The only thing that worries me about the current performances is that it might just be new manager bounce which will eventually run out. I hope not though. 

29 minutes ago, JM7 said:

The only thing that worries me about the current performances is that it might just be new manager bounce which will eventually run out. I hope not though. 

Yes we still need to beat a top team to show we have improved, for me that will be UTD on 23rd Feb. 

However we still need results against Newcastle and Southampton first.

1 hour ago, Strider6003 said:

Yes we still need to beat a top team to show we have improved, for me that will be UTD on 23rd Feb. 

However we still need results against Newcastle and Southampton first.

Yes we do. We should be giving every single team we play an good game, and believe we should be achieving good results and mostly victories against them. 

The only one we have where we know we will be clear second favorites and need some luck as well as real top display to stand a chance in getting a result in is City away.

2 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

Yes we still need to beat a top team to show we have improved, for me that will be UTD on 23rd Feb. 

However we still need results against Newcastle and Southampton first.

We beat Spurs. Yeah they were missing Kane, but we still beat them, we've usually struggled with the match anxiety of big games this season and can't turn up in them. This time we did and played them off the park. 

I've got no fears of Utd, they truly epitomise a 'One man team', he can't keep pulling out Rabbits and helping them to a point, onwards Tommy Tuch....

2 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

Yes we still need to beat a top team to show we have improved, for me that will be UTD on 23rd Feb. 

However we still need results against Newcastle and Southampton first.

Huge games coming up: Saints, Atletico, Man Utd, Everton...

Tuchel's early games have excepting spurs been against beatable opposition. That's not to underestimate any of the opponents, nor to understimate the overall improvement in the way that chelsea are playing compared to the end of Frank's reign. To me its quite visible the team are playing with more structure and purpose and the players have a better understanding of what they are supposed to do and are responding to it. As Tuchel himself said he came to a top club with a top group of players, and frank can take a lot of credit for that, as well as the 75k  a week he apparently continues to receive. 

The next month will likely determine what sort of a season its going to be. It seems to me Tuchel has two main problems to solve.  First getting the team to play better against a high block. Given the speed of our attackers we should welcome a high block but so far the defence seems nervous and lacking in technical ability getting past it. Secondly and has been said ad nauseam the attackers have to re discover their shooting boots. The lack of goals from Pulisic, and even CHO, as well as Werner and Havertz has surprised me.

It's very nice and feels almost heartwarming to see how so many Everton fans simply feel lucky and grateful to have a manager like Ancelotti.

We have to trust in our manager as well and the team needs all the support they can get ahead of next month - it's sad to see how instead of supporting the team we have had unacceptable behaviors towards James and fans just jumping on some of our other players due to some cheap gossip and what not... We're way better than that but sadly in this day and age it takes just a few bad apples to ruin the experience of being a fan through internet and social media and the mass media will mostly only choose to report about anything negative related to the club.

Just now, Gol15 said:

It's very nice and feels almost heartwarming to see how so many Everton fans simply feel lucky and grateful to have a manager like Ancelotti.

The majority of times I watch Everton this season I come to the same conclusion.

Miss the man but don't miss the tactics.

2 minutes ago, Argo said:

The majority of times I watch Everton this season I come to the same conclusion.

Miss the man but don't miss the tactics.

 

So many good personalities back then...

14 hours ago, ozboy said:

Tuchel's early games have excepting spurs been against beatable opposition.

 

This argument does not hold water.

Relegation Fulham beat Everton away 2-0. No game, nor team, is a given.

Edited February 15, 20215 yr by haviet1

23 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Like what I posted previously, city playing back 4 and we played back "5", but the way we build and player position is in general quite similar. It really does not really matter on the offensive side of thing. 

What matter more is player selection and how you want to play. Pool and city are very good example of two monster team with  contrasting against packed defense.

Pool simply can't play city tippy tappy football, they have athletic team but not super technical as city, the way pool broke team down is to play high intensity football, direct n fast, they spam crosses, hunt you down recycle. 

City is different they have technical player everywhere, hence they play slower tempo, keep probing until they found opening (usually set pattern) and  just keep doing it (back post tap in is their mantra) 

We on the other hand  don't have the technician of city nor the athleticism of pool so we have to play slightly in between, we can't keep playing this Sarriballesque possession ball, we will struggle to create goals, we need to play more direct but not poolesque, slower. We need to accept that we will lose possession so we need to protect our backline (kante) and press hard (everyone). 

I think you are complicating something which is far simpler then you are making it out to be, under Lampard we played a brand of football which was based upon the Liverpool team of the last couple of seasons. The idea was to stretch defenses using the fullbacks who would provide the natural width and Ziyech and Werner would look to exploit the holes on the inside & the 3 midfielders were the engine of the team and would press high and look to recycle possession.

Tuchel has come in and immediately looked to shore up the defensive structure and is looking to build the team from bottom up which makes complete sense. Our defense is comfortable playing in the wingback system and with 5 players always positioned to prevent the counter we are more secure on the transition, from an attacking standpoint our game has not changed all that much. The biggest change is the position of our wingers, they are operating more centrally as opposed to starting wide which encourages the Wingbacks to venture forward in the channels. We are looking to control games using possession and being more selective in our forward passes, against teams who will look to press us and attack us I believe we can exploit the spaces they will leave in behind however against Low blocks Tuchel needs to revise playing 3 CB's.

