Martin Samuel is bang on....although, i have a feeling he has been reading my recent shed end contributions. I should sue for plagiarism over the following....

"Last season, Thomas Tuchel often had Timo Werner up front, who has been nobody’s idea of a successful striker since coming to English football — yet they did not look as dysfunctional as they have with Lukaku this season.

That’s because, for all his faults, Werner moves. He makes runs, he commits defenders, he drags them about. The supporters love him for it. For all the frustration there is no great anger at Werner because his work rate is achingly obvious. God loves a trier and so does the Shed End.

Werner scored three goals for Chelsea under Tuchel last season, but of the 24 matches in which hefeatured, Chelsea won 16 and drew five.

Why? Because if the striker is moving, space opens up for others. Lukaku is failing his team-mates, not the other way around. He mopes. He sulks. He doesn’t think Chelsea’s style suits him and he’s damned if he’s going to accommodate another game, bar his own"

 

He is such a copycat! 🤣

Edited February 22, 20224 yr by nonotnowjim

I actually think he will net a couple tonight, he's up against 38 year old Jose Fonte and Sven Botman who's one of the few players in this tournament less mobile than he is.

We'll be then told all week he's "silenced the haters" only to then give us a 4 touches masterclass at Wembley.

11 hours ago, axman2526 said:

this Jurno tends to follow Chelsea a lot. One for those saying our players ignore the movement of Rom.

 

 

How can you ignore something that doesn't exist? More movement in a traffic cone. the bloke was a disaster from before day one.

7 hours ago, axman2526 said:

You know someone mentioned earlier than perhaps Haaland may have been born in the wrong Era. Not sure on that, guess we will see.

Speaking hypothetically along those lines though imagine if we could have a late 20s Eidur Gudjohnson as our main forward now? Eidur  had a little bit of everything in his game but the biggest were his vision and footballing intelligence.

What an upgrade he would be, and a perfect fit for TT and his system imo.

There is maybe one team (city) who really play false 9 altbough pep wanted to sign Kane in the summer. So if pep got kane there is 0 team that I know that play with false 9.

You can say pool is kinda playing "false 9" but salah and mane are not winger they are st. 

Edited February 22, 20224 yr by Bob stark

3 hours ago, Deino said:

I know this has been said but that trajectory and arc is ridiculous, you'd need a midfielder that has the vision, technique and power to put a backspin so good that it drops just a yard ahead or directly to the striker's feet. 

You would also need a striker with the best first touch to kill the momentum and great technique to score because after that pass this striker would have to avoid a tackle from the right and the onrushing keeper. If Lukaku volleys that ball into the net, it's a Puskas award nominee for sure. 

If we had a player that can deliver and a striker that could score like that, we'd be top of the league

Messi one of the best passers of a ball ever, would struggle to execute that surgical pass, there were a few other glaring missed passes into Ron though, especially Havertz…

9 hours ago, coco said:

The trajectory off that pass to Lukaku is straight out of Roy of the Rovers.

Not really. I was watching big match revisited last night( we were on v Hull 77) and Willie Carr pulled off a similar pass into Hibbit v Bolton and that was in the second division. Difference is that back then more flair players would try the difficult pass instead of having it coached out of them in favour of ball retention.

 

it did though also involve Hibbit being prepared to run 20 yds.

Edited February 22, 20224 yr by charierre

1 hour ago, Bob stark said:

There is maybe one team (city) who really play false 9 altbough pep wanted to sign Kane in the summer. So if pep got kane there is 0 team that I know that play with false 9.

You can say pool is kinda playing "false 9" but salah and mane are not winger they are st. 

Kane can pretty much do both though, as he showed with Spurs' first goal at The Ethiad. If Pep eventually gets him it wouldn't remotely shock me to see him utilized coming deeper while Sterling, Foden etc cause chaos in the half spaces.

7 hours ago, axman2526 said:

You know someone mentioned earlier than perhaps Haaland may have been born in the wrong Era. Not sure on that, guess we will see.

Speaking hypothetically along those lines though imagine if we could have a late 20s Eidur Gudjohnson as our main forward now? Eidur  had a little bit of everything in his game but the biggest were his vision and footballing intelligence.

What an upgrade he would be, and a perfect fit for TT and his system imo.

