Football News: Current thoughts on Chelsea FC

Watching some clips and highlights, I think Caicedo was our Man of the Match. Him covering and defending the channels, and Reece James who had a forgettable second half. Palmer was in the Gallagher role, but didn't press or protect the midfield, so defending from the front didn't work and Enzo looked tired.

The issue we had is the only few phases that worked for Chelsea were when Jackson held the ball up. Our stats say the majority of our play was in defence with minimal play in the Manchester United half.

The ball wasn't going forward well, it wasn't staying with Mudryk, Sterling, Palmer or Jackson, meaning midfield was getting caught back and forth, whereas the United stats show they got the ball forward and it stuck with Anthony, Hojlund and Garnacho. With Mudryk especially it's as if he's keen to impress, so tries something different rather than retaining the ball and waiting for help, Sterling though is usually good at that.

Read an article on Lavia, which explained his role at Manchester City and Southampton, saying just because he covers ground and protects, it doesn't make him a DM, and in fact he's a box to box who just works very hard defensively, i.e. a problem solver, who's passing is underrated, with the ability to carry and dribble out of pressure, (which is a weakness with other Chelsea players), but he isn't great at winning headers / heading duels.

Winning headers across the pitch is also a real problem with most other Chelsea players with with Cucurella, Gusto, Enzo, Gallagher, Sterling, Mudryk and Jackson being nowhere near good enough, James is ok, but hardly fit, only Caicedo has good stats for headers won, surprisingly.

I think in January, loans will be needed for Chukwuemeka and Ugochukwu - then we get Onana from Everton.

Also, 5 CMs / DMs for 2 or 3 places who can all play the midfield positions.

Caicedo covers short distances and protects.

Gallagher sets press and work rate.

Enzo being an elite passer (but needs movement in front of him).

Lavia being an all-rounder.

Onana - big, strong and covers large areas of the pitch, eats the ground in front of him, wins headers, gets into the box and scores a handful of goals from set pieces.

Pre-season with a fit squad, Poch used a compact 3-5-2. Maatsen, Chilwell and Cucurella high and wide, Gusto and James the other side, a compact midfield and Nkunku and Jackson together,

I'm negative, but I'm no fool, so I know that Poch has had to make changes, so pre-season was almost pointless.

It's a shame we couldn't stay within the top 4 to 7th position probably due to having so many injured players, so now we're falling below 9th, so unfortunately we don't have a lot to play for as top 5 has gone.

We might want to do something about a striker in January? I don't think we'll get our number one target, but Jackson and Broja are both too raw and inconsistent. Do we stick or twist?

Written by Matt martin December 08 2023 14:30:46