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No positives to take at all from sat. Very very worrying performance from the team and the manager. The tactics were so bad, in the first half what on earth were Alvarez and Mavropanos doing?
No problem with him hooking Rodriguez, but why on earth put Soucek on? especially after you hooked him at half time last week. Antonio was also on after 52 mins, just screams the manager hasn't got a clue. Every week he is making early changes as his starting line up has been shit. Panic subs that are not improving the performance.
Then he took off Summerville who was one of the only positives and moves Kudus from right wing where he was causing Cucharella loads of problems to left wing where he is no where near as dangerous.
None of it made any sense, there hasn't been much if any progress from last season and at the moment we look an absolute mess. So disappointing, I am sure I heard its 2 wins at home in 2024 for us......Luton and Brentford? Shocking, us fans deserve so much better.
Fauxstralian wrote: ↑22 Sep 2024, 14:23
claret
On the MOTD analysis they pointed out that Alvarez was actually asked to man mark Jackson with the full backs playing high.
Meant we had 2 defenders who didn’t know where to cover & Alvarez being pulled all over the place with a complete lack of cover where your full backs would normally be
A complete shambles that Chelsea could expose at will with one pass
You’d laugh if an u12 coach set up like that let alone a professional
You’d think he would have to revert to a back 4 with actual full backs & Todibo replacing the Greek
What he does ahead of that who knows but the midfield needs more pace , energy, pressing & ability to keep the ball
Laughable that our 3 centre forwards are approx 100 yo in total
Yeah saw that and they said quite rightly that if you are going to man mark then at least the marker should have similar pace to the fella he is marking not put one of your slowest players on him! I was also surprised how he seemed to want Wan-Bissaka to tuck in. Watching him at Man United he looked a good defender, they say he is very good one on one, but I can't remember him playing as a tucked in wing back, and he looked very uncomfortable and most of the space appeared on that side. Quite bizarre tactically. Todibo has good reviews as a defender so it's bizarre he hasn't had a run, unless of course the games before you buy thing is what's stopping JL from picking him.
Had a bad feeling about the game yesterday as I thought their pace would cause us problems, but I didn't think we would surrender that easily as we did. Lop needs to get us playing sharpish otherwise it's going to be a long hard season.
Second half I think we reverted to a flat back four and low block. This of course turned our attack into a shambles but wasn’t really watching by then as I was helping the wife clean the French windows
claret
On the MOTD analysis they pointed out that Alvarez was actually asked to man mark Jackson with the full backs playing high.
Meant we had 2 defenders who didn’t know where to cover & Alvarez being pulled all over the place with a complete lack of cover where your full backs would normally be
A complete shambles that Chelsea could expose at will with one pass
You’d laugh if an u12 coach set up like that let alone a professional
You’d think he would have to revert to a back 4 with actual full backs & Todibo replacing the Greek
What he does ahead of that who knows but the midfield needs more pace , energy, pressing & ability to keep the ball
Laughable that our 3 centre forwards are approx 100 yo in total
Yesterday was a kick in the gut - seeing what is arguably our strongest XI played off the park can’t be anything else.
Today brings a bit of perspective - we tried a wing-back formation and a high press against possibly the swiftest, most youthful side in the league, shipped two in the first phase of the game and failed to score when we had a go. Second half was damage limitation especially after the third that early on and so I feel the final scoreline wasn’t overly harsh.
What I believed to be a strong side has turned out to be aging like a corked claret, slow in all departments and badly in need of fresh legs. It’s good we have plenty of youth at the club so there is no better place to start than Wednesday night’s cup tie at Anfield.
I watched the goals a couple of times again last night and I actually think he had Alvarez as a CB or sweeper until he made the change. Last week Vs Fulham we all know he played the wrong team, this week a joke of a formation. He's made a shocking start as our manager. The Subs were terrible as well. Bowen was shit yesterday yet he took maybe our best player off in Summerville, is he scared to take the Captain off?
Var and refereeing in general is way too over thought. The question is, was the player unfairly impeded by the opposition player and was it in the area? If the answer to both is yes then it's a penalty. Too much extra context to try to justify not giving penalties when it'd be a free kick elsewhere is just bullshit.
For me worrying point or crap part of how we're playing is we have plenty of players on the pitch that are supposedly good at defending, but it is so easy to counter attack us with a bit of speed and score. We get caught out so easily and have no speed to recover when it starts to go wrong. Add to that Areola also not doing well in these situations, between the fucking legs! Unless Tobido is fast and we get him on asap, surely we have to give up on a highline leaving loads of space between the defence and keeper. We have to leave a defender further back in the space.
Manuel wrote: ↑22 Sep 2024, 04:41
However, it is very worrying that he has now picked the side and more or less the formation we wanted and it's still shit, so what now?? exactly, nobody has a clue.
Wow, nobody has a clue....
Its not worrying at all that he started with yesterday's lineup.
But the biggest problem is (and I'm sorry for you if you don't have a clue) that he insists of playin 3 central defenders.
Alvarez dropped in between Mavropanos and Kilman with them two going wide to make Emerson and Bissake press high on the sides.
Fair enough, but it was a disaster yesterday with far to much room between the defenders.
In reality we only had Rodriguez in the midfield and playing through him was easy, and even more dangerous when the CDs didn't pressure their fastest player Mr Jackson.
Even Soucek when he came in, dropped back as a third defender, but then on the right with Macro in the centre.
This system is stupid, and will be exposed time after time until it's fixed.
Apart from that we actually look decent, except playing Bowen as a striker. It's not either.
