I reckon we could use Timo or Pulisic in a swap deal for Salah and if even he decides to misfire upon coming here then I give up forever.

40 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Regarding the over-rotation, maybe TT needs to look at his attacking players and decide which are the two sets of three that are going to play together, and then stick to that as much as possible. A bit like you see in NHL ice hockey where there is a first line and a second line for the attackers.

I'd go with :

Ziyech | Lukaku | Hudson-Odoi - Lukaku as the central striker, plus the two wingers who are most likely to provide assists/create chances for him

Mount | Havertz | Werner/(Pulisic) - a fluid trio that can interchange etc, like we saw in last years CL Final.

The constant chop/changing doesn't allow any understanding or patterns of play to develop properly ... granted some of the changes have been injury/covid enforced, but even so ...

By all means rotate, but only rotate as a whole line, and decide which trio is best suited for the opponent etc 

I made this point in another thread. The best attacking partnerships develop an awareness of where their partner will be, almost telepathy. The constant changing makes these relationships very hard to develop.

57 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Regarding the over-rotation, maybe TT needs to look at his attacking players and decide which are the two sets of three that are going to play together, and then stick to that as much as possible. A bit like you see in NHL ice hockey where there is a first line and a second line for the attackers.

I'd go with :

Ziyech | Lukaku | Hudson-Odoi - Lukaku as the central striker, plus the two wingers who are most likely to provide assists/create chances for him

Mount | Havertz | Werner/(Pulisic) - a fluid trio that can interchange etc, like we saw in last years CL Final.

The constant chop/changing doesn't allow any understanding or patterns of play to develop properly ... granted some of the changes have been injury/covid enforced, but even so ...

By all means rotate, but only rotate as a whole line, and decide which trio is best suited for the opponent etc 

That's not a bad idea actually although personally my way of doing it would be pick 4 main players to rotate the 3 places (for me Mount, Callum, Kai and Timo) with a 5th 'sweeper' to pick up the spare minutes (my choice would be Ziyech).

Call me glutton for punishment but I've still got varying degrees of hope for these 5. Maybe Pulisic can be redeemed as a wildcard super sub but I've lost hope with him as a starter in any context.

Edited January 16, 20224 yr by Argo

We really haven't had a consistent 20 goal a season striker since Costa's first season. Even he couldn't keep that form up. Drogba had a single 20+ goal season in his Chelsea career. If only we'd beat City to Aguero back in 2010, we may have been in a far better position. 

The front 3 should be ultra mobile and hard grafters, i cannot be doing with forwards that do not score goals and jog around.

 

2 minutes ago, coco said:

The front 3 should be ultra mobile and hard grafters, i cannot be doing with forwards that do not score goals and jog around.

 

Since none of our forwards offer consistent goals are "best" options as grafters are Kai, Mason and Timo,  maybe CHO has a case there as well.

A case could be made we would be better with Vale, Fiabema and Jude SB than any of our forwards.

We won't achieve success if we stick with Lukaku imo.

The frustrating issue with our forwards is that no-one of them ever “drive into the box”. They all play it safe. Sometimes you need someone to make something happen out of nothing. 

Man City players bombard the box and have players queing up on the back post and in the middle for the cutbacks and balls across. We need to be doing this more, and we did with Chilli and James supporting. After that juve game we fell off a cliff. Looking at Digne, we could of done with him.

Against city we basically put 3 upfront with zero support and they looked lost, add to the fact Lukaku offers nothing in a big game. I do feel confident in our attackers but only when we have players who can play a fluid pressing style. Whilst we missed far too many chances last year atleast we created enough to score.

Its said to even write this but our attack died when Hazard left and we still haven't replaced him. 

1 hour ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

Its said to even write this but our attack died when Hazard left and we still haven't replaced him. 

Our offense looked decent under Lampard 1st season. 

33 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Our offense looked decent under Lampard 1st season. 

In the expense of defense.

The problem with our forward is none of them is reliable especially on the ball.

On the ball, Ziyech is just extremely unreliable. CHO is arguably the best but he is also up and down. Mount is definitely our most reliable, but is he good enough to be the guy for 40 games ?no at least not yet.

