Poor Neil Dejyothin. We bully him into writing a weekly tactics column for LFW, it’s well received in its first week and then for week two QPR serve up a 6-1 annihilation at Stamford Bridge. So where did it all go wrong?

Ah, that’s not gone well

Nothing went well really. We were incredibly naive from start to finish and didn't do any of the basics I mentioned in last week’s article.

Nobody picked up Michael Essien at the base of their midfield, which is where they like to control matches and can dicate play from that area of the pitch. Bobby Zamora never got close to him once and in fact, never got close to anybody. He didn't mark John Terry or Bosingwa either, so I'm not sure what his defensive role or responsibilities actually were?

But this all led to our trio in midfield having to advance off their positions to try and engage with Essien and the other Chelsea midfielders higher up the pitch and they just played those quick mechanical give and go's, and popped the ball in and around us with embarrassing ease. I think this was a tactical mistake by Mark Hughes, it's easy to think that putting Zamora on him would nullify any attacking threat, but that's what was needed and would have allowed Cissé, Mackie or a midfielder to break from deep and beyond him.

Letting them get in behind was the main problem and it also allowed them to get on the ball in central areas of the pitch and just of the wides and made it very easy from those areas to find through balls or have players make supporting runs from deep or diagonal runs across defenders, which causes chaos. We did a real poor job of tracking men all day and that's vital against a side like Chelsea who often penetrate from deeper areas and look to arrive late on the end of things. You can't afford to allow players like Juan Mata with time and space in the pocket between defence and midfield, and we let them run riot in there.

I also spoke about the need to be careful and tidy in possession in the centre of the pitch, this would be crucial for us and we made an unforced error straight away when Shaun Derry gifted them the ball. And the rest was history as they punished us for that lack of concentration and carelessness we showed and we never recovered. Some of our defending was pretty comical again too.

Then of course, we just didn't deal with the conditions very well and seemed surprised any time the ball reacted in a way you wouldn't ordinarily expect it to. Chelsea had some problems with it as well, but they eventually adapted to it and took advantage.

The Zamora issue

Bobby Zamora did very little defensively for the team on Sunday. He barely engaged the centre halves and allowed them to work the ball into Essien at the base of the Chelsea midfield. Because Zamora then ignored Essien the Ghanaian was left with a huge space in which to work and pick his pass. To combat this Buzsaky and Barton were often drawn forward leaving further spaces behind them in the left and right channels for Kalou and Sturridge to exploit. Shaun Derry couldn’t possibly be expected to fight those fires as well as deal with Mata.

Had Zamora been detailed to drop deeper and work harder, engaging Essien and preventing him having the time and space to dictate the game from the base of the Chelsea midfield, then Rangers could have maintained a tighter, deeper, midfield three which would have stood a better chance against Lampard, Mata, Kalou and Sturridge.

Cisse and Buzsaky

Cissé didn't work on the left because we didn't play him in the way that we should have from there. He needed to come in field and join Bobby Zamora at particular moments, but he never really did. He actually got on the ball a little bit early doors and it looked like we might be able to produce something of interest, but it never worked for him and he didn't really look very comfortable out there either, or that he wanted to be there too.

Jamie Mackie started to join Zamora after a while, but by then it was too little too late as the game was already long lost by then and done without any cohesion or balance.

Once we decided that Zamora wasn't going to pick up Essien, or anybody, then really when it was obvious our midfield was being overrun we needed both Mackie and Cissé to tuck in and become more narrow, but we never did that once and remained stretched and wide open.

This in turn didn't help the likes of Akos Buzsaky, Shaun Derry or Joey Barton in the midfield, who were running around like rabbits in the headlights. Buzsaky is technically capable of competing in these sorts of games, useful for when you want to slow things down and go through the motions, but we never got anywhere near close to being able to do that because of the way we set up and played.

So, Stoke…

The Chelsea match is history now and one to forget, the manner of the defeat was desperately disappointing, but at the same time, we were always going to be thrilled to take anything away from there.

We need to be brave against Stoke and play in a certain way and that means trusting in our ability to pass and move with good tempo and pace. This requires more patience than normal and not to just hoof the ball forwards after a few passes if nothing is on, which is a bad trait of ours and something we did to horrendous consequences against Chelsea.

