Its easy to go 4-4-2, just stick on a striker and go to the simple formation that has worked for 100 years +, but clearly this squad and our success doesn't come from 4-4-2 so when we're faced with a mini injury crisis to key players why is Redknapp taking the easy option and sticking on Pav. Its clear we need pace, we need creative influence in the centre and Ade needs support so Redknapp imo should be looking to keep this intact if lennon or bale are missing. Yes we don't have an immediate backup for Lennon but Modric needs to be in the centre, as does VDV and instead of chucking on Pav and hoping for the best, redknapp needs to look at a real backup system as otherwise we will struggle to stay in the top four as we get more injuries.
Boss- in hindsight what Harry should have done when Rafa got injured was put Walker further up, bring on Kaboul at Rb. Would have made a huge difference and probably kept Cole quiet. Modric is our creative midfileder but he can't/shouldn't play rm.
We played a 4-4-2 against Liverpool without Lennon and beat them 4-0, but Modric was in the centre with Parker. With two holding players in there, our creativity is much reduced and it showed.
Well Redknapp clearly doesn't feel this is an option and I know its easy for us all to be armchair managers for a second yet we been lucky today and also against Sunderland as once we lose bale or london (or both) our team looks unconvincing and we need to buy more wingers as they are so important to our game.
We have other options out wide that aren't being used at the moment, though. Pienaar, Kranjcar, Townsend, Rose, Dos Santos, Falque... Redknapp doesn't appear to rate Pavlyuchenko, despite his recent protestations to the contrary, so why has he suddenly started picking him? Personally, I'd like to see Pavlyuchenko and Dos Santos replaced in January. Hoilett would give us options, for a start.
He could have done a number of things, anything but that!, he said in interview we had to go 442 knowing it would be difficult 3v2 in the middle...yet still went ahead with it...Why??? No-ones mentioned King and Gallas, not sure I want to see that pairing, Kaboul is in much better form with Ledley. The gaps between them were shocking at times, but King did have Benny's messing about as a distraction to be fair to him. Sandro given Drogba at corners, there was odd **** like that all over the place tonight.
Another poster put this up, talking to a Chelsea fan, and I couldn't agree more. " I thought you were actually quite unlucky tonight. We had decent spells of possession but you lot had truckloads of chances to bury the game! Whilst I am satisfied with the result, I feel that the greatest lesson to learn from that is that Chelsea w/o some key players are markedly better at coping with those losses than we are. The fact that Lennon gets injured and all of a sudden our formation, approach, tactics and shape are all over the place remains a worry to me. As many of the lads were saying after the 1-0 against Sunderland; that sort of approach against a better opposition may go horribly wrong and tonight, it nearly did. "
Hoilett would be a brilliant signing in January. Blackburn have financial problems apparently and his contract is up in the summer so shouldn't cost too much. We need another striker. Would love to see Levy take a risk and go for Leandro Damiao for £20million.
Could be wrong but I think AVB outthought Harry,knowing there was no Lennon he pushed Cole to more advanced position and Harry didn't plug that hole in the 2nd half. Rafa tried to track back, but that's not his game as every time he does that the opposition seem to gain an advantage.
He would but there's a couple of things for me, one he's left footed, we've got a few now, we need a right footer to cover Lennon really, and he's another short arse, we need to add height aswell, for the Stoke approach.
in the mean time we could pust Walker up as people have already said,and Rose could play right back as he has before
Kaboul was excellent at rb during our top 4 season and walker is good enough going forward to play rw imo. Hoilett would definitely help in the current situation!
I can't understand everyone pushing Hoilett, he's left footed too, we don't need any more, we need right footers clearly (preferably tall aswell) to prevent all these square pegs in round holes. Someone said when Lennon was out, its not about replacing like for like, its about replacing with quality. I wanted to say rubbish then, but I'm not holding back now. Some players are versatile, some aren't, last night we had two players on the right VdV and Modric, both quality, both failures as right mid/wingers, because in our preferred tactic, neither are pacy enough, and it removes them from where they play best, pace and moving the ball quickly is our main gameplan. People keep raving about the strength of our squad, 1st 11 aside, its lop-sided imo, last night proved it for me. Even all the options PNP listed above...not good enough for such a game, we need more than a striker in Jan.
4-4-2 with JD would have been fine, with Pav - didn't work. I'm surprised Townsend wasn't on the bench, but him or Rose, or kaboul with walker pushed forward, would have given us a better chance. I really hope JD gets well soon, we need him. Ditto VDV who we need back to his best form. Ditto Lennon. Losing all those three hurt us last night. I think Sandro and Parker both deserve their starting places and hope Harry continues to play them. Chelsea are a very good team, to get a deserved draw against them is an ok result.
"4-4-2 with JD would have been fine"...No it wouldn't have GH, Jd is just as **** at dropping into MF to help out, we were overran 3v2 in MF, the name is irrelevant, 442 was wrong, Harry vaguely admitted that. "I think Sandro and Parker both deserve their starting places and hope Harry continues to play them."...Only if Modric can be accomodated centrally. The loss of Lennon fuks us up every time, has done for 2 or 3 seasons now.
as they said on the radio, with Bale on the left and no one with pace on the right the teams not balanced,we need cover for Lennon
442 (or 4411) only works really well against the poorer teams and if you have two fast wingers who can help the fullbacks. Lennon and Bale hit the spot on that so it has been quite successful for us. But its limitations were seen last night. Modric on the right both limits his value and means Walker doesn't get proper help: he was trying to deal with Mata and Cole by himself a couple of times in the second half. I still think 4321 (or 4231) would work better against teams like Chelsea. Sandro and Parker can help the full backs. Modric can be in central midfield and Bale can go wide either side with the other attacking midfielder (VdV) given a very free role. Last night that that would have meant bringing Kranjcar on rather than Pav, but an alternative would have been Pav up front and Ade playing the VdV role. The problem for me is that the squad isn't used to playing like this so we have to be brave and play like that all the time so they are comfortable with it. But, with a weakened side playing the wrong system against one of the best teams in the country we still failed to win only because of a lucky goal and a poor decision by the assistant. Pretty positive for me.
Changing the shape of a successful team because one man is out is bound to create problems. We need to play to our strengths. Everybody knows their job and where the other players will be. The solution was Kaboul at RB and Walker more advanced. We made Chelsea look better than they are, although their resilliance and never say die attitude was a credit to them. We could have created a lot more problems for them with the right formation.
PS - "The problem for me is that the squad isn't used to playing like this" Precisely, a number pf players we have do not interchange well, they have a couple of tricks and thats it. Again evreyone pushing for Hoilett, my answer would have been a cheeky bid for the likes of Antonio Valencia, he wasn't getting a game till recently, and United have injuries so thats out the window, but this is the kind of player needed.
