Not a kneejerk reaction, Luis is quite obviously more dangerous going forward than Dave if for no other reason than the fact he's actually left footed and gives us some proper width, especially considering Hazard on the left already is cutting inside all the time.

 

As for Drogba he has been excellent in nearly every game he has played. I'm not saying he should necessarily start in place of Costa, but perhaps we should look at him starting in place of Willian and playing 2 up top.

 

Against teams who will look to have a greater share of possession obviously playing 2 up top isn't a viable option and Dave is probably still the best 1 on 1 defender in the premier league, but against the other 15 odd teams in the league this should at least be trialed.

 

Anyone else share my sentiments?

Bit patronising to call someone a smaller team when they've just beaten us 2-1.

Hazard needs a rocket up his arse also, he's not quite the finished product yet.

Bit patronising to call someone a smaller team when they've just beaten us 2-1.

 

Well "teams with lower ambitions" or "teams that are likely to pack 10 men on the edge of the box" seemed a bit too long for the title and I assumed that people would understand the type of fixture i'm referring too.

 

I guess it went over your head.

I think we need to rotate more in genearly. If you can trust schurrle to come on and try win us the game, you can trust him start.

Hazard, fabregas, Oscar, and cahill could really do with a breather. I think Jose was hoping they could keep going another week, and then rest them against derby and sporting, but it hasn't gone that way and we've dropped 5 points in 7 days.

Luis has to start more in general really. 

 

Same with drogba. Newcastle might not be to the level of some of the better teams there but he has a knock for doing well/scoring in big moments & times where we desperately need something

Next league game I think we should go with something along these lines:

 

                 Courtois

 

Dave - Zouma - JT - Luis

 

           Ramires - Matic

 

Shurrle        Oscar       Hazard

                

                  Costa

 

The other option is maybe to bring in Remy instead of Shurrle and make him and Costa work off each other, whil Oscar drifts more to the right.

Edited December 6, 201411 yr by Plavi26

Well "teams with lower ambitions" or "teams that are likely to pack 10 men on the edge of the box" seemed a bit too long for the title and I assumed that people would understand the type of fixture i'm referring too.

 

I guess it went over your head.

Go over my head no mate you patronising prick

Go over my head no mate you patronising prick

 

So if it didn't go over your head you fully understood what I was referring to and just decided to make a witty remark hoping to get some likes?

So if it didn't go over your head you fully understood what I was referring to and just decided to make a witty remark hoping to get some likes?

No mate it's a patronising title and your a patronising prick. Where are you from mate i'm guessing not London

Schurrle has had some bad games but I really wish he started in those Sunderland and Newcastle games. But again that is sort of hindsight, would I have predicted Hazard, Willian and Oscar to not be good enough? Of course not because the three of them are excellent players.

 

But I think Schurrle definitely has a part to play this season, I hope he gets a start, he can be frustrating but I at least like to see a player make the difference and run at players. Oscar and Willian don't seem to have that about them as much as I would like.

 

With that being said Willian and Oscar have been playing for a reason, we have been fantastic this season so far but to get us back on our feet I think we could do with a bit of change, I think giving Schurrle that start would be a good idea.

Costa is still our man. 

 

Drogba is a fantastic option but Costa needs to be played week in, week out.

If anyone should start more, it's Andre. Far better than Willian in terms of attacking play

Edited December 6, 201411 yr by JoeyN

Costa is still our man. 

 

Drogba is a fantastic option but Costa needs to be played week in, week out.

If anyone should start more, it's Andre. Far better than Willian in terms of attacking play

 

I agree. Drogba still has it in him to put in performances but if we played him week in week out his age would show more.

 

We definitely need to change it up a bit against these sides with tough defences though. Ivanovic, Willian and even Hazard really struggle against these sides. With Schurrle's movement and being so direct and Luis' crossing it would make a massive difference to our attack.

 

If we put these 2 in the team more often we wouldn't see us running towards their goal and then passing it back 5 yards all of the time.

Edited December 6, 201411 yr by Scott Harris

Luis has to start more in general really. 

 

Same with drogba. Newcastle might not be to the level of some of the better teams there but he has a knock for doing well/scoring in big moments & times where we desperately need something

 

I was just going to say Luis should play more regardless of opposition, he is a classy LB and it would generally help out Hazard more too.

Hazard needs a rocket up his arse also, he's not quite the finished product yet.

 

That doesn't mean he needs a rocket up his arse, course he is not the finished product he is 23 years old. Still our most dangerous player today. The only player in our team who can actually dribble past a player it seems.

i'm all for Luis but not so hot on Drogba simply because I don't see any reason why we should change our formation. A formation and style of play that has had us leading the league since day dot. Adding an extra striker up top isn't going to make Willian or Hazard a better finisher than they are already, had these 2 been more clinical we would of been up 3-0 by half time, with or without Drogba on the pitch.

 

You play 2 up top and our whole approach changes, some may say for the better - but we will go into matches away from home, perhaps far more dangerous in attack by being more direct with both Drogba and Costa up top... but with just 2 players in midfield - leaving us largely outnumbered in that area. If we play in such a way against a team even half good at keeping the ball like Southampton or Swansea, we will spend the game chasing shadows for the most part.

