We'll not get top 4 unless we sort our home record out, so where is it going wrong ?

We have lots of possession and territory, pushing back the opposition and compressing them, we try to play like city, drawing defenders out and leaving spaces to play the triangles, but were not having much success. This is something we need to keep working on.

Set plays, the dead ball game is where we are truly way behind the others. we have little to zero chance of scoring from set plays. This is something we urgently need to look at, we waste so many corners and free kicks at the Bridge, when its the one part of the game each player can practice and improve upon, no excuses.

Atmosphere at home, is flat, but  sort the above two points out and the fans will react, like against Ajax in the 4-4.

Any other things we you think will help us at home ? fire away........

A crowd that can be the 12th man.

It's not just a home problem. It's a tactical one. What I find disturbing is that Frank continues to say we did very well against City, in contrast to yesterday's dud. Both teams had similarities in having a compressed block press our CBs and DMs. With City being more aggressive of course.

For large periods all we are doing is playing across the backline and playing long, hopeful diagonals. Frank complains about playing too safe but it is way too risky to play through the lines because the players ahead of the backline are either not in good positions to receive the ball or are being covered. We will blame Zouma/Rudiger/Jorginho if they inevitably misplace the pass that he wants us to risk. And then of course we don't have the best recovery on turnovers.

There is a reason why the best we've looked this season is generally with Sarri's system. Lampard needs to step up to the plate and develop his own solutions. Demanding urgency and aggressiveness alone will do f**kall. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season pans out.

The view on this on We Ain't Got No History: https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2019/12/14/21022035/it-took-a-while-but-the-burden-of-the-transfer-ban-is-suddenly-here

I agree on the whole, we are going in the right direction for sure, its just the personel that are letting us down. When we do get in behind our crossing often hits the first man, Azpil is particularly guilty of this. It must be very frustrating for Frank as it drives me nuts.

Reece is definitely the way forward down the right and we need to add a Left Back that can offer the same.

I agree with the set pieces, we are poor at both ends of the pitch, we never look at threat in attack and look as though we could concede from every set piece defensively. We need to add some ariel dominance to the side in the shape of a centre back and Tammy needs to improve in the air. 

We need a second attacking option, someone that can run into the box and score with a header.

In previous seasons we had players like Alonso that would drift in and score a few we seem predictable with Pulisic and Mount being crowded out around the box. 

Someone like a player with the attributes of Dele Alli running into the box with James pinging over one of his short crosses. 

 

1 minute ago, Strider6003 said:

We need a second attacking option, someone that can run into the box and score with a header.

In previous seasons we had players like Alonso that would drift in and score a few we seem predictable with Pulisic and Mount being crowded out around the box. 

Someone like a player with the attributes of Dele Alli running into the box with James pinging over one of his short crosses. 

 

Mount is somewhat similar to Dele Alli but lacks physicality in the box. Yesterday I think it was Azpi hit a perfect cross to the backpost but Pulisic was forced to (understandably) head it back across goal due to his lack of height/physicality. We need an alternative way of playing to counter teams like Bournemouth and West Ham who sit deep.

Only Watford, Southampton, Bournemouth, Palace, Newcastle, have scored less home goals than us this season.

2 hours ago, venom2011 said:

It's not just a home problem. It's a tactical one. What I find disturbing is that Frank continues to say we did very well against City, in contrast to yesterday's dud. Both teams had similarities in having a compressed block press our CBs and DMs. With City being more aggressive of course.

For large periods all we are doing is playing across the backline and playing long, hopeful diagonals. Frank complains about playing too safe but it is way too risky to play through the lines because the players ahead of the backline are either not in good positions to receive the ball or are being covered. We will blame Zouma/Rudiger/Jorginho if they inevitably misplace the pass that he wants us to risk. And then of course we don't have the best recovery on turnovers.

There is a reason why the best we've looked this season is generally with Sarri's system. Lampard needs to step up to the plate and develop his own solutions. Demanding urgency and aggressiveness alone will do f**kall. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season pans out.

There is no sign he will develop his own solutions. His post-match comments blamed the defenders for not moving the ball forward even faster. But Abraham can't win a one-to-one like Costa could and half the other players have no idea where they are supposed to be moving. 

2 minutes ago, pamery said:

But Abraham can't win a one-to-one like Costa could

Abraham wins plenty of one to ones, but its getting him into those positions thats problematic.

