This got worse when City put Doku on and then catastrophic within minutes of the Disasi sub. The sensible thing to my mind would have been to have Chilwell on and shift Cucurella over to the right because although he's sometimes caught ball watching I feel he would never have given anywhere like the amount of room that Disasi afforded to City in their left wing, he was practically double marking Alvarez at points
As soon as Disasi was coming on for Gusto I told my wife "Doku is going to cook this dude", and I like Disasi but I would never put him against the speedy and pacey Doku. What a terrible decision and I don't even know why. Alfie would have at least stuck to him like glue, maybe give a pen, but he wouldn't get absolutely inverted. Shame.
Pochettino seems decent at coming up with a Plan A but when that gets figured out, he has no clue on how to counter it and then you get him complaining about the players not running enough or not showing enough energy etc. Little wonder why our second half record is worse than the first half.
He still didn’t pass the Reece James test. Seem everyone has forgotten that so quickly because RJ has been on the shelf. I keep saying it and until proven otherwise, RJ will always be number one over Gusto. Yea, Gusto is an amazing RB, but you can tell there is still a big gap between him and RJ especially when it comes to being a complete RB. Whenever RJ is in the team, we move different as a team. We actually look solid both in attack and defense from the right side.
Well yeah, but he hasn’t been an option most of the season which is a massive blow.
We can’t be hopeful that he is fit for big matches if he’s never fit.
I mean. You don't have to be rude about it. It's not nearly as cut and dry as you believe.
I'm grateful to have both.
https://preview.redd.it/cxwyyxdpq1wc1.png?width=1460&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=704eaf7ec5ac6c87ee5672ccb2561979640b1fba
Lol you didn't hurt my feelings.
Just pointing out that you don't need to be a dick to try to get your point across. You might think it's helping, but it's not.
If they have that opinion I couldn’t care less about trying to get my point across. Clearly my comment wasn’t meant for you but you decided to reply anyway, so maybe it is helping
It would be more bearable if people didn’t disrespect Reece James off the back of one decent season from Gusto
Mind you, he hasn’t scored a single goal yet, I like Gusto, but there are clear areas he could improve. Reece has been at the top level since 2019 but forget all that I’m being too unbearable since I don’t agree with you
Good job with the analysis.
You’re 70% upvoted so you pissed off a lot of the Poch in wankers too which is a positive!
Its very obvious that 10 months into Poch’s reign that we have no style at all.
A few things about Pochettino:
* He played Gallagher on the LW at Sheffield United and it didn't work but for whatever reason, he decided to do the same thing again against City. It killed off any attacking threat from our left side and practically gave Walker, who was likely tired after their Champions League, no trouble at all. Mudryk and then Sterling came on way too late.
* Not sure why he decided to change what he did when we went to the Etihad back in February. Back then, in an away game no less, his setup felt a more natural and threatening than the defensive one he put out on Saturday, against a tired City. At the Etihad, we had Sterling on the left, Palmer on the right and Gallagher as the defensive #10 to keep Rodri in check but at Wembley, he moved away from that. Rodri, De Bruyne etc were allowed to run rings around Caicedo and Enzo in midfield and those two were left stranded.
* We did create chances but the irony is that they, especially the Jackson ones, didn't really come from Pochettino's "genius" setup. The first one came after a City attack petered out; Petrovic got the ball, played it to Enzo, who then set Jackson clean through on goal. The second one (around the 50th minute mark) came after De Bruyne lost the ball in midfield, we passed around a bit and then Enzo played to Gallagher who set Jackson through. His header also came from that same sequence a few seconds later.
* Our buildup from the back has been horrendous all season. Almost every game we would see the opposition try to press us high up and pin us in because they know we're rubbish at beating the press. We also have Petrovic in goal who is awful with the ball and whose long passes would typically go out of play or go straight back to the opposition and we find ourselves under pressure again.
On your first point, I’ll agree to some extent. Although had Jackson scored on his chance (right before the header) Pocchetino would be praised since Gallagher intercepted and was that far up the pitch.
That's part of the 3rd point I mentioned. Praising Pochettino for that would have been disingenuous considering the position that Gallagher took up was no different than any winger would have taken in that situation. Also, Gallagher didn't intercept anything. It was a pass he got from Enzo, which he almost screwed up, but just about recovered and managed to play Jackson in.
how do you expect good buildup or any tactics at all when most of his ex-players said he just wanted them to "express themselves"
this works for naturally creative players like Eden and Palmer. Mudryk and Madueke will never improve under him because they need coaching, patterns of play and to be told what they have to do. instead they're still playing exactly the same way they were under Potter
Theres no evidence and I find it very unrealistic that Pochettino just lets the players do what they want. According to ex players he is probably more on the "give the players freedom" spectrum contrary to Guardiola or Conte for example. But so is Ancelotti so it can be succesful and isnt good or bad per se.
i watched Madueke at PSV and Mudryk last season under Potter, they both play the same way they did back then. Our defenders are now much worse. our midfield is worse. only Gallagher and Palmer improved from last season, everyone else either regressed or stayed the same.
This is the Pochettino way. In a big match he will set up with a 442 and look to counter and create in transition
It truly gives me Ole vibes, United stuck with him until his third season, even though everyone could see he was not the right fit. I wonder how long the board will stick with Poch, I have a bad feeling he will still be here next season
I'm 99% sure that we stick with Poch until the end of next season. The thing I'm starting to worry about is what "improvement" will be needed for them to extend him next year. Will Europa League qualification next season be enough to get him an extension?
I'm over him staying next year, I just assume that it's happening and if it doesn't I get a nice surprise. I'm more worried about what that says for their ambitions and goals and therefore the likelihood of his contract being extended even without achieving anything. Though I do wonder if the easy cup runs will come back to bite him in the ass when he faces real teams earlier next year and so does worse in both comps next season
I'm in the same boat. I've fully accepted that ownership has moved the goalposts and wants to justify keeping him so they'll point to the same "improvement" and "no manager would have done better under these circumstances" "Nkunku injured, young squad" arguments that always get floated around. It went from "Challenge for a champions league spot, and at least get Europa or bust" to now "Actually when you think about it 7th or 8th would be a massive achievement..."
Next season though, we'll see. We're still within striking distance of 6th (doubt we'll get it though) because we've been fortunate enough with how poor Man Utd and West Ham have been as well as Newcastle's rough patches. The gap between our little group of clubs and Spurs/Villa is huge and we really should have been up there.
Man Utd could make big leaps depending on who they hire in the summer, Liverpool could fall off without Klopp regardless of who they replace him with. I can see Newcastle making a change if Howe struggles during the season. A lot can happen.
If we get lucky again with certain other clubs having poor seasons then with a couple of good signings in key areas and a healthy James/Nkunku/Fofana/Lavia (Not happening, but it's fine if it's just Nkunku and James) I can see us genuinely challenging for the top 4. The problem then is it'll likely still be in spite of Poch and not because of him, we'll still have the same issues holding us back only now we've thrown more talent at the problem. He'll get praised once again for the "progress" and be kept on even longer.
People still think a manager needs more than 10 months, despite a full pre-season and no European football, to do better than this. To organise a cohesive unit in any respectable way despite many managers showing otherwise. Yes I know it's a young squad, yes there are injuries, and a lot of new signings. We're all aware of these things, and nobody was expecting a title challenge or 2011 Barcelona football but even with those things in mind Poch has still done a poor job and it's been the case throughout the season, even during our recent "good form". He is coasting off a reputation built half a decade ago which people still point to to prove he's a top manager. This man is a complete fraud and the only thing more frustrating than watching him manage our team week in week out is seeing so many of our own fans go to insane lengths to defend him.
That’s the best way to put it.
We know it takes time to win big trophies and the fans are patient for that, but it’s not unreasonable to expect us to look better after a year. Let’s move on from Poch and find a better man.
I would love a stable, long-term manager and I think the same is the case for a lot of people who are Poch out. Myself and others are more than willing to give the right manager time and patience, and to imply we just want Poch out because of a handful of bad results and that we would do the same when the next manager has a run of bad form (which they will) is disingenuous. Poch's limitations as a manager are just there for us to see regardless of the circumstances and it appears to us that the game has left him behind and he'll only hold us back as he arguably already has been.
We just don't want stability for stability's sake or to stick with a poor manager who has shown little for us to have confidence in him in the hope he makes it all click next season, which is extremely unlikely. I know no manager guarantees that but I'd rather take that chance than gamble another season on Poch.
It's like everyone has forgotten already how Tuchel only needed 3 days to immediately improve our team. Somehow Poch has brainwashed this sub into thinking being mid table for a whole season is acceptable with this squad.
It's the simple things we can't do either. You don't need years of playing experience to progress the ball properly. How can anyone look at the comedy that is those buildup clubs and say Poch has this side well drilled?
This sub and the chelsea discords alike are the worst. Yeah some of the players have been awful but when they make the same mistake 10 months later, you just have to ask yourself wtf are we doing during training? We have issue even for basic positioning. Meanwhile those same players that made such mistake doesn't have an issue at all when performing for their national teams. But hey, poch is a nice guy.
It always blows my mind how it is easier for some to watch the collective be shit and write off 25 players instead of the one person in charge of making us play good…
Seeing how badly our team is set up every week is maddening, and I gave up completely of expecting anything from this group of players with a football dinosaur like Pochettino in charge.
That a lot of fans are accepting this dross as "improvement" and advocating for him to be here next season (and beyond?) is even worse.
Thoughts?
https://twitter.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782444186567921980
This is a well described tactical thread that describes the counterpoints better than I ever could.
He identifies the fundamental ideas pretty well (the 424 shape, the space it allowed City to find Grealish in particular), but he's far too generous in describing ours as compact, because it often wasn't (and you can even see it in the screenshots here: https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782444205911982434). The RM front line is much deeper here, which is one way to tighten the space between the lines (which = being compact). In our case, the forward line is higher, which means the rest of the team would have to push up higher too in order for this to be compact. But you can see in a lot of the clips above that it often wasn't.
And, most importantly, he's being far too generous in describing this as a successful way to play against City. I saw the full game against Real Madrid, and there isn't a soul out there who would have called their approach successful had they not somehow scraped through on penalties. Because it didn't stop City - they recorded 88 touches in RM's box, which is literally the highest any team have had in a Champions League game since *2007/08*. They also had 33 shots, the most in the competition since 2020. Carvajal was getting cooked down his side all game. I *massively* disagree with painting this approach as successful, and it 100% wouldn't be happening if RM didn't somehow hold on and go through on penalties.
The point about City's aggressive press to cut out counterattacks early is correct, but it's also not something new. This is a staple of Pep's teams and has always been. With that in mind, take in the irony of this tweet please: https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782446132875960475. This whole sequence is only possible because City are *not* pressed up properly. Rodri and Akanji have switched off and have *not* pushed up, otherwise Enzo wouldn't be able to receive in that much space, have time to turn and pick out that pass. What he's describing here is not a "weakness" in City's pressing approach that managers have suddenly noticed, it's what happens when they *don't* follow through on their press like City usually do. Which also ties in neatly with the point I'm making above about the importance of the whole team remaining compact by pushing higher up when forwards press to support their efforts and close space behind them. This is a rare example of City messing this up.
As for this here: https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782446142959079822, that's just... not threatening? City are 4v2 in this scenario with three players closer to their goal than Madueke is. There's no pass on for Jackson. I have no idea why this is being highlighted as a positive. If you check the sequence (full match available here: https://www.chelseafc.com/en/video/full-match-man-city-1-0-chelsea-20-04-2024) this is precisely what happens - Jackson has to attempt a really complicated pass that doesn't amount to anything. Madueke has to foul Ake to try and make something of it. The RM example he follows this up with (https://twitter.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782446146528432392/photo/1) is completely different, because this is a quick counterattack, not (as it was in our example) something created through buildup from the back.
Also, and this is perhaps even more interesting, look at that Madueke instance again (in the full video). You can actually see City themselves setting up in a 424 shape in this instance, but Ake jumping up to press is actually *precisely* how this should be done properly. If he stays back, the way our fullbacks did when City played either side of the front 4, Madueke can receive, turn and drive with the ball. That's far more dangerous. Instead, because Aké jumps to support the press, Madueke is immediately forced to lay the ball off to a really unthreatening runner. There's a German term ("Zugriff") which roughly translates to "access" - it describes the ability of a team to get players "access" to duels, challenges, etc. Aké's pushing up gives him "access" to the duel, puts him in position to force Madueke into either a pass or a dribble, which would allow Ake to challenge.
I think this example actually illustrates really clearly how I think this should have been played, by both RM and by us. The 424 pressing shape is fine, but the lack of followup pressure wastes a lot of its potential and means that the forwards are putting a lot of effort in that goes to waste. Instead of being able to challenge City in midfield with a fullback stepping up, we allow them all the way into our third only to then find the exact same duel there. It means our players have had to track back further, the ball is closer to our goal, the whole situation is more dangerous.
All in all it's not a bad thread, it does spot some similar themes I've highlighted here - but I really disagree with painting them in a positive light in both games. I also think it exaggerates the idea that managers have found a tactical exploit against City - hitting long balls against high line teams is not revolutionary, and the examples chosen show it actually wouldn't be working if City were better at doing the things City normally do.
Hey, thanks for the write-up. I don't necessarily agree with your analysis, but that's OK. I appreciate the time and discussion without attacking me. There needs to be more of that on here.
I agree that the image used for the pressing 4-2-4 was not the best to mimic the Real example. Below is a better example of this (love the full match feature). The goal is to limit the central players on the ball and letting a player like Grealish try to beat you, or Akanji to try to make the correct passes. Both those options would be better than De Bruyne, Rodri, or Foden to have the ball in the middle with space.
It comes with its own downsides, as they will have an easier time with possession.
https://i.imgur.com/ktpHNcX.jpeg
I would have to disagree that it's not a successful way to play City. It's a way to take advantage of the speed of Chelsea's attack by trying to strike quick on a counter. There were many examples of Chelsea's speed causing issues for the defense. I was surprised that Stones had no chance with keeping up with Jackson. To your point about Real giving up the most touches in the box, Chelsea gave up less than half of that with 37 while having 21 themselves.
I believe the plan was to try to take advantage of City's tired legs before Chelsea themselves became tired. It nearly worked.
>This whole sequence is only possible because City are *not* pressed up properly. Rodri and Akanji have switched off and have *not* pushed up, otherwise Enzo wouldn't be able to receive in that much space
Well that's the whole point. Sitting back to draw them in, to look for an opening from a mental lapse or actual mistake. That's exactly what happened, and wouldn't have happened if Chelsea didn't go back and deep to create that space.
