Word of the day: Ineffective. Description: "unable to effect or achieve the desired result with reasonable economy of means." Another description, this time by my words: running around cluelessly without any team organization or strategy. This is what we did for pretty much the whole first half of today's game!
Chelsea started brightly and put us under pressure from the get go. I have no idea what Diaby was thinking when he grabbed Ashley Cole in the first minute of the game, in the same manner as Koscielny grabbed Dzeko against Man City, but luckily for us, no penalty was given. Then out of nowhere, we put a great attack together, Theo gave a great pass to Giroud, and the Frenchman couldn't convert almost 1 on 1 vs Chech. 30 seconds later, Mata gets the same chance on the other end and we are down 1-0. I definitely think there should have been a foul against Coquelin in the build up for Chelsea's goal but if the referee doesn't give it, you have to get back in position. Sagna was nowhere to be seen when that ball was played to Mata.
And after we conceded this first goal, everything went to shit in that first half. We were so disorganized in our pressing on the ball that Chelsea were passing it around freely. We tried to put some attacks together but people were getting dispossessed of the ball and we were super vulnerable on the counter attack. First Vermaelen gave the ball away in the 12th min but good old Torres found a way to fuck it up. Then Diaby was too busy complaining and yelling at people where they should be standing according to him, instead of taking care of the ball, result: quick counter for Chelsea = penalty against Ramires = 2-0 Chelsea, courtesy of Lampard.
The next 20 minutes we were (insert word of the day here) "ineffective". Even Wilshere was yelling at guys to press on the ball together but some people were pressing, others were watching, so we were simply running around chasing the ball. The picture below shows you how 4 players are standing and none of them is closing the Chelsea player down, he can take his time before deciding to who to pass the ball next.
Chelsea started brightly and put us under pressure from the get go. I have no idea what Diaby was thinking when he grabbed Ashley Cole in the first minute of the game, in the same manner as Koscielny grabbed Dzeko against Man City, but luckily for us, no penalty was given. Then out of nowhere, we put a great attack together, Theo gave a great pass to Giroud, and the Frenchman couldn't convert almost 1 on 1 vs Chech. 30 seconds later, Mata gets the same chance on the other end and we are down 1-0. I definitely think there should have been a foul against Coquelin in the build up for Chelsea's goal but if the referee doesn't give it, you have to get back in position. Sagna was nowhere to be seen when that ball was played to Mata.
And after we conceded this first goal, everything went to shit in that first half. We were so disorganized in our pressing on the ball that Chelsea were passing it around freely. We tried to put some attacks together but people were getting dispossessed of the ball and we were super vulnerable on the counter attack. First Vermaelen gave the ball away in the 12th min but good old Torres found a way to fuck it up. Then Diaby was too busy complaining and yelling at people where they should be standing according to him, instead of taking care of the ball, result: quick counter for Chelsea = penalty against Ramires = 2-0 Chelsea, courtesy of Lampard.
The next 20 minutes we were (insert word of the day here) "ineffective". Even Wilshere was yelling at guys to press on the ball together but some people were pressing, others were watching, so we were simply running around chasing the ball. The picture below shows you how 4 players are standing and none of them is closing the Chelsea player down, he can take his time before deciding to who to pass the ball next.
Coquelin
was one of the few guys who was running his socks off, trying to be
everywhere. When we have no idea what to do, we simply pass the ball on
the right to Sagna who delivers a shitty cross (70% of the time) and if
the other team gets the ball, we are in trouble. That happened in the
35th minute and Ramires should have made it 3-0 instead of hitting it out of the stadium. Towards the end of the
half we mustered a few chances but Walcott got caught in offsides at
least 3 times. You would think, he would make an adjustment with his runs
after the first two.