Has anyone else thought to themselves that maybe our squad is just quite crap?

 

The general performance is on the decline, we play at a certain level home and away and it so happens we get punished at home more. 

IMO in the last few years we’ve been notoriously slow starters at home.

There are games where we literally wouldn’t even have a shot on target for the first 30 minutes or so - that’s one third of a home match wasted!

The other big teams go at you straight from the kick off and away teams are generally grateful to survive the first 20 mins.

We don’t make it uncomfortable enough for visiting teams, they only need not to make basic mistakes to survive the first half.

At the start of the season we seemed to be changing that and the first half against Leicester was one of the best for a while and we was unfortunate not to be at least a couple of goals ahead.

Against Leicester and Sheffield Utd we faded in the 2nd half and let them back into the game.
 

Lately we’ve reverted back to type and let visiting goalkeepers literally go through a whole first half without having to make one decent save.

Fitness and intensity need to improve because lately we’ve seemed to try and pace ourselves and try and step it up for the 2nd half which then leads to rash and rushed decision making in the match.

The key for me is how you start a match as that shapes how nervous and panicky the away team get, how the crowd respond and the atmosphere in the ground.
 

Start the match the right way, go at visiting teams straight from the kick off with intensity and our home form will improve.

Trying to be a 2nd half team only gives away teams more confidence the longer the match goes on.

For me it really is as simple as that.

What was frustrating yesterday was what they highlighted on MOTD. We all know that Jorginho is our best passer of the ball and yet yesterday, Rudiger and Zouma were ignoring him and taking it upon themselves to try and hit some killer passes and both failed miserably. Not sure why the coaching staff didn't nip that in the bud and get the message out to start playing through the midfield?

That yesterday was as bad as we looked at times under Sarri and of course now we have no little magician in Hazard to save the day. We just need to go back to basics and let everyone concentrate on what they are good at and in the team for and we must turn around this home form as it's nowhere near good enough. Some atmosphere would obviously help, but as Lamps rightly says - the players have to give the crowd something to get excited about!

1 hour ago, Nibs said:

What was frustrating yesterday was what they highlighted on MOTD. We all know that Jorginho is our best passer of the ball and yet yesterday, Rudiger and Zouma were ignoring him and taking it upon themselves to try and hit some killer passes and both failed miserably. Not sure why the coaching staff didn't nip that in the bud and get the message out to start playing through the midfield?

Yes I agree and mentioned this MOTD comment on another thread. I notice also the amount of times our WBs get the ball when Jorginho is moving into space yet ignore and pass directly back to the CBs, just so boring and predictable.

1 hour ago, Strider6003 said:

Yes I agree and mentioned this MOTD comment on another thread. I notice also the amount of times our WBs get the ball when Jorginho is moving into space yet ignore and pass directly back to the CBs, just so boring and predictable.

Didn’t watch this game (just as well it seems) but I’ve seen both Jorginho and Kovacic visibly frustrated with Zouma for playing the wrong ball. Odd indeed that coaching staff wouldn’t have sorted this out by now.

Great topic!

I think its a mixture of what everyone else has but I'll also add that some players have dipped in form. Willian was taking on a lot of defenders when we were on our winning run but has reverted back to his old ways. Pulisic and Mount also seemed to have dipped in form and looked like passengers in yesterday's game. Whenever our left, right, and centre forwards aren't playing well, the team ends up playing slow and struggling to break down the defence. We need more people that can carry the ball, draw defenders out to leave holes in the opposition's defence. 

16 hours ago, Nibs said:

What was frustrating yesterday was what they highlighted on MOTD. We all know that Jorginho is our best passer of the ball and yet yesterday, Rudiger and Zouma were ignoring him and taking it upon themselves to try and hit some killer passes and both failed miserably. Not sure why the coaching staff didn't nip that in the bud and get the message out to start playing through the midfield?

That yesterday was as bad as we looked at times under Sarri and of course now we have no little magician in Hazard to save the day. We just need to go back to basics and let everyone concentrate on what they are good at and in the team for and we must turn around this home form as it's nowhere near good enough. Some atmosphere would obviously help, but as Lamps rightly says - the players have to give the crowd something to get excited about!