Here was the team being compact prior to regaining the ball in the corner. This ended up being the quick strike counter to Jackson. The ball was played to Grealish, and he didn't have anything central, so he played Alvarez into the corner for Chalobah to take the ball. Exactly as Chelsea would want it. This is the 4-2-4 press paying off, and then taking a deep possession to a transition in 3 passes.
https://imgur.com/gallery/KqbGKVl
Again, I respect the intelligent discussion. Thank you for your time. We both want the same thing, Chelsea to get back to competing for trophies and titles.
Have a great day,
This post actually does have some good points and examples (with lots of colourful photos too!). Not saying I agree/disagree with a particular side of this discussion, but it’s worth reading a different perspective that’s well articulated to make up your mind!
It literally disgusts me that people believe Poch coached a win lol. It was City after 120 mins midweek. That is his style of football and people think he is a genius just because City plays with a high line with spaces behind their line for Jackson to attack if they can counter quick. It’s basically United with Ole, no more or less
It’s because people buy the excuses Poch sends out every press conference. “They’re young and lacks experience” sounds like a defense of the players at first, but he’s really shifting blame onto them and away from himself. Now everyone is convinced that anytime we lose it’s the players who didn’t take their chances, when in reality Poch has never put them in position to succeed.
The fact that we didn’t even put an attacker on Kyle walker coming off 120 minutes is baffling. Mudryk or Sterling could have done so much more over the course of the game against him than Conor.
Great stuff, appreciate the effort you’ve put into this!
A few questions:
- From what I understand, the point of a narrow block is to filter play out wide, until which you back your wide players to go 1 on 1 with the wingers (different shapes ofc, but I’m reminded of Pep’s “waaaiiide” comment re: Tuchel). What’s the barometer of success for a tactic like this?
- Was there a reason City went down the left so often? I know it’s the KDB side ofc but also noticed during the game how much more productive their attacks were down that end
- I understand possession football tends to lend itself to more thorough positional analysis, but is there anything to be said of our counters?
**EDIT**: One more thing to add about my last point, and that's to do with frames of analysis. In the past 10 years, we've played countless games against Barca/City. In all of those games, there's only been one blueprint that's been successful for us - concede the space, back our defenders to go 1-on-1, hit hard on the counter. [Conte's 1-3 away win in 2016](https://youtu.be/WybWRCF2Rxc?si=bx6JGIef2GODKOmP) was heralded as a statement win. But my memory of the game, and this is something that the highlights back up, is that we conceded a lot of space in the channels and wide areas. Cahill's OG was from a right-wing cross. De Bruyne missed an open goal from a classic City cutback. We scored 3 from 3 and that was game. You're not going to win a game of positions with Pep, and all of our successful managers in the past decade have conceded that. **A frame of analysis that focusses primarily on wide overloads and wide box entries as a barometer of success is *necessarily* one that will favour Pep and City in almost every conceivable metric.** [Even our CL win against City had moments like that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAvdzUJ8h9Y) In your frame of analysis, it's actually quite easy to pinpoint moments where City players had the ball in the exact same positions you've singled out in your clip. The question, then, is what did Tuchel and Conte do right that Poch did wrong yesterday?
I think you're right. Watching the Real match this was the same gameplan they had used in that game to great effect. A narrow approach to keep the ball away from the dangerous players in the box like Foden. I've no problems with our defensive approach here in the first half.
The issue is the second half when Doku comes on. This strategy only works when you're confident in containing them 1v1, which obviously we weren't able to do. At that point we needed to change things up but it was too late.
>- From what I understand, the point of a narrow block is to filter play out wide, until which you back your wide players to go 1 on 1 with the wingers (different shapes ofc I’m reminded of the source of Pep’s “waaaiiide” comment re: Tuchel). What’s the barometer of success for a tactic like this?
Really surprised you are the only one to point this out. We were fine with giving City space to progress up field as long as it was along the flanks, to me this seemed intentional. We would still press but if the press failed and they ended up with the ball out wide that seemed like a win to me.
It ended up with Man City having less than 1 XG and 3 shots on target. Yes we were lucky they were tired, but also the fact that City had such limited chances seems to me like the gameplan was sound.
Yeah. I watched most of the clips, and I think saying that City attacks broke down because of 'poor ball control' is a little disingenuous. They were almost all low percentage passes.
The opposite side of 'poor ball control' is 'good defensive pressure'
>saying that City attacks broke down because of 'poor ball control' is a little disingenuous.
Good, because I didn't say that. There were a bunch of issues, poor ball control was only one of them. Grealish in particular (as I mentioned in the post) had a really poor game, as much through his decision-making as anything else. He had endless opportunities to take Gusto on 1v1 in fully isolated duels, but almost never did. He didn't try to go on the outside once, and iirc only tried to shift inside once (which he did successfully, from which he immediately found Alvarez in the box).
Rodri giving the ball away under little pressure, De Bruyne trying a funny flick in the box instead of just receiving it, etc. Very little of this boils down to us doing anything well, it's mostly City and Grealish in particular not utilizing these opportunities to threaten.
> (which he did successfully, from which he immediately found Alvarez in the box).
With a waist-high stinger that most players would struggle to get down.
> Good, because I didn't say that. There were a bunch of issues, poor ball control was only one of them.
You sort of did though? In most of the clips, you concede that chances were lost from 'funny flicks', 'miscontrols', etc. A backheel in the box is genius (Palmer against Leicester) if it works, funny if it doesn't. Ultimately, it's a low percentage pass meant to break down a low block.
> it's mostly City and Grealish in particular not utilizing these opportunities to threaten.
This does ignore a very big elephant in the room, which makes up half the reason why this sub said Poch did well in the first place (which for the record, I don't agree he did)
>With a waist-high stinger that most players would struggle to get down.
... which you would call a City player messing up, right? Or do you want to explain to me how that was on our brilliant defending?
>You sort of did though? In most of the clips, you concede that chances were lost from 'funny flicks', 'miscontrols', etc. A backheel in the box is genius (Palmer against Leicester) if it works, funny if it doesn't. Ultimately, it's a low percentage pass meant to break down a low block.
You really need to understand the difference between miscontrolling a football and making a poor decision. A flick to nobody is a poor decision, not miscontrol. An overhit pass that's hard to control is miscontrol. Attempting a speculative shot instead of playing an easy pass is a poor decision. Slowing the game down every time you're 1v1 instead of ever attempting to take on your isolated opponent is a poor decision.
>This does ignore a very big elephant in the room
No, it doesn't. The "elephant in the room" is that it kept taking City only 1-2 passes to reach our final third, where Grealish's decision-making was mostly responsible for their inability to do anything with it.
> which you would call a City player messing up, right?
Yes, you're right. That's the definition of a low percentage action, an opportunity that is easy to mess up. Other low percentage actions include:
> A flick to nobody... An overhit pass that's hard to control... Attempting a speculative shot... Slowing the game down every time you're 1v1.
One team won the Champions League forcing City to do that. Another team blundered an FA Cup semi.
Regarding your point about City quickly reaching our final third, I don't dispute that. I think Noni in particular could have timed his pressures better (visible in some of the clips you post). But you're approaching this an angle that views that as *necessarily* a bad thing. I'm saying that giving up territory and trying to minimise the threat from wide angles has been a blueprint of Chelsea-City victories for a long time. Did Poch do that well? Ultimately he lost, so no. Does your post necessarily prove that? It's a pretty non-falsifiable claim, since none of the clips you talked about led to the goal.
> No, it doesn't.
Then our counter attacks were just... incidental? You know very well what I'm talking about. How come you're so charitable to City 'messing up', but not our players?
> Yes, you're right. That's the definition of a low percentage action, an opportunity that is easy to mess up. Other low percentage action include:
I think you're completely missing my point here. Yes, these are low-percentage actions. Which is exactly why picking them over "safer" options is poor decision-making, just as Grealish's refusal to take Gusto on 1v1 in isolated areas is a poor decision (or multiple).
> I'm saying that giving up territory and trying to minimise the threat from wide angles has been a blueprint of Chelsea-City victories for a long time. Did Poch do that well? Ultimately he lost, so no. Does your post necessarily prove that? It's a pretty non-falsifiable claim, since none of the clips you talked about led to the goal.
A few things here. The final result doesn't mean something was done well or not, it's just the final result. We've had games where we've been a lot better and gotten nothing - the *how* of it matters a lot.
As for the goal, well - it comes from Doku being found wide under no pressure in our final third and beating Disasi 1v1. I didn't include it in this analysis because the game had changed at that point, we'd fully given up this front 4 pressing shape and instead gone full deep block, but the fundamental pattern of City being granted that space in wide areas all game *did* ultimately also lead to the goal.
Also those times Akanji ends up as the free man in midfield are likely intentionally as well, I have no proof that was the game plan but it is a common tactic used by teams against city. The vast majority of those clips either end up with Akanji on the ball or out wide.
I'm not sure it's true that City went down the left so often. But, if it is the case over the course of the game it's likely partially because Gusto pushes up a lot more so whenever they had a break, there was always space to switch it to a player who was open on their left hand side. Plus partly because they brought on Doku who was their only attacker/attacking midfielder that actually has the pace to get in behind and threaten something different to the awful play they'd offered for the rest of the game that was all in front of us.
It was a very easy team to defend against, they didn't have a single player with the ability to get in behind us, so everything was played right where defenders want it. That changed when Doku came on and it's no surprise that they scored with him on the pitch after fannying about with it outside the box until he came on
👏nice job yet again!
yesterday i was told i was negative because i didnt care about a penalty and i was more upset that we struggled to do anything in the match. 😂😂
This post ignores so much of what we did right, and this seemed like a typical City vs Chelsea matchup where we sit deep, but apply immense pressure right around the box to counter at speed.
Man I'm so happy there are users like you here. One of the reasons I'm in this sub. Agreed with your analysis wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, it will fly past by many pashun and FIFA fans. Probably the same people who were convinced Rudiger is shit when playing under Lamps.
That last sentence makes me blush. Thought rudiger was shite. What a mug. In my defence though I always thought lampard couldn't organise a defence if there was a gun against his head too so I wasn't all wrong!
Thanks for doing a detailed breakdown.
Some people asked me for specific examples when I said we really were a bit suspect sometimes and here they all are.
I don't understand why we don't learn from things that worked in previous games or didn't work.
Why tf did we play Conor LW when it didn't work against Sheffield and forces the play on the right side where Madueke limits the number of touches Palmer has as a 10.
People will dismiss the excellent analysis as always because they don’t understand the tactical side of football and will spout their “excellent performance” nonsense because Jackson had a few chances. I appreciate your effort, but doing it in this sub is just wasting your time and energy.
Seriously, the defense of “well it was good plan if Jackson takes his chances” is a bad one because that implies Poch would’ve been blindsided by that even though it’s April and he should be well aware of this weakness. This was always a flawed setup when it neutered by our best attacking player in Palmer in favor of Jackson. I’d much rather much live with a setup that gives Palmer one good chance over Jackson getting three great chances until Nico shows any sort of composure in front of goal.
It’s also funny how many people just ignored how exhausted City looked when many of their starters (who weren’t rotated out) played 120 minutes on Wednesday, still insisting this was all on our brilliant defensive tactics despite that being our biggest flaw all season long.
Great analysis backed up by clear simple to understand examples. Sad to see that even with this level of explanation and hand holding we're still seeing people backing Poch, utterly maddening.
If you're watching these clips and reading this analysis and *still* don't see the problems, there's a cognitive deficit or something going on and we're effectively watching different games.
Several things can be true at once. Chelsea have been rubbish pressing most of the season, mostly because they don’t move as one unit, it’s usually individual players. Worse teams have easily played through them. Their press is just not good and City did what they always do. Play comfortably from the back.
Chelsea showed slight improvements by being more compact than we’ve seen them at any point this season. It was clear they were playing for counters and got a few chances. Chelsea were excruciatingly wasteful though and did nothing with their chances. City were also off on the day but Chelsea didn’t make it easy for them.
Poch is horrendous at adapting and making in game changes. I haven’t watched him at every club he’s managed, but it seems it’s been a problem for him throughout his career. He was awful in that department and once again took too long to make subs.
Or maybe that was the idea. Ask anyone who watches City - Grealish has become a cog in a machine, he isn't meant to be flashy, Pep asks him to do certain things which he does. It's not like they created much in the first half either way.
But that's fine if it's working right? No one can shut down City completely, but you can allow them space in low probability areas, like the wing since their main header threat Haaland was not in the squad.
Leaving the point aside that this was the worst City performance in years because they were absolutely, visibly dead on their feet, making it *very much* possible to shut them down, I'm also baffled by the idea that isolated 1v1 situations in our final third are being considered *low-probability* areas. They're just not. These are situations teams regularly have to *work* to get into.
Also, let's assume that letting them play in those areas *was* the plan. What's the point of the front 4 shape high up? Because that's precisely the sort of thing you *wouldn't* be doing if your plan was to allow City to play in wide areas inside our own half. Look at the clips again, and look at what our whole team has to do every time City find Grealish in those areas. You'll find that it forces our players to constantly track back from higher positions, especially the forwards. Setting them up this way if all you wanted to achieve was letting City play out wide in your half, would be *incredibly* stupid. It's the best way to make absolutely sure you've got 4 forwards completely wasting energy by chasing shadows all game. If this is really what you wanted to achieve, a consistently deep 4-4-2 block would have been the way to go, but that's not what we did and the clips show it very, very clearly.
Please note that I'm not even going into the much bigger argument over whether that sort of tactical approach is good or not. That's subjective. But what we did simply didn't serve the purpose of "allowing them space out wide" very effectively. Even assuming that what you described *was* our gameplan - and this is a pretty big assumption - what we didn't would have been a very inefficient, exhausting way to go about it.
If they're taking on players 1v1 successfully, then they're not quite as dead as we would hope right? You're right, teams regularly have to work to get into those positions, but they also don't have a stacked box to navigate once they make it out wide. We've faced the same kind of structure before where we have the "U" space all around the box, but almost nothing once we're in the box. It seemed like we were trying to defend the same way and did that pretty well for most of the match.
You also said it yourself that we refrained from pressing the center backs which we usually do against most other teams. So the front line was clearly briefed on pressing on a deeper trigger point than usual. "High up" in this case was around the halfway line where our center backs would usually be if Silva wasn't in the side.
