Walking the ball into the net

Walking the ball into the net

   

   What is going wrong? So much talent. The manager, the players, the backroom staff. On paper, tipped for success. On the pitch, different story. Chelsea Football Club have lost 3 out of 3 in all competitions. One in the Super Cup, one in the Premier League and another in the Champions League. I accept the fact that Chelsea lost the Super Cup against Bayern, albeit winning twice against them and being pegged back to 2-2 within the last 7 seconds. Against Everton, created 21 chances, took none. Eto'o drifts out wide too many times so there's no vocal player in the middle. Against Basel, Chelsea were simply poor. Jose underestimated Basel, leaving Torres and Schurrle completely out of the squad. Van Ginkel made his Champions League debut for Chelsea and personally, he looked a boy in man's game. Too many fouls, too many misjudged errors. He looked very average. He needs to be nurtured properly, brought into games, not rushed into the Champions League. David Luiz should have filled in there and Chelsea should have played John Terry with Gary Cahill.

   Chelsea too many times, tried to walk the ball into the net. I can only recall, perhaps twice from Oscar, where he shot from distance, one hit the bar and went out. Every time, Lampard, Mata, Oscar, Hazard or Willian got the ball, it would be to try and walk the ball into the net, dribble through the Basel defence with neat footwork or slick passing. This didn't work. There was no strong, prolific striker. Even Eto'o tried a few dribbling runs. This was pointless. It clearly hasn't worked.

   Rotating so many players hasn't worked either. Willian was almost anonymous tracking back, Hazard had the poorest game in a Chelsea jersey and Eto'o seemed out of place. There was no fluidity between the team. Chelsea seemed like 11 individuals. Mourinho needs to pick his strongest eleven and work with that and rotate rarely rather than constantly. I think we missed Victor Moses running at people. Such a direct player. There is no consistency in the side and Jose underestimated Basel. This is the cause of our loss.

This should have been the team Jose went with:


                Cech
Ivanovic Terry Cahill Cole
      Luiz Lampard
Oscar   Mata   Hazard
          Torres

   Hazard and Oscar will be tracking back as well as going forward to support Mata and Torres. Luiz, as well as Lamaprd, naturally run forward to help the attack. This would have been a far solid squad compared to our eleven individual players last night.

   Next match is Fulham FC at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 21st September at 5:30pm. I look forward to see who starts and how Chelsea perform.