Minority Report v Chelsea (FA Cup 5th round)

3-4-3 isn’t the reason why we’re not dangerous with the ball though, it’s the personnel. He’s just got athletes who are shocking footballers who are great at the press but have no skill. See Frieser, Adeboyejo and to a lesser extent Chaplin.

 

Chelsea's tippy tappy football against our high pressing football, Chelsea would always have more possession with there style but I honestly think we were the better team and should have won I would have given Brittain our man of the match if he had not missed that sitter in the 1st half so its Mowatt for me.

 

I think that we all have that sliding scale. Where I am getting into bother is that my scale is different to that of others.

 

We look at things very much from the Barnsley perspective, but the Chelsea manager would have been very frustrated that his players were not capable of playing their way through our press. watching on TV makes it hard to see why that was. Was is a reluctance to make the more risky pass forward, or was it that the players ahead of the ball were not able to find space. Who knows?

 

I thought the BBC picked out the triggers of the press really well, and also the defensive charge to the half way line.

As soon as Dike came on he was drawn to press the player with the ball. Prior to that, the press came as the pass was made and the ball in motion meaning the player about to receive had pressure on him to control while the ball was in motion and the player was closing him down. The next player came to press as the next pass was made and so on. It's very clever and you can see why it works when everyone is on the same page.

That went out of the window with the changes and I felt Chelsea were able to come out easier (and James made a big difference I thought) and once we were behind, with the front 3 press largely broken, Chelsea looked more comfortable generally until they got jittery in the last 5-10 minutes.

But like you, my concerns are when we have the ball. I'm willing to look at the Chelsea game as a one off and say horses and courses. I do think as the Cup is purely about results and progress, that the tactics were as good as they could be. But, our execution and style in possession is a wasteful one. Even though we didn't hoof long distances, many passes were rushed, first time, hopeful and more about territory than possession.

Still, having said all that, on another day, we likely take the two gilt edged chances we created very well and we go through.

 

I agree with most of that. We missed our two chances in the first half, and as VI pointed out in his post match comments, taking those chances when you are on top is vital. Nevertheless, Chelsea could have had a penalty in the first half and we do not know how a Barnsley goal would have changed the game, or Chelsea's tactics. For that reason, I prefer to ignore the might-have-beens in my analysis, and concentrate just on what actually happened.

 

That's football, and life. One different decision can fundamentally change the timeline of everything that happens thereafter. But if we use that basis, it makes analysis for different outcomes completely futile and pointless. And as we can't possibly know what outcome may have been different given another system, different tactics or an alternative player choice, all we are then left with is the style you witnessed and the result.

 

These were the stats. Against Chelsea. I don't think right now is the best time to bang on about 343 stopping us creating chances

 

I agree with most of your summary of the play and how the game panned out , although I actually thought Mowatt had a very good game, he seemed very much involved and looked one of the better players on a pitch containing world class players. I also don’t know if it was a throw away comment in response to some of the criticism in the thread, but surely you’re not seriously likening our style of play to that of Wimbledon’s in the 80’s?

 

Yes, I am. Much of our play is the aimless knocking of long balls forward. Where it differs is that Wimbledon had players who more able to fight for the ball physically, and were therefore better able to deal with that sort of ball than we have. Wimbledon did not press in the same way either. However, there are similarities in the way that there is constant repetition of same play, the long ball down the centre of the pitch. I know that Barnsley fans are hurt by the comparison, but I do think it a valid one.

 

I thought when we did get into good positions we rushed. That was the difference between the teams.

 

I think we pass the ball much more in general and definitely much more into feet than they did, the Wimbledon I remember played from front to back with bombs of high balls generally into fashanu at every opportunity, they roughed teams up and were very physical, I just don’t see us in that description.
They played ‘the long ball game’ to the extreme, if we play some more direct style of play on occasion and don’t pass it around completely, I don’t think that warrants a comparison of the two teams resulting in saying they are the same. Our play may have some directness to it but in my opinion we’re not Wimbledon-esque - I don’t think we’re even Sheffield United-esque who I would say also played a slightly diluted version of the ‘Wimbledon style’. A comparison between those two teams I could accept as they had much more similarities, indeed the same coach and some of the same players.

 

We pump it up to play in the opposition half. A lot of this is down the channels for Styles and Brittain. My only problem is when we get into a good position it is rushed. We panic and take the wrong option or snatch at our efforts.

 

I didn't say that I did think Mowatt was our best player last night. I pointed out that the BBC website had Mowatt as the best player on the pitch, based, presumably, on technical analysis which gave every player a score to two decimal points out of ten. Mowatt came top and Brittain second, both ahead of any Chelsea players. This more or less coincides with my own impression and, as I originally stated, Mowatt was the one player on either side singled out for praise by Micah Richards.

 

Wimbledon hurled the ball forward to create goal opportunities directly from it, whereas ours is more about putting into the right areas to enable the press to create chances. Two similar actions but for two different reasons and tactics.

 

It certainly can’t be described as a reserve 11 either.

Tuchel’s been changing several players each game & several of that side were in the team that beat Spurs last week.

It was a cracking performance by us

 

Their ratings are based on punters votes and taking an average.

 

How do you come to the conclusion that we have to change the hardest workers when the wing backs do more running than anyone & they complete the 90 minutes most games? Do we not just rotate the wide forwards because none of them are that great where as if you sub Mowatt, Woodrow, Brittain or Styles you’re losing quality? I don’t think anyone has a strong preference between Frieser, Chaplin, Adeboyejo, Miller & Thomas (when he was here) so it makes sense to take off the weaker players.

 

So, to precis, you, the one that's different, the one driven by logic and reason, the one who thinks long and hard, doesn't like the football we're playing because it doesn't make you grin like a Cheshire cat and clap like an organ grinder's monkey.

But the rest of us, bashing away at our keyboards with our hooves, devoid of thought and reason, can appreciate the tactics we employ play to our strengths, hide our weaknesses and help nullify the opposition.

Sometimes you're so far up your own arse you've come out of your mouth and turned inside out.

 

I sometimes think he's Nudger.