Chelsea Tactics and Transfers: Playing out is an option, not a solution

Chelsea were handily beaten by Manchester City in a game that wasn’t as close as the scoreline suggested.

Chelsea’s loss to Manchester City is as close to acceptable as a loss can – or should – ever be. Chelsea aren’t as good as Manchester City. To suggest they are or are even really close would be something of a disservice to both clubs. City are further along in their cycle than the Blues are, and though Frank Lampard and the youth revolution are heartwarming and convincing of a brighter future, these are still very early days.

Frank Lampard took the bait and relinquished Mason Mount’s starting berth in the midfield. Lampard went for experience, and the lack of Mount’s initiative and boundless positivity reverberated throughout the team. The entire attack suffered going forward. Tammy Abraham worked very hard, but in the end his efforts were wasted through a lack of support. Christian Pulisic had large spells where he was entirely anonymous, and Willian was the same.

Without any sort of link between the midfield and attack Chelsea looked stagnant and more like Maurizio Sarri’s Blues of last season than Lampard’s buccaneering bunch this year.

But even that was not the most important or most frustrating part of the match.

The defense and their persistent lack of judgment were absurd. One is forced to wonder how many times they will make the same needlessly stupid mistakes in bringing the ball out from the back.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, and I’m happy to extend what the legendary Italian center back Giorgio Chiellini said about his countrymen: a generation of defenders have been ruined by Pep Guardiola’s tactics.

Passing out from the back is wonderful when it works. But mustn’t defenders display actual judgment?  Why, in the face of five or six attacking players, did Chelsea continue to try this sort of nonsensical idiocy, I have no idea. Nothing is good if done so often that it becomes predictable. This is one of the very tenets of Sir Alex Ferguson’s approach to football, for God’s sake, and if I know it, surely others, do too!

Ferguson’s approach was the basis of the coaching that turned Cristiano Ronaldo from one of the world’s most interesting show ponies into one the greatest attacking forces of all time.  The advantage is with the attacker because they have the ball. Everything that happens around the is reactionary. That split second of time that the attacker has as the protagonist gives them the advantage.

But repeatedly doing anything over and over again negates that advantage and ruins your approach to the game, whether the ball-carrier in question is the attacking forward or the center back looking to get the ball out of his third.

Yet week in and week out we have been forced to watch Chelsea’s defense do this.

I am not suggesting Chelsea just play “Route One” football all day. But a team needs a variety of approaches to a match and options in their toolbox to beat other teams.

Chelsea’s defense are a collection of marvelously talented and intelligent players who are let down by their approach. Hopefully soon, Frank Lampard sits them down and suggests to them that, yes, of course we want to keep the ball as much as possible… yes, of course we want to attack and play out as much as we can… but under certain circumstances it does behoove you to reset the structure of the team and plant a bloody hoof through the thing.

Watching the defense make mistakes like this and seeing Kepa Arrizabalaga repeatedly make similar ones while putting himself in some of the worst situations I have seen from a goalkeeper has been infuriating.

At Chelsea Football Club, the defense is better than this and underperformance is unacceptable. Fourteen is the number they should always be chasing. Fourteen, in case you don’t know, would be the new record for fewest goals conceded in a season. Chelsea currently hold the record with 15.

And just in case, before some of you who are so extreme as to have your pitchforks ready at all moments in a likely bid to compensate for some certain inadequacy in your life, I’ll add this as well: No, I do not think simply defending properly, that is to say with poise, determination, organization and class, is an either-or situation against playing attacking football that results in plenty of goals. When Chelsea allowed 15 goals in 2004/05, they scored 72.

All that said, as ever, everyone needs to remain calm as it has only been 13 matches. Frank Lampard is doing a good job and the players are progressing well. Patience above all is necessary when developing a team and a group of young men who possess the potential that these young Blues do.

Manchester City are chasing the title. Chelsea are chasing fourth, and that’s OK. They are different clubs in different places. The only thing that we can ask is that the team learn from the inevitable mistakes.