having missed just eight minutes of action across the first six games.

It’s too soon to tell whether the most injury-hit stretch of Kante’s career is truly behind him, but any return to something like his old durability has the potential to make the Frenchman a more impactful addition than any of Chelsea’s headline-grabbing new signings in the last transfer window. For that to be the case, though, Lampard also needs to figure out the best way to maximise the talents of his most proven elite performer within the broader tactical system, and it’s clear that process is still ongoing.

The concept that beguiled Lampard after the Premier League restart — that of Kante as Claude Makelele 2.0, shielding and playmaking as the deepest of three midfielders instead of Jorginho — has been shelved. Now the two men are increasingly playing together at the base of a 4-2-3-1 formation designed to get the best out of Kai Havertz, as well as Chelsea’s myriad of formidable attacking weapons. Results and performances with it have been inconsistent, and a stable balance between defence and attack has remained elusive.

Kante is part of the reason why. He has played his best football for Leicester City and Chelsea in a more traditional midfield pairing, but the responsibilities of the two players in a double pivot are different. There is considerably less scope to roam far and wide to break up opposition moves, even when pressing, because the structural integrity of the team is at stake; get it wrong and you end up conceding farcical counter-attacking opportunities when your entire midfield is bypassed, as Lampard found against Southampton.

It’s an adjustment for the man whose performances marked him out for much of his Premier League career as the best seek-and-destroy midfielder in world football. Kante is being asked to concentrate his influence over a smaller area of the pitch, and one early consequence of that shift in emphasis seems to be that his attacking contributions — always a relatively marginal element of his game — have totally dried up.

Kante has taken one shot in Chelsea’s first six Premier League games, against Crystal Palace earlier this month, having averaged at least 0.77 attempts per 90 minutes in each of his previous four seasons. He has also played no key passes, another category in which he had been steadily trending upward since moving to Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2016. Overall, his shot-creating actions — attacking actions that lead directly to a shot attempt — per 90 minutes so far in 2020-21 is just 0.85, having been comfortably above 2.0 in each of the previous three campaigns:

N'Golo Kante's attacking drop-off

	SHOTS/90	KEY PASSES/90	SHOT-CREATING ACTIONS/90
2016-17	0.77	0.63	N/A
2017-18	0.78	1.23	2.34
2018-19	0.84	1.34	2.62
2019-20	0.94	1.4	2.65
2020-21	0.17	0	0.85

The first six Premier League matches of this season clearly constitute a dangerously small sample size, so it’s wise to treat any slight trends with caution. But this isn’t a slight trend; Kante’s attacking contributions haven’t simply become less frequent, they have been almost entirely eliminated from his performances. Given the sheer variety of players better equipped to impact the final third that Lampard can now choose from, it’s fair to argue that asking the Frenchman to focus on the defensive side is a sensible move.

We have seen the theory of this midfield in recent Chelsea history. Six years ago Jose Mourinho built his third Premier League title-winning side on the midfield axis of Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas: a dominant destroyer paired with a prolifically progressive passer. It worked brilliantly for a season until Matic found the defensive workload overwhelming and his confidence crumbled, along with every other part of that team.

Kante has the intelligence and mobility to adapt to the Matic role, even if he can’t offer the same physicality. Jorginho is a different kind of midfield conductor to Fabregas and, unlike the Spaniard, cannot claim to be one of the most gifted creators of his generation, though both men possess similar defensive shortcomings that place greater demands on the players around them. The key question is whether the Kante-Jorginho axis has enough to consistently get the ball to Chelsea’s attackers in advantageous positions.

An underrated part of Matic’s game, particularly in the prime of his Chelsea career, was his ability to pick out short, sharp forward passes to the feet of his more advanced team-mates — a legacy of the fact that he actually began his professional career at Kosice as a No 10. Even in his three full seasons at Manchester United, the average progressive distance of the Serbian’s passes (the total distance that completed passes travel towards the opposing goal) compares favourably to that of Kante:

Average progressive passing distance

	NEMANJA MATIC	N'GOLO KANTE
2017-18	339.2 yards	243.2 yards
2018-19	289.3 yards	186.1 yards
2019-20	289.3 yards	217.1 yards

The average progressive distance of Kante’s passes in Chelsea’s first six Premier League matches this season is just 171 yards per 90 minutes and, while there is plenty of time for that figure to get closer to what he has done in previous campaigns, it does fit the broader idea of the Frenchman’s more defensive focus. That means the burden of ball progression falls more heavily on Jorginho, who has looked pretty good by this metric in recent seasons:

Jorginho's progressive passing

	PROGRESSIVE DISTANCE/90	PROGRESSIVE PASSES/90
2017-18	471.6 yards	11.2
2018-19	392.3 yards	9.03
2019-20	345.0 yards	7.16

Jorginho’s average progressive distance from passes so far this season is just 248.8 yards per 90 minutes, which might help explain why there have been fairly significant stretches of games when Chelsea seem unable to get the ball to Havertz and their front three in positions to do real damage. That has been particularly noticeable in the last two games against Sevilla and United which, while ending in welcome clean sheets, also yielded the two worst Expected Goals (xG) ratings of the Lampard era: 0.36, then 0.22.

If the Kante-Jorginho axis continues to struggle to progress the ball to Chelsea’s attackers, Lampard has a talented alternative. Mateo Kovacic — voted last season’s Player of the Year by fans — has been the major casualty of this season’s shift to 4-2-3-1, but possesses qualities that make him particularly well suited to addressing this particular problem. As well as being arguably the best ball-carrying central midfielder in world football, the average progressive distance of his passes also stands up well:

Kovacic's progressive passing

	PROGRESSIVE DISTANCE/90	PROGRESSIVE PASSES/90
2017-18	298.5 yards	5.82
2018-19	266.0 yards	5.18
2019-20	345.6 yards	7.43

Kante’s more defensive focus makes it more likely that Kovacic would replace Jorginho in Lampard’s 4-2-3-1 system. That pairing certainly projects as having more mobility and dynamism without being any more vulnerable defensively, though it is worth pointing out that we have only seen the Kante-Kovacic midfield axis for 45 minutes this season — 45 minutes which West Brom won 3-0 before Chelsea’s second-half comeback.

Getting the midfield balance right looks increasingly like Lampard’s next big challenge, and there might not be a perfect solution with the personnel he has; the full Maurizio Sarri midfield of Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante is not realistic as long as giving Havertz minutes as a No 10 remains a priority.

Kante’s return to consistent availability is a hugely encouraging starting point, and asking him to focus on his defensive contributions in a team with so much attacking firepower is logical — but Chelsea still need to figure out the best lines of midfield supply if Lampard is to feel the benefit of his new weapons.

 

[communicate 2,703]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

I don't have the passing map but you're kidding yourself if you think it's similar to without Fabregas back then when (a) Conte is known to instill patterns of play into his team, (b) Fabregas was not even favored initially by Conte and (c) we played some of our best football under Conte and Fabregas didn't even play in some of them (e.g. Fabregas not playing half of our 13-game winning run in 2016/17). The midfield back then was not perfect of course but passing forward or creativity wasn't really an issue compared to now. And in some ways, I guess we're seeing now the difference between a manager who really instills patterns of play into the team and one who doesn't really do that. One has a proper team structure while another doesn't.

You are absolutely right saying that Conte has more pattern of play whereas Lamp more of let player figure it out by themselves. 

My point before here was on that passing map, in 343,the main way to progress in thay system is through your two wide cb and your wb, they are your freeman. Usually your two cm will be pressed by opp midfield or am, so it is difficult to progress the ball, you play only two midfield for a reason. Of course if one of your cm is Fabregas who is wc passer he can still progress the ball.

In our current situation we can bring kova who can dribble past player for jorgi and it will help the situation but in that game my bigger concern in on the front 3. They probably will eventually figure it out but right now it is not really working. 

 

 

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, communicate said:

You are absolutely right saying that Conte has more pattern of play whereas Lamp more of let player figure it out by themselves. 

My point before here was on that passing map, in 343,the main way to progress in thay system is through your two wide cb and your wb, they are your freeman. Usually your two cm will be pressed by opp midfield or am, so it is difficult to progress the ball, you play only two midfield for a reason. Of course if one of your cm is Fabregas who is wc passer he can still progress the ball.

In our current situation we can bring kova who can dribble past player for jorgi and it will help the situation but in that game my bigger concern in on the front 3. They probably will eventually figure it out but right now it is not really working. 

Just because the midfield may get pressed, it doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't play forward passes. We have played 4-2-3-1 countless of times under past managers and 3-4-3 in the past, both with just the two in midfield and I don't think it was as dysfunctional as it is now. 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

Yeah im not fond of this structure either, you must be a unit all over the pitch, this individuelism upfront wont cut it cuz we are far from being that effective. I had hoped that we would be further ahead in our progress but we are pretty far from it.