Chelsea’s lack of structure has killed them both in attack and defence this season.
In yesterday’s game it was evident not only from their pathetic number of attempts against the worst team in the league, it was also clear from the reactions of the players that they weren’t happy with how things were arranged.
Noni Madueke had Axel Disasi playing behind him at full back with Malo Gusto rested, and we noticed Cole Palmer constantly waving the Frenchman forward to support the attack.
There was also constant frustration from Enzo Fernandez. He was dropping deeper and deeper, yet when he would pick the ball up in the centre circle there was no action ahead of him. We saw him throw his hands up in the air multiple times in exasperation.
Nicolas Jackson was also spotted with pained expressions as his runs in behind weren’t found by teammates – although just as common were angry gestures towards the strikers for making the run too late, or not at all.
OF course you quite often see this little disputes on the pitch, but it’s when you see them in every game you start to worry. This wasn’t a case of Sheffield United doing anything specific of clever to shut down and frustrate Chelsea. This was just a case of the system we were using frustrating the players using it because it wasn’t creating avenues for them to progress the ball forward.
This is a team who have been conceding 3 or more goals on a weekly basis for a couple of months, and we somehow managed to make them into a major obstacle, and achieved just 6 shots.
