27 minutes ago, big blue said:

I think there are 2 issues. 

The 1st is the system makes it very hard for the front 3, because the spare man is usually a wing back.

The 2nd is we have too many players to keep happy, which leads to constant rotation and a real lack of chemistry. 

I have always preferred 433 or 4231, I would to see us find a centre back partnership and midfield combination that would allow us to play with a back 4, as i think it would bemefit the attack alot. 

Having said all that, its still pretty obvious all the attacking players haven't lived up to expectations. I think Mount, Lukaku, Havertz, is the best 3 we have have.

Rudiger/Christensen leaving is a perfect storm, the sooner we switch to a formation that suits most of our attacking players the better.

Ah you know what, many of you seem convinced the 4-3-3 TT used in Paris will fix us so I hope he gives it a go, let's see. Play it against Wolves and let's see. We don't know who the new 2 with covid are so this is subject to change, but in a 433 I would go:

 

Dave

AC

Silva

Rudiger

 

Chalobah

 

James

Barkley

 

Mount

Havertz

Pulisic 

 

 

27 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Ah you know what, many of you seem convinced the 4-3-3 TT used in Paris will fix us so I hope he gives it a go, let's see. Play it against Wolves and let's see. We don't know who the new 2 with covid are so this is subject to change, but in a 433 I would go:

 

Dave

AC

Silva

Rudiger

 

Chalobah

 

James

Barkley

 

Mount

Havertz

Pulisic 

 

 

I wouldnt change it against wolves, we have a depleted team as it is. Not the time to be changing things. Just got to try and grind out a result. 

Even watching vs Leeds now. They are certainly not the team to replicate, but the amount of times they get their most creative player in Odegaard into the space between leeds' defence and midfield is impressive. Then when he get into those areas, the players in and around him are all attackers. 

Why do we struggle to get the likes of Mount, Ziyech, and Havertz into those areas. 

 

58 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Rudiger/Christensen leaving is a perfect storm, the sooner we switch to a formation that suits most of our attacking players the better.

You do realize that 4-2-3-1 has already been tried with this squad? Didn't go all that well.

Who would be your wingers in that kind of a formation btw? Because it's heavily reliant on top wingers and we have none.

15 minutes ago, big blue said:

Even watching vs Leeds now. They are certainly not the team to replicate, but the amount of times they get their most creative player in Odegaard into the space between leeds' defence and midfield is impressive. Then when he get into those areas, the players in and around him are all attackers. 

Why do we struggle to get the likes of Mount, Ziyech, and Havertz into those areas. 

 

We take too long to get the ball  into those areas. Preferring to constantly recycle the ball  instead of being more direct when needed.

Edited December 18, 20214 yr by charierre

17 minutes ago, Sindre said:

You do realize that 4-2-3-1 has already been tried with this squad? Didn't go all that well.

Who would be your wingers in that kind of a formation btw? Because it's heavily reliant on top wingers and we have none.

Lampard got a top 4 and a cup final with a 4-2-3-1, in a time when we really didn't have much hopes of anything and when we had a worse squad!

Pulisic and CHO are really the wingers that should be played in that system, there is where they could become top players! The reason why nobody looks like a top player anymore is because this current tactic only makes the full-backs look good.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Ah you know what, many of you seem convinced the 4-3-3 TT used in Paris will fix us so I hope he gives it a go, let's see. Play it against Wolves and let's see. We don't know who the new 2 with covid are so this is subject to change, but in a 433 I would go:

 

Dave

AC

Silva

Rudiger

 

Chalobah

 

James

Barkley

 

Mount

Havertz

Pulisic 

 

 

TT has already said that Silva doesn’t have the legs to play in a back 4 anymore. A back 3 suits our current defenders. I don’t see a formation change unless a number of our squad does. 

Lack of continuity is hindering the forwards in my opinion. Injuries/Covid have given us a real headache.

Since 20th October, Lukaku and Werner, who you'd say are supposed to be our biggest goal threats, have started 4 games between them (13 fixtures). Pulisic has only started in 3 of those 13 as well. 

If Liverpool had Salah, Mane, Jota playing that sporadically I bet they'd be struggling up front as well, not to mention if at the same time they also lost their first choice midfield ... 

Edited December 19, 20214 yr by Sexyfootball

8 hours ago, Gol15 said:

 

We all love Drogba, and the number of important goals he scored was unparalleled, but he was only really prolific in two of the nine seasons with us, and the rest of the time he was putting up the sort of numbers that we are using to beat our current crop over the head with ...

Outside of his two prolific seasons, Drogba had 94 goals in 277 appearances, or in other words, a goal every 3 games.

2 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

We all love Drogba, and the number of important goals he scored was unparalleled, but he was only really prolific in two of the nine seasons with us, and the rest of the time he was putting up the sort of numbers that we are using to beat our current crop over the head with ...

Outside of his two prolific seasons, Drogba had 94 goals in 277 appearances, or in other words, a goal every 3 games.

Yup in general Drogba wasn't big goal getter but he was very2 good leading the line,more importantly we had lampard getting many2 goal from midfield.

In 343, our midfield will never get number. It got to be one of the front 3.

 

7 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Yup in general Drogba wasn't big goal getter but he was very2 good leading the line,more importantly we had lampard getting many2 goal from midfield.

In 343, our midfield will never get number. It got to be one of the front 3.

 

Agreed - we miss that Lampard impact from midfield ... albeit some encouraging signs that maybe Mount or Gallagher, or both, will be able to fill that particular void !

I think we need badly one to have a breakthrough goal wise and hopefully Mount's recent burst is a sign he's becoming that player.