People talk about tactical evolution in football.If Haaland  is good enough he will make his mark on the game. There is a place in the game for both systems and has been for as long as I can remember, having watched the game over 50 years. Brazil 1970 used Tostao in a false roll and produced one of the finest teams,the Dutch evolved the roll using Cruyff ( drew the plaudits but didn’t win anything)but four years later along came Muller and West Germany. Take it another 4 years the Argies had strikers similar to Liverpool in Kempis and Luque. See the patterns? Changes have been occurring as long as I can remember, I don’t count the time before I was 12 but in all probability did so then too. The changes will carry on happening, some will be very successful others not so, it all depends on the skill of the players and vision of the coaches.

37 minutes ago, charierre said:

Not really. I was watching big match revisited last night( we were on v Hull 77) and Willie Carr pulled off a similar pass into Hibbit v Bolton and that was in the second division. Difference is that back then more flair players would try the difficult pass instead of having it coached out of them in favour of ball retention.

 

it did though also involve Hibbit being prepared to run 20 yds.

Forget Roy of the Rovers, it's Willie of the Wolves.

Good to see Chelsea claim another Premier League record. Fewest touches by a player in 90 minutes 👌 That's quite an achievement Romelu Lukaku!!

The most irritating thing about Lukaku is that his ability to burn defenders with his acceleration and bully them off the ball would make him a very handy super-sub against a tired defence, particuarly against the lesser sides - but he's too egotistical to accept such a role.

His off-the-ball movement, in terms of sucking defenders out of positions, is actually pretty good when he could be bothered, hence why he has a very good strike rate for upper-mid table clubs, but too often he couldn't be bothered. He seems to be too moody and too selfish to bring his best often enough, in that he doesn't collaborate well with the rest of his teammates despite actually having the theoretical ability (he's a surprisingly decent passer considering his lousy ball control) and doesn't press. The upshot is that he's too often isolated in the box, expecting service to come to him on a plate.

In a setup where you have a #10 feeding him killer balls (ala Gerrard to Torres in 2008/09) that would pass muster against most sides, but we don't have that setup, and the very best sides would have defenders who are good enough to anticipate those sorts of killer balls, and Lukaku's movement, and adjust accordingly. That Lukaku's ball control is not very good exacerbates that situation because against top defenders, you need to control the ball in tight spaces, or they'll just dispossess you.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Kane can pretty much do both though, as he showed with Spurs' first goal at The Ethiad. If Pep eventually gets him it wouldn't remotely shock me to see him utilized coming deeper while Sterling, Foden etc cause chaos in the half spaces.

Let me start by saying that foden and sterling do not cause chaos in half spaces. Pep want his winger to stay high and wide kinda similar to how our wb play. In fact, Kane will probably play similar role to how kun play for pep or how lukaku play with us because the way we setup is kinda similar to city.

 

2 hours ago, Ballack & Blu said:

Messi one of the best passers of a ball ever, would struggle to execute that surgical pass, there were a few other glaring missed passes into Ron though, especially Havertz…

Yep, there are criticisms for all our attackers for sure but to say a footballer should be able to execute a perfect pass like that is crazy. 

We might as well start drawing lines about all possible 1% chance of success passes

1 hour ago, charierre said:

People talk about tactical evolution in football.If Haaland  is good enough he will make his mark on the game. There is a place in the game for both systems and has been for as long as I can remember, having watched the game over 50 years. Brazil 1970 used Tostao in a false roll and produced one of the finest teams,the Dutch evolved the roll using Cruyff ( drew the plaudits but didn’t win anything)but four years later along came Muller and West Germany. Take it another 4 years the Argies had strikers similar to Liverpool in Kempis and Luque. See the patterns? Changes have been occurring as long as I can remember, I don’t count the time before I was 12 but in all probability did so then too. The changes will carry on happening, some will be very successful others not so, it all depends on the skill of the players and vision of the coaches.

Is there tactical evolution in football ?

Yes, mos top team press more this day.

Is false 9 a tactical trend ? Not at all, only one top team play with false 9

Just now, Deino said:

Yep, there are criticisms for all our attackers for sure but to say a footballer should be able to execute a perfect pass like that is crazy. 

We might as well start drawing lines about all possible 1% chance of success passes

That pass to Lukaku make no sense. The pass to ziyech is the correct one. There were  many2 instances where I thought we were too conservative but that one wasn't one of them.

1 hour ago, charierre said:

People talk about tactical evolution in football.If Haaland  is good enough he will make his mark on the game. There is a place in the game for both systems and has been for as long as I can remember, having watched the game over 50 years. Brazil 1970 used Tostao in a false roll and produced one of the finest teams,the Dutch evolved the roll using Cruyff ( drew the plaudits but didn’t win anything)but four years later along came Muller and West Germany. Take it another 4 years the Argies had strikers similar to Liverpool in Kempis and Luque. See the patterns? Changes have been occurring as long as I can remember, I don’t count the time before I was 12 but in all probability did so then too. The changes will carry on happening, some will be very successful others not so, it all depends on the skill of the players and vision of the coaches.

