Chelsea could have easily scored a couple more if not for Kasper Schmeichel.
Enzo Maresca - Chelsea manager - Sack watch
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
Chelsea could have easily scored a couple more if not for Kasper Schmeichel.
All of this over a friendly match.
I think it was Churchill who said "We talkin' about practice?"
We're also melting down over the arse match
Pre-season doesn't really mean much until the 4th/5th game when it's on the eve of the season, most of your starting 11 is now playing and everyone should be up to full fitness. Until then, those first few games are purely about fitness and having a look at periphery players.
If things go wrong he'll also be the scape goat for issues that should lie with the sporting directors Winstanley & Stewart. They're the ones who've made all the signings to build this team and also it was their decision to sack Poch and replace him with Maresca.
Ever since he was hired I've thought Maresca has been dealt a bad hand and the timing for him taking over is far from ideal. Next season getting top4 is an absolute necessity and there won't be too many fans accepting any 'squad rebuild' or 'trust the process' noise because the fecking club leadership have literally told us the rebuild was a 4 window plan and we're now about to finish the 4th window next month so it's time to start walking the walk. Not to mention being out of the UCL for a third year running would be catastrophical for PSR/FFP purposes.
For them to actually hire a new coach with a totally different play style in these circumstances was a weird decision to say the least. Things were finally starting to look remotely coherent in the last month and a half under Poch and a 6th place finish gave some hope we could keep up that form so to now be back in square one and once again needing to 'give time to implement a play system' or whatever doesn't feel too great. For Maresca's sake I hope things can click together rather quickly because if they don't he'll have to face a lot of (unfair) criticism that has very little to do with him and a lot more to do with those above him who'd no doubt just hide behind the curtains and let the manager take all the punches for them.
That said, early pre-season games don't mean anything. All about fitness levels and like you said opportunities for the manager to try out new stuff and get to know his players better. Not to mention important players like Palmer, Jackson, Enzo, Caicedo, Gallagher and Cucurella still being absent from the squad.
Especially after an international summer. A lot of teams are going to start sluggish
Yeah but wasn't that because of the 2 injuries? i would be because of that too tbf.
Go poke your head into the ETH thread, meltdowns over pre-season games is par for the course on here nowadays
Edit : wrong thread
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given Rodgers basically forced Kasper out of Leicester I'm surprised he's gone to Celtic.
the closer we get to the season the happier I am that Enzo left, our squad simply wouldn't have been good enough to play how we did last season and stay up
Part of me thinks this isn’t even the formation they are actually working on in training. The last two games they have run a really weird actual 3 at the back plus one … thing?
And some of the chance misses… well, we hit those in preseason last year, and that didn’t help.
But I am concerned about two primary things: I did not think Badiashile was good enough on the ball to play in a system where he’s pressured… and I have not been proven wrong by what I’ve seen. Neither he nor Desasi play the way we would need them to. And this isn’t a Chalobah rant, he really doesn’t either, but he is better than them by mile.
And, I think Reece James is a wonderful footballer. I think after readjusting he would be fine as a cdm again. If he could stay healthy he is great as a rb… but right now it looks like what he is being asked to do is too complicated for him.
Now, this may come down to my first point: they aren’t really playing the system the way it’s intended at the moment, but it’s still a concern because when to tuck it and when to shift out to cover wider spa e doesn’t seem complicated… and he was not getting it.
Really like Guiu.
And some of the chance misses… well, we hit those in preseason last year, and that didn’t help.
But I am concerned about two primary things: I did not think Badiashile was good enough on the ball to play in a system where he’s pressured… and I have not been proven wrong by what I’ve seen. Neither he nor Desasi play the way we would need them to. And this isn’t a Chalobah rant, he really doesn’t either, but he is better than them by mile.
And, I think Reece James is a wonderful footballer. I think after readjusting he would be fine as a cdm again. If he could stay healthy he is great as a rb… but right now it looks like what he is being asked to do is too complicated for him.
Now, this may come down to my first point: they aren’t really playing the system the way it’s intended at the moment, but it’s still a concern because when to tuck it and when to shift out to cover wider spa e doesn’t seem complicated… and he was not getting it.
Really like Guiu.
its 4141 in defence on the ball it becomes a 3241 system with a full back going in alongside the DM, sounds like Reece James is his new Ricardo Perreira starting at RB becoming a DM on the ball, it kept Ricardo fit, mostly, could well do the same for James
Even then it doesn’t really mean anything.
Hell, teams have even started the season terribly in the past for the first few games and in some cases still finish champions.
We’re all pretty much in the same boat when it comes to preseason. Glad you are not taking results seriously at this stage. We have people on here going nuts because a youth XI lost to a late goal last night that had Gabriel Martinelli running at a youth DM playing at full back, and Will Fish. Some more nonsense about patterns of play, despite us looking good when we had 6-7 first teamers out there.
