₦airaland Forum

This has happened for days now. Why is Espn reporting it like it just happened?

Although 3 points against Everton is very crucial, the game will not decide who finishes 4th. There are a ton of important games to go with the Spurs, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle playing one another or playing United or City. Yes we don't seem like we can buy a win now, I still believe we will finish somewhere in the top four.

While it is very crucial we put some distance between us and our competitors for CL spots, all evidence points to April being the month that will finally decide the top four.

Bad day at the office. Very bad day.

Ibime:
AVB is a fooooool!!!

This dude is playing suicidal football.

Romeu shoulda been on as soon as the score went to 3-0 to close the game out instead of playing we attack, you attack.



SOME TROGLODYTES PRAISED AVB's APPROACH WHEN WE LOST 3-1 AT OLD TRAFFORD. ALL I SAW WAS A SILLY COACH WHO DOESNT KNOW WHEN TO ATTACK AND WHEN TO DEFEND.

Mate, you are over-reacting.
It's not AVB's fault Howard awarded two soft penalties.
Are you suggesting that United would not have gotten into the box if Romeu had been playing.

This is disgraceful from Howard Webb.

BlueDiva:
Whats the point?
Won't FT had wasted it.

Must you make these posts?

Why didn't Malouda just pass to Torres there?
Any footballer with a basic passing instinct would have found Torres here.
Then he turned.

Soft penalty. Very very soft.

Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

BlueDiva:
No justification condemning Malouda without condemning FT first.

2nd half.

That's what you can get from a Torres even when he cannot buy a goal.

There is no justification for Malouda in any game.
Slow, uncreative, cycles possession sluggishly, lacks pace and trickery and above all, the fact that he can be kept quiet easily. Very easy to mark.

Decent half.

Only trickery and stretching play can beat a resolute defence.
Without trickery which surprises the opponent, it will all be damn predictable.

If only two more players in the Chelsea side can pull off what Danny did there.

Goal.

Ibime:
When playing at left back, Bosingwa only shines against wingers who cut inside. Valencia will take him on his outside where the left side of his brain malfunctions.

Unfortunately Bosingwa will play. Ryan Bertrand will not be given a chance - for obvious reasons - and I'll rather go and sleep than watch PF play again for Chelsea.

lalaboi:
We might pull off a shock tho. like the man city game. then again, no energy(ramires) in the midfield. I dont think essein is fit enough to start. I hope we field a strong defence without Bosingwa. Also Cole is suspended, so we may be looking at Van aanholt or bertrand. personally i dont know which is best but whoever it is, i'm sure valencia or nani will make a meal out of them ,  . . . 

Good luck to us! make torres spring surprise today sef

My guess is Bosingwa will play at LB. Bosingwa, though not a defender of our choice, has the pace to deal with Valencia and/or Nani.
For that reason, Ivanovic will play RB. Luiz and Cahill in CD.

Predictable and uncreative midfield as usual. Meireles, Romeu, Essien, Malouda. That's it. Don't expect any through balls to Torres from the middle. Stats of over 10 games don't show it will be any different today. Only difference here is that United will not park the bus. That said, SB is small.

Danny will be as selfish as usual; shooting when a pass while suffice and Mata instead of being deployed behind Torres permanently, will find himself covering two positions with eventually no support of any kind on the left. Even if there is, Valencia is more than capable of dealing with Malouda who will try to provide width to the left and Mata's pace when he also drifts to the left. And as Cole is not playing, there's no doubling on their full back. Bosingwa will be cautious about overlapping too much. He can barely cross with his right foot and he's playing left today.

For this reason, wing play will be zilch. And as the midfield remains as uncreative as it always is, Torres will be left alone and blamed yet again for not scoring a goal.

Defence 'should' be solid. Barring any silly Luiz moments, we should not concede a cheap goal. That said, Nani is able to curl them in from outside the box and United are more than capable of walking into the box of any team. 

Our chances of winning is heavily dependent on how we play up front. Unfortunately, how we play upfront is incredibly predictable. Unless we bring out something I have never seen this season.

FBS:
As much as I find the article 'interesting" I totally disagree. I manage/play with a small team in me town and the first thing I shout when defending corner kicks "MAN THE FREAKING BACK POST"

Damn it WORKS! and I stick to it.  

