OPINION: Do YOU want to see Chelsea change their approach?
After another disappointing performance against Sunderland last night, Jose Mourinho has revealed that he may have to consider a change o...
https://www.chelseadaft.org/2013/12/opinion-do-you-want-to-see-chelsea.html?m=0
After another disappointing performance against Sunderland last night, Jose Mourinho has revealed that he may have to consider a change of approach to our tactics and formation in order to stop Chelsea conceding goals. I am asking YOU the Chelsea fan reading this if you agree and want to see a change?
Jose said:
“Maybe the way to rectify it is not to concede goals.
Maybe the way is to have a different approach and not to concede goals because when you don’t score enough goals, when you are a very offensive team and you don’t score enough goals to win matches, maybe the right approach is to be more defensive, concede fewer goals and win matches with the few goals we score.
But that’s not what I want because that’s not what we have in mind in the building up of this team. We want this team to play the way we are playing, we want this team to have evolution, but based on the football we are playing at the moment.
We need to score goals to finish opponents because we feel very comfortable on the pitch. The possession of the ball becomes easy, the creation becomes easy.
We had big chances to score goals, but we didn’t score.
In the Premier League, I haven’t lost one single game because the opponent was better than us. I lost in the Champions League - Basel played better than us in a game where we produced absolutely nothing and we were punished in the last minute.
Every other game - here, Stoke, Newcastle, Everton - every game we have lost, every game, it’s the same story: chances and chances and football and football and not enough goals.”He's spot on about our play and creativity but I just wonder if we had someone like Lewandowski or Falcao, if the situation with our lack of goals would change because for me, it's down to that killer ball and lack of tempo at certain times.
Let me explain here. If you look at Sergio Aguero or Luis Suarez they both play with the knowledge that if there is an opportunity to play them in on goal or give them the ball in the final third, more often than not, their team mates are going to give the ball to them. At Chelsea, I don't believe our strikers think that this will happen and if it does, only now and again!
Look at last night for example, Andre Schurrle and Willian for the most part never gave us that final ball. Only once or twice. Instead, they would look to try a shot on themselves, come back inside or play the ball square or backwards. It's my view that as soon as we get the ball in and around the box, we should be looking for our striker first and foremost to play them in.
We can all see the situation with our lack of goals and a lack of a real killer pass to open teams up so I am not surprised that Jose has mentioned about a change of approach at the back to ensure we do not concede.
Now there is an old saying in football that all successful teams are built from the back, on solid foundations. Once you have that foundation in place, you can build the rest of the team from there. It surprises me that this has never been the case since Jose returned to Chelsea. Maybe Jose could get on the phone and try and convince Steve Clarke to come back to work alongside him on the defensive aspect of our game!
I still personally believe that we need to switch away from the 4-2-3-1 formation at the moment and at least until things settle down. I wrote a post last week stating that we should switch to 4-4-2 when we play at home to really attack teams and take the game to them like City have done. Away from home maybe adopt the 4-3-3 approach?
I just think that the 4-4-2 at this stage provides us with a better balance throughout the side and especially down the wings so make sure you check the post out here!
What do you people think about all this? What do you think about our style or play and the problems we are having? Would you like to see Chelsea change their approach and defend first and build from there as Jose has said?
Carefree & KTBFFH!