2-1 and the job was done. 2 points away from the top spot, but not really an assuring performance. Failure to kill the game off has turned out to be a really heavy problem for Chelsea.
Like almost every perceived weak team that has shown up at the Bridge, palace to employed deep defensive blocks to prevent Chelsea from penetrating through the middle.
To counter this, Chelsea have tried to switch play flank to flank while keeping the ball on the ground. However the opposition’s high pressing and the midfielder’s reluctance in poking in a decisive through ball through the middle forces Chelsea to play the ball back.
Groans echo around the stadium everytime this happens, and could you blame the fans? We pay for beautiful football, and its not what we are seeing. Dissappointing if you have really high expectations, but that’s not the topic right now.
As Chelsea take it to one flank to another, the block ahead of the defensive line turn towards that side as well. In essence, if Chelsea were to move the ball abit quicker, we could actually be able to penetrate through the middle. Ramires’s goal, being an example on how switching flanks helped create a decent opportunity.
Dragging players away from position is not always the primarily role of a forward, at Chelsea though, it seems second to nature. In the games against West Ham and Schalke, Eto’o drifted wide, allowing Oscar and Willian to take up the proverbial #9 role.
By doing this , Chelsea caused the defensive line a lot of confusion, especially during counter-attacks. This is also another reason why Chelsea won’t go into the market looking for poacher. Maybe we might not even get a striker, because the direction Chelsea seem to be heading calls for a striker that has a deep tactical sense to the game. Scoring first yes, but if you don’t perform your secondary duties, you’ll be isolated on the far side of the pitch.
Talking about other situations, everytime a wide player receives the ball, he comes up against 2v1 situations. If the wide player helps him out, 3v2 at times too. Once the ball is brought back to the center, things don’t become any better as you have an additional player in the form of a striker , harassing you from the back.
As mentioned before, when Chelsea have had their chances, they tend to waste it in a unique fashion. Mata is able to lure in the right-back and back heel the ball onto the path of Branislav Ivanovic while the midfielder turns around in confusion. Here we also see an open Eden Hazard looking for an opportunity to cut in.
Ivanovic went on to take a shot. How many of you would place their bets on Azpilicueta being in a similar situation and cutting back to either Torres or lofting it towards Hazard?
However one can’t blame Ivan too much. It was a decent shot, just inches away from the net.
Moving over to the Ramires goal. It was a spectacular finish by Ramires to win the game for Chelsea. However some finer points in the buildup seemed to have been forgotten at the end of 90 minutes. Essien brings the ball forward and gives it to Mata. Mata proceeds to give it to Willian. Here we can note the famous ” Chelsea can’t transition to attack quickly enough” scenario. Essien and Mata pretty much waited around in the center thinking about making a move.
Keep an eye on Torres (encircled in white).
Willian receives the ball. At this point Palace are retreating their players back and are more in the phase of pressing than restructuring their shape. It’s that point of time after recovering the ball when the players are confused about going after the player or back to their zone.
Keep that eye on Torres.
Willian runs at the defense . Notice how there is no forward and just to be careful, an opposition player runs back into the defensive line to cover the hole (orange arrow) .
Willian running right at them means the full-back needs to mark both Hazard and Willian (primarily on the Brazilian) . In doing so , the center-back helps him out to negate any clear cut opportunities Willian will get from acting as the focal point.
The moment Hazard has the ball his plan is to cut inside and keep running laterally along the box. At this point there are four defenders in the box. Two fully concentrated on Willian, and one each on Torres and Hazard.
For Torres though, there is another player joining in to cover a zone in the box.
As Hazard drives in sideways, three players are attracted towards him, thus leaving Willian a little free. Moreover the chances of the ball going towards Torres is quite high, so he has 3 defenders at him, with the 3rd one having the initial duty of pressing at Ramires.
In a nutshell the goal was created by several factors. Not exactly the sparkliest of team-play, but an efficient way to clear up space in the middle.