BlueDiva:
We know how many goal line clearance have been made in the past. Important ones at that.
If i was a manager, i'd stick with it.

dayokanu:
My point is despite their argument against it, the number of goals I have seen saved on the goal line by these post markers is enough to convince me as a coach to stick to the tradition

Then that means you guys didn't get this part.

So the coaches who commit "heresy" by not putting men into the corners on corners actually have very good reasons for doing so. It's just that of course you never notice all the goals that were prevented by unguarded posts, you only notice those that were scored because of it.

It will be nice to know if Opta keeps this manner of stats. This to me looks like an argument between what we see with our eyes and what works. I have always been a man-at-the-posts fan, however the article seems to suggest that the reason a ball is floating into the post in the first place is because there is a numerical disadvantage in a aerial duel as the defending team is 2 men less.

Interesting.

You guys are so sh1t it's unbelievable. I mean Chelsea are soo crap we cannot buy a win yet you guys still can't catch us.

This is why I do not get into these arguments.
Things start to fly about the place and tons of stuff you never said start to circulate and you spend ages trying to correct or defend them.

I will say this once and for all.

Firstly,
I never said Lampard was preventing the balls from getting in the box.
I said Lamps is one of the reasons. I said I'd rather a midfield with someone with guile and trickery who has an eye for quality pass, chooses to take as their primary responsibility and concentrate less on getting into the box. This midfielder, we currently do not have. For that reason, the absence of Lampard will/should not create a massive difference. So that assertion is wrong.


Secondly,
The shape-keeper thing. This phrase emanated from a discussion we had about balance of play rather than scoring of goals. In that discussion, I attempted to describe how Torres gives more balance to the team's set-up over Drogba and how his presence prevents the team from losing shape going forward. Obviously, the use of that word shape was either wrong in the context or others (especially you) have taken to mockery because Torres has not scored. Whichever the case, I didn't/never intended the statement to mean giving balance is more important than scoring goals. So can we kindly leave this to rest now?



My concern is how we are playing as a team and how many chances we are creating, how many problems we cause in the box, how many saves we force the keeper to make. The problems we have are bigger than Torres not scoring. We had this lethargic play even when Torres was getting 5mins and 10mins.

@Dayo.

Like I told you, I won't be getting a lot into these arguments of Torres.
Look at the heat map. This is not a case of strikers finding space.
This is a case of no balls into the box in the first place.

We just don't have players who look to provide quality balls into the box.
When a team constantly puts balls into the box, bone Torres, even other players will get a sniff at goal and force saves off the goalie. Right now though, this is not happening.

This is a team issue and as far as I am concerned any striker will struggle to score goals.
Even Danny is no longer scoring.

I have tried very hard to avoid the Torres argument because I cannot engage in false analysis.
However I will give my take on the whole issue. Trying not to get into any long arguments over who is right and who isn't.
If you saw the game yesterday, you will definitely conclude that Torres was a complete wrong buy for Chelsea.
Not because he cannot score but because we don't play to his strengths.

Like I have said constantly, Torres is not a striker who relies on physique and strength to score goals.
Torres relies on space and feeds from midfield. Torres relies on vertical passes.
We are currently not doing that at Chelsea. Last night, Torres did not receive a single pass to free him on goal.
We kept moving the ball to over lapping FBs whose crosses never beat the first man.

There's no way he's going to score.
Below is a heat map of the passes we made. Look at the concentration of passes. We barely got to the byline.
We hardly put passes into the box to free our striker. It's just a concentration of useless passes back and forth around midfield.
Few passes to the byline, few passes into the box, you will not win a game and unless your Strikers fire screamers from 30-yards, they won't score.

Very very passive midfield. No imagination, slow passing, no invention.
Not one single vertical pass through midfield to set up a forward on goal.

Add to that, no one on the flanks to stretch play.
The window came and went and we were messing around.
Bought a defender when we could have brought back Kalas.
It's not like the defender is playing.
Absolute shambles.

We need phucking Bosingwa to score a goal.
If only we had one single midfielder like David Luiz.

Just one dude who can carry the ball and move past 2 players.
smh.

Absolute disgrace!

Meireles and Malouda! Average players at best.

2nd Half.

0-1 Sinclair.

Wow! Their pressing is impeccable. We can barely do anything.
Not helpful also that we have a bunch of players who cannot pass quickly.

Wow! I can believe they didn't score that.

Wow! These boys dey play ball ooo.

Luiz blessing Torres again.


Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Luiz, Cole
Romeu
Meireles Malouda
Danny Torres Mata