Read what I said you twerp, I said it's worrying that he started with the line up that most wanted and it's still shit. So yes, it's clearly worrying. That said, we've had some tough fixtures so happy to see what he comes up with in the next two games before the break.
Manuel wrote: ↑22 Sep 2024, 04:41
However, it is very worrying that he has now picked the side and more or less the formation we wanted and it's still shit, so what now?? exactly, nobody has a clue.
Wow, nobody has a clue....
Its not worrying at all that he started with yesterday's lineup.
But the biggest problem is (and I'm sorry for you if you don't have a clue) that he insists of playin 3 central defenders.
Alvarez dropped in between Mavropanos and Kilman with them two going wide to make Emerson and Bissake press high on the sides.
Fair enough, but it was a disaster yesterday with far to much room between the defenders.
In reality we only had Rodriguez in the midfield and playing through him was easy, and even more dangerous when the CDs didn't pressure their fastest player Mr Jackson.
Even Soucek when he came in, dropped back as a third defender, but then on the right with Macro in the centre.
This system is stupid, and will be exposed time after time until it's fixed.
Apart from that we actually look decent, except playing Bowen as a striker. It's not working either.
As bad as it's been the fixture list hasn't been kind for us, especially at home. If the fixtures had come out kinder would we now have more points and less anxiety? I would say yes.
However, it is very worrying that he has now picked the side and more or less the formation we wanted and it's still shit, so what now?? exactly, nobody has a clue. Most of the new signings look shit, the Argie is joke of a player and nobody knows who should be at top at this point, Bowen ain't the answer ffs. I don't see how he turns it around 'coz we ain't just a tweak or two from looking good, it's an utter mess from top to bottom.
Brentford will be up for it big time next week and will likely take us apart, the Ipswich game is going to be 'interesting'. Coulcn't give two fucks about midweek.
We were no different today than we have been pretty much all season, bar a half hour spell against Palace. We were shit for an hour of that game as well.
As discussed on the Lopetegui thread previously, we are a poor, disjointed side with nothing about us, and there have been no signs to suggest otherwise.
It's not been moaning for moaning's sake, it's just that some of us know our football.
can’t be bothered to get all depressed over this as it’s so early in the season and I wouldn’t expect to beat them anyway on form.
positives are that it’s unlikely we will play the badly again. To me it seemed there was specific instructions for the full backs to stay higher than normal. I think the positioning didn’t account for how slow our CB and CDM are vs Chelsea’s kids. When Liverpool play a high line it’s always about Van Dykes positioning to sweep up. You can’t do it otherwise. We will
learn from it.
I thought Irving and soler could make our midfield more creative than what we normally have. It was hard to tell with Chelsea in training mode but I thought they looked good considering. Would play them in the cup and see what happens.
Summerville was good. We played better passing football than we’d ever played under Moyes trying to get a goal back.
I think the gamble is does he revert back to our lower back line with no one beyond the half way line or try to fix the positional stuff in defence. I kinda hope he tries to fix it.
I’ve said earlier I prefer a dose of reality now than to have stat merchants talk up our team with dodgy goals like Bowens handball. I don’t like being lucky, prefer to win by playing good football or not at all. Hopefully we are still on the road for that.
btw, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a manager wear jeans on the touch line.. what’s that about???
"Indeed. I said all summer when everyone was feeling themselves over 'guru Tim' and 'loser Lop' and what a great transfer window we supposedly had that Summerville would prove to be the only decent signing
Looking like yet another thing I called correctly."
Yeh apart from Kilman, AWB and Solar, plus the jury still being out on a few others you were spot on
We dont press or cant? You do that as a team but we seem to have too many one paced midfielders and today Alvarez was dropping to create a back 5 except the wing backs were stranded up field. Loppy’s tactics were wrong and its looking like Zola, Bilic and Pellegrini’s mistakes being repeated. If you want to play out from the back and use the ball and stretch teams you need young, athletic pacy players in key positions. Central defence, central midfield and up front to provide movement, to make quick recoveries or back track should you lose it and the opposition counters. We simply dont have enough of that type of player. All the above managers tried to get us playing to feet, keeping possession but all made us highly vulnerable to pace, movement and counters. We should have conceded 4 or more in most games we’ve played including the ones we won. City could have had 5 or 6 and same withe Chelsea. Villa missed several gilt edged chances first half as did Palace and Fulham. We look a mess defensively. That is the first thing to fix.
And Moyes ( who is a revisionist of course ) actually tried to get us passing out a bit more last season without fully commiting to it and with his type of player and also failed dismally at it ( 70 goals conceded ).
i get the point that it takes a bit if time and that you need players undersranding their roles and how other players play but the squad still seems too old and slow over 5 yards let alone 30 to play this “front foot” game. Maybe Todibo will be like that geezer at Spurs who bails them out every time when countered by the opposition but Bowen is not a central striker and the german we got is designed to get on the end of crosses and is slow. The protection from central midfield is just not there. Maybe Soler starting helps and Paqueta probably needs to play deeper and let Kudus have the number 10 role. Paqueta played his best football at Lyon ? as a number 8 and his best spell for us was when starting deeper.
i fear for us now on Wednesday. See nothing but a sizesble defeat and Pool like every other team we’ve played, easily getting balls through our defence or ripping us apart on counter attacks as our slow build up and lack of attacking edge means teams just having to sit deep with numbers behind the ball waiting for us to turn it over.
lopetegui is going to have to do something different asap but not sure he knows what that is and if he even has the squad to do it. At this time, we’d be better to go back to the low block Moyesball just to “stop the bleeding”
West Ham United vs Chelsea | EPL | 21.9.24 | Match Thread