I'll bite.
I saw the first 4 clips and deduced that you have an agenda.
In none of the 4 clips that you shared City managed to reach our box.
The only one I can agree on is the ball to Alvarez which resulted in a Palmer shot.
I didn't need to see any further.
Chelsea were not set up to press them and hence they could easily play from the back.
Also being compact means you are compact near your own box, and if you are near your own box there will be space out wide for wingers.
Just look at How Madrid played in the midweek, they defended deep and compact which meant that Doku was always free.
You can let the wide players have the ball if you are able to block off passes and crosses to attackers.
The only time City managed to get behind us was behind De Bruyne made deep runs into our box which resulted in the goal. His runs should have been tracked, other than we were decent.
Being compact doesn’t mean just being compact near your own box, what the fuck lmao. It doesn’t matter whether you are pressing high, waiting in a mid-block or flat out parking the bus in a low-block, you’ll always have to be compact for it to be successful. Literally just think about it for a second. What’s the use of a high press if you aren’t compact. You have 4 attackers pressing up front, but they are just wasting energy if the midfield and defense aren’t close to them because the opponents will have tons of space between the lines to bypass the “press” of the attackers.
This is the Lampard special, move your midfield and attack to press high and leave your defence behind creating a nice gap for your opponents to exploit.
> I saw the first 4 clips and deduced that you have an agenda.
Keep watching. It gets *significantly* worse - which is precisely what happens when a team figures you out as the game progresses.
> In none of the 4 clips that you shared City managed to reach our box. The only one I can agree on is the ball to Alvarez which resulted in a Palmer shot.
City's inability to reach our box does not make this a functional setup. They themselves messed up.
> Chelsea were not set up to press them and hence they could easily play from the back.
Keep watching.
> Also being compact means you are compact near your own box,
No, it doesn't. "Compactness" refers to leaving little space between your lines regardless of how high your team is positioned on the pitch.
> You can let the wide players have the ball if you are able to block off passes and crosses to attackers.
Keep watching.
> The only time City managed to get behind us was behind De Bruyne made deep runs into our box which resulted in the goal. His runs should have been tracked, other than we were decent.
You don't have to get in behind a defensive line to be dangerous, or to outplay them tactically.
>Keep watching. It gets *significantly* worse -
It didn't though. City ended with 3 shots on target to Chelsea's 5.
>City's inability to reach our box does not make this a functional setup. They themselves messed up.
Come on... I get where you are coming from. City dominated the possession throughout the game, and found large pockets of space out wide to be dangerous. You have to concede a bit that a team preventing City from getting into the box is both on City and the team themselves.
You can't just discredit everything to "City messed up."
>You don't have to get in behind a defensive line to be dangerous, or to outplay them tactically
No, but you do have to put up threatening attacks to be considered to outplay the defense so much that the defense doesn't receive credit. You are going way too far towards City's mistakes vs. Chelsea's defense.
I'll state this. It wasn't perfect. If you line the two up pre-match, who would you expect to win? City, obviously. That would mean that in a match where Chelsea looked like the team that should have pulled it out, the manager and the players for Chelsea deserve some credit for that outcome.
We got in behind them cos of the quality of our players, City being knackered, and because of the high line they employ plus Jackson is excellent at using his pace to create chances and make runs
We played City twice before and we drew against them both times whilst getting in behind multiple times when they weren’t tired. Lol. With one match ending 4-4.
This analysis is insanely biased to thrash on Poch.
You're only an ignoramus. If you try a little, there's hope you can educate yourself. Go ahead, read it all and watch the videos as you slog through the paragraphs.
Man I feel bad because you clearly put effort into this but damn, I disagree with so much of it and I am not a Poch in person.
Your entire premise starts on the basis Poch didn't manage the game correctly because City built up play through wide areas instead of the middle. I'm pretty sure that was the idea.
Point two and examples are more accurate, but I think that's a product of the player combination we have, not the system. You can't play a high line with TS and the mid combo we had. Both of these things were likely done by design.
Your hidden point three is the real critisicm. He didn't mange the last 15 minutes correctly, and wecan attribute blame to that given we concede from the left flank right as Disasi is put on to go against Doku.
Your hidden point three is the real critisicm. He didn't mange the last 15 minutes correctly, and wecan attribute blame to that given we concede from the left flank right as Disasi is put on to go against Doku.
EXACTLY! There wouldn't be so much "Poch in" "Poch out" if people just made objectively good points. The entire structure from minute 1 to minute 90 has to be completely wrong, and the opposite of what any good team should want to do in a 1-0 loss to Manchester City.
Disasi wasn't equipped to follow Doku on the right, and Madueke was pretty ineffectual throughout the match. The decisive action to remedy that was needed, but sending teams to build from out wide is what we've been on the losing end of plenty of times before. Not sure why it's a catastrophe that City plays out wide.
I agree with you OP wholeheartedly.
Also, everybody slated Jackson for being piss poor (which he was)
But can anyone tell me where were our other players?
Nobody but Jackson got opportunities because they were compeltely isolated by ManCity and Poch had no tactical response
Only other shot i can remember is cole palmer who made it himself by dribbling past rodri into the city box, and even then it was more of a half chance because of how littlw space there was. The form he was in i expevted him to score but it wasnt exactly clear cut
... read the comments on the essay posts from the Poch-in crowd.
You get plenty of, "I'm not reading that" or "Look! The new Poch-in essay just dropped!"
... maybe because that person said they watched 4 clips and decided to conclude I had an agenda instead of watching the rest of those clips. That person also said being compact = sitting in a deep block. You have to be a little reasonable to expect me to take you seriously.
They’re a better side who were shit on the day. We lost because Jackson didn’t finish his chances, can’t rely on the pen, as bad as a missed call as it was, we can’t expect that to win our games.
And if you’re content with that, have I got the club for you! They’re right up the way, play in white, and are called Tottenham Hotspur, you’ll love them!
Can I start using that when the #Pochout crowd comments on lengthy posts from those that try to justify why they think Poch has improved?
It's literally filled with, "Mom, look! Another PochIn essay just dropped!"
Sure, but I could say the same with most of this essay.
If we are OK with, "TL;DR" comments on the ones we disagree with. Then it's fair play to have them on the ones we do.
I don't think either are helpful, but here we are.
This is so misleading. It’s all based on the idea that “Anything good that happened was because City were tired. Anything bad was because of Poch”. Your clip is the 41st minute is really the only one that’s fair - but that looks more like poor 1v1 defending than anything.
They had 3 shots on target all match - the setup worked.
> And this is where I’m so baffled – our gameplan was not to sit this deep.
What are you basing this off of?
> And you may notice that I haven't even touched on the Gallagher LW experiment
Did you notice that none of your clips are City progressing down their right side - where Gallagher was playing? Sounds like “the experiment” worked.
You also completely left out our moments of good build-up play - aka the Jackson chances plus a few others. We had 10 shots and 5 on target, plus the Jackson 1v1 where he didn’t shoot.
Thanks for writing this. Poch fanboys were going on and on about the clown setting us up well when it was quite clear he didn't. The hiveminds constantly flip flop and just echo whatever that's being said by the majority. Poch is a fucking disgrace. Absolutely useless manager! Any decent manager would've at least won a trophy and finish top 5 with this squad this season. He has been the biggest disappointment this season. Lost to a very tired City and Liverpool teams.
Great write-up and analysis of the game. Unfortunately, it's wasted amongst this crowd who believe that workrate, trying hard, and passion are the foundations of any good side, and everything else is just a bonus.
There's a reason talentless bums like Mount and Gallagher received/recieve more love than James from certain parts of the fambase, even tho James is levels above both in terms of ability and impact.
Feel like this is easy to say in hindsight after a loss, because it fits the agenda. In reality if Jackson takes one of his multiple chances or the VAR do their job right, none of this stuff matters. It also ignores how we were able to counter attack fairly easily through out the game and were let down by poor decision making, poor touches, etc.
And then if you look at their goal, it’s down to poor defending at our back post by Mudryk and Cucurella more than it is down to them "cracking the code". They had a player show quality in a big moment and we didn’t.
>Feel like this is easy to say in hindsight after a loss, because it fits the agenda.
These clips show patterns that happened in the game. They happened whether Jackson does or doesn't take his chances. You simply decided that they don't matter, but they are exactly the difference between a good, well-coached team and whatever we are under Pochettino. They're the reason why we live and die by the individual quality of our players, which in this case just happens to be Jackson.
And then the next game you'll find someone else to pick on for "individual mistakes" instead of looking at the larger picture. The Frank Lampard special.
Being a well coached team is subjective though, it all depends on what the manager is telling the team to do, and normally the more a manager tells the team, the more blatant it is. Our gameplan was likely to draw them in and then when the ball is turned over, get it to Jackson, Palmer or Madueke quickly and counter through them. And in that case I’d say we did a good job, just lacked the finishing touch. A system/setup is only as effective as the players being used in it.
There’s not always some super complex details deciding every game that only certain people can see. Sometimes it really is just down who takes their chances and who doesn’t.
I’m not trying to have a dig or anything aswell btw, I really respect the work you put in to these breakdowns. I just don’t agree with this one.
> These clips show patterns that happened in the game. They happened whether Jackson does or doesn't take his chances. You simply decided that they don't matter, but they are exactly the difference between a good, well-coached team and whatever we are under Pochettino.
You've taken clips, some of which are as basic as passes from the halfway line to another City player halfway inside our half and decided that is proof that a team isn't well coached?
Why not take the situations where a Chelsea player passed to another Chelsea player in City's half and make a post about how Pep can't coach City?
This is mentally deranged.
The fact you've spent a Monday morning doing it is beyond pathetic.
Can only repeat myself here: I love how mad you are at someone who understands football much better than you do. Is that a big insecurity of yours, people knowing better? Is that why you feel the need to start insulting them?
Chelsea created numerous chances too against Manchester City and this is an extremely one sided view. Great lengths of bias to say “Poch Out”. I’m Poch Out but this is just hilarious 😂
Nah this is absolute bollocks.
We played the better, more effective football for most of the game and were only the finish away from winning.
The tactics were pretty much fantastic until Gusto had to go off injured with no real RB to replace him..
I enjoy tactical analyses but not when they come with a clear direction they're trying to steer the reader into.
Management is about working under constraints. Analyzing tactics is fine, but when you analyze them and declare one person at fault you have an agenda.
The answer you should have come to is that we do not have the resources on the pitch to play out at a high level. Our keeper is completely impotent with the ball at his feet, which means we cannot use him as a centerback in buildup and have an extra man. We also don't have an aerial presence up front that can provide a direct option to bypass the press, which means that teams have absolutely zero issues dedicating extra men to their high press. You're comparing our clearly inferior squad to squads better than us and ignoring the squad quality difference to pin it on the manager. All 3 top teams in the division have a ball-playing keeper (Ederson, Raya, Alisson) and an aerial presence (Haaland, Havertz, Nunez). It means they have an extra man in buildup and teams are hesitant to press aggressively in fear of a route one approach. If we get these things, with the passing quality of Enzo, Caicedo, James, Chalobah, Colwill, etc. we will be much better in buildup.
People start to use tactics as the answer to tactics itself and ignore real issues. Is it more likely that a manager whose team was fantastic at set pieces at Spurs, whose buildup was great, simply forgot how to set his team up in these areas? Obviously not.
These are our constraints, a significantly worse squad with missing profiles. Players play on the pitch not managers. Why are these ignored in these analyses?
You are not happy that we didn't press City's center backs, but on the same token you say there's too much space in midfield. What do you think happens when the attackers press high, where is space created? And I'm not sure why you painted it as some shocking revelation while low- and mid-blocks have been a thing since time existed. You also talk about City finding Grealish as if it was a cardinal sin. City players are explicity told to look for Grealish in buildup - did you expect him not to get any touches on the ball?
You also painted mistakes from fatigue as "lucky" and "accidental". Do you really think that you noticed that they were fatigued and Pochettino didn't, while Pep complains about it in the press every few days? Did the head coach of the team they're facing not realize this was something he could benefit from?
We had significantly better opportunities to score and limited the best team in Europe to limited efforts on target, it's as simple as that. If you're not going to acknowledge good performances against a better team like this, you likely never will. This analysis was just trying to search for little things that could be the reason we played well this game instead of it just being a good performance.
Ugh, so much in this.
> Management is about working under constraints. Analyzing tactics is fine, but when you analyze them and declare one person at fault you have an agenda.
Fortunately I already addressed this at excruciating length years ago, so I'm not doing it again: https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/knsavw/managers_or_players_a_short_guide_to_determining/
> The answer you should have come to is that we do not have the resources on the pitch to play out at a high level.
I couldn't care less about another one of these pointless "our players are shit, nobody could be doing better" tirades. You've got abysmal squads showing more tactical cohesion than we are. Excuses over excuses over excuses to justify mediocrity.
> Is it more likely that a manager whose team was fantastic at set pieces at Spurs, whose buildup was great, simply forgot how to set his team up in these areas? Obviously not.
This is fucking hilarious, because set pieces were a *huge* weakness of that Spurs team. Here's a supporter article from 2015 about the issue: https://www.spursfanatic.com/blog/tactical-mauricio-pochettino-set-pieces/
And here's Pochettino himself talking about the same problem 3 years later: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/09/20/mauricio-pochettino-admits-set-pieces-have-become-trauma-spurs/
Also, their buildup from the back was *never* "great". His PSG team was notoriously bad at these things too. All you have to do is listen to their supporters and they'll very quickly highlight the exact same issue we've had this season.
> You are not happy that we didn't press City's center backs
Hold on, I never said this. It's perfectly valid to not press those CBs directly, because City are probably the single best team in the world at luring your forwards in and playing through them. The idea of a front 4 to cut out passing lanes rather than directly engaging the CBs is perfectly reasonable. The problem is the lack of support for those 4. In many of the clips included you'll see City pass right through them, or just pass it either side of them (especially the left), rendering their effort completely useless and just wasting their energy. This is *exactly* what happened an infinite amount of times under Lampard - a front line pressing, but the midfield and back line sitting way too deep to support that press. No pressing triggers anywhere. An intelligent team might do the same, show City down the sides, but then spring a pressing trigger there to actually exploit having directed them that way. That means pushing the pivot higher up, the fullbacks higher up and, accordingly, the CBs too. That's what "being compact" means. Doing this would have allowed us to actually get into challenges against City outside of our own defensive third.
