6 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I still think that Tuchel did an amazing job last season when he took over, he focused on being defensively good as he had no time to focus on other areas and it worked, but now we're looking at Tuchel after having a full pre-season as well and the team isn't improving. We are not conceding goals but our defending has relied upon the post and Mendy in order to accomplish the current defensive stats.

Top of the league after a tough start suggest we are in fact improving. We've been hopelessly far behind Liverpool & City for 4 full seasons and yet Tuchel got us looking like we can compete with them already. It also wasn't that much of a pre-season, and even the season itself has been very start-stop with the international breaks which leads to for example T.Silva missing games.

Compared to Pep & Klopp who's been able to shape their team for years and years that is a disadvantage for Tuchel at this time.  Yet he's managed it well in my view, even getting a tune out of fringe players few thought had a chance at this club.

 

8 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Sarri played something called circuit football. You basically played with certain pattern, that was why we looked very2 good early and once team understood our pattern it was so easy to defend and we were playing snoozefest football. 

There is a reason why Sarri struggled big time with us and Juventus. It is easy to give strict instructions to middle tier player but you can't give strict instructions to top players. 

 

According to Fabregas Sarri became more cautious (in regards to movement in possesion) after that mad 15 minutes against Arsenal.

It does make sense as a couple of the games after that like Newcastle and Bournemouth fell into the boring possession based game category but it didn't get much scrutiny because we were still in the honeymoon phase of Sarri (and as boring as it could have got have times it was still a hell of a lot better than the crap Conte served up in his second season so it was understandable that even the worst aspects of Sarriball looked great at first).

4 hours ago, ducavis said:

I’d rather we play a 4-3-3, and drop Mount into the middle of the park. IMO he isn’t creative or instinctive enough to play in the band behind the frontman. Fans keep banging on about his off the ball pressing but it matters more what he does with the ball. Last 2 seasons has been what; 5 goals & 7 assists for a player who basically starts all games when he is fit. We are in mid Oct and he has one assist.

Pulisic/CHO Lukaku/Kai  Werner/Ziyech

                    Mount/ Barkley

RLC/Jorginho             Kante/Kova/Saul

 

Chiwell/Alonso                    Azpi/James

      Thiago/Rudi       Christensen/Chalobah 

                        
                       Mendy

 

 

For me I like the 3cb. It suit our cb plus we can cope defensively without Kante (to some degree). If we have another midfield that can actually defend then back 4 can be a good option until then I like back 5. 

Offensively, I will play Mount and Lukaku as my staple and rotate Havertz, Werner depending on the matchup. The shape can be

Fw - Fw

Am

Or

Fw - Fw - fw

Again depending on our opp. 

 

 

I dont think 3 CB is the root of our attacking problem, one of the 3 could step in and get close to the midfield and be the extra man, and helps to have Rudiger running forward, or Thiago pick out good pass from deep. Azpi at RWB is part of the problem, he's just not effective enough as an attacking RWB. The lack of goals from MF is obvious, which is why I don't mind RLC plays there, just adds a different dimension. One of the front 3 needs to be a dribbler, so whenever you are ready to be match fit again, Mr Pullisic😄 Able to convert  chances would help too, but that's just a puzzle our strikers havent been able to solve for years.

7 hours ago, Argo said:

According to Fabregas Sarri became more cautious (in regards to movement in possesion) after that mad 15 minutes against Arsenal.

It does make sense as a couple of the games after that like Newcastle and Bournemouth fell into the boring possession based game category but it didn't get much scrutiny because we were still in the honeymoon phase of Sarri (and as boring as it could have got have times it was still a hell of a lot better than the crap Conte served up in his second season so it was understandable that even the worst aspects of Sarriball looked great at first).

Conte and Sarri both like circuit football but Conte circuit football is far more complete. Sarri football on the other hand is just too strict for top level footballer. 

In Hazard era, it was all about Hazard. Every managers buit their team around him because he was by far our best player. The problem with Hazard was the guy could take season off. So it was pretty much good season followed by bad sesson and the pattern continued. Hence the team performance kinda followed the same pattern. 

 

46 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Conte and Sarri both like circuit football but Conte circuit football is far more complete. Sarri football on the other hand is just too strict for top level footballer. 

In Hazard era, it was all about Hazard. Every managers buit their team around him because he was by far our best player. The problem with Hazard was the guy could take season off. So it was pretty much good season followed by bad sesson and the pattern continued. Hence the team performance kinda followed the same pattern. 

