Tactics and Transfers: Post City and the 2nd Half of January

Of course, the attack was no better. They were shockingly clumsy, wasteful, and impotent in literally every moment where even the notion of a threat would have been useful. That said losing the battle in the middle of the park by as much as Chelsea did is ultimately where this game cost them.

Romelu Lukaku is now in exactly the sort of position Chelsea doesn’t need him to be in. He is doing his best to make the right decisions as opposed to just making them. He’s trying to make a good impression and make people love him again given his recently loathe public decision-making. It’s why he decided to show how unselfish he was and pass between two center backs to an offside player rather than simply shoot with the larger half of the goal looming on his favored left foot. The second chance was simply bang average from him. No overwhelming power, no expression of killer instinct, nothing. He put an average shot where any average goalkeeper would have saved it and he was unluckily against one of the best in the world.

Lukaku is stuck in two minds. The land of obvious consequence for strikers that sadly few really ever return from. A crisis of confidence and decision-making destroys a striker. It is so deeply frustrating that it is Lukaku who brought this on himself and yet it will be Chelsea and Chelsea supporters who suffer while he is paid a fortune and Chelsea are made fun of for yet another striking flop.

Hopefully, he has the character to drag himself out of that place. Sadly though, few do. When a striker loses their decisiveness they are fit for scrap.

Then in regards to Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic, I honestly have no idea what to say. They were both terrible. Ziyech is supposed to be a feather-footed magician and he appeared to be stuck in cement sandals. Pulisic I’m not sure what was wrong but he simply didn’t make an impact and he does appear to have lost a great deal of confidence, pace, and touch.

Tuchel played both out of position which was an odd wrench to throw in the works but regardless they looked like shells of themselves. One could even question their professionalism such was their lack of any sort of bite. Could they really have been giving their honest best and still been this bad?

Thomas Tuchel then simply made questionable decisions in his team. Sticking to the 4-2-2-2 would have been an interesting decision and given Chelsea some continuity. 3-4-2-1 was predictable and Guardiola saw it coming. The formation though was not the issue and Chelsea could have made use of either.