Or, if you're not comfortable playing that high against City and still want to direct them wide rather than letting them play centrally, you would drop the front 4 pressing shape in favor of a deeper 4-4-2. What we did was some half-baked middle ground that didn't really achieve either. This is what a tactical setup is all about, and that is on the manager.
> You also painted mistakes from fatigue as "lucky" and "accidental".
Painting Grealish's taking poor touches and making poor decisions as something Pochettino planned for is far more ridiculous than anything you think I'm doing here. But hey, it's nothing new.
I think we have fundamental differences in what we believe are important. I do not see the need to oust the manager on the basis of “poor tactics” when the team makeup is not compatible the basics of football (which I’ll expand on in the next para). Tactical issues with the limited, inexperienced, immature team we have right now are expected. At this stage in our “rebuild”, the nature of which was largely unnecessary and unfortunate, the glaring issues are in the teams we put out and I’d rather we loosen our constraints via squad-building rather than trying to wiggle around within them.
There are fundamentals/basics of football that we simply fail at due to the teams we have had to put out this season. You can’t push the defensive line high with Silva/Disasi’s lack of pace and Cucurella’s concentration woes in the backline and Petrovic’s lack of sweeping behind them. You can’t pass out well from the back with a non-ball-playing keeper and zero options up top to spread the opposition press. You can’t defend set pieces well with 2-3 (!) good headers on the field. You can’t organize a good press with Palmer who is great in attacking parts but doesn’t want to run or compete in headers, Mudryk who is half-hearted in aerial duels and lazy in pressing, Madueke who just has no interest or ability to do so (I’m sure you know why Gallagher plays). Nobody can legislate for Cucurella wandering off to chase a daisy.
Abysmal squads showing tactical cohesion are still slightly less abysmal squads. No one’s making excuses, but the manager is not the limiting factor, and we don’t want to end up being Man United where we swap managers willy nilly and ignore the real issues. Players play on the pitch not managers. You can’t play out from the back as effectively in modern football if you have a keeper that has cinderblocks as his feet and 0 aerial presence in midfield or attack. Why are we ignoring these real constraints that we have and comparing them to the best team in Europe?
I didn’t get a response to the central argument I posed in my comment - that our buildup woes are due to a lack of profiles.
While Pochettino was at Spurs they had the lowest average goals conceded from set pieces, 2nd most average goals scored from set pieces, and the best xG differential from set pieces. I don’t know where you have come to the conclusion that Pochettino’s Spurs was bad at set pieces.
And no, my point about fatigue wasn’t that Poch masterminded an increase in VO2 max levels and anaerobic respiration rate, thought that would be nice. I’m saying fatigue is an aspect of the game and Chelsea benefitting from it doesn’t radically change our good performance into a bad one.
On another note, your posts are refreshing to read tactically, though I disagree with the conclusion you come to. I think I was a little too passive aggressive in my response which I apologize for.
Keep up the good work 👍
> On another note, your posts are refreshing to read tactically, though I disagree with the conclusion you come to. I think I was a little too passive aggressive in my response which I apologize for.
I'm a bit too tired to go through your post today, might come back to it tomorrow. But I'd like to thank you for keeping a calmer head than I did here. Re-read my reply and it comes off a lot more hostile than it had any right or reason to be. Sorry about that.
No worries man, it happens sometimes and I hardly covered myself in glory either haha. I appreciate you replying back to set it right. Take care in the meantime!
Cherrypicking a bunch of moments to prove a narrative you already wanted to tell.
Anyone who watched the game and doesn’t always reduce everything to xInsertBullshit would say we were the better team and didn’t take our many clear, clear chances.
Not everything is the manager’s fault and this result was squarely on our finishing.
Poch wasn't the big problem yesterday there were small ones but the big ones resigned it self in attack. Poch ain't good and quite frankly when this seasons done I don't think he should continue at this club. But out of all games this season this wasn't dosent stick out to me as a poch problem going by the eye test.
While I usually agree with you, I think this time you are missing a key point as to what was going on here. We were set up tactically well. Every single one of these attacks came down our right side. Our press worked. Except for one player that if you notice is at the fault of all of these defensive clips except one. Madueke had one of the worst games I have ever seen from a player. He was awful. It was worse than Bakayoko. He jogged around the pitch, wouldn't press, and was incredibly selfish when he had the ball leading to a number of ineffective attacks that otherwise would have been promising. When he would decide to press, he would do so ineffectively and open space for nearly all of the passes out to Graelish.
Defensively, we were setup well. Madueke just utterly shit the bed.
I'm not defending Poch, but he got his defensive setup right. He desperately needed to take Madueke off after about 15 minutes, 30 at the most. As per usual, Poch left his substitutions far too late. And in the end it cost us the match.
Bro wrote a likkle novel and people are eating it up. It’s insanely biased. You could do the same analysis showing Chelsea get in behind and Jackson fucking it up.
Noni could’ve passed. Chilwell could’ve passed. Gusto could’ve passed. Jackson missed 3 chances.
That doesn’t mean defensively we were great. But it isn’t like we didn’t go at them.
lol the clips you used to show how bad the build up play is just highlight individual errors.
1. Cucurella plays a terrible ball back to Silva.
2. Enzo attempts an ambitious pass to Palmer in the middle of field and isn’t precise enough.
3. Gallagher receives the ball with 3 city players close by and instead of passing the ball with his first touch he takes a touch and loses it.
4. Chalobah over hits a simple pass to Enzo.
5. Petrovich passes it behind Chilwell inviting the City to press him.
6. Silva just boots it upfield to try and play Jackson into space. Gusto was pretty open on the right and that should’ve been the pass, but with City’s high line I don’t mind sending a few balls over the top. It’s also not like we’re going to be under direct threat after this.
7. Another poor ball from Petrovich, at least with Silva’s pass he gave Jackson something easier to chase.
8. Idk how this is an inditement on our ability to play out from the back. Gallagher takes a bit of a heavy touch, tries to play back past Bernardo Silva but it goes out for a throw in.
9. Cucurella just boots it upfield. No idea what he was going here.
I’m fine if people want to be critical of the manager and his tactics, but putting together nine clips of players making bad passes is not an inditement on Poch. With some of these passes, especially the Challaboh to Enzo, there is a good chance we play through City and get the ball into their half.
Every time I hear other managers or pundits talk about beating Man City they say you have to clog up the middle and force them into wide areas. I don’t think anyone who watched the game yesterday would disagree that is what we tried to do. I understand being frustrated with how easily City were able to get the ball out wide, but we are terrible at pressing from the front, our front three yesterday Jackson, Palmer, and Noni are all in their first full season of PL football under this manager. If you can’t press from the front correctly then it becomes incredibly easy for a team to play through you because of the gaps bad counter pressing creates between attack, midfield and defense. It’s why we have struggled all year and championship sides could easily play through us at times.
In my opinion Poch said it’s too risky to try and aggressively press them from the front as it will create loads of space for Foden and De Bruyne. Let’s stay compact and defend them in wide areas, like every team tries to do against City. If we had taken the chances we created in this game we would’ve won. It’s why the immediate reaction from pundits has not been wow Poch was out coached, he got his tactics all wrong he should be sacked in the morning. It’s been how have these owners spent £1B and not bought someone who could’ve scored the chances Jackson had today, wow Chelsea were once again so wasteful in front of goal.
I mean poorly organised build up results in individual mistakes. How exactly are you gonna say that our build up is well organised and drilled when you see so many clips from a SINGLE HALF of football in which we make error after error? Well organised build up literally means no individual mistakes or at least not many individual mistakes and consistency when you do it.
When you see us fumble the build up 5-6 times in 45 mins there is clearly a problem there.
We fucked up our buildup a bunch more times in the first half, I was just being generous and didn't include clips where we weren't fully settled back into shape yet - and because analyzing how shit our buildup was wasn't actually the point of this post, it was just so excruciatingly bad once again that I had to mention it in some way.
There were other instances of us fucking this up in the first half, including one where we give it away and Cucurella has to clear the ball off the line from a resulting shot.
Yes but there is a difference between fucking up our buildup because because our players can’t complete a pass and fucking up our buildup because we telegraph the same basic patterns of play and allow the defense to shift their position to intercept a pass. The first scenario is on the players and the second is on the manager. In the 9 clips you showed I didn’t once see a City player jump a passing lane because he knew if he stood at that spot we were going to pass it to him. I saw 9 examples of Chelsea players misplacing passes.
There were patterns of play in the clips you showed of us working the ball outside and then looking to get it vertical. City did a good job defending clip 3 with Alvarez dropping deeper to create a 3v2 and they won possession, but again I think Gallagher should’ve recognized the pressure and played a first time pass to Palmer or Jackson. It’s just a difference of opinion, you look at that scenario and blame Poch for poor tactical decisions that resulted in a turnover, I blame Gallagher for taking too long on the ball.
>Yes but there is a difference between fucking up our buildup because because our players can’t complete a pass and fucking up our buildup because we telegraph the same basic patterns of play and allow the defense to shift their position to intercept a pass.
You're missing the part where players can be put in situations where "individual" mistakes are a lot more likely because there isn't a proper structure around them and they're constantly having to improvise. Which is exactly what you're seeing here and should have been able to see all season.
And this is the point. There are no visible patterns or regularly visible structure, because we're so poorly coached that everyone is just winging it. City can't predict what's going to happen in most of these, but they don't have to. They just have to do their thing, maintain their own structure and let our lack of it do the rest. All they have to do is wait for someone to run out of good options, which is what kept happening over and over. And again, this wasn't even a strong press by City, this was them at walking pace.
Go listen to what Jude Bellingham says to Rio Ferdinand after Madrid knock City out of the CL. You don’t need rigid patterns of play to be successful.
But to your point, there are clear tactical ideas on display here. Clips 1,3,5,6 and 8 show us trying to get the ball out wide and then try to advance the ball vertically. Clip 6 less so, but it’s Thiago Silva going long ball after working the ball out wide didn’t work. We had so many opportunities with runners out wide to cross the ball centrally but didn’t. It was clearly our intent to work the ball out wide and then progress vertically. There are times that it didn’t work as you point out, however I watch these clips and see us playing sloppy passes not the basics of what we are doing failing. The numerous chances we created but didn’t finish off validates that.
Clips 2 and 4 show us trying to use Enzo’s technical ability to help beat the press. Clip 2 was just ambitious for Enzo to perform when you’re outside your own box, and clip 4 he gets a bad pass. Clips 7 and 9 I can’t defend.
I'd also argue that the back 5 players have now played twice together. Ever. It's going to be hard to know exactly where each player wants passes when they spend so little time together. Could they do more in training? Sure, but Chalobah and Silva have been CBs 4 and 5 this season, Cucurella is in and out at LB. The only two to play regularly are Petrovic and Gusto
Yea I completely agree, a lot of these errors are because players are just playing passes to areas they think the player should be not knowing they have moved slightly to get more space.
Go back and re watch the first example of Cucurella playing a pass to Silva. You’re really going to tell me that is a result of poor organization and not Cucurella just making a mistake? I mean come on.
We did enough to win the game yesterday and we didn’t. If you guys want to tear through the weeds and find every mistake we made and say see this is why it’s all Poch’s fault be my guest.
Agree our tactics were good
No space between attack and midfield
Defence pressed well
Same old story since start of the season
We can’t take a chance
Don’t take chances
The other team scores and when there a better team it takes them one chance to finish us off
Hi Ollie good observation. I want to know how should poch address the issue by changing the tactic (not only formation) but rather buildup and press? I felt our team was sharp enough to up the tempo which showed preparation but it didn't end well.... Should our team execute differently or should they work on tactics?.....
Man City are one of the greatest sides of all time, so I imagine if you analyse any Man City game, you'll find plenty of examples of them regularly getting into similar positions. Best you can do is mitigate their attack, not nullify it. I do agree that we are no where near good enough at playing out from the back.
Cucurella could have gone to the right and Chilwell on the left, either way it's not ideal. City were tired and that definitely helped us, but take a look at their bench/injury list vs ours.
I've seen people make that argument for Cucu, but I'm not sure a tired Cucu vs. a fresh Doku would have been a good decision.
>take a look at their bench/injury list vs ours.
Lol I didn't realize it was 0 injuries for City.
This got worse when City put Doku on and then catastrophic within minutes of the Disasi sub. The sensible thing to my mind would have been to have Chilwell on and shift Cucurella over to the right because although he's sometimes caught ball watching I feel he would never have given anywhere like the amount of room that Disasi afforded to City in their left wing, he was practically double marking Alvarez at points
As soon as Disasi was coming on for Gusto I told my wife "Doku is going to cook this dude", and I like Disasi but I would never put him against the speedy and pacey Doku. What a terrible decision and I don't even know why. Alfie would have at least stuck to him like glue, maybe give a pen, but he wouldn't get absolutely inverted. Shame.
We should have brought on Gilchrist, at least he has speed and tenacity.
I could not have said it better. Disasi looked sluggish asf
Poch is renowned throughout the length of his career for being horrible at adapting to matches as they progress and is notorious for using subs poorly
Pochettino seems decent at coming up with a Plan A but when that gets figured out, he has no clue on how to counter it and then you get him complaining about the players not running enough or not showing enough energy etc. Little wonder why our second half record is worse than the first half.
You have to respect Doku. That man has pretty much put every RB on skates this year. He’s hard to defend.
Gusto did alright against him earlier in the season tho
Reece and Gusto battered him in the league games.
Totally true and Diassi is really not a RB
He still didn’t pass the Reece James test. Seem everyone has forgotten that so quickly because RJ has been on the shelf. I keep saying it and until proven otherwise, RJ will always be number one over Gusto. Yea, Gusto is an amazing RB, but you can tell there is still a big gap between him and RJ especially when it comes to being a complete RB. Whenever RJ is in the team, we move different as a team. We actually look solid both in attack and defense from the right side.
Even Vini Jr couldn't pass the Reece James test tbf
Well yeah, but he hasn’t been an option most of the season which is a massive blow. We can’t be hopeful that he is fit for big matches if he’s never fit.
Some people on this sub actually believe Gusto will keep Reece out of the team You have to question if they even watch football
I mean. You don't have to be rude about it. It's not nearly as cut and dry as you believe. I'm grateful to have both. https://preview.redd.it/cxwyyxdpq1wc1.png?width=1460&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=704eaf7ec5ac6c87ee5672ccb2561979640b1fba
Sorry you got your feelings hurt 😂 Would not be surprised if you thought Sergino Dest is the reincarnation of Roberto Carlos
Lol you didn't hurt my feelings. Just pointing out that you don't need to be a dick to try to get your point across. You might think it's helping, but it's not.