 

That makes no sense. I'm sure that Conte is far more strict and rigid than Sarri in most aspects of the game, and far less tolerant.

You keep sayin that Sarri is too strict for a top level footballer but then right after you say how it was all about Hazard, if Sarri really is a bad coach towards top players how in the world did Hazard manage to have his best season? How did Kante manage to score the most goals in a season for Sarri as well? How did RLC score 10 goals that season, Pedro 13, if Sarri is too strict for top level footballers? You will never be able to take away the influence of a manager.

TT conncered with workload, as well as physical and mental fatigue on Lukaku, Mount and Jorgi especially.

If that is the case we have a deep enough squad, give them time off and come back for Newcastle on October 30th, or if they need more time Burnely a week later.

Ideal time to do so now if is needed.

I think it's important to remember the opening fixtures chelsea have had to play in comparison to our rivals so far. Irrelevant of formation / player form etc etc Chelsea are sitting top of the league having already faced Arsenal, Spurs, City & Liverpool.. We have a steady run now until the Utd game and I'd love to see where abouts we are after that vs rivals who all have to play each other and will take points away from each other. 

 

The Brentford game was tough but they will take more points off bigger sides. Especially at home. Reminded me of the Blackburn fixture away in 2004/2005 when cech saved the penalty and Robben got the winner. Such a huge 1-0 in that season. 

12 hours ago, Gol15 said:

That makes no sense. I'm sure that Conte is far more strict and rigid than Sarri in most aspects of the game, and far less tolerant.

You keep sayin that Sarri is too strict for a top level footballer but then right after you say how it was all about Hazard, if Sarri really is a bad coach towards top players how in the world did Hazard manage to have his best season? How did Kante manage to score the most goals in a season for Sarri as well? How did RLC score 10 goals that season, Pedro 13, if Sarri is too strict for top level footballers? You will never be able to take away the influence of a manager.

Why Kante scored more? 

It is the same answer as why Mount scored more under Tuchel or why wijnaldum score more in Newcastle then in pool. 

On 18/10/2021 at 03:38, Gol15 said:

He won't keep his job either if he really believes that we can win every game 1:0 either, it takes a good manager to use a good attacker and Tuchel has a good attacking squad on paper.

Bruno came in January and in 14 PL appearances he had 8 goals and 7 assists. Second season 37 games 18 goals and 11 assists. Clearly it's not just about him taking penalties.

Lampard managed to do well in his first season we scored plenty of goals. Sarri too.

Jose won the league with 2-0's and 1-0's. Conte also won the league doing something similar. You will have mad runs of scoring 3-0's and 4-0's sometimes but we've already seen that from this team this season already. 

The second season was when Utd won an absurd amount of penalties. He scored 9 penalties last season and 4 penalties the season before. He's a good player still but how is Kai even close to producing Bruno's end product to build a team around him. 

Plenty of goals but also plenty of huge losses. Under Sarri, we lost to Bournemouth 4-0 and City 6-0, conceded 39 goals that season and nowhere near City and Liverpool, the gap was 25points. In Lamps' first season we conceded 54 goals and we barely scraped top 4 last season. Our defence is at least looking solid now.

Say we switch to 4231/433, only difference is we swap Azpi/James/Chalobah for Havertz. Will it really change our attacking play that much? The 433/4231 relies heavily on the forwards to win individual battles. If our strikers had won their battles in the first place then we wouldn't even be debating about styles of play

On 18/10/2021 at 12:07, Argo said:

We're not exactly solid at the minute even with the 3/5. The only reason it's not reflecting in the GA column is because we've got the best keeper in the world.

I personally don't understand this line of thinking "if we didn't have player X, we'd be worse off"

That's the entire reason we bought Mendy. If we didn't need a good GK, then we'd have stuck with Kepa, right? 

Our starting 11 changes every 2-3 games anyway, I'd say that contributes a lot to our team not gelling properly

40 minutes ago, Deino said:

I personally don't understand this line of thinking "if we didn't have player X, we'd be worse off"

That's the entire reason we bought Mendy. If we didn't need a good GK, then we'd have stuck with Kepa, right? 

Our starting 11 changes every 2-3 games anyway, I'd say that contributes a lot to our team not gelling properly

It's not about Mendy per se more how sustainable the performances are.

