I'm not buying we are unbeatable with the personnel and formation. If we drop the intensity a bit and miss a few chances, results could easily go against us. If we miss a player like Kante or Moses, all the sudden the dynamic will change. Thread like this makes me nervous, 5 wins are great, but we will need about 8-9 if we are serious about winning the title.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/nov/15/brendan-rodgers-3-4-2-1-chelsea-manchester-city-basel-liverpool?CMP=share_btn_tw

I found this to be an interesting article on the 3-4-2-1 being used to exploit the 4-2-3-1

On 11/11/2016 at 20:49, abister1 said:

Seriously though I fear for us after international break. We weren't as good the previous one before this but were building some momentum and stuttered afterwards. I hope we don't experience same.

Thankfully we've got Boro. Should at least get a point and by the time we face spurs and city everything should be back to normal.

17 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

I'm not buying we are unbeatable with the personnel and formation. If we drop the intensity a bit and miss a few chances, results could easily go against us. If we miss a player like Kante or Moses, all the sudden the dynamic will change. Thread like this makes me nervous, 5 wins are great, but we will need about 8-9 if we are serious about winning the title.

Title would be great but a top 3 would be just fine, as long as Liverpool and Arsenal don't win it.

Edited November 15, 20169 yr by Ivanov87

Now this is an interesting thread. Hopefully coaches are not lurking here.

Aha! I knew we had a thread on this somewhere. I've been meaning to post in this thread for sometime.

These days, journalists and fans are pronouncing the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 dead. Ten years ago, in a post-Mourinho world, football journalists declared that the 4-4-2 was dead, buried and cremated thanks to the new 4-2-3-1/4-3-3.

I remember reading years ago that Arrigo Sacchi and the Italian coaches who developed the 4-4-2 formation did so in response to the dominant 3-5-2 formations at the time. Sacchi reckoned that by playing wide and by evenly spacing his players, he could dominate three-at-the-back formations and his adoption of pressing and fluidity from "total football" (by integrating Gullit and Rjikaard) meant that defensive, counter-attacking formations were penalised. Going with two strikers assisted by overlapping wingers allowed Sacchi's Milan to better deal with 'sweeper' who was so often the key playmaker in the 3-5-2 by playing wide and cutting him completely out of the game. Finally, in later years, managers began to realise that the three central defenders were often dragged out of position by this newfound aggressiveness and width. So maybe, if we want to ping a particular formation, maybe the bog-standard 4-4-2 is what sides need to go with??

Maybe we have a rock-scissors-paper scenario, where 4-4-2 beats 3-4-3 beats 4-2-3-1 beats 4-4-2....? And why has a previously-redundant formation made a comeback?

I'll post a little about this later in detail, but for now, my answer to the question is that formations are less important than other aspects of tactics, such as mentality (press or sit deep) and the skill sets of the players in teams. In particular, it's the interaction between these two aspects that determine how successful teams can be. The reason why wide play doesn't threaten Chelsea's back three as much as the wingers in those original 4-4-2s did is because the style of the winger has evolved drastically since. The winger is now essentially a forward and a goalscorer who cuts inside to create or shoot. He has little intention to hug the sideline and cross or stretch the play, and besides, most of the play is passed up through the centre and the focus is on "winning the midfield battle" ever since Mourinho demonstrated that 3 beats 2 in midfield. The great thing about this 3-4-3 is that it simply bypasses the midfield battle by playing around it. Kante and Matic don't need to interplay or weave through traffic in the centre; their job is to get the ball to Hazard or Costa to do that in the opponent's box. The 3-4-3 works so well now because the players have changed and they no longer play in a style that made it redundant. Maybe if a team could control the ball continuously through the midfield, they might have a shot, but only a handful of teams in the world can do that, let alone the Premiership. Spurs, City and maybe Man United if Mourinho lets them. 

It's a strong system, but it's not infallible, obviously. Systems are not designed to be infallible, merely to maximise the odds in your favour. Conte's system magnifies our strengths and minimizes weaknesses which means that we have a successful system that in the short term is very unlikely to be dominated. Whoever plays Chelsea plays on our terms. However, all that's needed to beat Chelsea is a good set piece, a world-class long range strike etc and some solid defending. Goals are inevitably conceded, it's just a matter of when you do and how you respond to them. Regardless of what formation you choose, set-pieces and penalties are always risky and it's possible a team will score from them and defend their lead.