In the second half we started much better, played with some purpose and put some great attacks together. Mertesacker had a great chance after a corner, but he kicked the ball right at Cech, as hard as my sister (who is 100 lbs) would kick it. Then Wilshere gave a great pass to Theo who shot straight at Cech. Diaby continued to be sloppy with the football and Giroud continued to be useless up front. Finally in the 58th min, Theo was able to score after a great pass by Cazorla. Not surprising that he scored from the striker's position, running behind the centre backs, instead of coming from the wing. Right after that, Coquelin, who i thought was our best player had to subbed off and Ramsey came in. Once we scored, we kept putting Chelsea under pressure for 10 more minutes and that was about it. Starting around the 68th min, Torres had 2 great chances on the counter and missed them both. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't put a decent attack together until the end of the game, except for a bunch of corners which led to nothing.
In the second half we started much better, played with some purpose and put some great attacks together. Mertesacker had a great chance after a corner, but he kicked the ball right at Cech, as hard as my sister (who is 100 lbs) would kick it. Then Wilshere gave a great pass to Theo who shot straight at Cech. Diaby continued to be sloppy with the football and Giroud continued to be useless up front. Finally in the 58th min, Theo was able to score after a great pass by Cazorla. Not surprising that he scored from the striker's position, running behind the centre backs, instead of coming from the wing. Right after that, Coquelin, who i thought was our best player had to subbed off and Ramsey came in. Once we scored, we kept putting Chelsea under pressure for 10 more minutes and that was about it. Starting around the 68th min, Torres had 2 great chances on the counter and missed them both. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't put a decent attack together until the end of the game, except for a bunch of corners which led to nothing.
I thought Sagna didn't have a good game; he got beat badly for the first goal, and in the second half, all of the chances Chelsea created were through his side of the pitch. Gibbs did a bit better and for the most part was able to come back quick enough after his runs forward. Vermaelen was up and down, gave away some balls at bad positions, but also saved us a few times, once denying Ba a sure goal towards the end. Mertesacker didn't make any major mistakes but he wasn't a dominant force in the back either.
I thought Diaby was awful today. Conceding the penalty for the second goal was largely his fault, because he lost the ball in the middle of the field, right after he was bitching at his teammates. His passes were off for most of the day and a lot of times he took too long on the ball. Ramsey who came in for him, did pretty much the same: gave away the ball a couple of times which led to counters for Chelsea. Wilshere was very active and was the guy who was always trying to press on the ball, without much help from the rest. He gave some great passes and created some of our best chances. Cazorla was poor in the first half but he was also forced to play further back than normal. In the second half, he was much better and gave Theo a great assist for his goal. As i mentioned earlier, i thought Coquelin was great today. Very active, very feisty, he was everywhere. I would definitely love to see him play more often.
Giroud was fucking horrible. I might be over-reacting a bit but i never felt he was a real threat today. In the 4th minute he blew the best chance we had for the whole game, and had he scored, it would have been a much different game. He was pretty much useless the rest of the match. Won a few headers here and there, but if you are going to sacrifice Theo and put him on the wing, Giroud has to show up and play much, much better than what he did today! Theo didn't play his best, but scored a great goal and was very active for most of the game. He also gave a great pass to Giroud to create that good chance in the beginning. If he had done a better job timing his runs in the first half, we might have had a few more scoring chances.
The bottom line is that we can't play shit for 45 minutes against Chelsea and expect a result. If Wilshere has to yell at his teammates to press forward, so we can press as a team, that means the coach hasn't done his job on the practice pitch and pre-game. Wenger needs to go, and the only problem i see is that guy we should have hired to replace him, just signed a contract with Bayern Munich. I think Pep Guardiola could have been great for us, but now it's too late. We are stuck with Wenger and the usual "we showed tremendous spirit and fought back; i can't fault the effort of the guys; we were a bit unlucky; blah, blah, blah". How about you teach them how to press properly, so we don't look like we are being toyed with? Oh wait, you have been doing this for 16 years and you know what you are doing. Sorry, i forgot. 6th place it is then, let's see if we can at least stay there.
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