Interesting his Spurs and Southampton team never looked like that, they always looked very organised and efficient. I wonder what changed.
Chelsea 2024/25
- Thread starter duffer
- Start date
Interesting his Spurs and Southampton team never looked like that, they always looked very organised and efficient. I wonder what changed.
A treble is just 3 trophies. It's in the name.
A treble Vs the treble
The performance was ok. But it was as fluid and as threatening in attack as the games against them last season, or today's game. And it was the attack I was talking about specifically.
The defence, that's a full other ball game.
If anything, winning a treble consisting of the Premier League, FA Cup and the UEFA Conference Champions League is a greater achievement than the old traditional treble that City won back in 2023. It shows that you've massively improved upon a sixth/seventh place finish. It really is the new "the treble".
All this talk of the treble after beating Wolves is ridiculous. Chelsea will win the quintuple this season.
League, League Cup, FA Cup, Conference League and the World Club Cup.
League, League Cup, FA Cup, Conference League and the World Club Cup.
Not even that surprised about Madueke having a great game and getting a hatrick, he's a very good player and played very well at the end of last season when he actually got a chance. Including a good goal against us. Always sounded silly for Chelsea to let him leave
Definitely strange that he was linked away. Very few supporters from what I’ve seen have wanted him sold. We want Sterling and Mudryk sold but Madueke is well liked and the talent is there to see.
Yet Real Madrid and Man City’s dressing room is fine. 7 quality players for 4 slots is perfectly fine when you have the league and four additional competitions to get through.
Did Maresca make any tweaks at HT? We went from a crazy, basketball back and forth first half to a much more controlled, dominant second half.
I didn’t notice anything specific changes but we almost completely stifled Wolves in the second half and then started creating chance after chance.
I didn’t notice anything specific changes but we almost completely stifled Wolves in the second half and then started creating chance after chance.
Yeah, Enzo & Caicedo decided to wake up and not allow the Wolves players to breeze past them with zero effort. Both actually put a tackle in and pressed in the second half.
I hear you, they both stepped up. Enzo in particular had a brilliant second half. Not a Maresca tweak though
I’m guessing he absolutely tore into both of them at halftime.I hear you, they both stepped up. Enzo in particular had a brilliant second half. Not a Maresca tweak though
His press was never that highly structured but in a passive PL with many players not suited to the playing out of the back it could cause a lot of teams trouble and force mistakes.
But as time went on more and more managers had their own better structured press and players got better playing out of the back, which countered Poch's initial 'meta' approach and he simply didn't/couldn't adapt his methods inline.
Long story short, from a tactical perspective the game has passed him by every bit as much as it has Jose. One thing I will credit him for he knows how to get players onside which led to last season being relatively respectable compared to a 22/23 sequel but structure wise I couldn't believe what I was seeing half the time.
Madueke s hattrick aside his defensive work on his wing was admirable. Well done kid. Team still need to work on defensive structure and have to develop chemistry for coordinated effort.
Would have made sense given the links to Olise.
I also like Madueke on the premise of how he performed in Holland. It's certainly not a statement signing but one of the better acquisitions Chelsea has made.
The run into space from Neto for the Felix goal was a real breathe of fresh air after watching Mudryk these past few seasons. He has all that pace but I can't remember him actually utilising it with any sort of clever off the ball movement. I would really love for him to go somewhere on loan to play week in week out.
It’s my understanding we asked for SAF’s hairdryer to be included in the Mount deal. They just forgot to use it last season.
The other thing to consider is Wolves came out angry, playing dirty, flying after every ball in swarms … they didn’t look like they could keep it up the whole match.
Listening to Masters the other day it’s abundantly clear that it’s far from as straight forward as some are desperate for it to be.
You have to take a step back when you get the sensational headlines or the supposed experts like that Man City chap who whilst he clearly has a legal background he is trying to draw conclusions without even close to enough information. It suits his agenda in trying to deflect attention from the City charges. He keeps ignoring the fact that at this time Chelsea haven’t been charged and that I think is key.