The internet is just a warp drive for the proliferation of ignorance and reactionary knee jerkism.
Pre season pretty meaningless, we were equally woeful without Palmer end of last season. Last pre season we were good, then the Nkunku injury and we were terrible till the last 8 games of the season, pretty much.
Once we've played the first 3 league games and two euro qualifiers we'll have a reasonable idea of where Maresca's at.
Once we've played the first 3 league games and two euro qualifiers we'll have a reasonable idea of where Maresca's at.
Thats not true at all. Was Fabian Delph a Guardiola player? Or Walker or Grealish for that matter?! Or even Haaland.. what does even mean a Guardiola player..Messi, Xavi, Iniesta??
We actually had a pretty good preseason results wise last summer but it still led to a very underwhelming season. You can pick up good or bad vibes in preseason as a fan but generally there are too many examples of teams having poor results in preseason going on to have brilliant or poor seasons and teams having brilliant preseasons going on to have brilliant or poor seasons for it mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things.
Chelsea is in a situation yet again where the manager is brand new and he's a) learning about his squad and b) experimenting with new ideas for this group (inverting James, Nkunku deep in midfield etc). Maresca's quotes after the game suggested he was happy with what he saw offensively but that clearly there is some work to do to get the balance right defensively.
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I wouldn't worry much about pre-season results but you can still pick up some important things about a side. Its not like its meaningless. In Chelsea's case, I think what we're largely seeing is that Maresca's brand of football takes times to learn and quite likely some of the players he inherited probably aren't suited for it. Neither of those things are really surprising. There is a learning curve and when this kind of football isn't quite clicking some sequences can look really ugly because its high risk and team mistakes end up putting individual defenders into very tough situations. For me the biggest area to watch is the defense, that's the platform on which everything else is built for this kind of positional play football. If your defense can't play out of the back, you can't control the matches. If they can't defend a high line, you're going to get murdered after turnovers. Both Badiashile and Fofana looked terrible yesterday. I wouldn't write either one off given where they are in the preseason and the process of learning Maresca's system, especially Fofana given how much rust he is probably shaking off. But they're currently just not at the level and that's the thing that will need to change most if Chelsea is going to have a successful season
Maresca is a mediocre manager who did a poor job with Leicester last season and would have finished mid table at best if he didn't have a premier league squad in the Championship.
I'm looking forward to the mess he is going to make at Chelsea before his inevitable sacking. I really thought Poch was turning things around towards the end of the season.
It baffles me that managers like Maresca and Kompany are given top chances when someone like Mark Robins has shown far more as a manager and really deserves a chance.
I'm looking forward to the mess he is going to make at Chelsea before his inevitable sacking. I really thought Poch was turning things around towards the end of the season.
It baffles me that managers like Maresca and Kompany are given top chances when someone like Mark Robins has shown far more as a manager and really deserves a chance.
Yes, but in that system the LB came back to join the back 3. We are starting with 3 CBs in preseason. There is an odd … gap sometimes where the LB would be, and James looks frankly confused over whether we are shifting at all or playing a straight 3241.
We don’t have Cucurella, Chilwell can’t play the needed role and Veiga is an Infant in terms of time with the team, so just playing a straight 3241 and not over complicating things for some preseason matches seems reasonable. But it isn’t likely what they are working on in training, so that’s where I think the confusion is coming in.
When we actually have our people and DO start rotating, instead of playing a super high line with just 3 people, I will be very curious what that looks like.
Fofana should have time to work off the “rust”. Tosin needs to start early in the season just based of directing people where to be and adding knowledge of the system. I would expect Colwill to start LCB. Cucurella and Gusto/James either side, rotating.
Tosin thinks he can keep the job, Fofana is going to get minutes and hopefully get healthier and better as things progress, challenging Tosins assumption.
Most of the people who have had the biggest struggles in pre season I would not expect to start the season…. Which is kind of the point people should keep in mind for preseason games. Celtic were leading City 3-1 at one point as well.
In the NFL there used to be a saying: “only @rappy teams care about the preseason, because that’s all they have.”
Tosin thinks he can keep the job, Fofana is going to get minutes and hopefully get healthier and better as things progress, challenging Tosins assumption.
Most of the people who have had the biggest struggles in pre season I would not expect to start the season…. Which is kind of the point people should keep in mind for preseason games. Celtic were leading City 3-1 at one point as well.
In the NFL there used to be a saying: “only @rappy teams care about the preseason, because that’s all they have.”
What? He was first choice, no?
until he got injured we stared Callum Doyle, a CB as a nominal left back
"Turned things around" against teams on the beach after he fecked up our already slim top 4 chances by failing to beat the bottom two (one with a player less and their manager in the stands) before handing Arsenal their biggest ever win over us.
The rewritting of history with Poch is going to be excruciating.
