I have stopped myself from making this thread plenty of times this season because i wanted to give the formation as much of a chance as possible, but after tonight, enough is enough.

3-5-2, 3-4-3, 3-4-1-1, 3-4-2-1, whatever you want to call it, it's just not working anymore.

The only time it has worked is when we have played 3-4-3 with two wingers, we won the league with it. Why Conte has changed to playing Hazard behind the striker and Fabregas in that midfield i will never know, it has looked awful in the majority of games this season. 

I know Conte likes to play this formation, but he just hasn't got the players suited to play it. We have been found out and we look awful going forward. Our most creative player is Azpilicueta for goodness sake! It's like watching a Sam Allardyce team going forward with us in recent times. Too many passes into nobody, too few attacking options, the passing out from defence to attack leads to nothing. Courtois will play it to a CB, one of them will pass it out wide to Moses or Alonso and one of them will flick the ball on aimlessly with their back to goal......that is how most of our attacks begin and end, it's getting us nowhere. Then when the ball eventually falls to a midfielder, they get crowded out and have no options to play forward. Hazard is good, but him and Morata combined cannot beat 6 opposition players on their own every time. The wings have no support, Moses and Alonso are expected to run up and down the pitch with no support, but neither of them are good enough for that. Moses struggles to beat his man and Alonso just doesn't have the pace for it.

When Conte ditched 4-5-1 last season, i was glad to see the back of it, but with the midfielders we now have, i think 4-5-1 is back on for us, the problem is that i don't think Conte will ever go back to it. He's like most modern day managers, they refuse to back down from their preferred formation, even when it's not working.

I honestly think we would look a lot better like this

                        Courtois

Azpilicueta  Rudiger Christensen Alonso

                Kante  Drink/Baka

                       Fab/Bark

Pedro/Willian                          Hazard

                        Morata

This would work a lot better than 3 at the back. 

4-3-3 has always been my favourite, like we played first Jose spell. Would have to improve the CM and wing positions though, drink, baka, pedro, willian not really good enough. 

I dont mind going back to 4 at the back but 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 are not the same thing. They are actually quite different. We've looked pretty good with the former and average with the latter.

Our biggest problem is the personnel Conte chooses to deploy. Today for example. Courtois, Azpi, Rudiger, Christensen, Alonso, Drinkwater and Kante. That's 7 defensive minded players in the starting XI in a home game. Against Arsenal's B team that's dissappointing to see. Chelsea is a big club not a small club and Conte chooses his line-ups like we are a small team. This is more problematic to me than any formation.

1 hour ago, The Liquidator said:

I dont mind going back to 4 at the back but 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 are not the same thing. They are actually quite different. We've looked pretty good with the former and average with the latter.

Our biggest problem is the personnel Conte chooses to deploy. Today for example. Courtois, Azpi, Rudiger, Christensen, Alonso, Drinkwater and Kante. That's 7 defensive minded players in the starting XI in a home game. Against Arsenal's B team that's dissappointing to see. Chelsea is a big club not a small club and Conte chooses his line-ups like we are a small team. This is more problematic to me than any formation.

But who else can he play in either of those formations ?

With 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 he will always have too many defensive minded players in the team because of the players in our squad right now. The way things are right now, i don't think we are equipped to play either of those two formations. The only way we could add more attacking players to the team is if we played 3-4-3 and put Fabregas in a two man midfield, and that is something i never want to see again. Fabregas in a two man midfield is terrible. One pass through that midfield and we are screwed with Fabregas in there, we seen it in the early stages of the season. Fabregas is also really poor under pressure, he needs time to pick out a pass, he doesn't get time in a two man midfield.

433
Thibaut
Azpi Rudiger Christensen Alonso (Sandro)
Kante Fabregas(attacking scenarios, possibly Barkley) Bakayoko (hopefully he gets going)
Pedro Morata Hazard

Agree with Tom, that is worth a go. Though perhaps save it till the 2nd leg for surprise and stick with 3-5-2 for Leicester at home. 

1 minute ago, TomCFC85 said:

433
Thibaut
Azpi Rudiger Christensen Alonso (Sandro)
Kante Fabregas(attacking scenarios, possibly Barkley) Bakayoko (hopefully he gets going)
Pedro Morata Hazard

I would be happy to go 4-3-3, but it's better to have a box to box destroyer in there (like Essien was for us) and i don't think we have one of them in Bakayoko or Drinkwater. Bakayoko is too timid for me, and Drinkwater doesn't have the quality.

