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| Azonto Epistles 2: A Reality Check |
On Thursday, Athletico Madrid’s manager offered a free
tactical advice to juventus on how to beat Chelsea and according to him,
Ivanovic is someone you could easily pass by and cahill –Luiz do not form part
of constructing the game. He had also observed that Mikel only gives horizontal
passes which leaves Lampard who is good at going forward so his plan was to
double mark and close in on Hazard, Mata and Lampard who are the creative force
of our team. In going forward he risked bombarding us with four to five players
(including Falcao of course) which gave them a lot of options in our area.
According to this tactical insight by Diego Simeone, anyone
who watched the game could see it worked to perfection. Didn’t it? Of late
Ivanovic has not been the solid Brana we know maybe he is starting to be complacent
or the thought of scoring has taken the better part of his defensive solidity.
Mikel’s horizontal passes observation by Simeone is not new to the fans and I
still wonder why he is not being made to modify his style a bit. Mikel is good
defensively but offers little when going forward and his horizontal and back
passes are becoming boring. This is not the time to point fingers but we need to
diagnose our problem before we can solve them. Atletico Madrid has exposed our
long standing frailties and the earlier RDM watched the clip and dealt with it,
the better for him and all of us.
Attacking game: We have always cried for an attacking style of play and for
once the club has acquired a host of attacking minded players. The band of
creative players we have at our disposal today is so great that when they gel
as a unit, it will be a joy to see them play. The question now is managing the
short term future success with the present. Oscar, Hazard, Moses, Mata, Marin
along with Torres and Sturridge are players who can give any world defence a
problem but we need to help them to attack as a team and equally defend as
unit. Defending is not only about just tracking back when the team is under
pressure like we did in Monaco but also more importantly closing down your
opponents and getting into their face as we did in Munich. In Munich and
against Barcelona we saw all the team not only tracking back but getting into
their face when they had the ball. Ramires and Mereiles did it to perfection
that Messi had little room to operate. Lampard through that dispossessed Messi
at the Bridge and it resulted to Ramires’ assist to Drogba. Bertrand in Munich
gave Robben no chance to operate. Our match in Monaco was so surprisingly
different that nobody was ready to dispossess Atletico Madrid when they had the
ball but just to coil back into our shell, right on the edge of our 18-yard box
like in the last 10 minutes at Camp Nou but Atletico Madrid are not like Barcer
who will possess to the net; they have a potent striker in Falcao who was ready
to even try with his left foot and shoot. It is a wakeup call to the entire
team that we cherish attacking game but not at the expense of a win. At the end
of the day if we had been defensively solid at and won by Cahill’s goal, it
would have been better than subjecting ourselves to the humiliation we went
through all in the name of some attacking game.
The Double Pivot: The question many Chelsea fans are yet to find answer to is
4-who-3-1? The transfer window has closed and we are left with a definite
number of players who can hold our central midfield. Our hard working Raul
Mereiles is now plying his career far away in the former Ottoman Empire
(Turkey). I know a lot of talking and debate have gone on about the prudence of
this transfer by the club but “Azonto Epistles” will stay away from it for now
but you can still offer your opinion on it. Many see the Double pivot as the
“Achilles heel” of our club and it is one problematic area for many teams who
employ our tactics. It is up to the team to get the right combo for the right
match or help our players to modify their style to suite the system. Our first
choice double pivot combo is Mike-Lampard: this combo proved successful at the
tail end of last season which helped us to win two trophies however of late the
weakness in this combo is beginning to be exposed. A clear problem is Mikel’s
inability to impose himself in a game, boss the midfield and offer incisive
passes like Essien used to do before his injury. Mikel is good at holding and
protecting the ball as shield to our defence when we are under pressure but his
ball delivery has been as predictive as Diego Simeone described it as
“horizontal passes”. The obvious problem with Lampard is not about giving
exquisite passes but his penchant for going forward so much that he abandons
his defensive duties and in the end, we mostly end up playing 4-1-4-1 or even
4-1-3-2 (where Lampard becomes a co striker). The problem with this is that our
attacking force with Hazrad, Mata and even Torres who offer very little
defensively leaves us seriously prone to counter attack and any good counter
attacking team like United or Atletico Madrid can tear our team apart and
disgrace us. So how do we deal with this? We have Romeu, Ramires, Mikel, and
Lampard while some even add Oscar (although his presence in the deep-lying will
only leave us with the same Lampard problem in my opinion) who can play in the
double pivot but I know they all have question marks on them. So who will you
rely on in the two-man holding midfield role?
4-3-2-1 ‘Christmas Tree’ formation: an alternative?
While we are mauling over whom to play the double pivot
role, I have a thought on a 4-3-2-1 formation which many call it the Christmas
tree formation. With this system we can employ a 3-man midfield which could
offer a tighter midfield than our risky 2-man holding midfield. This formation
can also get the best out of many of the players we have at the moment. Ramires
and Lampard are most effective in a three-man midfield and
Lampard-Mikel-Ramires could be the most popular players to feature in this
system. We could also employ Bertrand-Mikel/Romeu-Ramires in that same formation
which can offer us width in Bertrand on the left side of midfield and Ramires
on the right side of midfield. I chose Bertrand which could be surprising to
some because he will not only give us width but he is a hardworking versatile
young player who can solve our problem of lack of closing down of opponents
when they have the ball as it happened to us in Monaco and can go forward when
needed whiles performing important defensive work. Ramires like Bertrand is one
player who doesn’t fear challenging opponents for the ball; he has the ability
to buzz forward, good defensively and can offer us width on the right side just
like Bertrand can do on the left. This midfield will therefore easily give
Hazard and Mata to combine in their favourite roles behind Torres and we will
not be left prone to attack as it happens to us in a 4-2-3-1 formation when
either of Mata or Hazard drifts into the centre when one is put on the wings.
So in the midst of scarcity, creativity abounds and I know RDM will not
continuously stick to just one formation which has shown weakness of late. It
is “Azonto Epistles” opinion and I believe many have your own and it is warmly
welcome because you do not know who could be reading it.
Malouda’s ostracizing claim: Just after the transfer window shut, many were surprised why
Malouda still managed to remain at Chelsea when it has become quite clear that
he has little or no chance to be in the new team. Malouda in the middle of the
week tweeted that he would be training with our under 21 and quickly the media
as usual made wild news out of it comparing it to that of Anelka and Alex under
AVB. Only on Friday the Daily Mail reported that Malouda and Fereira have been
forced to play in a match involving our youth team against their wish. I
caution all fans to exercise some restraint when criticizing the club due to
this media reportage. We do not have the benefit of hearing from the club so
explain their side but I can comfortably inform you that the said under 21
match Malouda and Ferreira “were forced” to play, other players like
Azpilicueta and Marin featured in it. Is it not only wise that in two-week
international break, our first team players who were not invited by their
national teams to have some matches to play and help their fitness? The media
has started again, they want know we are at the summit of the EPL and will try
very hard to distract the team so I caution all to remain united behind the
club and take search distractive media reportage with a pinch of salt. “Azonto Epistles will seek to expose the
media and its biases against our beloved club since we started challenging the
“God ordained top teams” for trophies in our other editions fully which will be
dubbed “The Media Mafia”. Until then Keep the Blue Flag Flying High.
Carefree!
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