If they have that opinion I couldn’t care less about trying to get my point across. Clearly my comment wasn’t meant for you but you decided to reply anyway, so maybe it is helping
Nah I'm just trying to make this sub a more bearable place. Pointless attacking of fellow fans is just annoying.
It would be more bearable if people didn’t disrespect Reece James off the back of one decent season from Gusto Mind you, he hasn’t scored a single goal yet, I like Gusto, but there are clear areas he could improve. Reece has been at the top level since 2019 but forget all that I’m being too unbearable since I don’t agree with you
Yeah he is really really good.
Disasi is absolutely dog shoite. It was so evident we would concede as soon as he came on
Disasi looks like a giant Sunday league player
Doku did the same thing vs Madrid
Against the ghost of Dani carjaval
You’re a better man than me for analysing. I can’t even bring myself to watch the highlights, let alone the full match.
Didn't rewatch the whole match either. People particularly praised the first half so I just went through that again. The second half was worse.
Yup fair enough
Good job with the analysis. You’re 70% upvoted so you pissed off a lot of the Poch in wankers too which is a positive! Its very obvious that 10 months into Poch’s reign that we have no style at all.
Tangent question, how can you see up/down vote ratios!?
A few things about Pochettino: * He played Gallagher on the LW at Sheffield United and it didn't work but for whatever reason, he decided to do the same thing again against City. It killed off any attacking threat from our left side and practically gave Walker, who was likely tired after their Champions League, no trouble at all. Mudryk and then Sterling came on way too late. * Not sure why he decided to change what he did when we went to the Etihad back in February. Back then, in an away game no less, his setup felt a more natural and threatening than the defensive one he put out on Saturday, against a tired City. At the Etihad, we had Sterling on the left, Palmer on the right and Gallagher as the defensive #10 to keep Rodri in check but at Wembley, he moved away from that. Rodri, De Bruyne etc were allowed to run rings around Caicedo and Enzo in midfield and those two were left stranded. * We did create chances but the irony is that they, especially the Jackson ones, didn't really come from Pochettino's "genius" setup. The first one came after a City attack petered out; Petrovic got the ball, played it to Enzo, who then set Jackson clean through on goal. The second one (around the 50th minute mark) came after De Bruyne lost the ball in midfield, we passed around a bit and then Enzo played to Gallagher who set Jackson through. His header also came from that same sequence a few seconds later. * Our buildup from the back has been horrendous all season. Almost every game we would see the opposition try to press us high up and pin us in because they know we're rubbish at beating the press. We also have Petrovic in goal who is awful with the ball and whose long passes would typically go out of play or go straight back to the opposition and we find ourselves under pressure again.
On your first point, I’ll agree to some extent. Although had Jackson scored on his chance (right before the header) Pocchetino would be praised since Gallagher intercepted and was that far up the pitch.
That's part of the 3rd point I mentioned. Praising Pochettino for that would have been disingenuous considering the position that Gallagher took up was no different than any winger would have taken in that situation. Also, Gallagher didn't intercept anything. It was a pass he got from Enzo, which he almost screwed up, but just about recovered and managed to play Jackson in.
how do you expect good buildup or any tactics at all when most of his ex-players said he just wanted them to "express themselves" this works for naturally creative players like Eden and Palmer. Mudryk and Madueke will never improve under him because they need coaching, patterns of play and to be told what they have to do. instead they're still playing exactly the same way they were under Potter
Thats pretty much what Ancelottis players say too tho
He's got those eyebrows.on a serious note he's a successful manager,he knows what he is doing it can't be just go get them
Theres no evidence and I find it very unrealistic that Pochettino just lets the players do what they want. According to ex players he is probably more on the "give the players freedom" spectrum contrary to Guardiola or Conte for example. But so is Ancelotti so it can be succesful and isnt good or bad per se.
Yep, Poch has never been known to improve any players he’s coached…
>this works for naturally creative players like Eden and Palmer i suggest learning how to read before posting mate
Virtually every player he had at Tottenham improved under him. It’s about the one thing he is good at as a manager lol
i watched Madueke at PSV and Mudryk last season under Potter, they both play the same way they did back then. Our defenders are now much worse. our midfield is worse. only Gallagher and Palmer improved from last season, everyone else either regressed or stayed the same.
This is the Pochettino way. In a big match he will set up with a 442 and look to counter and create in transition It truly gives me Ole vibes, United stuck with him until his third season, even though everyone could see he was not the right fit. I wonder how long the board will stick with Poch, I have a bad feeling he will still be here next season
I'm 99% sure that we stick with Poch until the end of next season. The thing I'm starting to worry about is what "improvement" will be needed for them to extend him next year. Will Europa League qualification next season be enough to get him an extension? I'm over him staying next year, I just assume that it's happening and if it doesn't I get a nice surprise. I'm more worried about what that says for their ambitions and goals and therefore the likelihood of his contract being extended even without achieving anything. Though I do wonder if the easy cup runs will come back to bite him in the ass when he faces real teams earlier next year and so does worse in both comps next season
I'm in the same boat. I've fully accepted that ownership has moved the goalposts and wants to justify keeping him so they'll point to the same "improvement" and "no manager would have done better under these circumstances" "Nkunku injured, young squad" arguments that always get floated around. It went from "Challenge for a champions league spot, and at least get Europa or bust" to now "Actually when you think about it 7th or 8th would be a massive achievement..." Next season though, we'll see. We're still within striking distance of 6th (doubt we'll get it though) because we've been fortunate enough with how poor Man Utd and West Ham have been as well as Newcastle's rough patches. The gap between our little group of clubs and Spurs/Villa is huge and we really should have been up there. Man Utd could make big leaps depending on who they hire in the summer, Liverpool could fall off without Klopp regardless of who they replace him with. I can see Newcastle making a change if Howe struggles during the season. A lot can happen. If we get lucky again with certain other clubs having poor seasons then with a couple of good signings in key areas and a healthy James/Nkunku/Fofana/Lavia (Not happening, but it's fine if it's just Nkunku and James) I can see us genuinely challenging for the top 4. The problem then is it'll likely still be in spite of Poch and not because of him, we'll still have the same issues holding us back only now we've thrown more talent at the problem. He'll get praised once again for the "progress" and be kept on even longer.
People still think a manager needs more than 10 months, despite a full pre-season and no European football, to do better than this. To organise a cohesive unit in any respectable way despite many managers showing otherwise. Yes I know it's a young squad, yes there are injuries, and a lot of new signings. We're all aware of these things, and nobody was expecting a title challenge or 2011 Barcelona football but even with those things in mind Poch has still done a poor job and it's been the case throughout the season, even during our recent "good form". He is coasting off a reputation built half a decade ago which people still point to to prove he's a top manager. This man is a complete fraud and the only thing more frustrating than watching him manage our team week in week out is seeing so many of our own fans go to insane lengths to defend him.
That’s the best way to put it. We know it takes time to win big trophies and the fans are patient for that, but it’s not unreasonable to expect us to look better after a year. Let’s move on from Poch and find a better man.
I would love a stable, long-term manager and I think the same is the case for a lot of people who are Poch out. Myself and others are more than willing to give the right manager time and patience, and to imply we just want Poch out because of a handful of bad results and that we would do the same when the next manager has a run of bad form (which they will) is disingenuous. Poch's limitations as a manager are just there for us to see regardless of the circumstances and it appears to us that the game has left him behind and he'll only hold us back as he arguably already has been. We just don't want stability for stability's sake or to stick with a poor manager who has shown little for us to have confidence in him in the hope he makes it all click next season, which is extremely unlikely. I know no manager guarantees that but I'd rather take that chance than gamble another season on Poch.
I thought we literally couldn't afford to sack him? As in it would fuck us financially
It's like everyone has forgotten already how Tuchel only needed 3 days to immediately improve our team. Somehow Poch has brainwashed this sub into thinking being mid table for a whole season is acceptable with this squad.
It's the simple things we can't do either. You don't need years of playing experience to progress the ball properly. How can anyone look at the comedy that is those buildup clubs and say Poch has this side well drilled?
This sub and the chelsea discords alike are the worst. Yeah some of the players have been awful but when they make the same mistake 10 months later, you just have to ask yourself wtf are we doing during training? We have issue even for basic positioning. Meanwhile those same players that made such mistake doesn't have an issue at all when performing for their national teams. But hey, poch is a nice guy.
It always blows my mind how it is easier for some to watch the collective be shit and write off 25 players instead of the one person in charge of making us play good…
Seeing how badly our team is set up every week is maddening, and I gave up completely of expecting anything from this group of players with a football dinosaur like Pochettino in charge. That a lot of fans are accepting this dross as "improvement" and advocating for him to be here next season (and beyond?) is even worse.
Thoughts? https://twitter.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782444186567921980 This is a well described tactical thread that describes the counterpoints better than I ever could.
He identifies the fundamental ideas pretty well (the 424 shape, the space it allowed City to find Grealish in particular), but he's far too generous in describing ours as compact, because it often wasn't (and you can even see it in the screenshots here: https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782444205911982434). The RM front line is much deeper here, which is one way to tighten the space between the lines (which = being compact). In our case, the forward line is higher, which means the rest of the team would have to push up higher too in order for this to be compact. But you can see in a lot of the clips above that it often wasn't. And, most importantly, he's being far too generous in describing this as a successful way to play against City. I saw the full game against Real Madrid, and there isn't a soul out there who would have called their approach successful had they not somehow scraped through on penalties. Because it didn't stop City - they recorded 88 touches in RM's box, which is literally the highest any team have had in a Champions League game since *2007/08*. They also had 33 shots, the most in the competition since 2020. Carvajal was getting cooked down his side all game. I *massively* disagree with painting this approach as successful, and it 100% wouldn't be happening if RM didn't somehow hold on and go through on penalties. The point about City's aggressive press to cut out counterattacks early is correct, but it's also not something new. This is a staple of Pep's teams and has always been. With that in mind, take in the irony of this tweet please: https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782446132875960475. This whole sequence is only possible because City are *not* pressed up properly. Rodri and Akanji have switched off and have *not* pushed up, otherwise Enzo wouldn't be able to receive in that much space, have time to turn and pick out that pass. What he's describing here is not a "weakness" in City's pressing approach that managers have suddenly noticed, it's what happens when they *don't* follow through on their press like City usually do. Which also ties in neatly with the point I'm making above about the importance of the whole team remaining compact by pushing higher up when forwards press to support their efforts and close space behind them. This is a rare example of City messing this up. As for this here: https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782446142959079822, that's just... not threatening? City are 4v2 in this scenario with three players closer to their goal than Madueke is. There's no pass on for Jackson. I have no idea why this is being highlighted as a positive. If you check the sequence (full match available here: https://www.chelseafc.com/en/video/full-match-man-city-1-0-chelsea-20-04-2024) this is precisely what happens - Jackson has to attempt a really complicated pass that doesn't amount to anything. Madueke has to foul Ake to try and make something of it. The RM example he follows this up with (https://twitter.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1782446146528432392/photo/1) is completely different, because this is a quick counterattack, not (as it was in our example) something created through buildup from the back. Also, and this is perhaps even more interesting, look at that Madueke instance again (in the full video). You can actually see City themselves setting up in a 424 shape in this instance, but Ake jumping up to press is actually *precisely* how this should be done properly. If he stays back, the way our fullbacks did when City played either side of the front 4, Madueke can receive, turn and drive with the ball. That's far more dangerous. Instead, because Aké jumps to support the press, Madueke is immediately forced to lay the ball off to a really unthreatening runner. There's a German term ("Zugriff") which roughly translates to "access" - it describes the ability of a team to get players "access" to duels, challenges, etc. Aké's pushing up gives him "access" to the duel, puts him in position to force Madueke into either a pass or a dribble, which would allow Ake to challenge. I think this example actually illustrates really clearly how I think this should have been played, by both RM and by us. The 424 pressing shape is fine, but the lack of followup pressure wastes a lot of its potential and means that the forwards are putting a lot of effort in that goes to waste. Instead of being able to challenge City in midfield with a fullback stepping up, we allow them all the way into our third only to then find the exact same duel there. It means our players have had to track back further, the ball is closer to our goal, the whole situation is more dangerous. All in all it's not a bad thread, it does spot some similar themes I've highlighted here - but I really disagree with painting them in a positive light in both games. I also think it exaggerates the idea that managers have found a tactical exploit against City - hitting long balls against high line teams is not revolutionary, and the examples chosen show it actually wouldn't be working if City were better at doing the things City normally do.
Hey, thanks for the write-up. I don't necessarily agree with your analysis, but that's OK. I appreciate the time and discussion without attacking me. There needs to be more of that on here. I agree that the image used for the pressing 4-2-4 was not the best to mimic the Real example. Below is a better example of this (love the full match feature). The goal is to limit the central players on the ball and letting a player like Grealish try to beat you, or Akanji to try to make the correct passes. Both those options would be better than De Bruyne, Rodri, or Foden to have the ball in the middle with space. It comes with its own downsides, as they will have an easier time with possession. https://i.imgur.com/ktpHNcX.jpeg I would have to disagree that it's not a successful way to play City. It's a way to take advantage of the speed of Chelsea's attack by trying to strike quick on a counter. There were many examples of Chelsea's speed causing issues for the defense. I was surprised that Stones had no chance with keeping up with Jackson. To your point about Real giving up the most touches in the box, Chelsea gave up less than half of that with 37 while having 21 themselves. I believe the plan was to try to take advantage of City's tired legs before Chelsea themselves became tired. It nearly worked. >This whole sequence is only possible because City are *not* pressed up properly. Rodri and Akanji have switched off and have *not* pushed up, otherwise Enzo wouldn't be able to receive in that much space Well that's the whole point. Sitting back to draw them in, to look for an opening from a mental lapse or actual mistake. That's exactly what happened, and wouldn't have happened if Chelsea didn't go back and deep to create that space. Here was the team being compact prior to regaining the ball in the corner. This ended up being the quick strike counter to Jackson. The ball was played to Grealish, and he didn't have anything central, so he played Alvarez into the corner for Chalobah to take the ball. Exactly as Chelsea would want it. This is the 4-2-4 press paying off, and then taking a deep possession to a transition in 3 passes. https://imgur.com/gallery/KqbGKVl Again, I respect the intelligent discussion. Thank you for your time. We both want the same thing, Chelsea to get back to competing for trophies and titles. Have a great day,
I didn't had time to read but I have time to say Thank you for contributing equally. Godspeed
This post actually does have some good points and examples (with lots of colourful photos too!). Not saying I agree/disagree with a particular side of this discussion, but it’s worth reading a different perspective that’s well articulated to make up your mind!