 

Ultimately you play to your strengths and Jose clearly believes that against the 'lesser' teams our strengths are found in keeping the ball away from them - limit that team's chances to a few shots on goal - mostly from counterattacks, hope they are defended well, and if not, pray that your goalkeeper will make the difference. Essentially, if Cahill doesn't fluff his clearance, they don't score. We've looked perfectly fine in the league up until the last 2 games - we might of gotten a draw at Sunderland but we played like dog sh*t. We played a lot better against Newcastle but came away with nothing

 

I'm a supporter of rotation in general so i would like to see a few new faces anyway - but Drogba ahead of Costa makes no sense to me. Apart from the Man United game, Ive yet to see him perform to a level that would convince me into having him play over Costa. His last 3 games came off the back of us smashing a demoralized Schalke, a rubbish Spurs side and 10 men Newcastle. I'm not saying that his performances have been overrated or anything like that. But I think we shouldn't get carried away with his cameos and assume he would do the same from the start. If Mourinho does decide to play him from the get go at Sporting or someplace else and he absolutely smashes them in then i'll happily eat my words. But i'm not going to expect Mourinho to drop a guy who already has 11 goals to his name with over 2/3's of the season left to play.

Edited December 6, 201411 yr by MTF

That doesn't mean he needs a rocket up his arse, course he is not the finished product he is 23 years old. Still our most dangerous player today. The only player in our team who can actually dribble past a player it seems.

 

And truthfully that's something I wish we could see more often, we know that Schurrle, Willian, certainly Oscar have that ability (even if not as good as Hazard) though too often they're annoyingly content simply playing the ball back. It's worth the risking of giving up possession as if nothing else it helps draw defenders to you and makes for an easy lay-off to an open teammate.

That doesn't mean he needs a rocket up his arse, course he is not the finished product he is 23 years old. Still our most dangerous player today. The only player in our team who can actually dribble past a player it seems.

 

Probably the most talented player we have ever had, he has had 2 bad games, that's it really and today he wasn't all that bad he just didn't really make the difference.

 

Got to say though his bloody finishing at times jesus christ, as I said probably knee jerk but for such a talented player he really is a poor finisher, I can't wait until he proves me wrong on this.

What we need is 11 drogbas

Edited December 6, 201411 yr by Zola

Not sure what Schurrle people have been watching but whenever I've seen him play over the past couple of months he's been awful.

One thing i would suggest against these teams that park the bus against us, is to keep possession and the ball moving a little further from their box at least in the opening stages of the game. Right now we have 90 percent of the ball in periods as we did against Newcastle today but they have 9-10 outfield players inside their own 16-yard box, making it almost impossible to break through if your defenders are good and up to the task. We are ironicly enough the team that gave many the blueprint for this style, it cost us the title last season and although we have been much better this season overall these last two away-games have been like a nightmare from last season.

 

So i'd say we try to keep possession more in the midfield area for a while. When we play away from home this will without expection always make the opponent push up a littlebit, try to put pressure on us and win the ball back. Which of course opens up a lot more room for Willian, Hazard, Costa and Oscar to exploit. Right now we are keeping the ball in and around 20 meters all the time. Hazard is marked out of the game, and so is Oscar. Costa have two central defenders on him at every moment. So its very, very hard the way we are trying to do things right now.

Yep, good observation Sindre. 

Mourinho actually pointed this out earlier, it was part of his tactics against Arsenal to have Fabregas and Matic deeper, in our own half, and as he predicted Arsenal's midfield stupidly tried to press them and got caught out repeatedly, Costa's goal being a case in point.

 

However when the home team is the underdog and also in the lead they have nothing to gain by chasing the ball into the deep midfield or defensive half. Sunderland etc. did not even attempt a 50% press, only closing down in the final 20 metres or so.

 

There are really only two ways to break this kind of defensive setup- speed up the passing (one touch, first time passes), and get the ball wide to be crossed in, first time, from dangerous positions. We don't do either.

Not sure what Schurrle people have been watching but whenever I've seen him play over the past couple of months he's been awful.

 

He's also got important goals at Burnley and City (he's got two goals in 353 minutes, Willian has one in 823).

 

But he's also had a terrible touch at times and I can understand why he's been dropped. We definitely need to rotate more but people seem to have this fascination with Azpi and Luis starting when Ivanovic has been integral to breaking down tough teams (Leicester and Burnley off the top of my head).

 

But the issue for me is Willian. He simply isn't offering enough in attack at the moment and workrate simply won't cut it anymore.

The fact is that having two big, strong strikers and having more width in the form of Luis giving us crossing options from both flanks will force opposition defences to defend the width of the pitch rather than the width of the box. Drogba and Costa are capable of winning headers against any defender in the league and at the very least we have a good chance of winning a corner from it and sending up JT/Cahill/Ivanovic as well. 5 massive blokes at a corner will see a goal sooner or later.

 

It's a more sensible tactic if we're unable to pass through them.

Main problem today was in Midfield for me and not up front in my opinion, I really can't see these days what Mikel brings to the table. We really missed Matic. 

Edited December 7, 201411 yr by BluesBrother