Football can be SO simple. Forget tactics, forget quality, forget managers. Football games can be won on aesthetics alone. It’s literally been proven time and time again.
Obviously I am not saying that you don’t need quality and good tactics. Of course you need that. You need a top manager who can implement tactics and switch things up when needed. But ultimately, even if you have all of that, if you aren’t running as fast or working as hard as your opponents and lack the strong mentality and belief, then more than often you will lose – especially if your opponents have quality and good tactics too.
To stand out, to have that edge against a quality side, you need confidence, physicality, good attitudes, belief, passion, work rate, and speed.
None of that can be coached. All of that comes from within. However, whilst it cannot be coached, it can be instilled. And this is why having a real leader with aura as the manager is SO important. You need a manager with a personality that demands respect. A manager where players look at them almost starstruck and say, ‘wow, this guy knows football, this guy knows what he’s doing, I’m going to stick by his side and do whatever he tells me.’
Now, I like Trevoh Chalobah even if I don’t think he’s much more than a decent squad player. But unfortunately his reaction last night said it all about our problems. It’s not that we are being outrun every single game this season, it’s that they think they are not being outrun and they are trying hard. It’s completely deluded and shows such a weak mentality. This is not Chelsea. And this is even coming from an academy graduate who should know better.
Trevoh Chalobah on the Brighton defeat:
“I think the boys were running their socks off. If you look in the dressing room, everyone is tired. It’s nothing to do with effort. We gave it our all. We got beat today. We ran today. The stats are stats. The boys are tired.”
Running their socks off? Really? The stats are the stats? Yes, they ARE mate…
And the stats say that Brighton ran 101.2km last night, and Chelsea ran 94km.
Chelsea have been outrun by every single Premier League team in every single Premier League game this season. That is a 34-game run.
I’m sorry, but we all watched that game, and if that was ‘your all’ then you should ALL stop playing football for good.
The basics of football is what wins games, especially when matched up against teams with similar quality and good managers. If you run faster and more than your opponents, then you will get to the loose balls quicker, you will win your duels, second balls, and be quicker to everything and have a higher work rate. Add a strong winning mentality and leadership to that and it works side by side.
And then the other side of this that fits in as well, is very simple. This Chelsea squad lacks physicality and height. They were bullied by Brighton last night. They let their players get in their heads and they lost out to every battle they tried to go into collectively. Some of this is on the players, mentality and belief wise. But a lot of this is on those who built the squad. They didn’t take into account the physicality of this league and the need for aerial dominance. That’s another massive failure on our squad builders part.
You don’t need any data to show you that we lack all of the above. You don’t need robotic sideways and slow tactics to show that we lack all of the above. These are football basics that are needed at EVERY level of the game even down to grass roots. If you’re not up for it and your opponent wants it more, 9 times out of 10 they will beat you.
So Blueco, I suggest before you do anything else, you address the need for basics in this squad. New manager with leadership, add more leaders and mentality monsters on the pitch, get players who are more physical with good aggression rather than petulance, get players who will actually give it all they’ve got, get more taller players. And that will be a good start.