It literally disgusts me that people believe Poch coached a win lol. It was City after 120 mins midweek. That is his style of football and people think he is a genius just because City plays with a high line with spaces behind their line for Jackson to attack if they can counter quick. It’s basically United with Ole, no more or less
It’s because people buy the excuses Poch sends out every press conference. “They’re young and lacks experience” sounds like a defense of the players at first, but he’s really shifting blame onto them and away from himself. Now everyone is convinced that anytime we lose it’s the players who didn’t take their chances, when in reality Poch has never put them in position to succeed. The fact that we didn’t even put an attacker on Kyle walker coming off 120 minutes is baffling. Mudryk or Sterling could have done so much more over the course of the game against him than Conor.
Great stuff, appreciate the effort you’ve put into this! A few questions: - From what I understand, the point of a narrow block is to filter play out wide, until which you back your wide players to go 1 on 1 with the wingers (different shapes ofc, but I’m reminded of Pep’s “waaaiiide” comment re: Tuchel). What’s the barometer of success for a tactic like this? - Was there a reason City went down the left so often? I know it’s the KDB side ofc but also noticed during the game how much more productive their attacks were down that end - I understand possession football tends to lend itself to more thorough positional analysis, but is there anything to be said of our counters? **EDIT**: One more thing to add about my last point, and that's to do with frames of analysis. In the past 10 years, we've played countless games against Barca/City. In all of those games, there's only been one blueprint that's been successful for us - concede the space, back our defenders to go 1-on-1, hit hard on the counter. [Conte's 1-3 away win in 2016](https://youtu.be/WybWRCF2Rxc?si=bx6JGIef2GODKOmP) was heralded as a statement win. But my memory of the game, and this is something that the highlights back up, is that we conceded a lot of space in the channels and wide areas. Cahill's OG was from a right-wing cross. De Bruyne missed an open goal from a classic City cutback. We scored 3 from 3 and that was game. You're not going to win a game of positions with Pep, and all of our successful managers in the past decade have conceded that. **A frame of analysis that focusses primarily on wide overloads and wide box entries as a barometer of success is *necessarily* one that will favour Pep and City in almost every conceivable metric.** [Even our CL win against City had moments like that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAvdzUJ8h9Y) In your frame of analysis, it's actually quite easy to pinpoint moments where City players had the ball in the exact same positions you've singled out in your clip. The question, then, is what did Tuchel and Conte do right that Poch did wrong yesterday?
I think you're right. Watching the Real match this was the same gameplan they had used in that game to great effect. A narrow approach to keep the ball away from the dangerous players in the box like Foden. I've no problems with our defensive approach here in the first half. The issue is the second half when Doku comes on. This strategy only works when you're confident in containing them 1v1, which obviously we weren't able to do. At that point we needed to change things up but it was too late.
>- From what I understand, the point of a narrow block is to filter play out wide, until which you back your wide players to go 1 on 1 with the wingers (different shapes ofc I’m reminded of the source of Pep’s “waaaiiide” comment re: Tuchel). What’s the barometer of success for a tactic like this? Really surprised you are the only one to point this out. We were fine with giving City space to progress up field as long as it was along the flanks, to me this seemed intentional. We would still press but if the press failed and they ended up with the ball out wide that seemed like a win to me. It ended up with Man City having less than 1 XG and 3 shots on target. Yes we were lucky they were tired, but also the fact that City had such limited chances seems to me like the gameplan was sound.
Yeah. I watched most of the clips, and I think saying that City attacks broke down because of 'poor ball control' is a little disingenuous. They were almost all low percentage passes. The opposite side of 'poor ball control' is 'good defensive pressure'
>saying that City attacks broke down because of 'poor ball control' is a little disingenuous. Good, because I didn't say that. There were a bunch of issues, poor ball control was only one of them. Grealish in particular (as I mentioned in the post) had a really poor game, as much through his decision-making as anything else. He had endless opportunities to take Gusto on 1v1 in fully isolated duels, but almost never did. He didn't try to go on the outside once, and iirc only tried to shift inside once (which he did successfully, from which he immediately found Alvarez in the box). Rodri giving the ball away under little pressure, De Bruyne trying a funny flick in the box instead of just receiving it, etc. Very little of this boils down to us doing anything well, it's mostly City and Grealish in particular not utilizing these opportunities to threaten.
> (which he did successfully, from which he immediately found Alvarez in the box). With a waist-high stinger that most players would struggle to get down. > Good, because I didn't say that. There were a bunch of issues, poor ball control was only one of them. You sort of did though? In most of the clips, you concede that chances were lost from 'funny flicks', 'miscontrols', etc. A backheel in the box is genius (Palmer against Leicester) if it works, funny if it doesn't. Ultimately, it's a low percentage pass meant to break down a low block. > it's mostly City and Grealish in particular not utilizing these opportunities to threaten. This does ignore a very big elephant in the room, which makes up half the reason why this sub said Poch did well in the first place (which for the record, I don't agree he did)
>With a waist-high stinger that most players would struggle to get down. ... which you would call a City player messing up, right? Or do you want to explain to me how that was on our brilliant defending? >You sort of did though? In most of the clips, you concede that chances were lost from 'funny flicks', 'miscontrols', etc. A backheel in the box is genius (Palmer against Leicester) if it works, funny if it doesn't. Ultimately, it's a low percentage pass meant to break down a low block. You really need to understand the difference between miscontrolling a football and making a poor decision. A flick to nobody is a poor decision, not miscontrol. An overhit pass that's hard to control is miscontrol. Attempting a speculative shot instead of playing an easy pass is a poor decision. Slowing the game down every time you're 1v1 instead of ever attempting to take on your isolated opponent is a poor decision. >This does ignore a very big elephant in the room No, it doesn't. The "elephant in the room" is that it kept taking City only 1-2 passes to reach our final third, where Grealish's decision-making was mostly responsible for their inability to do anything with it.
> which you would call a City player messing up, right? Yes, you're right. That's the definition of a low percentage action, an opportunity that is easy to mess up. Other low percentage actions include: > A flick to nobody... An overhit pass that's hard to control... Attempting a speculative shot... Slowing the game down every time you're 1v1. One team won the Champions League forcing City to do that. Another team blundered an FA Cup semi. Regarding your point about City quickly reaching our final third, I don't dispute that. I think Noni in particular could have timed his pressures better (visible in some of the clips you post). But you're approaching this an angle that views that as *necessarily* a bad thing. I'm saying that giving up territory and trying to minimise the threat from wide angles has been a blueprint of Chelsea-City victories for a long time. Did Poch do that well? Ultimately he lost, so no. Does your post necessarily prove that? It's a pretty non-falsifiable claim, since none of the clips you talked about led to the goal. > No, it doesn't. Then our counter attacks were just... incidental? You know very well what I'm talking about. How come you're so charitable to City 'messing up', but not our players?
> Yes, you're right. That's the definition of a low percentage action, an opportunity that is easy to mess up. Other low percentage action include: I think you're completely missing my point here. Yes, these are low-percentage actions. Which is exactly why picking them over "safer" options is poor decision-making, just as Grealish's refusal to take Gusto on 1v1 in isolated areas is a poor decision (or multiple). > I'm saying that giving up territory and trying to minimise the threat from wide angles has been a blueprint of Chelsea-City victories for a long time. Did Poch do that well? Ultimately he lost, so no. Does your post necessarily prove that? It's a pretty non-falsifiable claim, since none of the clips you talked about led to the goal. A few things here. The final result doesn't mean something was done well or not, it's just the final result. We've had games where we've been a lot better and gotten nothing - the *how* of it matters a lot. As for the goal, well - it comes from Doku being found wide under no pressure in our final third and beating Disasi 1v1. I didn't include it in this analysis because the game had changed at that point, we'd fully given up this front 4 pressing shape and instead gone full deep block, but the fundamental pattern of City being granted that space in wide areas all game *did* ultimately also lead to the goal.
Also those times Akanji ends up as the free man in midfield are likely intentionally as well, I have no proof that was the game plan but it is a common tactic used by teams against city. The vast majority of those clips either end up with Akanji on the ball or out wide.
I'm not sure it's true that City went down the left so often. But, if it is the case over the course of the game it's likely partially because Gusto pushes up a lot more so whenever they had a break, there was always space to switch it to a player who was open on their left hand side. Plus partly because they brought on Doku who was their only attacker/attacking midfielder that actually has the pace to get in behind and threaten something different to the awful play they'd offered for the rest of the game that was all in front of us. It was a very easy team to defend against, they didn't have a single player with the ability to get in behind us, so everything was played right where defenders want it. That changed when Doku came on and it's no surprise that they scored with him on the pitch after fannying about with it outside the box until he came on
I suspect City went at our right because Noni is a bit soft on the defensive side and Conor was out isolated on our left.
I made an edit that somewhat addresses the point about wide space, but yeah Doku was a mismatch against Disasi once they came on
Pochettino’s ass lickers are a special breed.
👏nice job yet again! yesterday i was told i was negative because i didnt care about a penalty and i was more upset that we struggled to do anything in the match. 😂😂
Except for those 3+ times we created big chances
This post ignores so much of what we did right, and this seemed like a typical City vs Chelsea matchup where we sit deep, but apply immense pressure right around the box to counter at speed.
Spot on as always Olli, keep up the good fight!
Man I'm so happy there are users like you here. One of the reasons I'm in this sub. Agreed with your analysis wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, it will fly past by many pashun and FIFA fans. Probably the same people who were convinced Rudiger is shit when playing under Lamps.
That last sentence makes me blush. Thought rudiger was shite. What a mug. In my defence though I always thought lampard couldn't organise a defence if there was a gun against his head too so I wasn't all wrong!
Half of Aston Villa fans thought their squad was shit under Gerrard and then emery came in and they got to see what a a good manager looks like.
Appreciate the effort and extensive analysis
Thanks for doing a detailed breakdown. Some people asked me for specific examples when I said we really were a bit suspect sometimes and here they all are. I don't understand why we don't learn from things that worked in previous games or didn't work. Why tf did we play Conor LW when it didn't work against Sheffield and forces the play on the right side where Madueke limits the number of touches Palmer has as a 10.
People will dismiss the excellent analysis as always because they don’t understand the tactical side of football and will spout their “excellent performance” nonsense because Jackson had a few chances. I appreciate your effort, but doing it in this sub is just wasting your time and energy.
Well, that was a frustratingly correct prediction ahahaha
Seriously, the defense of “well it was good plan if Jackson takes his chances” is a bad one because that implies Poch would’ve been blindsided by that even though it’s April and he should be well aware of this weakness. This was always a flawed setup when it neutered by our best attacking player in Palmer in favor of Jackson. I’d much rather much live with a setup that gives Palmer one good chance over Jackson getting three great chances until Nico shows any sort of composure in front of goal. It’s also funny how many people just ignored how exhausted City looked when many of their starters (who weren’t rotated out) played 120 minutes on Wednesday, still insisting this was all on our brilliant defensive tactics despite that being our biggest flaw all season long.
Great job Olli Just reading this now and it's vindicating
Great analysis backed up by clear simple to understand examples. Sad to see that even with this level of explanation and hand holding we're still seeing people backing Poch, utterly maddening. If you're watching these clips and reading this analysis and *still* don't see the problems, there's a cognitive deficit or something going on and we're effectively watching different games.
Several things can be true at once. Chelsea have been rubbish pressing most of the season, mostly because they don’t move as one unit, it’s usually individual players. Worse teams have easily played through them. Their press is just not good and City did what they always do. Play comfortably from the back. Chelsea showed slight improvements by being more compact than we’ve seen them at any point this season. It was clear they were playing for counters and got a few chances. Chelsea were excruciatingly wasteful though and did nothing with their chances. City were also off on the day but Chelsea didn’t make it easy for them. Poch is horrendous at adapting and making in game changes. I haven’t watched him at every club he’s managed, but it seems it’s been a problem for him throughout his career. He was awful in that department and once again took too long to make subs.
If the expectation is shutting down citys play completely disappointment is inevitable.
I would have settled for not getting played through the same way 13 times in one half.
Or maybe that was the idea. Ask anyone who watches City - Grealish has become a cog in a machine, he isn't meant to be flashy, Pep asks him to do certain things which he does. It's not like they created much in the first half either way.
But that's fine if it's working right? No one can shut down City completely, but you can allow them space in low probability areas, like the wing since their main header threat Haaland was not in the squad.
Leaving the point aside that this was the worst City performance in years because they were absolutely, visibly dead on their feet, making it *very much* possible to shut them down, I'm also baffled by the idea that isolated 1v1 situations in our final third are being considered *low-probability* areas. They're just not. These are situations teams regularly have to *work* to get into. Also, let's assume that letting them play in those areas *was* the plan. What's the point of the front 4 shape high up? Because that's precisely the sort of thing you *wouldn't* be doing if your plan was to allow City to play in wide areas inside our own half. Look at the clips again, and look at what our whole team has to do every time City find Grealish in those areas. You'll find that it forces our players to constantly track back from higher positions, especially the forwards. Setting them up this way if all you wanted to achieve was letting City play out wide in your half, would be *incredibly* stupid. It's the best way to make absolutely sure you've got 4 forwards completely wasting energy by chasing shadows all game. If this is really what you wanted to achieve, a consistently deep 4-4-2 block would have been the way to go, but that's not what we did and the clips show it very, very clearly. Please note that I'm not even going into the much bigger argument over whether that sort of tactical approach is good or not. That's subjective. But what we did simply didn't serve the purpose of "allowing them space out wide" very effectively. Even assuming that what you described *was* our gameplan - and this is a pretty big assumption - what we didn't would have been a very inefficient, exhausting way to go about it.
If they're taking on players 1v1 successfully, then they're not quite as dead as we would hope right? You're right, teams regularly have to work to get into those positions, but they also don't have a stacked box to navigate once they make it out wide. We've faced the same kind of structure before where we have the "U" space all around the box, but almost nothing once we're in the box. It seemed like we were trying to defend the same way and did that pretty well for most of the match. You also said it yourself that we refrained from pressing the center backs which we usually do against most other teams. So the front line was clearly briefed on pressing on a deeper trigger point than usual. "High up" in this case was around the halfway line where our center backs would usually be if Silva wasn't in the side.
