Chelsea have had some good games and some bad games this season. That’s how the fans feel and how most pundits feel.
A look at most betting sites will tell you the same thing: Chelsea are good, but they’re not yet trusted to be good enough to win the title.
A few bad results send us plunging the wrong way, then a few good ones have us back on course.
As ever, the problem isn’t just the teams you’ll always be worried about competing with – Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City. The problem is that every year a new wave of mid-table teams get into gear and start causing just as many problems.
Last year’s Nottingham Forest are this year’s Crystal Palace. Last year’s Bournemouth are this year’s… well, Bournemouth.
Chelsea need to improve their record in the big games, that goes without saying. But they also need to start learning how to take apart these stubborn mid table teams. They often actually
Just take the last few weeks as an example. While Chelsea fight tooth and nail to break down tough Brentford and Brighton teams (And end up with 1 point from 6), Liverpool came out to play. And we were able to beat them.
Our team needs to work out how to beat sides who come to sit deep at Stamford Bridge, as most of the league will. Hoping Cole Palmer will stick one in the top corner or slide in a teammate with a perfect pass has been a pretty effective tactic in the last few years, but we need more than that. He’s not always available, and can always be marked or fouled out of a game if a team want to do so.
This two week spell is very important for Enzo Maresca as he looks to actually improve this team in a concrete way. When we play Nottingham Forest next weekend we want to see more on offer than just hoping we can score a corner or Estevao comes on to do his best Palmer impression.
Pedro Neto and Joao Pedro have plenty of Premier League experience already. So does Alejandro Garnacho, who is likely to be the third member of the front 3 in that game. Youth and inexperience won’t cut it as an excuse.
They need to be working from now on how to break down a Forest team who are lacking direction at the moment. There’s no point winning against Liverpool if you can’t back it up by beating relegation battlers in the next game.
quite an honest analysis as a follower. On my part, the Coach needs to also give some time on a structure with less players; while it seems we have to contend with obtaining red cards, he has find a way of dealing with it; i have noted other teams’ performances doesn’t drop like ours (we shouldn’t have lost (that badly) the games with MNU, nor the other!