As frustrating as the finishing was at the back end of last season all the metrics were pointing to our system being sustainable going forward. 

The recent performances have been the total opposite.

2 hours ago, Argo said:

It's not about Mendy per se more how sustainable the performances are.

As frustrating as the finishing was at the back end of last season all the metrics were pointing to our system being sustainable going forward. 

The recent performances have been the total opposite.

You have a point there but is 8 games a good metric? Honest question because I'm not very good at extrapolating forecasted data thru stats. 

I get that results tend to revert to the mean but how is it possible for the data to change significantly when we have only added 3 new players to the squad albeit only one is a starter

Edited October 20, 20214 yr by Deino

1 hour ago, Deino said:

You have a point there but is 8 games a good metric? Honest question because I'm not very good at extrapolating forecasted data thru stats. 

I get that results tend to revert to the mean but how is it possible for the data to change significantly when we have only added 3 new players to the squad albeit only one is a starter

Yes and no, it's not enough to make definitive judgements but it's certainly enough sample size to spot trends.

One big worry is the fact I read the other day we're 19th in successful high pressures and it's showing with how easily we're played through compared to last season.

Assuming Lukaku isn't losing his place anytime soon we either need to insist Rom starts doing his bit with pressing or have to counter it by having Mount and Werner doing even more work than usual to counter it. I mean I don't like the sound of the latter as that type of work rate exception should only ever be reserved for Hazard level players and above but medium term somethings got to give.

17 minutes ago, Argo said:

Yes and no, it's not enough to make definitive judgements but it's certainly enough sample size to spot trends.

One big worry is the fact I read the other day we're 19th in successful high pressures and it's showing with how easily we're played through compared to last season.

Assuming Lukaku isn't losing his place anytime soon we either need to insist Rom starts doing his bit with pressing or have to counter it by having Mount and Werner doing even more work than usual to counter it. I mean I don't like the sound of the latter as that type of work rate exception should only ever be reserved for Hazard level players and above but medium term somethings got to give.

This is the issue that needs addressing, we can all see that we're not the same team as last season. The pros vs the cons of Lukaku signing had to have been weighed up by Tuchel, his coaches and the board. There must be a solution otherwise this looks like poor planning.

Plain and simple we needed to score more goals and brought in an elite striker, yet we don't play to his strengths whilst also recently playing in a way that highlights his limitations.

Rom should be fit enough to press much more aggressively but, the fact remains that he looks so much better at the point of a front 3 than in a duo in which he has less passing options. 

I think 352 is more of an issue than a solution whether I'm right or Tuchel sees this is another debate entirely.

Our pressing game looks so much worse in 352 than 343 I also don't see why we would even need to change to 352 since 343 actually offers more midfield overload and passing options it just seems like a less obsolete system for this team when maximising output. 

If you're playing 352 with this squad then it needs to be 3412 with the AM popping up in the hole with the sole responsibility to thread the attack and defense together rather than having 2 8s in a 352 who can't shoot or assist. 

Either way though you lose a body when playing out, because even when Timo drops deep in a 352 it again leaves Lukau isolated. Lukaku needs at least two players he can knock the ball off to who will run in behind and allow him time to get into the box. If you add in the wingbacks in a 3421 then he should have 4 options whereas in a 352 its more like 3 consistent options and occasionally a overlapping midfielder.

Edited October 20, 20214 yr by LongtimerLurker

28 minutes ago, LongtimerLurker said:

If you're playing 352 with this squad then it needs to be 3412 with the AM popping up in the hole with the sole responsibility to thread the attack and defense together rather than having 2 8s in a 352 who can't shoot or assist. 

Exactly this.

8 hours ago, Deino said:

Jose won the league with 2-0's and 1-0's. Conte also won the league doing something similar. You will have mad runs of scoring 3-0's and 4-0's sometimes but we've already seen that from this team this season already. 

The second season was when Utd won an absurd amount of penalties. He scored 9 penalties last season and 4 penalties the season before. He's a good player still but how is Kai even close to producing Bruno's end product to build a team around him. 

Plenty of goals but also plenty of huge losses. Under Sarri, we lost to Bournemouth 4-0 and City 6-0, conceded 39 goals that season and nowhere near City and Liverpool, the gap was 25points. In Lamps' first season we conceded 54 goals and we barely scraped top 4 last season. Our defence is at least looking solid now.

