First and foremost, I think we've been spoilt as fans over the past 15 years and would never take anything away from that. However, I think this must be the softest group of players I have ever seen under the Abramovich tenure.

Our defence whilst decent on the ball, doesn't seem to have any aggression about it and are dominated so easily. Brana, JT, Ricky, Ash and even Luiz would never let an opponent dominate them like this bunch do.

Our midfield (whilst Kanté is excellent) lacks any sort of guile or aggression, we've been bullied by Spurs on more than one occassion over the past couple of years. When the likes of Arsenal are even bullying you out of matches, that's when you've got a problem. Fabregas is slower and less physical than a tortoise and Bakayoko looks like bambi on ice. Do people think the likes of Essien, Ballack & Frank would let Dele Alli get away with his sh*te yesterday? He'd have been booted into the Shed End, no questions asked.

Our wingers are probably the only thing that's remained consistent throughout the years. Hazard & Willian whilst aren't great goalscorers like Robben & Duff, but without a doubt have the quality to match.

Then we have Alvaro Morata & Olivier Giroud. I rate them both but one spends far too much on the floor and the other gives the ball away too easily. Whilst Diego did give the ball away a fair bit, he made up for it harrassing opponents and making defences work hard for every ball they kicked. Of course, we can't forget about Didier who was an absolute monster. I remember Carragher saying whenever he used to play against him, he used to help him up off of the floor and be friendly to him because when he starts to get annoyed, he's unplayable.

Now, I'm not saying you can't have a team full of nimble players because Man City aren't exactly stocked with physically imposing players and they've probably assembled the best Premier League team of all time. However, when you play such an aggressive style of play as Conte does but have such a lack of tenacity in midfield, it will never work.

Chelsea have always been at their best with a physically imposing team. This is why we dominated Barcelona for years because they couldn't deal with how distruptive we were, another reason we dominated Arsenal for so long. I almost feel like we've turned into Arsenal.

Thoughts?

29 minutes ago, JMaher94 said:

First and foremost, I think we've been spoilt as fans over the past 15 years and would never take anything away from that. However, I think this must be the softest group of players I have ever seen under the Abramovich tenure.

Our defence whilst decent on the ball, doesn't seem to have any aggression about it and are dominated so easily. Brana, JT, Ricky, Ash and even Luiz would never let an opponent dominate them like this bunch do.

Our midfield (whilst Kanté is excellent) lacks any sort of guile or aggression, we've been bullied by Spurs on more than one occassion over the past couple of years. When the likes of Arsenal are even bullying you out of matches, that's when you've got a problem. Fabregas is slower and less physical than a tortoise and Bakayoko looks like bambi on ice. Do people think the likes of Essien, Ballack & Frank would let Dele Alli get away with his sh*te yesterday? He'd have been booted into the Shed End, no questions asked.

Our wingers are probably the only thing that's remained consistent throughout the years. Hazard & Willian whilst aren't great goalscorers like Robben & Duff, but without a doubt have the quality to match.

Then we have Alvaro Morata & Olivier Giroud. I rate them both but one spends far too much on the floor and the other gives the ball away too easily. Whilst Diego did give the ball away a fair bit, he made up for it harrassing opponents and making defences work hard for every ball they kicked. Of course, we can't forget about Didier who was an absolute monster. I remember Carragher saying whenever he used to play against him, he used to help him up off of the floor and be friendly to him because when he starts to get annoyed, he's unplayable.

Now, I'm not saying you can't have a team full of nimble players because Man City aren't exactly stocked with physically imposing players and they've probably assembled the best Premier League team of all time. However, when you play such an aggressive style of play as Conte does but have such a lack of tenacity in midfield, it will never work.

Chelsea have always been at their best with a physically imposing team. This is why we dominated Barcelona for years because they couldn't deal with how distruptive we were, another reason we dominated Arsenal for so long. I almost feel like we've turned into Arsenal.

Thoughts?