Nice of Lamps to stick up for us and say players have to give crowd something to get excited about, but f**k me our home atmosphere is sh*te, no good people coming on here and saying all clubs home crowds are quiet, doesn't mean ours has to be, and ours is definately in the bottom half a dozen, can't remember last time I came away from a game saying the bridge was rocking, every week it's the same, you walk out bridge and we all say, crowd was flat etc.

Think its pretty obvious that teams are squeezing us through the middle and allowing us to play out wide as they know that the quality of balls coming in is firstly inconsistent and secondly Abraham seems to be the only aerial threat when the delivery is of sufficient quality.

So Lampard needs to address the 2 areas, firstly James has to play on the right as clearly he possesses the quality to whip the balls in with pace on a consistent basis and his responsibility defensively is somewhat lesser when playing at home. On the left I think we need to get some consistency going and give Emerson an extended run, think he is the most attacking option of what we have available.

The 2nd area of concern is the lack of attacking options in the box when the balls do actually come in and I reckon it could be time to replace Mount with Batshuayi, Both Abraham and Buatsuayi in the box would probably give opposition something to think when it comes to allowing crosses in the box. This would mean opposition defense would have to stretch in order to cover the balls into the box creating space in the middle. It is a bit of a catch 22 as it means we have 1 less player (Mount) to exploit the space through the middle however we still have Kante & Kova to expose any gaps which may occur.

Regardless of our form, our fans should do better. The atmosphere is really a problem, it's easy to make it better when the team is winning any club can do that. When Bayern comes the fans need to stand their ground because the Bayern away fans will take over the show otherwise.

This is an EXCELLENT analysis of Chelsea's current dip in form.

Here are some key highlights:

* In its first 12 matches, 39.2 percent of Chelsea’s shots were on-target, and 13.2 percent resulted in goals, both well above league average. In its past five matches, Chelsea has shot just 29.5 percent on-target and scored on 4.5 percent of them, both well below league average.

* But scoring goals may be the least of Chelsea’s issues at the moment: Its biggest problem might be standing in its own goal......the Spaniard currently has the worst save percentage in the Premier League among qualifying keepers, and he ranks 20th out of 24 keepers in goals prevented.¹

* American winger Christian Pulisic has been one of the league’s most dangerous attackers since cementing his place in the Chelsea starting 11 — his nonpenalty xG+xA tally of 0.7 per 90 minutes is seventh-best in the Premier League among players who qualify (not to mention higher than the number Hazard posted a season ago). And striker Tammy Abraham ...... is taking more shots and scoring more goals per 90 minutes for Chelsea this season than he did when he played for pre-promotion Aston Villa last season, and his nonpenalty xG+xA mark of 0.82 per 90 minutes is tied for fourth-best in the Premier League.

* Add the sometimes-terrific play of Mason Mount and the still developing but incredibly promising Callum Hudson-Odoi, and Chelsea’s attack — which has propelled the club to the second-best expected goals (xG) mark in the division — has been fueled by exactly the type of forwards the club and its manager insisted it would: young ones.⁵

* Lampard’s desire to dip his toes into the transfer market to buy a forward seems to betray his earlier commitment to integrate Chelsea’s youthful roster.......Lampard may want to simply trust the forwards that have gotten the club to this point and instead consider replacing its league-worst goalkeeper. Or perhaps Chelsea and Lampard should consider trying to add a left back to shore up its defense and provide relief to an embattled goalkeeper.

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/chelseas-slump-wont-necessarily-be-fixed-by-more-attackers/

 

For me a bit simpler, we have failed to beat two teams at home we were expected to win. They put a lot players behind the ball and we could not break them down.

Everton away less concerned about as it was away and also with the new manager bounce.

On 16/12/2019 at 07:47, chi blue said:

Nice of Lamps to stick up for us and say players have to give crowd something to get excited about, but f**k me our home atmosphere is sh*te, no good people coming on here and saying all clubs home crowds are quiet, doesn't mean ours has to be, and ours is definately in the bottom half a dozen, can't remember last time I came away from a game saying the bridge was rocking, every week it's the same, you walk out bridge and we all say, crowd was flat etc.

Charge £20 a ticket and the real punters will return. If you want the prawn sandwich brigade then you can't complain when they're all chatting amongst themselves and on their mobile phones rather than roaring the team on.

Problem is club can fill ground at £50/£70 a ticket so we will never see the old type crowd back, 60k ground at £20 a ticket would be nice, but will never happen.