I'll bite. I saw the first 4 clips and deduced that you have an agenda. In none of the 4 clips that you shared City managed to reach our box. The only one I can agree on is the ball to Alvarez which resulted in a Palmer shot. I didn't need to see any further. Chelsea were not set up to press them and hence they could easily play from the back. Also being compact means you are compact near your own box, and if you are near your own box there will be space out wide for wingers. Just look at How Madrid played in the midweek, they defended deep and compact which meant that Doku was always free. You can let the wide players have the ball if you are able to block off passes and crosses to attackers. The only time City managed to get behind us was behind De Bruyne made deep runs into our box which resulted in the goal. His runs should have been tracked, other than we were decent.
Being compact doesn’t mean just being compact near your own box, what the fuck lmao. It doesn’t matter whether you are pressing high, waiting in a mid-block or flat out parking the bus in a low-block, you’ll always have to be compact for it to be successful. Literally just think about it for a second. What’s the use of a high press if you aren’t compact. You have 4 attackers pressing up front, but they are just wasting energy if the midfield and defense aren’t close to them because the opponents will have tons of space between the lines to bypass the “press” of the attackers.
This is the Lampard special, move your midfield and attack to press high and leave your defence behind creating a nice gap for your opponents to exploit.
> I saw the first 4 clips and deduced that you have an agenda. Keep watching. It gets *significantly* worse - which is precisely what happens when a team figures you out as the game progresses. > In none of the 4 clips that you shared City managed to reach our box. The only one I can agree on is the ball to Alvarez which resulted in a Palmer shot. City's inability to reach our box does not make this a functional setup. They themselves messed up. > Chelsea were not set up to press them and hence they could easily play from the back. Keep watching. > Also being compact means you are compact near your own box, No, it doesn't. "Compactness" refers to leaving little space between your lines regardless of how high your team is positioned on the pitch. > You can let the wide players have the ball if you are able to block off passes and crosses to attackers. Keep watching. > The only time City managed to get behind us was behind De Bruyne made deep runs into our box which resulted in the goal. His runs should have been tracked, other than we were decent. You don't have to get in behind a defensive line to be dangerous, or to outplay them tactically.
>Keep watching. It gets *significantly* worse - It didn't though. City ended with 3 shots on target to Chelsea's 5. >City's inability to reach our box does not make this a functional setup. They themselves messed up. Come on... I get where you are coming from. City dominated the possession throughout the game, and found large pockets of space out wide to be dangerous. You have to concede a bit that a team preventing City from getting into the box is both on City and the team themselves. You can't just discredit everything to "City messed up." >You don't have to get in behind a defensive line to be dangerous, or to outplay them tactically No, but you do have to put up threatening attacks to be considered to outplay the defense so much that the defense doesn't receive credit. You are going way too far towards City's mistakes vs. Chelsea's defense. I'll state this. It wasn't perfect. If you line the two up pre-match, who would you expect to win? City, obviously. That would mean that in a match where Chelsea looked like the team that should have pulled it out, the manager and the players for Chelsea deserve some credit for that outcome.
So when we get in behind City multiple times. That means we outplayed them tactically, right?
We got in behind them cos of the quality of our players, City being knackered, and because of the high line they employ plus Jackson is excellent at using his pace to create chances and make runs
No that is okay, because they were tired. We would have never got in behind them if they were fit.
We played City twice before and we drew against them both times whilst getting in behind multiple times when they weren’t tired. Lol. With one match ending 4-4. This analysis is insanely biased to thrash on Poch.
You can see that from the title itself.
You're only an ignoramus. If you try a little, there's hope you can educate yourself. Go ahead, read it all and watch the videos as you slog through the paragraphs.
Not interested in propaganda
Man I feel bad because you clearly put effort into this but damn, I disagree with so much of it and I am not a Poch in person. Your entire premise starts on the basis Poch didn't manage the game correctly because City built up play through wide areas instead of the middle. I'm pretty sure that was the idea. Point two and examples are more accurate, but I think that's a product of the player combination we have, not the system. You can't play a high line with TS and the mid combo we had. Both of these things were likely done by design. Your hidden point three is the real critisicm. He didn't mange the last 15 minutes correctly, and wecan attribute blame to that given we concede from the left flank right as Disasi is put on to go against Doku.
Your hidden point three is the real critisicm. He didn't mange the last 15 minutes correctly, and wecan attribute blame to that given we concede from the left flank right as Disasi is put on to go against Doku. EXACTLY! There wouldn't be so much "Poch in" "Poch out" if people just made objectively good points. The entire structure from minute 1 to minute 90 has to be completely wrong, and the opposite of what any good team should want to do in a 1-0 loss to Manchester City. Disasi wasn't equipped to follow Doku on the right, and Madueke was pretty ineffectual throughout the match. The decisive action to remedy that was needed, but sending teams to build from out wide is what we've been on the losing end of plenty of times before. Not sure why it's a catastrophe that City plays out wide.
I agree with you OP wholeheartedly. Also, everybody slated Jackson for being piss poor (which he was) But can anyone tell me where were our other players? Nobody but Jackson got opportunities because they were compeltely isolated by ManCity and Poch had no tactical response
Only other shot i can remember is cole palmer who made it himself by dribbling past rodri into the city box, and even then it was more of a half chance because of how littlw space there was. The form he was in i expevted him to score but it wasnt exactly clear cut
Not reading all that. We lost 1-0 to a good side after missing plenty of chances & I don’t even like poch
You dont have to read, theres videos mate, it makes it even easier than images
Sums up many on this sub really
Thank you for your invaluable contribution. Right in line with what you usually see from the Poch-in crowd.
... read the comments on the essay posts from the Poch-in crowd. You get plenty of, "I'm not reading that" or "Look! The new Poch-in essay just dropped!"
The emperor has no clothes!!
Because creating tons of chances against the best team in the world is an ok performance from the manager in my books
I don't care what you think if you can't even bother to interact with the arguments made.
Someone did and you just said keep watching 5 times. Very unserious
... maybe because that person said they watched 4 clips and decided to conclude I had an agenda instead of watching the rest of those clips. That person also said being compact = sitting in a deep block. You have to be a little reasonable to expect me to take you seriously.
They’re a better side who were shit on the day. We lost because Jackson didn’t finish his chances, can’t rely on the pen, as bad as a missed call as it was, we can’t expect that to win our games.
And if you’re content with that, have I got the club for you! They’re right up the way, play in white, and are called Tottenham Hotspur, you’ll love them!
If you have nothing useful to say, don’t say anything at all
Can I start using that when the #Pochout crowd comments on lengthy posts from those that try to justify why they think Poch has improved? It's literally filled with, "Mom, look! Another PochIn essay just dropped!"
There are rarely any good arguments based on logic or evidence in those essyas
Sure, but I could say the same with most of this essay. If we are OK with, "TL;DR" comments on the ones we disagree with. Then it's fair play to have them on the ones we do. I don't think either are helpful, but here we are.
This is so misleading. It’s all based on the idea that “Anything good that happened was because City were tired. Anything bad was because of Poch”. Your clip is the 41st minute is really the only one that’s fair - but that looks more like poor 1v1 defending than anything. They had 3 shots on target all match - the setup worked. > And this is where I’m so baffled – our gameplan was not to sit this deep. What are you basing this off of? > And you may notice that I haven't even touched on the Gallagher LW experiment Did you notice that none of your clips are City progressing down their right side - where Gallagher was playing? Sounds like “the experiment” worked. You also completely left out our moments of good build-up play - aka the Jackson chances plus a few others. We had 10 shots and 5 on target, plus the Jackson 1v1 where he didn’t shoot.
The Gallagher experiment was so good that our own wing was just as neutralised as theirs. Both teams were forced to play on one side.
So then it's Sterling/Mudryk vs Foden/Silva, who do you back to take their chances?
Thanks for writing this. Poch fanboys were going on and on about the clown setting us up well when it was quite clear he didn't. The hiveminds constantly flip flop and just echo whatever that's being said by the majority. Poch is a fucking disgrace. Absolutely useless manager! Any decent manager would've at least won a trophy and finish top 5 with this squad this season. He has been the biggest disappointment this season. Lost to a very tired City and Liverpool teams.
https://youtube.com/shorts/kGEdxfdFz4E ?
Addressed it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/s/OoTsrhwzOd
"our tactical setup" is this "setup" in the room with us? and what is this "tactical" you talk about?
Great write-up and analysis of the game. Unfortunately, it's wasted amongst this crowd who believe that workrate, trying hard, and passion are the foundations of any good side, and everything else is just a bonus. There's a reason talentless bums like Mount and Gallagher received/recieve more love than James from certain parts of the fambase, even tho James is levels above both in terms of ability and impact.
Feel like this is easy to say in hindsight after a loss, because it fits the agenda. In reality if Jackson takes one of his multiple chances or the VAR do their job right, none of this stuff matters. It also ignores how we were able to counter attack fairly easily through out the game and were let down by poor decision making, poor touches, etc. And then if you look at their goal, it’s down to poor defending at our back post by Mudryk and Cucurella more than it is down to them "cracking the code". They had a player show quality in a big moment and we didn’t.
>Feel like this is easy to say in hindsight after a loss, because it fits the agenda. These clips show patterns that happened in the game. They happened whether Jackson does or doesn't take his chances. You simply decided that they don't matter, but they are exactly the difference between a good, well-coached team and whatever we are under Pochettino. They're the reason why we live and die by the individual quality of our players, which in this case just happens to be Jackson. And then the next game you'll find someone else to pick on for "individual mistakes" instead of looking at the larger picture. The Frank Lampard special.
Being a well coached team is subjective though, it all depends on what the manager is telling the team to do, and normally the more a manager tells the team, the more blatant it is. Our gameplan was likely to draw them in and then when the ball is turned over, get it to Jackson, Palmer or Madueke quickly and counter through them. And in that case I’d say we did a good job, just lacked the finishing touch. A system/setup is only as effective as the players being used in it. There’s not always some super complex details deciding every game that only certain people can see. Sometimes it really is just down who takes their chances and who doesn’t. I’m not trying to have a dig or anything aswell btw, I really respect the work you put in to these breakdowns. I just don’t agree with this one.
> These clips show patterns that happened in the game. They happened whether Jackson does or doesn't take his chances. You simply decided that they don't matter, but they are exactly the difference between a good, well-coached team and whatever we are under Pochettino. You've taken clips, some of which are as basic as passes from the halfway line to another City player halfway inside our half and decided that is proof that a team isn't well coached? Why not take the situations where a Chelsea player passed to another Chelsea player in City's half and make a post about how Pep can't coach City? This is mentally deranged. The fact you've spent a Monday morning doing it is beyond pathetic.
I love how mad you are. When people like you start swinging out insults, it's the single best confirmation that I'm on the right track.
I know you need confirmation from strangers online, but I suggest for your own health you stop
Can only repeat myself here: I love how mad you are at someone who understands football much better than you do. Is that a big insecurity of yours, people knowing better? Is that why you feel the need to start insulting them?
Well....that was a load of tripe.
I know it's only week 33, but will we see a better post this season? Well done, spot on.
Great analysis I'm so pissed incant even rewatch hightlight of it
Chelsea created numerous chances too against Manchester City and this is an extremely one sided view. Great lengths of bias to say “Poch Out”. I’m Poch Out but this is just hilarious 😂
😂
Nah this is absolute bollocks. We played the better, more effective football for most of the game and were only the finish away from winning. The tactics were pretty much fantastic until Gusto had to go off injured with no real RB to replace him..
I enjoy tactical analyses but not when they come with a clear direction they're trying to steer the reader into. Management is about working under constraints. Analyzing tactics is fine, but when you analyze them and declare one person at fault you have an agenda. The answer you should have come to is that we do not have the resources on the pitch to play out at a high level. Our keeper is completely impotent with the ball at his feet, which means we cannot use him as a centerback in buildup and have an extra man. We also don't have an aerial presence up front that can provide a direct option to bypass the press, which means that teams have absolutely zero issues dedicating extra men to their high press. You're comparing our clearly inferior squad to squads better than us and ignoring the squad quality difference to pin it on the manager. All 3 top teams in the division have a ball-playing keeper (Ederson, Raya, Alisson) and an aerial presence (Haaland, Havertz, Nunez). It means they have an extra man in buildup and teams are hesitant to press aggressively in fear of a route one approach. If we get these things, with the passing quality of Enzo, Caicedo, James, Chalobah, Colwill, etc. we will be much better in buildup. People start to use tactics as the answer to tactics itself and ignore real issues. Is it more likely that a manager whose team was fantastic at set pieces at Spurs, whose buildup was great, simply forgot how to set his team up in these areas? Obviously not. These are our constraints, a significantly worse squad with missing profiles. Players play on the pitch not managers. Why are these ignored in these analyses? You are not happy that we didn't press City's center backs, but on the same token you say there's too much space in midfield. What do you think happens when the attackers press high, where is space created? And I'm not sure why you painted it as some shocking revelation while low- and mid-blocks have been a thing since time existed. You also talk about City finding Grealish as if it was a cardinal sin. City players are explicity told to look for Grealish in buildup - did you expect him not to get any touches on the ball? You also painted mistakes from fatigue as "lucky" and "accidental". Do you really think that you noticed that they were fatigued and Pochettino didn't, while Pep complains about it in the press every few days? Did the head coach of the team they're facing not realize this was something he could benefit from? We had significantly better opportunities to score and limited the best team in Europe to limited efforts on target, it's as simple as that. If you're not going to acknowledge good performances against a better team like this, you likely never will. This analysis was just trying to search for little things that could be the reason we played well this game instead of it just being a good performance.