Although they’re the wrong team to eulogise, But imagine the sort of service Clive Allen had that season he scored 49 (87) mind you he did have Hoddle, Waddle, and Ardilles⚽️⚽️⚽️

47 minutes ago, DaRick said:

The most irritating thing about Lukaku is that his ability to burn defenders with his acceleration and bully them off the ball would make him a very handy super-sub against a tired defence, particuarly against the lesser sides - but he's too egotistical to accept such a role.

His off-the-ball movement, in terms of sucking defenders out of positions, is actually pretty good when he could be bothered, hence why he has a very good strike rate for upper-mid table clubs, but too often he couldn't be bothered. He seems to be too moody and too selfish to bring his best often enough, in that he doesn't collaborate well with the rest of his teammates despite actually having the theoretical ability (he's a surprisingly decent passer considering his lousy ball control) and doesn't press. The upshot is that he's too often isolated in the box, expecting service to come to him on a plate.

In a setup where you have a #10 feeding him killer balls (ala Gerrard to Torres in 2008/09) that would pass muster against most sides, but we don't have that setup, and the very best sides would have defenders who are good enough to anticipate those sorts of killer balls, and Lukaku's movement, and adjust accordingly. That Lukaku's ball control is not very good exacerbates that situation because against top defenders, you need to control the ball in tight spaces, or they'll just dispossess you.

That's similar to what i've said on multiple occasions. If he accepted his limitations, worked hard and knew his place i very much doubt they'll be many complaints about him. The forefront of all of the stick he gets is the simple fact he has the ego of a bonafide superstar when his ceiling is and always was a decent but flawed top flight goal getter.

5 minutes ago, Argo said:

That's similar to what i've said on multiple occasions. If he accepted his limitations, worked hard and knew his place i very much doubt they'll be many complaints about him. The forefront of all of the stick he gets is the simple fact he has the ego of a bonafide superstar when his ceiling is and always was a decent but flawed top flight goal getter.

It's just about working hard for me. I would have no complaints if Lukaku made actual attempts and getting involved in making goals. 

A striker can have bad days but their plays should be objectively observable by how much they affect the game. 

Like Drogba and Costa had days where they were absolute pants or tactic-ed out of the game but they were always making a nuisance, winning balls, winning fouls or run the opponent defences ragged.

Eden Hazard says Romelu Lukaku was 'hiding'

Lukaku would fit pretty well into the team of German Philosophers on Monty Python ... 

 

 

1 minute ago, coco said:

Eden Hazard says Romelu Lukaku was 'hiding'

There's one  reason to take Hazard back on loan then LOL. Half time talks for Romelu !

Can't stand this waste of space.

Didn't want him in 2017, and regretfully thought he turned a corner at Inter and would be a good signing for us in the summer. How wrong was I?

 

47 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

Although they’re the wrong team to eulogise, But imagine the sort of service Clive Allen had that season he scored 49 (87) mind you he did have Hoddle, Waddle, and Ardilles⚽️⚽️⚽️

Bang on, service is everything for a striker. The three mentioned all would attempt the difficult ball and certainly not renage on the more simpler through ball. It requires the striker and provider to be on the same wavelength.  It was suggested on MOTD that there hasn’t been enough time spent on the training ground, this maybe the case, our sheer games volume will have made it more difficult to work on rectifying faults all of us see evident, I’m pretty sure Tuchel will be aware similarly, but will have to prioritise training towards the next match such is the busy schedule. We clearly do have a problem on quick delivery, preferring to constantly recycle possession and any striker will suffer under these conditions…they stop making the runs. Lukaku though has to put far more effort into attacking space and demanding the ball. Just one thought the two occasions that he was caught offside, delivery was good , if a fraction tardy resulted in two shots on target, one a goal. It shows if we can get it right as a team our output will improve

1 hour ago, Bob stark said:

Is there tactical evolution in football ?

Yes, mos top team press more this day.

Is false 9 a tactical trend ? Not at all, only one top team play with false 9

That’s my point, tactics keep evolving and rehashing. The game is basically still very much the same, false 9, inverted wingers, wing backs etc have all been in/ out and constantly rerinsed since Adam was a lad.