We don't need 3 CB's to protect us on the transition & we can sacrifice Azpi and look to bring in a Centre forward (If the assumption is we will play Pulisic, Mount and Werner in the Wingback system). In my view for all the dominance against Tottenham we didn't create enough against Spurs, we hardly created anything against Wolves and the games against Sheffield & Barnsley were quite concerning too. This is not a criticism of Tuchel who in my view has done an excellent job so far, the reality is that our frontline is completely out of form, Pulisic has not looked the same since returning from injury, Werner & Ziyech are still finding their feet in the league & Mount is still young. For all the comparisons with City and Liverpool we are just not clinical enough in front of goal & in my view instead of playing 3 CB's we need to get an additional attacker especially against teams like who play with a low block. 

Tuchel has got the results so far, but the overall performances haven't been much improved to what we were seeing before his appointment. When I looked ahead at this fixtures (before Lamps was sacked) I thought we could put a little run together after a poor run of results. The trickiest fixture on paper was Spurs away and we were helped there when Kane was ruled out. If Tuchel can continue to build this run of results then hopefully the play will improve gradually too. However if we hit a bad run of form the question marks will quickly appear with the way that we are playing.

I think is fair to say that we should be aiming for six points from the two upcoming games if we are serious about a top four challenge. This is the backend of a particularly ‘nice’ set of fixtures before a more challenging set emerge and hopefully by then a little more confidence will have been gained by the squad. 

13 minutes ago, charierre said:

I think is fair to say that we should be aiming for six points from the two upcoming games if we are serious about a top four challenge. This is the backend of a particularly ‘nice’ set of fixtures before a more challenging set emerge and hopefully by then a little more confidence will have been gained by the squad. 

We probably need to be aiming for at least 70 points if we want top 4. Might be a bit less than that if other results go our way but 70 is usually close to enough. That means at least 31 points from our remaining 15 games, so just over 2 pts per game. It will be definitely important to rack up points during our more favorable runs of fixtures. If possible we also need to avoid defeats against direct rivals for top 4 e.g. Everton, Villa, United, Leicester, Liverpool

He rotates way too much in my opinion.

 

1. Decision to start slowly paying off.

2. Decision to rely on experience - Dave playing while James is in a more advanced role paying off since we all knew that James is still young and can go missing in defense.

3. Decision to put back Jorginho-Kovacic duo in the midfield paying off - Stability, transition and using both to their best abilities.

4. Decision to summon the Spurs destroyed Alonso paying off.

5. Using CHO as a wing back while still giving him the freedom he wants paying off.

Top 4 reached, now we must keep it!

I thought bringing Kante and James on was a bad decision, as we were inviting pressure. But maybe I'm wrong there, a 2-0 lead is good enough to defend for 20 minutes, and we need points rather than smashing a team 4-0 or 5-0. 

I must admit that today it’s been a good performance. Not sure why he’s played Kepa, but other than in a couple of set pieces where he clearly struggles, he’s done well. I hope the team keeps up this level.

His post match interview on SS was  excellent, i love the way he knows the team aren't efficient and decisive enough with their passing or final ball, that was disappointing from CHO this evening, Werner is your main threat, and is poised most of the tim to pounce, play him in, and see what develops, we still look quite negative going fwd, Alonso and Werner exception.

Explaining this surprise decision, Tuchel said: “We need a strong Kepa in our squad. He had a good game in the Cup so we decided to give him another match to build up a little of rhythm, a little bit of confidence and to trust him.
"And to give at the same time Edouard the chance to recover, to mentally recover. It is a demanding position mentally and concentration-wise.” 

This does not sound like Mendy has lost his place. I expect him to play against Southampton and Madrid.

He's hardly had any real time to get his ideas across games warm down and more games no time to actually get a good week on the training ground so looking forward to see what he can do then. 

You can clearly see an identity starting to show very early identity a little sprout poping out.

Our game management has improved immensely also.

50 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I thought bringing Kante and James on was a bad decision, as we were inviting pressure. But maybe I'm wrong there, a 2-0 lead is good enough to defend for 20 minutes, and we need points rather than smashing a team 4-0 or 5-0. 

To be fair, I thought Mount wasn’t as good tonight as what we’ve grown used to this season and in that regard bringing on Kante for Mount made sense. Also bringing on Kante for either of the midfield two and breaking the pivot hasn’t worked so well so Tuchel is perhaps to be commended for reacting to that and trying something different. 

Like a lot of people on here and maybe chelsea fans in general I do want to see a back 4 and an extra attacker at some point.

As it stands though why change what is working? We won't know until a month down the line where this   formation, system and style stack up vs the best. I thought I'd seen it all in football yet Tuchel has at least for me reinvented the wingback role.

As much as I would like to see Pulisic in the starting line up and Ziyech amongst others, we are getting to see CHO and Mount get game time and thrive. Realistically in this system when CHO plays ahead of James and Alonso over Chilly we have 5 attacking players. 

If we can become more clinical why can't this be our system going forward? It won us our last league title in fact 3 at the back has won us 2/3 of our last trophies. Not to mention its a recognisable style that's our own not just another 433 wannabe 08-12 Barcelona.

Finally the competition this should breed in the squad should actually be a positive thing, Pulisic should be trying to push Mount and Werner for a number 10 slot or CHO and Alonso for a wing position. Kai should also look to challenge for a number 10 or false 9 position.

There is a lot of potential in this system and once we start scoring more regularly the added defensive structure behind our attackers will only make the team look better as a unit. This could allow us to prolong not only Silva's role in the team at the centre but also keep Cesar in the starting 11 and competing at a high level.

It does however, help to have a plan b and it should be interesting if he looks to use a 4231 or 442/4222 like at PSG somewhere down the line.