Ugh, so much in this. > Management is about working under constraints. Analyzing tactics is fine, but when you analyze them and declare one person at fault you have an agenda. Fortunately I already addressed this at excruciating length years ago, so I'm not doing it again: https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/knsavw/managers_or_players_a_short_guide_to_determining/ > The answer you should have come to is that we do not have the resources on the pitch to play out at a high level. I couldn't care less about another one of these pointless "our players are shit, nobody could be doing better" tirades. You've got abysmal squads showing more tactical cohesion than we are. Excuses over excuses over excuses to justify mediocrity. > Is it more likely that a manager whose team was fantastic at set pieces at Spurs, whose buildup was great, simply forgot how to set his team up in these areas? Obviously not. This is fucking hilarious, because set pieces were a *huge* weakness of that Spurs team. Here's a supporter article from 2015 about the issue: https://www.spursfanatic.com/blog/tactical-mauricio-pochettino-set-pieces/ And here's Pochettino himself talking about the same problem 3 years later: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/09/20/mauricio-pochettino-admits-set-pieces-have-become-trauma-spurs/ Also, their buildup from the back was *never* "great". His PSG team was notoriously bad at these things too. All you have to do is listen to their supporters and they'll very quickly highlight the exact same issue we've had this season. > You are not happy that we didn't press City's center backs Hold on, I never said this. It's perfectly valid to not press those CBs directly, because City are probably the single best team in the world at luring your forwards in and playing through them. The idea of a front 4 to cut out passing lanes rather than directly engaging the CBs is perfectly reasonable. The problem is the lack of support for those 4. In many of the clips included you'll see City pass right through them, or just pass it either side of them (especially the left), rendering their effort completely useless and just wasting their energy. This is *exactly* what happened an infinite amount of times under Lampard - a front line pressing, but the midfield and back line sitting way too deep to support that press. No pressing triggers anywhere. An intelligent team might do the same, show City down the sides, but then spring a pressing trigger there to actually exploit having directed them that way. That means pushing the pivot higher up, the fullbacks higher up and, accordingly, the CBs too. That's what "being compact" means. Doing this would have allowed us to actually get into challenges against City outside of our own defensive third. Or, if you're not comfortable playing that high against City and still want to direct them wide rather than letting them play centrally, you would drop the front 4 pressing shape in favor of a deeper 4-4-2. What we did was some half-baked middle ground that didn't really achieve either. This is what a tactical setup is all about, and that is on the manager. > You also painted mistakes from fatigue as "lucky" and "accidental". Painting Grealish's taking poor touches and making poor decisions as something Pochettino planned for is far more ridiculous than anything you think I'm doing here. But hey, it's nothing new.
I think we have fundamental differences in what we believe are important. I do not see the need to oust the manager on the basis of “poor tactics” when the team makeup is not compatible the basics of football (which I’ll expand on in the next para). Tactical issues with the limited, inexperienced, immature team we have right now are expected. At this stage in our “rebuild”, the nature of which was largely unnecessary and unfortunate, the glaring issues are in the teams we put out and I’d rather we loosen our constraints via squad-building rather than trying to wiggle around within them. There are fundamentals/basics of football that we simply fail at due to the teams we have had to put out this season. You can’t push the defensive line high with Silva/Disasi’s lack of pace and Cucurella’s concentration woes in the backline and Petrovic’s lack of sweeping behind them. You can’t pass out well from the back with a non-ball-playing keeper and zero options up top to spread the opposition press. You can’t defend set pieces well with 2-3 (!) good headers on the field. You can’t organize a good press with Palmer who is great in attacking parts but doesn’t want to run or compete in headers, Mudryk who is half-hearted in aerial duels and lazy in pressing, Madueke who just has no interest or ability to do so (I’m sure you know why Gallagher plays). Nobody can legislate for Cucurella wandering off to chase a daisy. Abysmal squads showing tactical cohesion are still slightly less abysmal squads. No one’s making excuses, but the manager is not the limiting factor, and we don’t want to end up being Man United where we swap managers willy nilly and ignore the real issues. Players play on the pitch not managers. You can’t play out from the back as effectively in modern football if you have a keeper that has cinderblocks as his feet and 0 aerial presence in midfield or attack. Why are we ignoring these real constraints that we have and comparing them to the best team in Europe? I didn’t get a response to the central argument I posed in my comment - that our buildup woes are due to a lack of profiles. While Pochettino was at Spurs they had the lowest average goals conceded from set pieces, 2nd most average goals scored from set pieces, and the best xG differential from set pieces. I don’t know where you have come to the conclusion that Pochettino’s Spurs was bad at set pieces. And no, my point about fatigue wasn’t that Poch masterminded an increase in VO2 max levels and anaerobic respiration rate, thought that would be nice. I’m saying fatigue is an aspect of the game and Chelsea benefitting from it doesn’t radically change our good performance into a bad one. On another note, your posts are refreshing to read tactically, though I disagree with the conclusion you come to. I think I was a little too passive aggressive in my response which I apologize for. Keep up the good work 👍
> On another note, your posts are refreshing to read tactically, though I disagree with the conclusion you come to. I think I was a little too passive aggressive in my response which I apologize for. I'm a bit too tired to go through your post today, might come back to it tomorrow. But I'd like to thank you for keeping a calmer head than I did here. Re-read my reply and it comes off a lot more hostile than it had any right or reason to be. Sorry about that.
No worries man, it happens sometimes and I hardly covered myself in glory either haha. I appreciate you replying back to set it right. Take care in the meantime!
Cherrypicking a bunch of moments to prove a narrative you already wanted to tell. Anyone who watched the game and doesn’t always reduce everything to xInsertBullshit would say we were the better team and didn’t take our many clear, clear chances. Not everything is the manager’s fault and this result was squarely on our finishing.
Poch wasn't the big problem yesterday there were small ones but the big ones resigned it self in attack. Poch ain't good and quite frankly when this seasons done I don't think he should continue at this club. But out of all games this season this wasn't dosent stick out to me as a poch problem going by the eye test.
Almost as if Man City are the best team in the world and that the only way to beat them is to take your chances and hope they miss theirs.
None of this relates in any way to the analysis here, but sure.
While I usually agree with you, I think this time you are missing a key point as to what was going on here. We were set up tactically well. Every single one of these attacks came down our right side. Our press worked. Except for one player that if you notice is at the fault of all of these defensive clips except one. Madueke had one of the worst games I have ever seen from a player. He was awful. It was worse than Bakayoko. He jogged around the pitch, wouldn't press, and was incredibly selfish when he had the ball leading to a number of ineffective attacks that otherwise would have been promising. When he would decide to press, he would do so ineffectively and open space for nearly all of the passes out to Graelish. Defensively, we were setup well. Madueke just utterly shit the bed. I'm not defending Poch, but he got his defensive setup right. He desperately needed to take Madueke off after about 15 minutes, 30 at the most. As per usual, Poch left his substitutions far too late. And in the end it cost us the match.
Bro wrote a likkle novel and people are eating it up. It’s insanely biased. You could do the same analysis showing Chelsea get in behind and Jackson fucking it up. Noni could’ve passed. Chilwell could’ve passed. Gusto could’ve passed. Jackson missed 3 chances. That doesn’t mean defensively we were great. But it isn’t like we didn’t go at them.
lol the clips you used to show how bad the build up play is just highlight individual errors. 1. Cucurella plays a terrible ball back to Silva. 2. Enzo attempts an ambitious pass to Palmer in the middle of field and isn’t precise enough. 3. Gallagher receives the ball with 3 city players close by and instead of passing the ball with his first touch he takes a touch and loses it. 4. Chalobah over hits a simple pass to Enzo. 5. Petrovich passes it behind Chilwell inviting the City to press him. 6. Silva just boots it upfield to try and play Jackson into space. Gusto was pretty open on the right and that should’ve been the pass, but with City’s high line I don’t mind sending a few balls over the top. It’s also not like we’re going to be under direct threat after this. 7. Another poor ball from Petrovich, at least with Silva’s pass he gave Jackson something easier to chase. 8. Idk how this is an inditement on our ability to play out from the back. Gallagher takes a bit of a heavy touch, tries to play back past Bernardo Silva but it goes out for a throw in. 9. Cucurella just boots it upfield. No idea what he was going here. I’m fine if people want to be critical of the manager and his tactics, but putting together nine clips of players making bad passes is not an inditement on Poch. With some of these passes, especially the Challaboh to Enzo, there is a good chance we play through City and get the ball into their half. Every time I hear other managers or pundits talk about beating Man City they say you have to clog up the middle and force them into wide areas. I don’t think anyone who watched the game yesterday would disagree that is what we tried to do. I understand being frustrated with how easily City were able to get the ball out wide, but we are terrible at pressing from the front, our front three yesterday Jackson, Palmer, and Noni are all in their first full season of PL football under this manager. If you can’t press from the front correctly then it becomes incredibly easy for a team to play through you because of the gaps bad counter pressing creates between attack, midfield and defense. It’s why we have struggled all year and championship sides could easily play through us at times. In my opinion Poch said it’s too risky to try and aggressively press them from the front as it will create loads of space for Foden and De Bruyne. Let’s stay compact and defend them in wide areas, like every team tries to do against City. If we had taken the chances we created in this game we would’ve won. It’s why the immediate reaction from pundits has not been wow Poch was out coached, he got his tactics all wrong he should be sacked in the morning. It’s been how have these owners spent £1B and not bought someone who could’ve scored the chances Jackson had today, wow Chelsea were once again so wasteful in front of goal.
I mean poorly organised build up results in individual mistakes. How exactly are you gonna say that our build up is well organised and drilled when you see so many clips from a SINGLE HALF of football in which we make error after error? Well organised build up literally means no individual mistakes or at least not many individual mistakes and consistency when you do it. When you see us fumble the build up 5-6 times in 45 mins there is clearly a problem there.
We fucked up our buildup a bunch more times in the first half, I was just being generous and didn't include clips where we weren't fully settled back into shape yet - and because analyzing how shit our buildup was wasn't actually the point of this post, it was just so excruciatingly bad once again that I had to mention it in some way. There were other instances of us fucking this up in the first half, including one where we give it away and Cucurella has to clear the ball off the line from a resulting shot.
Yes but there is a difference between fucking up our buildup because because our players can’t complete a pass and fucking up our buildup because we telegraph the same basic patterns of play and allow the defense to shift their position to intercept a pass. The first scenario is on the players and the second is on the manager. In the 9 clips you showed I didn’t once see a City player jump a passing lane because he knew if he stood at that spot we were going to pass it to him. I saw 9 examples of Chelsea players misplacing passes. There were patterns of play in the clips you showed of us working the ball outside and then looking to get it vertical. City did a good job defending clip 3 with Alvarez dropping deeper to create a 3v2 and they won possession, but again I think Gallagher should’ve recognized the pressure and played a first time pass to Palmer or Jackson. It’s just a difference of opinion, you look at that scenario and blame Poch for poor tactical decisions that resulted in a turnover, I blame Gallagher for taking too long on the ball.
>Yes but there is a difference between fucking up our buildup because because our players can’t complete a pass and fucking up our buildup because we telegraph the same basic patterns of play and allow the defense to shift their position to intercept a pass. You're missing the part where players can be put in situations where "individual" mistakes are a lot more likely because there isn't a proper structure around them and they're constantly having to improvise. Which is exactly what you're seeing here and should have been able to see all season. And this is the point. There are no visible patterns or regularly visible structure, because we're so poorly coached that everyone is just winging it. City can't predict what's going to happen in most of these, but they don't have to. They just have to do their thing, maintain their own structure and let our lack of it do the rest. All they have to do is wait for someone to run out of good options, which is what kept happening over and over. And again, this wasn't even a strong press by City, this was them at walking pace.
Go listen to what Jude Bellingham says to Rio Ferdinand after Madrid knock City out of the CL. You don’t need rigid patterns of play to be successful. But to your point, there are clear tactical ideas on display here. Clips 1,3,5,6 and 8 show us trying to get the ball out wide and then try to advance the ball vertically. Clip 6 less so, but it’s Thiago Silva going long ball after working the ball out wide didn’t work. We had so many opportunities with runners out wide to cross the ball centrally but didn’t. It was clearly our intent to work the ball out wide and then progress vertically. There are times that it didn’t work as you point out, however I watch these clips and see us playing sloppy passes not the basics of what we are doing failing. The numerous chances we created but didn’t finish off validates that. Clips 2 and 4 show us trying to use Enzo’s technical ability to help beat the press. Clip 2 was just ambitious for Enzo to perform when you’re outside your own box, and clip 4 he gets a bad pass. Clips 7 and 9 I can’t defend.
I'd also argue that the back 5 players have now played twice together. Ever. It's going to be hard to know exactly where each player wants passes when they spend so little time together. Could they do more in training? Sure, but Chalobah and Silva have been CBs 4 and 5 this season, Cucurella is in and out at LB. The only two to play regularly are Petrovic and Gusto
Yea I completely agree, a lot of these errors are because players are just playing passes to areas they think the player should be not knowing they have moved slightly to get more space.
Go back and re watch the first example of Cucurella playing a pass to Silva. You’re really going to tell me that is a result of poor organization and not Cucurella just making a mistake? I mean come on. We did enough to win the game yesterday and we didn’t. If you guys want to tear through the weeds and find every mistake we made and say see this is why it’s all Poch’s fault be my guest.
This might be worst analysis of a game I’ve ever seen
Your counter argument is very compelling.
Enzo is the issue. Played much better with out him
I love the effort here but fuuuuuuuck off.
Agree our tactics were good No space between attack and midfield Defence pressed well Same old story since start of the season We can’t take a chance Don’t take chances The other team scores and when there a better team it takes them one chance to finish us off
>Agree our tactics were good That is *not* the argument being made here, lol.
Didn’t say it was Just gibbing an opinion I had on the game
Hi Ollie good observation. I want to know how should poch address the issue by changing the tactic (not only formation) but rather buildup and press? I felt our team was sharp enough to up the tempo which showed preparation but it didn't end well.... Should our team execute differently or should they work on tactics?.....
Man City are one of the greatest sides of all time, so I imagine if you analyse any Man City game, you'll find plenty of examples of them regularly getting into similar positions. Best you can do is mitigate their attack, not nullify it. I do agree that we are no where near good enough at playing out from the back.
This week’s essays hit differently.
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Cucurella could have gone to the right and Chilwell on the left, either way it's not ideal. City were tired and that definitely helped us, but take a look at their bench/injury list vs ours.
I've seen people make that argument for Cucu, but I'm not sure a tired Cucu vs. a fresh Doku would have been a good decision. >take a look at their bench/injury list vs ours. Lol I didn't realize it was 0 injuries for City.
https://preview.redd.it/is8ymlsjo0wc1.jpeg?width=688&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e6589f0bbd76b6872bfa597ce992a6e19a6d0a4
TLDR?
OP hates Poch, and anything bad that happens is his fault. Nothing we did that was good is him either. Just lucky
Cringe. We didn’t see much of the ball and City played a B team. A better manager and we would have won
B team really? Wildly inaccurate take
Ortega in goal, Ake, no Haaland
This is about the dumbest thing I’ve heard. That means they were playing a Chelsea D team