Chelsea Thread 2014/15

[Worst Case Ontario]

Fucking rent boy bastards

haha the irony is lost on you :D

 

[cmblue]

Seems they are beating us on all fronts at the moment:

1st team win the Prem
u18's win the FA Cup
Ladies beat us in the Semi

Plus there under 19 won the U19 UEFA Youth League, they must be doing something right.

 

[GHoddle]

For what it's worth, I thought Hazard's was a penalty yesterday. That aside, there is no doubt Chelsea are the most mindnumbingly boring team eve to win the PL - comparing badly even with Mourinho's previous teams. And i dont see them changing much. If we can fill our obvious holes (Toure replacement, Fernando upgrade, quality winger, Clichy/Kolarov upgrade), no reason we shouldn't be right alongside if not ahead of them next year.

In the second half of the season perhaps. People have short memories. In the first half we were hands down the most expansive side on display. The problem we were having was even though we scored a lot, we were conceding too many. We had defensive vulnerabilities even the relegation candidates could expose. People here were saying as much if you care to check the gameweek threads from the time. It wasn't a problem until we were completely exposed by Spurs, then lost to Bradford in the cup. Around this period is when City pulled back our lead to only a few points. At that juncture Mourinho reigned the attacking play in so we could play with a lower block and kill games once ahead. Our lead was consequently rebuilt and we cruised home from there, though much more subdued. This coincided with player burnout since we don't rotate much, and we started to lose Costa for long stretches. Had we stuck to our guns these weaknesses could have been continuously exposed and we may not be champions now.

What I suspect he'll be looking to do this summer is to address the problems we had in defence when we tried playing a more expansive game. I think he wants to press high, win the ball in advanced positions and kill the opposition with speedy counters as we were doing before Christmas (this is how he had Madrid playing); but our defence proved they couldn't cope with it adequately. He tried to do this last season as well, and it works for a while until these issues are found out - but last season we had striker problems to compound it. Terry, as formidable as he's been, is probably a big part of the problem because he's now very slow. So he'll be looking to get the right kind of defenders in first of all. The second issue is the fact that he seems unhappy with his squad players, and too little rotation leads to burnout.

I kind of see it differently, though I agree you can't play a high line with Terry. But you also aren't that swashbuckling on the counterattack like other teams can be that play a lower block. I wonder why that is given the talent of players in the Chelsea squad? My thought is that primarily the defense isn't that composed on the ball, so when the ball is won back deep in your half your defenders often elect to play the safe option rather than try to find someone like Fabregas. So the opportunity to counterattack sometimes doesn't present itself because the defenders don't initiate them with accurate passes into midfield.

Anyway that's just my thought on it, I could be talking a load of shit so idk.

 

[Bluekiwi]

I was really impressed with their players celebrating the championship -- diving full length onto the pitch.
Referees take note that this team has a few players that have been to the Ashley Young Scholl for Divers.

 

[Castiel]

I kind of see it differently, though I agree you can't play a high line with Terry. But you also aren't that swashbuckling on the counterattack like other teams can be that play a lower block. I wonder why that is given the talent of players in the Chelsea squad? My thought is that primarily the defense isn't that composed on the ball, so when the ball is won back deep in your half your defenders often elect to play the safe option rather than try to find someone like Fabregas. So the opportunity to counterattack sometimes doesn't present itself because the defenders don't initiate them with accurate passes into midfield.

Anyway that's just my thought on it, I could be talking a load of shit so idk.

I think you make some good points, but our attack was dulled not only because of the reversion in style after WHL, but also because Fabregas had his usual winter dip in form and we started losing Costa (and Remy) for long periods. All of this contributed. We're just so clinical that we don't need many chances to score, and we're the gold standard at killing a game once ahead. The central defence needs some tweaking if we're to keep up our early season style with confidence that the back line can plug the gaps. I suspect Varane will be a top target for us this summer. It's good to know that we're adept at both very aggressive and very defensive systems, we only need some faster more technical defenders to really make it reliable.

Jose perhaps went too conservative when things started going wrong. He may have panicked when we only really needed to haul it in against teams with the tools to properly expose us as you did. Then again the writing was on the wall in the 3-6 against Everton. Perhaps the most thrilling game I saw this season, but that Everton side shouldn't have been able to get through us so easily.

 

[Sir peace frog]

I kind of see it differently, though I agree you can't play a high line with Terry. But you also aren't that swashbuckling on the counterattack like other teams can be that play a lower block. I wonder why that is given the talent of players in the Chelsea squad? My thought is that primarily the defense isn't that composed on the ball, so when the ball is won back deep in your half your defenders often elect to play the safe option rather than try to find someone like Fabregas. So the opportunity to counterattack sometimes doesn't present itself because the defenders don't initiate them with accurate passes into midfield.

Anyway that's just my thought on it, I could be talking a load of shit so idk.

I think you make some good points, but our attack was dulled not only because of the reversion in style after WHL, but also because Fabregas had his usual winter dip in form and we started losing Costa (and Remy) for long periods. All of this contributed. We're just so clinical that we don't need many chances to score, and we're the gold standard at killing a game once ahead. The central defence needs some tweaking if we're to keep up our early season style with confidence that the back line can plug the gaps. I suspect Varane will be a top target for us this summer. It's good to know that we're adept at both very aggressive and very defensive systems, we only need some faster more technical defenders to really make it reliable.

Jose perhaps went too conservative when things started going wrong. He may have panicked when we only really needed to haul it in against teams with the tools to properly expose us as you did. Then again the writing was on the wall in the 3-6 against Everton. Perhaps the most thrilling game I saw this season, but that Everton side shouldn't have been able to get through us so easily.

he changed the style and won the league ,makes no difference if it was entertaining or not ,the history books will say Chelsea league champions , as much as I dislike the mourinho persona he is a very very talented coach.

 

[Groke]

Best results so can't really argue that they should be champions, but fuck me they are dull and look very average at times. City were clearly the better team in both games against them but we have been well under par in too many other games this season, hence we are fighting for second with fuckin arsenal

 

[malg]

I agree with Cas. They were very good to watch in the early part of the season, then Mourinho reverted to type.

 

[Vienna_70]

I remember last year on talkshite, Jason Cindy said we had the title handed to us, as the main challengers had thrown away games by playing poorly or words to that effect.

I wonder if he'll make the same observations about this season's champions.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

The Independent is carrying a report today that Abramovitch's interest free loans to the company through which he owns Chelsea have risen to over £1 billion. Neither Platini, Rumenigge or, more surprisingly, Arsene Wenger have been asked to comment. Old Trafford is maintaining a dignified silence.