PsychicSykes wrote:I'm gonna have to disagree with most of that.
Kante won the league twice playing as a central midfielder and I think putting him in a holding role neuters his best attributes in pressing intelligently and winning the ball back. I think Jorginho's a very good player who like Hazard is being somewhat hamstrung by the lack of quality in front of him. In a defensive sense his stats are pretty similar to Fernandinho, which would explain Guardiola's interest in him previously. I strongly disagree with the idea Luiz should be dropped for Christensen. From what I saw yesterday nobody in a Chelsea shirt covered themselves in glory defensively, but a few games back Chelsea's defence had conceded nearly as few goals as Man City. Given how City can absolutely blow teams away I'm inclined to just wait and see if this defensive trend continues rather than make a snap judgement.
Except on Marcus Alonso, who is absolutely stealing a living. Obviously.
I’m not sure about Jorginho. His passing stats look nice, but it’s all sidewards and backwards. It’s not really hurting anyone. Even Bournemouth were happy for Chelsea to have the ball and Howe said to his players at half time not to worry if they don’t have the ball. Jorginho also has not covered himself in glory when he’s been asked to defend at times. He looked ok when Chelsea had that little run early on in the season. But since teams have realised all they need to do is put a man on him to pressure him he hasn’t coped well. The best playmaker DMs like Busquets, Alonso, Pirlo etc bypassed that easily whenever teams decided to try and stop them.
I would have rather City signed him than someone like Neves. Neves is just a more complete footballer for me. He’s always looking to pass forward. Has a good set piece delivery and a great strike on him. Defensively is better, he has better mobility than Jorginho and is more imposing. Yeah Pep wanted him, but he also apparently wanted Fred. So they dodged two bullets there.
I disagree about Kante. For France in the summer he was the deepest of the midfielders. Chelsea players over the last two years have played in a back five and under a more defensive manager. So if they going to play more attacking football they going to require more defensive protection especially the fullbacks. In a back five when they go forward one of the wide centre backs would cover. But in a back four, one of the midfielders would probably have to cover. Kante would be a better fit covering the fullback especially Alonso than Jorginho.
Kante won the league with two teams that didn’t really care about possession. They had a totally different style to this Chelsea team. It was more getting the ball fast as possible to the attackers. This season he looks uncomfortable not because he’s been asked to play in a team that dominates most of the possession. But he’s been asked to play as one of the furthest midfielders in a team that dominates possession. For me if he’s going to be in a team that wants to dominate possession then he has to be the deepest midfielder because he’s not going to hurt opponents going forward. Yeah he does a good job pressing whenever he does get forward, but Chelsea keep the ball more this year so he doesn’t need to be pressing that high.
City are capable of doing that to anybody. But they were just as toothless at Bournemouth and Arsenal away. They didn’t look like scoring in any of those games too and defensively were all over the place. So this wasn’t a one off performance. They looked decent at home. But away from home they have big issues both ways.
I just don’t trust Luiz. He was frozen out last year by Conte because he was a liability early on in the season. He’s going to be 32 in April. You have a defender who is 10 years younger and was decent last year in Christensen. Why not put some faith in him? Whenever I watched Christensen last year he was pretty solid. At times especially in big games he got a bit nervous especially with his passing but that’s what you’d get at times with a young defender. Luiz is probably going to make more mistakes than him in a season anyway despite being more experienced.
It’s the same with Hudson Odoi. Why not use him? It’s not like Pedro or Willian are providing assists or goals. They providing nothing at the moment. Sometimes a young player can provide a spark to a team because they play with no fear. There has to be something about him that Bayern think he is the man they want to replace Ribery/Robben. That’s the issue with Chelsea. They have all these young players and probably one of the best youth teams in the country, but barely use the players from there or bring anybody through.
strawberry floating glorious