 

 

 

20 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Aha! I knew we had a thread on this somewhere. I've been meaning to post in this thread for sometime.

These days, journalists and fans are pronouncing the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 dead. Ten years ago, in a post-Mourinho world, football journalists declared that the 4-4-2 was dead, buried and cremated thanks to the new 4-2-3-1/4-3-3.

I remember reading years ago that Arrigo Sacchi and the Italian coaches who developed the 4-4-2 formation did so in response to the dominant 3-5-2 formations at the time. Sacchi reckoned that by playing wide and by evenly spacing his players, he could dominate three-at-the-back formations and his adoption of pressing and fluidity from "total football" (by integrating Gullit and Rjikaard) meant that defensive, counter-attacking formations were penalised. Going with two strikers assisted by overlapping wingers allowed Sacchi's Milan to better deal with 'sweeper' who was so often the key playmaker in the 3-5-2 by playing wide and cutting him completely out of the game. Finally, in later years, managers began to realise that the three central defenders were often dragged out of position by this newfound aggressiveness and width. So maybe, if we want to ping a particular formation, maybe the bog-standard 4-4-2 is what sides need to go with??

Maybe we have a rock-scissors-paper scenario, where 4-4-2 beats 3-4-3 beats 4-2-3-1 beats 4-4-2....? And why has a previously-redundant formation made a comeback?

I'll post a little about this later in detail, but for now, my answer to the question is that formations are less important than other aspects of tactics, such as mentality (press or sit deep) and the skill sets of the players in teams. In particular, it's the interaction between these two aspects that determine how successful teams can be. The reason why wide play doesn't threaten Chelsea's back three as much as the wingers in those original 4-4-2s did is because the style of the winger has evolved drastically since. The winger is now essentially a forward and a goalscorer who cuts inside to create or shoot. He has little intention to hug the sideline and cross or stretch the play, and besides, most of the play is passed up through the centre and the focus is on "winning the midfield battle" ever since Mourinho demonstrated that 3 beats 2 in midfield. The great thing about this 3-4-3 is that it simply bypasses the midfield battle by playing around it. Kante and Matic don't need to interplay or weave through traffic in the centre; their job is to get the ball to Hazard or Costa to do that in the opponent's box. The 3-4-3 works so well now because the players have changed and they no longer play in a style that made it redundant. Maybe if a team could control the ball continuously through the midfield, they might have a shot, but only a handful of teams in the world can do that, let alone the Premiership. Spurs, City and maybe Man United if Mourinho lets them. 

It's a strong system, but it's not infallible, obviously. Systems are not designed to be infallible, merely to maximise the odds in your favour. Conte's system magnifies our strengths and minimizes weaknesses which means that we have a successful system that in the short term is very unlikely to be dominated. Whoever plays Chelsea plays on our terms. However, all that's needed to beat Chelsea is a good set piece, a world-class long range strike etc and some solid defending. Goals are inevitably conceded, it's just a matter of when you do and how you respond to them. Regardless of what formation you choose, set-pieces and penalties are always risky and it's possible a team will score from them and defend their lead.

 

 

 

Great post!

bring 11 tanks to the playing field, then the game might be in your favour 

Spurs pressing in the 1st half of that game at home undid us. We looked poor when they were getting stuck in. I think everyone knows the way to get to us is a high press and deny our defenders space to start attacks. The question is whether or not anyone has the players to keep it up for 2 halves and do it correctly. 

 

Spurs and Liverpool are the two worst match ups for us IMO. Both because of the way they play and managers they have. Klopp and Pochettino aren't afraid of having a go and making a game of it. Everyone else seems to be more interested in mirror matching us and trying to react.

We didn't look comfortable against their high pressing and aggressive tackling. I really believe we need a passer in the midfield to find the pass in the gap. Kante/Matic were poor in possession, we had no out-balls and Hazard had to come back in our own half to get the ball.  I guess that was a tactical win for the Spurs, but we didn't help ourself tonight with the way we played.

Well that's how you beat us

23 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

We didn't look comfortable against their high pressing and aggressive tackling. I really believe we need a passer in the midfield to find the pass in the gap. Kante/Matic were poor in possession, we had no out-balls and Hazard had to come back in our own half to get the ball.  I guess that was a tactical win for the Spurs, but we didn't help ourself tonight with the way we played.

