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Inconsistency came back to hit the Blues as they stumbled to a shock loss after grabbing two good wins. From a situation where Chelsea were about to double their lead, the opposite happened with the score becoming 1-1. The defending to concede that goal was dire, just like the result of the match. It was as depressing as seeing a baby elephant stuck in a drain.
Chelsea fans would have felt even more sick about their situation in the midfield pivot after yesterday’s game. A midfield of Ramires and Mikel had absolutely no passing ability. The sad thing is that our next best option, Marco Van Ginkel, is injured. Does this mean that we give Josh McEachran a chance? It would only benefit his development which in turn benefits us. Or are we a club that doesn’t put much faith in its youngsters?
Ramires action in the game (via FourFourTwo). Ramires completed 30 out of 41 passes
The above graphic doesn’t make you want to start comparing Ramires’s passing ability with, let’s say, Pirlo. Unless you’re trying to compare something similar to dystopia with eutopia. Ramires is a player loved by Chelsea fans, his enormous amount of energy is the greatest part of his armoury but his weakness is when he’s in possession of the ball and trying to pass it around.
When the Blues were in control in the 1st half, Ramires wasted a series of good opportunities as quickly as a IBM’s Roadrunner supercomputer processes information. But the problem is, even his partner is not famed for his passing ability either.
42 out of 46 passes for Mikel
Mikel was playing most square passes and his main aim was ball retention. He knocked the ball to his teammates. This led to Chelsea lacking killer passes from the deep. Mikel starts in the team because he provides protection to the back line and often gives others the incentive to go forward.
It’s clear that Chelsea have problems in the pivot and that the pivot is crying out for a deep lying playmaker. The passing quality is often as terrible as the idea of this alternate reality:
Imagine having that instead of Breaking Bad! It’d make you feel like this. Kind of also how you feel about your team at times.
If the issue with the pivot wasn’t enough, the issue which I stated in a previous article on this site and many others are still there!
The above graphic depicts Ivanovic’s crosses. It is painfully obvious that this is not his strength, yet we have not addressed this issue. I would merely be repeating myself if I again wrote what I mentioned in the previous article regarding Ivanovic in that position. Is it not good to start Bertrand and Azpilicueta in these kinds of matches?
The striker situation at Chelsea football club is one that has been publicly talked about. To be fair to the strikers, they have actually performed quite well so far this season. Eto’o has looked good up to this point in the season, Torres has pulled off some heroic performances that have left us with our mouths gaping and Ba has been quite good too. Yet in the past couple of games Torres has struggled and against Stoke all three of our strikers looked really poor. When the Blues were cruising in the 1st half, a top quality striker would have thrived and grabbed some goals. It’s something that frustrated us at times last season as well.
We now face an enormous question in: what should we do in January regarding both the pivot and the strikers? I for one would like to say that we have some brilliant youngsters who should also be promoted.
How about this for a stat? Chelsea conceded a total of 6 goals (4-3 win v Sunderland and 3-2 loss v Stoke) against 2 sides with rubbish goal scoring records. What happened to all those Mourinho’s identity clichés? If conceding 3 goals (2 off rubbish corner kick defending and another off a rather weird deflected free kick to which the Chelsea players failed to react) wasn’t enough against Sunderland, the Blues respond by conceding such a ridiculous goal when they are on the verge of doubling their lead before half time!
The arrow shows the direction where Cech ran
Cech decides to run of his line to catch the ball. He ends up looking like a kid trying to get a better view behind a crowd full of adults.
The Chelsea defenders somehow manage to miss the presence of the tallest player on the pitch (6 feet 7 inches) and the ball drops to his feet as no one heads it away or clears it. Crouch scores a double nutmeg to pull Stoke back level.
The defending at times has been almost as embarrassing as some of Real Madrid’s defending earlier this season or as embarrassing as getting spotted singing along to the radio:
To conclude, it was a game that should have been won and on any other day maybe would have been won but some of the issues within the team need to be addressed. It’s not every day that Stoke City decide to score two long range curlers against you.
