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Chelsea Post-Match Discussion Thread

Jordinho

Ron Henry
Staff member
Time to put on our hindsight glasses.

What did we do right?

What did we do wrong?

What can do to improve going forward?

Please keep it constructive. ****ging off of players, coaching staff or board of directors can be done in other threads. Thanks.
 
Choosing to play a centre back partnership of Dawson & Kaboul might have been a mistake given their limited experience of playing together, especially in a game of this significance. Having them
hold a high kind isn't ideal either given their relative lack of pace. I think Vertonghen should have partnered Dawson, being Kaboul back against an easier opponent.
 
We lost to a much better team, away from home, against a manager with just about the best home record ever.

We did so after gifting them 3 goals and the ref gifting them a 4th. No doubt in my mind they deserved the win, and it was a really tough blow to see us capitulate like that, but we weren't bad in the first half and really we were let down by a string of individual errors.

Can't really blame the tactics I think, not really a tactic available that makes us favourites in that game and regardless of how we set up we would have had to ride our luck a bit at times to get a result. When we needed that we failed by making individual errors.

Some real worries at centre back going forward, particularly if Kaboul's red doesn't get rescinded or his injury problems return.
 
Choosing to play a centre back partnership of Dawson & Kaboul might have been a mistake given their limited experience of playing together, especially in a game of this significance. Having them
hold a high kind isn't ideal either given their relative lack of pace. I think Vertonghen should have partnered Dawson, being Kaboul back against an easier opponent.

There were no good options available, I don't think Fryers covered himself in glory after coming on and I see no reason to think that he would have done better at left back than Dawson and Kaboul did at centre back.
 
But centre back is immediately in front of the goal, it's defending the position that is most likely to be taken up by players who will score against us. I would prefer to be weaker at left back, as it's slightly away from goal, than at left back. Even if a player succeeds at beating our left back, they would still have to likely get past one of our centre backs to score. If they get past the centre back then we're likely screwed.
 
But centre back is immediately in front of the goal, it's defending the position that is most likely to be taken up by players who will score against us. I would prefer to be weaker at left back, as it's slightly away from goal, than at left back. Even if a player succeeds at beating our left back, they would still have to likely get past one of our centre backs to score. If they get past the centre back then we're likely screwed.

I think he went for Verts at left back to mitigate the risk that Jose might switch Hazard over to there if the Walker and naughton tactic was working. Fryers verses Hazard wouldn't fill me with confidence either!
 
The first goal is Vertonghen inexplicably not booting it, but trying to do a turn and slipping. Everyone else is half asleep or otherwise occupied. Then the ref decides to end the game. What happens after that is hard to blame on the CB's, or anyone else's, quality as players. Our mental surrender is another issue.

Were we simply trying to grind out a draw? Surely anyone would realise that Mourinho would change things if our plan worked, which it did in the 1st half. Was there any plan to deal with that?
 
The first goal is Vertonghen inexplicably not booting it, but trying to do a turn and slipping. Everyone else is half asleep or otherwise occupied. Then the ref decides to end the game. What happens after that is hard to blame on the CB's, or anyone else's, quality as players. Our mental surrender is another issue.

Were we simply trying to grind out a draw? Surely anyone would realise that Mourinho would change things if our plan worked, which it did in the 1st half. Was there any plan to deal with that?

How is that inexplicable?

Have we really come this far? Are we now Stoke and we should just boot it every time? Vertonghen lost the ball because he slipped. As Sherwood said, this happens to everyone once in a while. Are we really going to crawl so far inside our shells and be afraid even of slipping that we just boot it every time or should we try to play football and accept that there will be some risk involved along the way?
 
Choosing to play a centre back partnership of Dawson & Kaboul might have been a mistake given their limited experience of playing together, especially in a game of this significance. Having them
hold a high kind isn't ideal either given their relative lack of pace. I think Vertonghen should have partnered Dawson, being Kaboul back against an easier opponent.

For me Vertonghen should be playing CB at all times. I am not blaming his mistake on him playing LB, but he clearly is not comfortbale/happy playing there, which wont help.
Once again this all goes back to the bizarre decision to let BAE go on loan/not get in more than adequate cover. I'm sorry but I'm not letting that one go, it keeps coming back to haunt us time and time again and it p#sses me off totally.