Physically we are very weak as a team, and mentally are so fragile. A couple of points I disagree with though, Hazard and William aren't in the same league as Duff and Robben, and also City are a great side, but wouldn't of been a match for 2004/2006 Chelsea.

21 minutes ago, chi blue said:

Physically we are very weak as a team, and mentally are so fragile. A couple of points I disagree with though, Hazard and William aren't in the same league as Duff and Robben, and also City are a great side, but wouldn't of been a match for 2004/2006 Chelsea.

I think Hazard you can say is easily comparable to Robben and Duff, if not better. Hazard didn't have the same players around him as they did and he pretty much carried us to a league title under Mourinho post January.

I think we shy away from tackles a bit too much. So often we seem to want to get a little toe poke on the ball to get it away, but sometimes you need more than that to win the ball. Kante is the only in the team who puts a lot into a tackle. I'm not sure if it's because our players are soft or if they are worried about the ref sending them off. It does seem like we have become really soft in our approach since Cahill and Pedro were sent off early in the season.

I think this group are mentally soft too. When things get tough, they don't seem to have anything in them to turn it around, not consistently at least. Even when Scolari was on the brink of being sacked, the players back then gave everything to get that last minute winner against Stoke, i just don't think that would happen now. We go out with a whimper rather a fight these days. Like the F.A cup final last season, no way would we have put in that performance a few years back.

One thing i don't agree with is that Robben and Duff were great goalscorers compared to Hazard and Willian. Duff only ever got double figures in goals twice in his whole career, Robben never managed that with us (i am sure he would have if he wasn't injured so much though) Hazard and Willian offer us more goals than Robben and Duff did when we had them.

Well Spurs have one of the best midfields in the world.  Most every team concedes midfield to Spurs.  Bakayoko has been a major major major major major flop and therein lies our midfield woes.  If we had bought someone like a Dembele on Spurs instead of Bakayoko, we would have an incredible midfield pairing.  Instead we now need to play Fabregas and ask him to do things he simply cannot physically do.  Kante then gets dragged out trying to cover and boom our back line is exposed.  

We desperately need midfielders.  We have to ask Eden to drop deep so we can transition the ball from back to front and that doesn't allow him to play his best football.  Getting quality right up the center of the pitch will allow attackers to flourish.  

I would not say we are soft per se.  I think we are being asked to do things we are not comfortable with.  I don't think Christensen is a natural in a back 3 just yet.  I don't know if he has ever played in one outside of this season.  Moses is not a true wingback.  I think he did a great job for us last year but he's a winger, and an average one at that.  Azpi isn't a CB but he is a machine and can pretty much play anywhere.  Fabregas cannot handle the responsibility of a midfield two.  Morata isn't a great lone striker.  All of these things can lead to confusion during a match and cause problems.  If we are weak, it's mentally more than anything I think...

We make individual mistakes at vital times in defence, we struggle to win the midfield battle against any half decent side, and we aren't clinical enough going forward. 

Mentally the team is weak, but I think a lot of it is down to not having a good enough team to reach expectations. The players are under immense pressure to win every game, but I don't think they look around the dressing room and fully believe that they are good enough. 

Conte has to take some responsibility for this, he should be making the players feel 10ft tall and ready to take on the world, but the constant down playing of the squad ability has sapped the confidence from the dressing room.

Conte is right though, this squad isn't good enough, it's nowhere near tbh, and the club need to rectify this in the summer, by making better signings.

5 hours ago, JMaher94 said:

I think Hazard you can say is easily comparable to Robben and Duff, if not better. Hazard didn't have the same players around him as they did and he pretty much carried us to a league title under Mourinho post January.

Hazard is no where near Robben's level, Robben even with an injury hit career reached great heights with us, Real Madrid, Bayern and Holland and produced in games when it mattered (thankfully not in 2012 in Munich) that's my opinion any way, but Hazard is still young enough to improve, and yes you are right he did carry us that season under Mourinho.

Edited April 2, 20188 yr by chi blue
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