EPL: Chelsea facing a lot of problems

A 2-2 draw with the Baggies highlights many of the problems we’ve had. A late Eden Hazard penalty saved us from embarrassment against the Baggies and subsequently saved Mourinho’s mighty 100 unbeaten games record at the Bridge in the Premier League. We have struggled to break down teams that ‘park the bus’ at Stamford Bridge and have scored most of our goals courtesy of defensive errors, counter attacks or an occasional moment of brilliance. Obviously we have to realize that most teams that will arrive at the Bridge will look to defend deep; we’re not going to play on the counter in most of our games.

The question is, what happened to the football Chelsea played in the first half vs Hull City or in the first 20 minutes vs Aston Villa? The intricate passing and combination play, the trickery, the 1-2′s and all the things that characterised Chelsea last season – where have they gone? Even monochrome devices are more colourful than some of our attacks!

The midfield

It’s been quite frustrating to see Juan Mata and John Obi Mikel on the bench. Under Rafael Benitez, Ramires and Mikel had cemented a partnership. Mikel would barely put a foot wrong in the midfield, and provide protection for the back-line, which would give Ramires the incentive to make his famous bursting runs – unfortunately those runs are now memories.

Lampard had a more subtle role. The man is a legend and no one denies that but at 35, it’s quite obvious that, uh… HE’S NOT LIKE HE USED TO BE! Mikel in 6 appearances this season has had 6 interceptions to Lampard’s 11 appearances and 8 interceptions. Basic math says that Mikel has an average of 1 per game and Lampard has an average of 0.72 (rounded to 2 significant figures of course).

What’s ironic is that ‘work-rate’ has been an excuse for not starting Juan Mata. It’s surprising how a player who was nominated for PFA Player of the Year all of a sudden has no place in his team. Mata is the sort of player who makes players around him play better. He links up with other players and helps them combine. Last season he was given the role he had dreamed of, the role of the No. 10. He was given the freedom to thrive, to annoy defenders. He was a menace for all teams. So why is he on the bench?

A sight as painful as receiving an arm burn! Mata in 7 appearances has created 11 chances and has a passing accuracy of 87%. He hasn’t played the full 90 minutes in any game this season and has only started twice. Surely if Mikel is there, his defensive contribution will help the rest of the team going forward and that means Mata should be able to start?

So we demand our No. 10′s to be useful defensively yet our defensive midfielders have no such requirement? Ironic, eh?

No width nor do we have a deep lying playmaker

A story written by a 6-year-old child has more creativity than our midfield pivot. We attempted to get Daniele De Rossi but once we failed to get him, did we really have a plan B or try to get someone else? By the looks of things Ramires is supposed to be the ‘orchestrator’ in our midfield. No wonder the orchestra sounds like nails scratching down a blackboard…

So now we’re going to talk about the former in the bold title since this is one that has annoyed Chelsea fans a lot. It is no secret that the Blues lack any genuine wingers due to which they are unable to stretch defences. Arsenal suffer from a similar problem, and their solution was to encourage their wingers to get forward, due to which Sagna bombing down the right is a common sight. That was, of course, the source of Arsenal’s goal at home to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League.

THAT’S IT! WE FOUND THE SOLUTION! ENCOURAGE OUR FULL BACKS TO GET FORWARD! They’ll pump brilliant crosses into the box! Oh… we’ve got Ivanovic playing down the right…

I think the past few sentences can be summed up in this gif.

Above we can see Ivanovic’s crosses. Absolutely horrendous for a Chelsea player at home vs WBA; at a top club like Chelsea this has to be better. But to be honest with you, who can blame Ivanovic? He’s a centre back who’s being asked to play at right-back; of course he will struggle! And this has been exploited. In a 1-0 win at home to Manchester United in the 2009/10 season, Manchester United played a lopsided formation which allowed Ivanovic time on the ball because of his technical disabilities. Now everyone we play against is adopting that.

The above stats show us exactly what we saw on Saturday. That Ivanovic was encouraged to go forward while Azpilicueta was supposed to be the 3rd defender. The reason being Azpilicueta (a right footer) was playing at LB and Ivanovic (also a right footer) was playing at RB. So why was the more technically gifted full back forced to play at LB? Imagine being on the field, defenders surrounding you and you look up to see who’s in open space… oh it’s Ivanovic… you’ve got no other alternative so you’ll just have to pass it to him. A few seconds later a cross hits a West Brom player and goes out for a throw in. There is the story of the game.

So shouldn’t it be the other way around? Let Ivanovic play at LB (Mourinho claimed the reason he was playing a right footer at LB in the first place was to deal with inside-out wingers cutting inside). So Ivanovic, who is excellent defensively, should play that more defensive role (as a third back to avoid allowing wingers to cut inside like Draxler was attempting to do) and let Azpilicueta attack forward down the right hand side! There you go! You’ve added 2+2 and it’s equal to 4. Unfortunately, some our fans think 2+2 is equal to sq root (9)*10*sin(27.5)/11. Overcomplicating things and then getting the wrong answer…

To conclude, these were some of the problems that were evident in the game on Saturday. It’s frustrating and makes you want to pull your hair. The sooner these issues are solved the better.

What do you think about our problems? I’d love to hear your opinion.

(Stats courtesy of Squawka.)