Our other 4 attackers Lukaku,Wener,Havertz,Puli are more of runners. Werner is our best runner but he is just hopeless on the ball, puli is good on the ball only when he receive the ball high, Lukaku is unreliable, Havertz is definitely the best but he is also unreliable especially when you ask him to play back to goal.

Now because most of them are unreliable, it is so difficult to pick good combination. Mount is a must play but now what. The preferred combination for fans in this forum is Mount - Havertz - Werner. Werner gave you 0 stuff on the ball which mean if Mount has even a slight off game, you will have massive problem unless Havertz suddenly bring his A game on the ball which is very2 unlikely.

 

Edited January 17, 20224 yr by Bob stark

17 minutes ago, evissy said:

In the expense of defense.

With better pressing scheme,more structured offense, a dm and mendy, our deffense would be much better.

Honestly, I like that Lampard team better than this one or last year one. It is so easy to make that team better, the one that we have right now and last year give me headache.

 

 

Edited January 17, 20224 yr by Bob stark

If it were up to me forward pick is

Mount - Havertz -Lukaku or

Havertz - Lukaku

Mount

Just play Lukaku as rf, watching Lukaku keep losing the ball as no 9 give me headache, just ask him to attack right hand channel.

12 hours ago, enigma said:

We really haven't had a consistent 20 goal a season striker since Costa's first season. Even he couldn't keep that form up. Drogba had a single 20+ goal season in his Chelsea career. If only we'd beat City to Aguero back in 2010, we may have been in a far better position. 

Drogba had 2 seasons with more than 20.

If only the board didn't give Jose full control and allow him to outcast Salah and KDB. Incredible, our greatest ever manager pulled off the greatest f up of all time. We had the two current best players in the Prem and didn't give either of them a chance. Painful.

4 hours ago, Bob stark said:

With better pressing scheme,more structured offense, a dm and mendy, our deffense would be much better.

Honestly, I like that Lampard team better than this one or last year one. It is so easy to make that team better, the one that we have right now and last year give me headache.

Up until lockdown the games were largely enjoyable even when we didn't win. After returning though it was eyebleeding, Kante sitting DM (which not only negatively affected our ability to play out stifled him aswell) with the main tactic being get it out wide and launch in into the mixer. For a while we got away with it due to Pulisic briefly turning into Hazard then the Mendy/Silva effect combined with Ziyech's delivery but it was just sticky plaster solutions that we eventually ran out of.

We all expected greeness in Frank tactically but come the end we weren't even getting the two things he was meant to guarantee (youth and good football).

4 hours ago, Bob stark said:

With better pressing scheme,more structured offense, a dm and mendy, our deffense would be much better.

Honestly, I like that Lampard team better than this one or last year one. It is so easy to make that team better, the one that we have right now and last year give me headache.

 

 

I feel it is all about balance. Tuchel has it right in terms of having a chance of success. 

Lampard's team had really no balance in any point. Maybe that 12-13 game winning stretch we had his second season. But if I remember correctly we scored for fun and goals win you games. When we stopped scoring we lost games and Frank got sacked. Tuchel has much more in depth and intelligent approach although lot less entertaining. Defend with the ball. Frank had none of that in his ideas. 

Frank tried to do what Klopp does. His main 11 is just more suited to that football.

The inclusion of a certain 100m striker broke the system. 

Should have bought Hakimi and Lautaro. They would have added more speed to our game

2 hours ago, Argo said:

Up until lockdown the games were largely enjoyable even when we didn't win. After returning though it was eyebleeding, Kante sitting DM (which not only negatively affected our ability to play out stifled him aswell) with the main tactic being get it out wide and launch in into the mixer. For a while we got away with it due to Pulisic briefly turning into Hazard then the Mendy/Silva effect combined with Ziyech's delivery but it was just sticky plaster solutions that we eventually ran out of.

We all expected greeness in Frank tactically but come the end we weren't even getting the two things he was meant to guarantee (youth and good football).

I did not enjoy Lampard 2nd season at all. It was a total mess. Trying to incorporate Ziyech,werner and havertz was a nightmare.

Nah, playing Kante as dm was forced because Jorgi can't protect the backline. Tuchel kinda fix this problem by playing back 3. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, evissy said:

I feel it is all about balance. Tuchel has it right in terms of having a chance of success. 