Today at Wolves was beyond abysmal from an attacking perspective.  I have no idea how our forwards can be so lacking in any desire to score ... are they all paid too much and this has killed their motivation ? It isn't the system ... it is the bloody players. Pulisic and Ziyech in particular are just not good enough for where we aspire to be. They disappoint every single game.

No idea what they are doing at training, but they are collectively choking big time when it comes to match day.

Any kid that love football growing up will always love to drive towards the goal and bang it into the net. 

Our forwards don't have the hunger to score. Everything is just hit and hope, where is the finesse and technique? 

13 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

We all love Drogba, and the number of important goals he scored was unparalleled, but he was only really prolific in two of the nine seasons with us, and the rest of the time he was putting up the sort of numbers that we are using to beat our current crop over the head with ...

Outside of his two prolific seasons, Drogba had 94 goals in 277 appearances, or in other words, a goal every 3 games.

Drogba wasn't prolific but he was always a nuisance. No defences that faced Drogba ever came out and said "I'd love to play against Drogba".

This creates a lot of spaces for others to get into scoring positions. Our current forwards can't do that and our 90m striker is not a big enough nuisance against the best defenders

The performance of our forwards these last few games is the reason I am so adamant against people suggesting we should play a false nine versus starting lukaku and/or werner. I'd rather trust an out form Lukaku or Werner leading our line that Pulisic or Ziyech.

8 minutes ago, Deino said:

Any kid that love football growing up will always love to drive towards the goal and bang it into the net. 

Our forwards don't have the hunger to score. Everything is just hit and hope, where is the finesse and technique? 

I find it strange that we hardly get anything coming out of the academy either. Tammy, CHO and Broja is the sum of it in about 10 years !

In my day, everyone wanted to be a striker, or a tricky winger. Nowadays it seems the average 8 year old just wants to be a full back or a centre back LOL. I blame JT and Ashley :-) 

4 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Agreed - we miss that Lampard impact from midfield ... albeit some encouraging signs that maybe Mount or Gallagher, or both, will be able to fill that particular void !

If you want somebody from midfield to score tons of goal, you can't play two flying wb, with 3 forward in the box

13 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

We all love Drogba, and the number of important goals he scored was unparalleled, but he was only really prolific in two of the nine seasons with us, and the rest of the time he was putting up the sort of numbers that we are using to beat our current crop over the head with ...

Outside of his two prolific seasons, Drogba had 94 goals in 277 appearances, or in other words, a goal every 3 games.

He was a bit of a late bloomer, those first 2 seasons he wasn't as good but in total he did manage to make 15+ goals before that iconic season in 2007.

In the past the impact of a striker was more important than the sheer number of goals or stats, I think that Ronaldo and Messi changed that in the last 10 years and with them came Lewandowski and now Salah, Håland and so on...

But 104 goals in 254 PL games is good specially when you take in count that he has less than 5 goals scored from penalties and he has over 50 assists so that's basically having some impact significantly more than half of the games he played in the PL.

5 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I find it strange that we hardly get anything coming out of the academy either. Tammy, CHO and Broja is the sum of it in about 10 years !

In my day, everyone wanted to be a striker, or a tricky winger. Nowadays it seems the average 8 year old just wants to be a full back or a centre back LOL. I blame JT and Ashley 🙂

The only good striker that came out of the English footballing pyramid post-2010's was Harry Kane. 

The world is loaded with great fullbacks these days. Which is funny because mid-2000's was the golden era of strikers

Edited December 19, 20214 yr by Deino

16 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

The performance of our forwards these last few games is the reason I am so adamant against people suggesting we should play a false nine versus starting lukaku and/or werner. I'd rather trust an out form Lukaku or Werner leading our line that Pulisic or Ziyech.

For me, our best front three is the three you haven't mentioned and if given a run together I believe they'll show that.

11 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

If you want somebody from midfield to score tons of goal, you can't play two flying wb, with 3 forward in the box

What you'd do is play 4-3-3, with proper wingers who can score, and a dedicated DM to shield the defence. 

I think this is the reason why Lampard wanted Declan Rice : to enable him to field two box to box midfielders in front of Rice, who could both add to the goal threat.

But we clearly need better wingers, as out of Pulsic, Ziyech and CHO, probably only CHO is the right stuff, and even then it's more a view of his potential and "ceiling" rather than any actual impact career-to-date. 

21 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Rudiger/Christensen leaving is a perfect storm, the sooner we switch to a formation that suits most of our attacking players the better.

So many fans have convinced themselves that it's the system that is the problem and not the players. It seems that people have quickly forgotten that Lampard never played this system and our attacking players still struggled. We can go further back and include Sarri and Conte in this too. 

The simple fact is that we have had one consistenly good attacking player since we last won the title, and the 2 seasons before he left, he was carrying the whole attack on his back. Hazard is the only consistent attacking player we have had in since we won the title. Everybody else has not been good enough, and it's not because of the system, it's because of them.

According to data at link below, our current misfiring sextet of attackers are costing Roman over 1.1 million pounds a week in wages !!!

Lukaku £325K ; Werner £272K ; Havertz £150K ; Pulisic £150K ; Hudson-Odoi £120K ; Ziyech £100K. 

Such poor value for money, let alone the £300M+ of transfer fees it took to sign them ... 

 

Apparently we are also paying Saul £198K a week ... Marina not looking quite so shrewd a negotiator now is she ? Hindsight a wonderful thing and all that, but even so ... 

https://www.spotrac.com/epl/chelsea-fc/payroll/