Saturday 17 September 2016

THIS IS MY TAKE ON THE GAME BETWEEN CHELSEA VS LIVERPOOL . 1-2 .

yesterday chelsea played liverpool at stomford bridge .now before i write about the game let me tell you a short story. in the last century chess grandmasters tarrasch and name i forgot were playing tarrasch was the lower ranked player but was beating his opponent . at that time his opponent said that " you have great faith in your pieces to which tarrasch replied that " no its the other way around instead the pieces have great faith in me that i will use them the best way and win the game for them .
now it is said that italians are the best tacticians in the world and they but yesterday i would say that atleast for the first half conte was tactically wrong and most importantly other than shouting on the touchline he just couldnt correct it . i expected him to correct the flaw that was in the system as well as change the shape and change their style of play . kloop believes in his system but there was a warning in the first half and neither kloop nor conte failed to notice it . i expected conte to look at that opportunity and tell his team to do that more and then improvise on that .
now both the teams started it with the same formation with both playing 4-3-3 formation but the style of play and the way they use the ball is different . there is the difference in approach as to when they have the ball . liverpool players like to pass the ball quickly when they have the ball . kloop wants the ball to be in motion as well as the players . this system has its advantages first off with the movement off the ball the defense cannot settle down and has to be constantly on its toes . secondly with the movement of the ball there are newer angles being created with every pass . its now with the players surrounding you and beyond as how they make the run or adjust themselves to create the chances . while conte's chelsea relies more on individual brilliance  rather than the team play plus the way his team played and the part of the pitch where they played the football and the numbers of players involved in the offense when they have the ball . the build to the offense was wrong plus the shape on the attack .
liverpool like to build the play with quick one two's between their players . the basic difference between chelsea's formation and liverpool's is that chelsea's formation was very open while liverpoll was very close . what it did for them was that it allowed them to close down chelsea far more effectively and quickly than chelsea . chelsea were just sitting back and trying to hit liverpool on the counter but there approach was wrong . the difference in liverpool's shape compared to chelsea is that both the wide players mane and coutiniho were coming inside and trying to run beyond struddige . the distance between the middle players ( henderson.wijnauldum and lallana was not more that 8 to 10 yards between and liverpool kept it compact between them allowing very little space in the middle . compared to chelsea liverpool played a very high defensive line and it was necessary to close them down chelsea . compare that to chelsea they played very expensive . they play expansive so that hazard and willian will get the space to exploit . but here liverpool made it too narrow for the opposition to exploit the space . secondly they kep very tight tab on costa so that chelsea could not play through him . while liverpool were playing very correct chelsea's shape and approach and their ball handler were wrong . 
when chelsea had the ball everything and anything was going through kante and when he was closed davind luiz was making some very good passes and his ability to pass from the back is an asset from chelsea especially when opposition plays high line he can play very good ballls from the back just like bonucci of juventus . now the thing is that both matic and oscar were playing beyond kante and it was their job to take control of the game when the ball comes upfield or demand the ball when the ball is to be played upfield and support their wingers and forwards and pull the strings of the game. the second obvious drawback was that there no no.10 in the game for chelsea who would partner costa and at times he was a lone warrior . thirdly both hazard and willian like to spent time on the ball they like to dribble and try to run on opposition but it has its obvious drawbacks . firstly they allow they slow down the game . seconDLy they allow the opposition to regroup and close them down . so to be honest i would like chelsea move the ball faster and just try to dribble when its utterly necessary . i will talk about the incident which conte and kloop failed to notice . what had happened in the first half was that liverpool were able to close down chelsea  quickly and attack them with pace .
to be honest i dont think that chelsea's change in shape was conte's idea because he was standing there on the touchline for 45 min and he failed to notice the flaws in the system . credit to whoever who told to change conte to change the shape and it gave impetus to the chelsea attack . he shifted oscar from middle wide right to no.10 role with costa . now costa had somebody whom he could the play the ball . what this meant that livepool had to be more compact and it allowed more time for hazard and willian on the ball and ivanovic and azpilicueta on the attack . now what i had stated in the earlier para that's what happened . matic started the attack and from the zone from where chelsea should have started the attack in the first half while they were doing it 15 yards deeper than that in the first half . seconldy matic was involved and more forward than the first half . the bad thing was that the liverpool defense went into sleep on that goal . where was the midfielder who was guarding matic he should have had followed matic . seconldy matip should had just stayed on the feet and let matic work him and not trying to be presumptious and going to ground in trying to block the ground pass. chelsea made the changes but liverpool survived and came out winner .
now there were two incidences in particular which caught my eye . first off in the first half coutiniho received the ball at the edge of the box on offense and struddige was besides him . now struddige's job is to always make the run and make himself available on the pass or atleast create space for coutiniho with his run so that coutiniho will be able to exploit the available space because of struddige run . for me he doesnt do enough on defense with the first press trying to press cahill and luiz . he was rightfully substituted by kloop secondly when he shot the ball across the goal . he should had just taken the shot and made courtouis work the save . 
secondly when liverpool were trying to hard press chelsea in the first half chelsea made some very good passing and if you had seen but first time luiz had picked hazard when chelsea moved the ball well and luiz could pick out hazard with his good pass and second time he picked out costa . so chelsea should have tried this time and again could have pushed liverpool back or could have exploited the space behind the back four when liverpool were playing the high line .
all and all i would say that conte must had been given a rude awakening call and just like jose last week he was late to react and make changes which could have changed things .




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