Say we switch to 4231/433, only difference is we swap Azpi/James/Chalobah for Havertz. Will it really change our attacking play that much? The 433/4231 relies heavily on the forwards to win individual battles. If our strikers had won their battles in the first place then we wouldn't even be debating about styles of play

A lot of people want to focus on formation but I am pretty sure if we sign prime cesc or prime messi, nobody will ever criticize Tuchel "defensive" tactic. 

2 hours ago, Liam said:

Exactly this.

Agreed. Kante has the rare moment but Kova is completely hopeless in the final third, and Jorgi does not have the engine to be considered an 8. 

9 hours ago, Deino said:

Jose won the league with 2-0's and 1-0's. Conte also won the league doing something similar. You will have mad runs of scoring 3-0's and 4-0's sometimes but we've already seen that from this team this season already. 

The second season was when Utd won an absurd amount of penalties. He scored 9 penalties last season and 4 penalties the season before. He's a good player still but how is Kai even close to producing Bruno's end product to build a team around him. 

Plenty of goals but also plenty of huge losses. Under Sarri, we lost to Bournemouth 4-0 and City 6-0, conceded 39 goals that season and nowhere near City and Liverpool, the gap was 25points. In Lamps' first season we conceded 54 goals and we barely scraped top 4 last season. Our defence is at least looking solid now.

Say we switch to 4231/433, only difference is we swap Azpi/James/Chalobah for Havertz. Will it really change our attacking play that much? The 433/4231 relies heavily on the forwards to win individual battles. If our strikers had won their battles in the first place then we wouldn't even be debating about styles of play

I don't believe that we can win the league playing like this, there is not a single attacker right now that is performing good for us. We already looked strange in that regard prior to the international break and nothing has changed. I don't mind losing if we win more games and win them convincingly in the long run but our defense is a false sense of security right now, Brentford had a few clear-cut chances and hit the post twice.

Pep bought Grealish and he's making stuff happen, Klopp has Salah that creates chances, we don't have anyone right now, you first use the player in the best possible way and then you get the end product out of him, not vice-versa. This is the thing, at least Kai has an excuse because he was used in every possible position according to what was needed so naturally he won't be able to perform at the same level while being told to go from one side to the other and then back. Lukaku isn't getting any service, Werner is the same from last season and Mount has been missing in action so far.

Our best attacker is Dave because he creates a goal per match, I hope that wasn't the plan because he only puts in a few crosses per game and that's enough for him to contribute the most.

In any case, our expectations are not the same as before, specially not after winning the CL. Sarri's point was to go away from Conte's style and reduce the gap from Man City and Lampard just needed to secure top 4 in his first season.

As soon as Conte stopped getting the results nobody was happy with him, I bet that you would also change your opinion as soon as we were to lose a couple of games playing like this, suddenly it won't matter that we had a pretty stable defense overall. I guess I don't need to remind that Conte was also trying to make sure that our defense doesn't concede goals and that didn't help him in the long run.

Took a risk against the Swedish Milwall, cost us Lukaku for that horrible tackle, second red not called by the useless ref (first being the leg breaker Kante got really lucky with).

We are lucky only Lukaku got done by those thugs, could have easily lost Kante, Jorgi and others too. Wasted our best players against that rabble.

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Took a risk against the Swedish Milwall, cost us Lukaku for that horrible tackle, second red not called by the useless ref (first being the leg breaker Kante got really lucky with).

We are lucky only Lukaku got done by those thugs, could have easily lost Kante, Jorgi and others too. Wasted our best players against that rabble.

Some believe they belong to Denmark! 

7 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Some believe they belong to Denmark! 

Think I am missing part of the conversation here gol lol.

Thought the team looked brilliant last night. Looked they upped their game in the final third. Granted, Malmö made it very easy but it was nice to see an attacking display. 

Malmo was poor, but no way we'd take the risk playing a second string team, doesn't take much for an upset, just like what happened to real last round. Our intent was good in the game, unlike the last 2 group games where we tried to bore them to death by slow passing. Having Mount back is good, you get that urgency in attack and press that others dont offer.

1 hour ago, JM7 said:

Thought the team looked brilliant last night. Looked they upped their game in the final third. Granted, Malmö made it very easy but it was nice to see an attacking display. 

It's no coincidence with Kai back at false 9 we're all of a sudden a fluent team again.

However it was a bitter sweet watch knowing it's only temporary.