Chelsea Fan View: Time for Conte to throw caution to the wind
Chelsea stuttered to their third 0-0 draw in a row on Saturday in the Premier League match against Leicester.
Apparently this was the first time in Chelsea’s history that they have done this. The despair and frustration of supporters at the final whistle was palpable and sadly articulated with a chorus of boos from some sections of the crowd.
Booing is not for me, but frankly it’s a free country and if that’s how ‘supporters’ want to express their feelings, then that’s up to them. I prefer the company of friends for a post-match debrief which quickly descends in to humour, gallows or otherwise, in one of the local pubs. The power of good company and shared grief washed down with a few ales can be very therapeutic.
It was by no means a good performance on Saturday but surely Chelsea’s current inability to put the ball in the back of the net should be put in to some context.
Chelsea are unbeaten in their last 10 matches and have lost only once in their last 18. They are currently fourth in the league or more positively share second place on 47 points with Man Utd and Liverpool. They are one game from Wembley with the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Arsenal evenly poised at 0-0.
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Chelsea are still in both the FA Cup and the Champions’ League. Yes, the Premier League is beyond them, but right now, this is hardly a disaster of a season.
I am intrigued to know what the current denizens of Stamford Bridge would think if they care to remember the 1980/81 season when Chelsea failed to score a goal in 12 out of their last 13 matches.
Of course that was a very different time and to a certain extent Chelsea supporters have been spoilt rotten for the last 20 years with much success and trophies being won with obscene regularity. With this success comes huge expectations and woe betide a modern day Chelsea side falling below them. Just ask the managers who have been summarily fired by Roman Abramovich.
And on Saturday against Leicester, Chelsea certainly did fall way below expectations although it should be noted that Leicester played very well and perhaps deserved to win given how profligate their opponents were.
Eden Hazard had a stinker and one wonders how fit he is given that pretty much everything he attempted failed to come off. It was also worrying to see him back out of a 50:50 challenge. Was he mindful of further injury?
Either way, I believe that Antonio Conte was right to substitute him on 58 minutes. The fact that he also hauled Cesc Fabregas off at the same time, replacing them with Willian and Pedro was something of a surprise. Yes, Willian and Pedro provided some urgency and a sense of creative purpose, but the net result was the same. While it constituted a formation change from 3-5-2 to 3-4-3 essentially it was a like for like substitution when attacking options could have been strengthened.
Antonio Conte’s post-match remarks focussed on how tired the players are at the moment and it is true that they have experienced a particularly heavy workload recently. To be fair to the manager this is not just a hollow excuse and in some respects validates his concerns at the beginning of the season that the squad lacked enough depth and quality to challenge on all four fronts this season.
I have a huge amount of sympathy for the likeable and passionate Italian manager and an even greater respect for the man who led Chelsea to their fifth Premier League title last season. However, I do wonder whether his tactics and rigidity in setting the team up in a 3-5-2 formation has run its course.
Conte is not the first Italian manager who has a cautious approach tactically. When he changed formation from 4-4-2 to 3-4-3 half way through the 3-0 defeat away to Arsenal last season, ostensibly it was done to tighten up a defence that was susceptible to pace and lacking cover from midfield. Of course it worked a treat and the rest is history.
This season we have seen the 3-5-2 deployed with a three man midfield with two of Timoue Bakayoko, Cesc Fabregas and Danny Drinkwater playing with N’Golo Kante. It being that none of these midfielders is blessed with electric pace or the ‘engine’ to be a box-to-box midfielder it appears to be quite defensive at worst or unable to provide a dynamic link to Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata up front.
While I understand that Conte might not have the players in the squad to fit ideally in to the system he wants to play, would it not be worth playing one of Willian or Pedro to play with Eden Hazard behind Alvaro Morata (two number 10s if you like) at the expense of Tiemoue Bakayoko or Cesc Fabregas – especially at home or against weaker opposition.
The speed of Chelsea’s attacks have looked laboured and ponderous in recent matches and by the time they get in to the danger area, teams have re-organised and present an impenetrable wall with little room for Chelsea to manoeuvre. Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata are often outnumbered or isolated as a result.
But what this team really lacks is a midfield player capable of making runs from deep to join the attack in the nick of time and either firing in a shot from distance or being in the right place at the right time for a tap in. Chelsea used to have a player who did this regularly for years; 211 times to be exact. His name was Frank Lampard.
What would Antonio Conte and Chelsea supporters do for a player of the calibre of Lampard right now?
Ultimately the success of a football team depends on the quality of players the manager has at his disposal. At Chelsea, there is a suspicion that there might not be enough quality players in the current squad.
David Chidgey presents the award winning Chelsea FanCast podcast which can be heard live every Monday at 19.00 at mixlr.com/chelsea-fancast/ or downloaded from Acast, ITunes, Soundcloud or chelseafancast.com @ChelseaFanCast
David Chidgey @StamfordChidge