At the end of the day Chelsea created problems for themselves. It wasn’t about lack of creating chances, cause Chelsea did manage to do that. Conversion seems to be a problem. The defense too seems to be reasonably well-oiled as long as the ball is on the ground. The moment it’s hoofed in the form of a lob , a cross, a cut-back or a set-piece, Chelsea psychologically aren’t ready enough to face it.
Torres got his one clear chance and took it. The problem is, how many of those can we create and convert?
I am not convinced with our performances so far.2-1 victory is not flattering to say the least.We need real command performances.We also need an overhaul.Certain players need to go as consistency seems to be a huge challenge.
Sell. Me Ba and Torres +35million pounds and get us Suarez and balotelli,SIMPLE!.not getting us a striker means we wish to pile pressure on our defense because if we are blunt up front,opponents become adventurous to make attacks,knowing ‘we got no strikers’.
I wish to see all the flukes(except for our juwel courtois) on loan should be sold alongside essien,mikel,mata,luiz(his mind is out of chelsea),torres and ba a total of £160m+£25m from the club owner and buy suarez(£75m-he is worth much more),balottelli/lewandowski-(£25m),shaw/moreno/coentrao-£25m,Khedira/Matic-£30m and mangala and hummels(£30m).Simply put it,the best players arn’t playing in Chelsea currently and we not buying them.Please buy them and forget the future,when we get there,we will cross it.we are not an academy,we arn’t teachers!!.
lol@we aint an academy, we arn’t teachers
Great let’s spend more money when we have loads of promising youth players who could do with a chance in the team
God!!! this is absurd…. Sell Mata? Luis?better why not sell the whole club and buy a club of your wish and install new players and managers?cos you’re meaning exactly the same indirectly
nice analysis but we need goals, cos they myt be all we got the way the table is looking…and an interesting game wont kill us as long as we win
The bitter truth is that Mou is not the best man for this cfc’s job..I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed cfc’s match under Mou unlike under benitez, look at lfc n city playing good footie.why cant we do same?..we’re completely moving in cycle, no improvement what so ever
would like to see a game btw those two
Mate fuck*n wake up…. jeeeez. You are 2nd place (2 points away from 1st), and you finished 1st in the Champions League group. Mourinho took over the team this current year, it takes time to implement a different philosophy, different way of playing. But if you want to play good footie and finish 5th place 15 points from the table leader… you can always change club.
Dude man city and liverpool have strikers that have hit double figures dis season in goals,ur strikers are sharing 5goals in d ratio 2:2:1,imagine,good football needs good strikers to score goals..get rid of el nino n ba,get us jackson martinez n burak yilmaz
Mourinho might cost us the title.
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/desmond-kane/mourinho-failure-warm-mata-could-yet-cost-chelsea-080513755.html
DOS ENTERTAINMENT FOOTBALL WIN A TRPHY?. SOMTING IS WRONG WIT U PEOPLE SOMTYMS LOOK AT WER WE ARE WIT BORING FOOTBALL.WAS IT NT BORIN FOOTBAL DAT WON US OUR FIRST EPL TROPHY?. WE SMELLING DE CUP WE HV BEEN MISSING FOR DE PAST 2/3 SEASONS ND U PEOPLE CLAIMING TO BE CHELSEA FANS, WE WNT ENTERTAINMENT BALL,MA FRNDZ GO JOIN BARCA. LUK AT ARSENALS ENTERTANMENT FOOTBALL WIDOUT TROPHIES FOR ABOUT 13YRS ID DAT WAT U WNT?. Mate fuck*n wake up…. jeeeez. You are 2nd place (2 points away from 1st), and you finished 1st in the Champions League group. Mourinho took over the team
this current year, it takes time to implement a different philosophy, different way of playing. But if you want to play good footie and finish 5th place 15 points from the table leader… you can always change club.
peopl are funny.some said we dont have the best players.bayern trashd barco 7-0,& yet barca fans stil claim they hav the best players.please if u tink we dont hav good players u can switch club.i like constructive criticism not biase & baseles critics.
what i know is that we are not converting our chances & defence is panicing alot when under pressure.we hav lukaku,cahil,terry,luiz,kallas,omeruo.we must learn from sturidge & matic experience.u must be patient with players & give opportunity 2 young players.