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I would be happy to go 4-3-3, but it's better to have a box to box destroyer in there (like Essien was for us) and i don't think we have one of them in Bakayoko or Drinkwater. Bakayoko is too timid for me, and Drinkwater doesn't have the quality.

Feel free to disagree with me but perhaps if that's the case, then maybe we should just target a new midfielder in general:
Khedira
Casemiro
Vidal
Bender
Would be worth looking in to.

3-4-3 is last seasons formation and our best one, it is a blend of defense and attack, perhaps we need an all out attack formation as well but this should be the default going into matches, the problem is you need 2 DMs so at least one needs to be able to attack well.

The 3-5-2 is born out of losing Matic, not having another reliable DM to partner Kante so he plugged the midfield with 3, sacrificing one attacker. Now that we have Drinkwater we can go into matches with the original formation like we did against Stoke and battered them, with Norwich the performance was poor so formation was irrelevant but it seems Conte is going into big games defensively hence the 3-5-2 against Arsenal in the last 2 games.

Going forward we need another combative midfielder like Kante, but with a bias on attack. Hopefully Barkley will surprise us like Moses did.

0-0 wasn’t the worst result tonight but going in to the second leg with the goal(s) we deserved would be better. 

I just wish when we’re chasing a result/need a goal Conte would change from a back three. He won’t have more than 3 attack minded players on the pitch at the same time and won’t play Morata & Michy together!

Tonight we were crying out for a goal scorer and in comes Baka instead of Michy. When he finally gets on it’s for Morata and he can’t do anything with 9 minutes and 3 central defenders on him. 

Also short corners need to stop now. We put three into the box tonight and had chances from all three. If JT was here I reckon he’d get quite pissed off constantly trudging up the pitch time and time again, only to have to leg it back because we’ve pissed about with the ball in the corner. 

Finally spend the money on bloody Sandro so Alonso can have a break, he looks completely ball bagged by 70 minutes!

So let's say we move to a 4231 or 433 (My preferred formations as well but I'm playing devil's advocate).

First and foremost, our strongest area is defence. We have 2 world class players (Azpi and Courtois) and a few with great potential (Christensen, Rudiger, Zouma as well). To accommodate players we're either going to have to move Azpi to his weaker position at RB, and also have Alonso in his weaker position. Or drop someone reliable to accommodate two unreliable fullbacks.

Midfield - Fabregas can't play in a two but his creativity is absolutely vital for us. If we play two, we'll be weaker at the back AND no creativity through midfield. Hazard is also more restricted in his position. If we play three we are weaker at the back and the same in midfield.

Ultimately, as much as it frustrates me, Conte's formation and selection is generally our best chance to win matches/titles given the current squad. If the board give him a good fullback, a quality midfielder and another striker then I'll for sure be more critical going forward. But right now his squad has been weakened by trading Costa + Matic for Morata and Bakayoko. Reminds me a bit of Carlo's 2nd season actually.....

You want to change the system? Probably have to change the manager for that to happen .

I think it's more of a wrong tactic wrong match situation. 3-5-2 was pretty effective in Madrid wasn't it? I think we're better in 3-4-3 but you can't rely on that anymore when teams mirror you and play a more defensive game. They just negate any advantage you have. 

Tonight for example I don't think Antonio expected Arsenal to be so negative. Could be he expected a more open game from them and didn't want to get diced in the middle so he used 3 CMs.

Could be he was trying to play mind games and anticipated Wenger playing something other than 3-4-3. 

Chelsea created enough chances to score, they didn't and now it's 0-0 heading to their place. 

I'll go on and say our WBs aren't or weren't good enough today. That's the key to using 3 at the back. I'd like to see some variation with 4 defenders too but thats up to him

Buy Mahrez and have him and Hazard attacking on the wings like the Duff/Robben days. Play 3 in Midfield and either Fabregas/Barkley can play more advanced.

The major issue with Alonso is I don't actually think he does anything which you expect from a normal wingback. You hardly ever see him get at a defender or put in crosses. Moses tries but his end product is hit and miss. 3 at the back expects to much of you're fullbacks and you can see if matches Chelsea lack real quality there. 