Priortiy #1 when the transfer window opens
 
But centre back is immediately in front of the goal, it's defending the position that is most likely to be taken up by players who will score against us. I would prefer to be weaker at left back, as it's slightly away from goal, than at left back. Even if a player succeeds at beating our left back, they would still have to likely get past one of our centre backs to score. If they get past the centre back then we're likely screwed.

That seems way too simplistic. You have to also take into account the relative ability of the players in question.

Sherwood obviously didn't trust Fryers to be good enough against Chelsea, he watches Fryers every day in training and it's not that Sherwood has been cowardly and not dared to play youngsters or anything like that. I see no reason to think he got this one wrong.
 
We've seen the likes of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and co make mistakes like Jan yesterday. The real hammer blow for me was something we've all known before. Our mental fragility.

Arsenal 2-5
Liverpool 0-5
City 1-5
Chelsea 0-4

Examples of us completely capitulating after going down to 10. We as a club have struggled with this for years. Just need an excuse for the flood gates to open. This is what Sherwood was getting at.

I don't expect to beat those clubs. I just expect that we have a little bit more about us mentally that we don't need to simply implode when we do lose.
 
And the fact that this was Kaboul's first game back? I can understand the reservations of not wanting Hazard up against Fryers, and perhaps Mourinho could have switched to this, but Kaboul and Dawson's positional sense as a partnership was shocking at times. The pair should have been a lot closer but were regularly almost poles apart. Look at the start of the Eto'o chance clip and the gap is huge! The positional sense, as a partnership, was that poor likely due to this being the first game in a while that the pair played together. Vertonghen and Dawson have a greater understanding.

I agree that Fryers as left back is hardly ideal but that's largely the fault of the club not keeping BAE/getting a new left back in.
 
We've seen the likes of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and co make mistakes like Jan yesterday. The real hammer blow for me was something we've all known before. Our mental fragility.

Arsenal 2-5
Liverpool 0-5
City 1-5
Chelsea 0-4

Examples of us completely capitulating after going down to 10. We as a club have struggled with this for years. Just need an excuse for the flood gates to open. This is what Sherwood was getting at.

I don't expect to beat those clubs. I just expect that we have a little bit more about us mentally that we don't need to simply implode when we do lose.

Our mental fragility seemed less so when we had Redknapp in charge. I'm not saying that Redknapp was perfect or that I'd want him back. I just think that we didn't collapse quite as spectacularly under him and have the top teams a real game on most occasions.
 
I thought Chels played within themselves in the 1st half, almost 2nd gear. No Oscar, no Willian, we were lucky that Mourinho decided to rest both in the 1st half. We went with a defensive line up, it worked and maybe would have continued to work if not for the slip and pen goals which were unfortunate and took the game away from us. Come on, we were never gonna win the game, i think 0-0 was the best we were hoping for.
 
How is that inexplicable?

Have we really come this far? Are we now Stoke and we should just boot it every time? Vertonghen lost the ball because he slipped. As Sherwood said, this happens to everyone once in a while. Are we really going to crawl so far inside our shells and be afraid even of slipping that we just boot it every time or should we try to play football and accept that there will be some risk involved along the way?

I find it inexplicable because the entire left side of the pitch is wide open. I don't get why he decided to do that maneuver. It looks like our forward players are making runs, expecting a pass. There are risks and there are calculated risks. Sometimes safety is the better option and it does not make us Stoke.

GreatCostlyKronosaurus.gif
 
Our mental fragility seemed less so when we had Redknapp in charge. I'm not saying that Redknapp was perfect or that I'd want him back. I just think that we didn't collapse quite as spectacularly under him and have the top teams a real game on most occasions.

We did. Inter away. 4-0 down in the first half as soon as Gomes sent off. Bale made it look a lot better

Arsenal 5-2 and we were 2 up.

Chelsea 5-1 in the semi final. Yes a bad decision against us.

City 5-1 at home. Yes Modric was kicking off and we lined up with Modric and Kranjcar in cm.

Still we have had this mental weakness fir as long as I can remember. It is humiliating but hey it's part and parcel of being a spurs fan unfortunately
 
I find it inexplicable because the entire left side of the pitch is wide open. I don't get why he decided to do that maneuver. There are risks and there are calculated risks. Sometimes safety is the better option and it does not make us Stoke.

GreatCostlyKronosaurus.gif

No it's Dawson whose sprawling to get back
 
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