Pretty much, results were pretty abysmal from August until mid April, bottled the League cup final v Liverpool and the FA cup semi v a tired City team. So many chances missed in later game. Got hammered as soon as Palmer was out v Arsenal...
All you can say, is we did have injuries to Nkunku, Lavia, James etc so they barely played all season.
I have to say I'm not yet quite sure about Maresca's credentials as a manager but that's a terrible take.
He inherited a Leicester squad that was already relegation level in the PL and who just so happened to also lose James Maddison, Harvey Barnes, Teté, Tim Castagne, Youri Tielemans, Caglar Söyüncü, Daniel Amartey, Ayoze Perez, Jonny Evans, Nampalys Mendy, Boubacar Soumare and Luke Thomas from their 22/23 PL squad.
That's 12 players of various importance gone from a squad that wasn't exactly decent PL level to begin with so who exactly did they have left to make them a "Premier League squad in the Championship"? They had a handful of PL level players for sure but overall it was just a good Championship squad and they achieved what was expected of them, nothing more and nothing less.
the common consensus was we should have never been relegated with the squad we had, you can't have it both ways, also at least 3 of the players you listed visibly quit on us contributing to that relegation.
We had by a large distance, the best squad in the championship we also signed Hermansen, Winks and Mavididi all of whom were amongst the best in the league in their role, loaned Fatawu who wee have now signed who was an absolute gem to be fair and Coady who was earmarked for a key role until a preseason injury meant the forgotten Jannik Vestergaard ended up keeping him out making him basically a £7m cheerleader.
It was Enzo's refusal to adapt what ever was happening that nearly cost us it was only the fact that the pressure got to Leeds and Ipswich too that we got over the line.
Oh and you'll love his changes when you get someone sent off, 5 at the back and 4 in midfield, lovely stuff
Big "I never fancied her anyway" vibes.
no having seen what happened at Burnley I had massive fears of the same happening here, we were basically his first real jib so he was learning on the job as expected, however if you are being objective Enzo did what was expected of him nothing more, certainly nothing to earn a move to Chelsea.
He has said he will never change his approach and unless you have the best squad in the league you simply cannot take that stance so rigidly, doing so is shooting yourself in the foot.
The previous post I quoted was trying to make out he rebuilt the squad, he didn't. In fact a lot of our fans never took to him because of how stubborn he is.
One game we ripped Southampton apart but it was mostly counter attacking stuff and Enzo was visibly annoyed after despite us winning big against a leading promotion rival as it wasn't done the right way.
Leicester fans are fairly patient on the whole, I expect he will ruffle far more players in West London.
Oh expect his mate Guillem Balagué to pop up on your podcasts etc as his mouth piece.
It's not a terrible take at all. Anybody who watches regular Championship football will tell you that Leicester's squad last year was arguably the best squad to ever play in the Championship.
I'm sure even Leicester fans would agree that at best Maresca did what was expected of him and they had a period where it looked like they were going to miss out on automatic altogether.
I understand wanting to have faith in your new manager, but you can't just ignore the quality he had in his squad compared to his opponents and the fact that Leicester were expected to walk the league. There's a reason the season would have been seen as a failure had they not achieved automatic promotion.
Ah he's in Ballbags good books, good to know. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy in general, but when it comes to speaking about someone he clearly likes a lot (i.e. Pep), he's unsufferable and disguises massive bias behind poorly constructed arguments. He's regularly on the BBC's Euroleagues podcast, so it's good to know his comments on Maresca should be taken with a pinch of salt.
How Ballbag manages to be a professional football journalist when absolutely everything he writes or says is dripping in bias and agenda baffles me.
You can listen to him talk for 5 minutes and will already know that he loves Barca, Liverpool, Pep, Poch, Arteta and won't hear a bad word said about them, while he slags off near enough everybody else in football.
Yeah pretty much. Although he genuinely sounds like a nice bloke overall.
See, this worries me, because Cucurella excelled at tucking into the midfield to partner Caicedo. But they had him trying to tuck into the back 3 under Potter and it was horrible. I have heard Maresca is stubborn, but if one FB is going to be part of a back 3 it should be Reece , and Cucu in midfield, not the other way around.
Can’t have Colwill starting at LB …. Because I don’t want Badiashile touching the ball. The next pass he gets under pressure of a press should be the last one.
Doesn’t this describe most sports journalists? It does in America.
It was nice to see some progression from the first two games, both on and off the ball, last night.
Very enjoyable match.
Very enjoyable match.
Looks good Pat, you managed to pass the ball to your own team sometimes and stopped the opposition from walking through your defence at will.
Looks good Pat, you managed to pass the ball to your own team sometimes and stopped the opposition from walking through your defence at will.
Simple but effective progress
Next step, find the back of the net without the need for penalties. If we can manage that, be afraid sir, be very afraid ..
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