Playing 3-4-3 last year, we were insanely effective on the transition and created several chances.

This season we're much slower when changing from attack to defense, the ball always gets held up, the midfield gets too clogged and there never seems to be an outlet. Safe to say most teams have seemingly exposed us and this was bound to happen so the manager has to have other go-to options. 

I don't think Conte will be changing the formation anytime soon, he seems to be very stubborn. Really annoyed that Hazard has to f**king do everything on the attack. Makes for frustrating viewing as a fan of the club and as a general fan of football. 

Also don't understand this argument that Azpi is a weak fullback, where do people get this from 

I think some players will struggle with flat 4 at back - Moses, Alonso also Cahill and Luiz seem to be a lot more comfortable in a back 3, but then Luiz's days are numbered?

I think we have the players to execute the back 4, but do we have the defenders versatile enough beyond the starters to adapt.

I think the wing backs at times are the problem. We can’t seem to put a cross in, and obviously when we do we hardly have anyone in the box.

Why not go with morata Batman up front ? 

8 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

3-5-2, 3-4-3, 3-4-1-1, 3-4-2-1, whatever you want to call it, it's just not working anymore.

 

It's not working offensively, you mean. We can make clean sheet whenever we want it to. 

The problem is Bakayoko/Drinkwater. If we play 3-5-2, we need them to go deep at times - it's just the way it is. The rotation needs it. And when that happens, they struggle to find a good pass, then cannot cross or shoot or dribble the opponent. Kante is sort of two side player, I mean, he dribbles well, he's fast, takes the space quickly, Cesc is Cesc, his passing is world class but Baka and Drinkwater - they got nothing. And they are literally stoping anything. 

Barkley contribution to 3-5-2 we'll be huge, I think.

Good topic Scott. I was reflecting on this earlier, I think there is a clear first mover advantage with tactics. Conte's 3 at the back and automated buildup was very difficult to handle at the start. Much like with Italy at Euro2016 we would always seem to create nice passing angles with a player available off the ball and an easy way to progress through to midfield.

Sadly with all the video analysis these days that has become more challenging, teams are now predicting our movement and patterns and stopping them.

The 3-5-2  challenge specifically is more about personnel. With Matic gone, Bakayoko average and Cesc slow we just can't play 2 in midfield. We need Cesc's creativity but we can't play 343 with him. It also frees up Hazard. This worked initially but now once again teams have caught up and are double and triple teaming Hazard and MorataWe are still more stable defensively but struggle going forward.

The answer i think is in another midfielder (to replace Fabregas) and a more creative wide player to take the burden from Hazard. I won't hold my breath though.

 

Edited January 11, 20188 yr by Spiller86

I don't think the formation is the problem we look solid and we are creating chances I think the form of the attacking players is the issue.

I miss 4-3-3 and 3-4-3, the best 2 formations for us I feel

Hope we sign a proper LB and revert to a back 4 at some point. 

 

Don't wanna see Alonso in a rigid back 4 though. Seem to remember Antonio liking the 4-2-4 when he first came here?

   

Courtois

Dave  Andreas  Rudiger/Cahill  (New LB)

Kante  Drinkwater

Willian  Morata  Bats  Hazard

I personally like the 3-4-3/3-5-2. I think we would have struggled regardless of our formation in the past few games. Morata has been torres  poor. Hazard seemed like he was out of gas in the league game against arsenal and yesterday he seemed to not be his 100%. And lets face it, Hazard has carried our attack for the past 2/3 seasons single handedly. We need to surround him with better players than willian/pedro/barkley to ease the pressure off him. 

Moreover, our midfield's a hit and miss. DD was shambolic last night. Bakayoko blows hot and cold. For me the problem seems personnel based rather than formation based.

What we really need is better players.
The club has shot themselves in the foot over and over and over again and thats why we end up with the likes of Danny Drinkwater as a vital member of the team. And Bakayoko, and Zappacosta and i can go on and on.

The likes of Guardiola and Mourinho would laugh ucontrollably if someone suggested they should sign and play Drinkwater. We not only did, we sold a much, much better player to Mourinho for as much as we paid Leicester for DD.

Im not confident about Alonso in a back 4 and Moses playing RB would be weird. I think the 343 is fine but apart from Hazard we lack creativity hence the lack of goals in the league. I have wanted to see 2 upfront for a while but no manager ever wants to even try it.