I would hazard a guess that both the PL and Chelsea want this done and done before Cities case reaches conclusion I can’t but help feel that envious eyes are looking at that vast sum that was held back from the sale proceeds so if I had to guess even if there isn’t sufficient evidence there will be a settlement agreement consisting of a large “ good will payment and a voluntary transfer ban
Yeah fair point. Wolves tiring whilst we kept the foot on the gas is probably the simplest explanation.
Either way, such a brilliant feel good weekend.
Well very simply these sides were in their pomp 5 - 10 years ago. Football now is about patience and capitalising on maintaining control over a match - Poch's sides have never been about sustained pressure.
You that scarred Pat?
Very much so mate. I was pretty nervous for this game. Our record at Wolves is awful in recent years. The prospect of starting the season with 2 defeats from 2 games was making me sweat a bit.
Good question. So once everyone is up to speed and fit (important to understand that's why we never saw starts for Nkunku and Neto today), Nkunku, Palmer, (and likely Neto) are guaranteed starters. We've seen snippets of both Nkunku and Palmer as the 9 as well. So it's Madueke vs Felix, and Neto switches flank depending on who wins that duel. I think ultimately Jackson will be dropped as he's the least refined of the bunch. I don't find the first team squad bloated at all and we do need the extra bodies considering we've had the most injuries in Europe (top 5) for 3 seasons running.
Wonder if this is the start of something
Palmer and Felix could be a lethal partnership this season. Felix is also a very talended player.
Looks like a continuation of the second half of last season to me.
It's too early to come to a conclusion. The team players are handling the ball excellently. The speed at which the team players move the ball, the effort to push the ball forward, the movement of the players, and moving the ball without the fear of losing it - I see all of this as progress.
We need to see how the players cope when the opposing team plays defensively. When many opposing players parking the bus in defense, the challenge of moving the ball towards the goal really helps understand the team's capability in attack, I think.
Defence need a bit chemistry. It will come as season progress I hope.
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Félix is exactly the kind of player to come off the bench and score the 6th goal against a defeated team.
Remains to be seen if he can weather it in the trenches of a hard game better than he did last time.
Remains to be seen if he can weather it in the trenches of a hard game better than he did last time.
Maybe I am wrong but from what I saw last season Jackson missed countless sitters which if he hadn't you'd gotten more points? Not that Jackson is poor, infact I feel the hardest job of a striker is getting in the right position, which he does. Just needs to finish his chances off. I said it before, Chelsea aren't poor as they look at times. Inconsistent yes but that's probably due to the 400 players you have which makes selecting a team harder than it is.
Jackson had terrible finishing early on last season but since returning from AFCON he performed better.
First half of the season: 19 games, 7 goals from 11.2 xG
Second half of the season: 16 games, 7 goals from 8.7 xG
Even the second half was not quite on point when it comes to finishing chances but that's still a clear improvement. Another things worth considering is the huge improvement in his disciplinary record. In his first 18 PL games for the club he got a ridiculous 8 yellow cards but then only two in the remainder of the season.
The hope is he can continue improving on that and if he does, he'll be one hell of a striker. His all-round game has always been good, he just needs some consistency in his finishing and keep himself out of the referee's book. Offside awareness is another aspect he needs to improve on. If he does improve on those, we could easily be looking at a +20 goal striker sooner rather than later.
Felix did well overall considering the way team performed last time. Now having technical players around he will be alright.
Thank christ, I think we were down to only 7 goalies.
I read somewhere that if you concentrate Felix minutes on the pitch to full games, he has something like 60 goals and assists in 97 'full games' over the past four years. Surely his problem is more consistency in staying on the pitch than only scoring garbage time goals.
According to Fbref he's played a total of 105.1 90s in his career - with 75 G+A in total
They’re after Toney now.
Need to hit the weekly quota.
The end of an era is close...
If Napoli get Lukaku and McSauce firing they'll be in the title mix