Lampard's team had really no balance in any point. Maybe that 12-13 game winning stretch we had his second season. But if I remember correctly we scored for fun and goals win you games. When we stopped scoring we lost games and Frank got sacked. Tuchel has much more in depth and intelligent approach although lot less entertaining. Defend with the ball. Frank had none of that in his ideas. 

Frank tried to do what Klopp does. His main 11 is just more suited to that football.

Agree It is all about balance.

Lamp bigest mistake was forcing all his signing to play together and not signing any dm.

 

21 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

I did not enjoy Lampard 2nd season at all. It was a total mess. Trying to incorporate Ziyech,werner and havertz was a nightmare.

Nah, playing Kante as dm was forced because Jorgi can't protect the backline. Tuchel kinda fix this problem by playing back 3. 

Problem is Kante there doesn't really solve it either and unlike Jorgi doesn't play out from the back well enough to somewhat compensate. His overeagerness and naturally proactive nature to hunt the ball gets the better of him and when he fails to get it leaves a gaping hole. Was a problem when Conte did it pre formation switch aswell (Ozil's goal against us prime example).

Edited January 17, 20224 yr by Argo

The truth is none of our fwds are world class bar maybe Lukaku who is still yet to show his £100m transfer value. I've just come to accept it, the best we've looked is in a front 3 with Havertz up top alongside any 2 of these 3 Werner, Mount or Pulisic. CHO has good games more often than Ziyech but both are unreliable imo but CHO at least has the potential to really kick on and he's shown glimpses this season of the player he can be.

The truth is we are missing two fundamental aspects in our attack right now that cannot be fixed imo with only 1 attacking transfer.

We lack a playmaker (Hazard, Cesc or Mata-esque) and we lack a reliable consistent goal scorer vs all types of teams not just the lower table (Costa, Hazard-esque) until we have world class players that can create and score from nothing we will always bemoan our current crop and compare them to the previous Abramovich generations of league title winners Mourinho Mk1 and MK 2/Conte.

5 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Drogba had 2 seasons with more than 20.

If only the board didn't give Jose full control and allow him to outcast Salah and KDB. Incredible, our greatest ever manager pulled off the greatest f up of all time. We had the two current best players in the Prem and didn't give either of them a chance. Painful.

Yeah I forgot about the earlier season. Thought he scored less than 20 then. It definitely helps to have a goal scoring midfielder and assist maker too. City have had David Silva, Aguero, KDB, but since Lampard went we only had Fabregas creating anything for us, and Costa was only really good for one season. We haven't been able to have a consistent striker. I would have loved for us to have gone for Vardy 3/4 seasons ago. I am sure we were linked with him back then too, but nothing came of it. 

2 hours ago, LongtimerLurker said:

We lack a playmaker (Hazard, Cesc or Mata-esque) and we lack a reliable consistent goal scorer

I wish it was that simple, that's what got us in this predicament, going after players with a basic criteria like "creates chances" or "scores goals" without considering how they fit in the team. It would be a better idea to get players that fit the system.

2 hours ago, LongtimerLurker said:

The truth is none of our fwds are world class bar maybe Lukaku who is still yet to show his £100m transfer value. I've just come to accept it, the best we've looked is in a front 3 with Havertz up top alongside any 2 of these 3 Werner, Mount or Pulisic. CHO has good games more often than Ziyech but both are unreliable imo but CHO at least has the potential to really kick on and he's shown glimpses this season of the player he can be.

The truth is we are missing two fundamental aspects in our attack right now that cannot be fixed imo with only 1 attacking transfer.

We lack a playmaker (Hazard, Cesc or Mata-esque) and we lack a reliable consistent goal scorer vs all types of teams not just the lower table (Costa, Hazard-esque) until we have world class players that can create and score from nothing we will always bemoan our current crop and compare them to the previous Abramovich generations of league title winners Mourinho Mk1 and MK 2/Conte.

We do have a consistent creator though, pressing. When done right teams can't get out, we win the ball quickly and create a very high number of chances (all be it waste far too many). 

The fact we don't have a player creator makes the pressing even more important.