I think you're right about needing a passer in midfield. I also agree about pressing and aggressive tackling being something we struggle with. If teams overrun our midfield we find it tough to build attacks. Since the last international break that seems to have been happening a lot. There is a way we can counter these issues though, and that is by playing with pace. In that 13 win run we beat Leicester, United, Everton, Sunderland, Bournemouth and Stoke by playing quick football. I personally think these wins were our best performances too. It doesn't give the opposition a chance to get close enough and overrun our midfield. I also think it gets the best out of our attackers. Hazard, Pedro, Willian, Fabregas, Costa, Moses, they all seem to have really good games when we are moving it quickly, they also all seem to struggle when we play slow, especially Pedro, Willian, Fabregas and Moses.

I'm not a jinx, I promise.

Alli has been playing so far forward he has effectively been playing as a second-striker and the 3-5-2 vs 4-4-2 situation I described above unfortunately may have played out against us.

The reason why I mentioned Spurs, City and Liverpool in my earlier post is because they sit at the intersection of having the correct players to exploit the "weakness" in our tactics.

One of the problems with specialisation in football is that we tend to pigeonhole our players a bit, and Alli is one of those elite midfielders who never quite fits a neat pigeonhole. He's just a bit of a nightmare matchup for our squad as it is, to be honest, being both a physically and technically talented player who can dribble, score, defend and assist, and is able to use these attributes in other positions (such as operating as a second striker) and loves to play wide and come centrally. Alli was always going to be a problem player because if he played in central midfield, he was too good a dribbler to press effectively, and if he played in attack, he'd exploit the 'weakness' of the 3-4-3 system by playing in the vacant space out wide while also having a favourable matchup against Azpilicueta or Cahill (for different reasons).

As I said before the weakness of a back-three formation is that it allows a lot of room between wingback and the outside central defenders, which means plenty of space and chances to cross. In most of our games this season, it hasn't been a problem because our back-three were mopping up crosses against lone strikers all game long. With Dele Alli playing so far forward it allowed Spurs to have at least two bodies in the box at all times, which is much harder to handle. Add to that Alli was matching up on Azpilicueta, and you can see the problem. You can even see that Kante and Matic "let" Eriksen take the cross thinking it's a less riskier option than pressing him.

At the end of the day though, It's a real stretch to say Tottenham dominated us and on another day we probably take home the draw if not more. We know the weakness in the system is that we will concede more chances from crosses, but I'd bet Conte is willing to take that risk because crosses are inefficient. If a team wants to try and win by pinging crosses at our back-three we will still probably win more than lose. I think Conte will be more frustrated that we didn't create more chances, and for me too, that's probably a question more worthwhile answering.

 

 

So it's indeed a long ball/cross to our penalty box that undo us.. why the hell this thread even created in the 1st place? lol.. no wonder the forum crashed yesterday..

Don't really go with the tactical explanation. If players did their jobs then that first goal would have been prevented - both the passer and the scorer were given oceans of time. Moses, who has been dodgy for the last few matches, didn't help with his lack of concentration. Courtois, who has been playing brilliantly should not have come for the second goal as he had two Chelsea players around Alli but these things happen (and perhaps the way the first goal was scored was on his mind). Overall it looked like tired legs and tired minds and we're not the only team to display that over the Christmas period!

The football tacticians are having a field day. I reckon the way Spurs pressed over the 90 minutes ( for god sake they were pressing us back to our goal line in the dying minutes), any team would struggle. Could they do it every match? Not possible. Could other teams do it every weekend against us? Not possible. It's one of those night everything turned into their favour.  I think the team selection played into their hands, and most importantly we just had an off day. I don't think now all the sudden every team has the magic formula to beat us like the media printed out. I can't wait for the match against Leicester. As much as I like Raneri, I'd love the team make a statement against them.

Tottenham set out exactly the same as they did in the first match but this time managed it for the whole game and it worked. I think they have found a way around us and I was a little dissapointed Conte didn't plan accordingly. Why not play a 3-5-2? Maybe it allows their defenders too much time on the ball but i'd rather that than their midfielders.

With regards the Spurs defeat, whilst yes they were the better team and deserved the points the way we played looking lethargic and off the pace isn't something we'd do every week. Media seems to forget that we beat them a few months ago aswell, like any team we will lose matches but in no way fund Spurs put in a tactical masterclass IMO. 

I rewatched the match and it was kinda a freak result. We were defensively pretty good apart from the 2 goals. If Hazard had converted one of his half chances, game might have been different.