If we can keep the ball on the floor and reduce the amount of free-kicks and throw-ins for both sides then we have a chance to keep the ball in open play for longer periods, which is to our strength and away from theirs. We played a great game against them at The Britannia, so we need more of the same here.

The trick to dealing with them is in our full back positions and ensuring those guys win their duals with the wingers they're up against. If we can steal the ball of Jermaine Pennant and Matthew Etherington, the next step is to play the ball on the inside and sweep up the pitch in waves. The ball needs to travel square first, maybe two times before advancing forward and repeated so that each unit can move forward in unison.

Samba Diakité could be key to this as well, because he's the one player who can operate between the lines and away from a rigid structure by the way he dribbles with the ball, and we might need that if Zamora doesn't win his physical battle with Ryan Shawcross and Robert Huth. But if we can get the ball in that area and find quick snappy passes, then we've a chance of opening them up, but if we just lump it forward like we're prone to doing sometimes we'll play straight into their hands.

They will always pose a threat and ask you questions though, so we need to be mindful of our defensive shape whenever we don't have the ball and force the play in a way that it goes to players who we're more happy for them to have it. Usually long direct balls are more easier to deal with when they come straight in, rather from a diagonally deep position, so let the centre back pairing have the ball and let them pump it forward from central area, rather than full-backs, wide men, or centre backs from wide positions.

If that ball does travel in towards Peter Crouch, you've got to ensure he's not taking the ball at an angle and across a defender, as that gives him more chance to get it successfully under control. If he does however, a defensive midfielder also needs to press him very quickly from the other side of the centre back, to ensure we force him to play backwards.

They've not really got the pace in behind to hurt us if we can deal with their wide threats, whereas we've got the pace to hurt them in central and wide areas. We probably need pull backs or crosses drilled across the face for this one, because they're a big side obviously and could end up mopping up lofted crosses all day long - but similarly we need to lurk on the edge or just outside the box to be ready for any clearances they make.

It's a must win game, needless to say.

Tweet @loftforwords, @neildejyothin

Pictures – Action Images

Photo: Action Images

smegma added 09:30 - May 2 The first graphic above shows Zamora actually in the box. Was that wishful thinking as I don't recall him ever going anywhere near their box.
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Northernr added 09:33 - May 2 Merely for illustrative purposes Smegma, I don't think a game is ever that stretched out down the field TBH but needed to illustrate the space Zamora afforded Essien and the gaps that left behind Buzsaky and Barton as they ran forward to try and help.
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Myke added 11:56 - May 2 I don't agree with Neil at all. It should never have been Zamora's job to engage with Essien. What Zamora should have been doing (and failed miserably as did everybody else) was keeping the 2 centre-halves occupied (including for their 2nd goal). We should have defended much higher up the pitch with Derry on Essien, and Barton tracking Lampard's runs forward. Similarly one of our centre halfs should have pushed forward into the space between Mata and Torres and let our two full backs take care of their wide players.Meanwhile our high enegy player Mackie could track the forward runs of Cole or get forward as the situation required. That would have left our creative players (Buzaki and Cisse) to try and inflict some damage on them on the left hand side which was very do-able considering Chelsea's right-sided players on the day This opinion is based on the team and formation we selected which I didn't agree with. All academic now anyway

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Northernr added 12:10 - May 2 You think we should have pushed our midfield further forward? Further away from Mata, Kalou and Sturridge?
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Neil_SI added 12:40 - May 2 Myke - The reason I would have chosen Zamora to do that is because you want their centre-backs to have the ball, rather than Essien. Let them be the ones that have to progress their play rather than allowing them to play to their strengths and dictate the play in the way they want to. They have set moves that they orchestrate off the base of the midfield and we let them do what they wanted to do from there. Had we not, it would have made them play more predictably and in a more percentage based fashion, which in turn is easier to anticipate and deal with. They'd more likely have gone wide first, then inside, rather than inside and then being able to pick and choose options in any direction, which makes it harder for the defence to know what's going to happen next and invites opposing players to make supporting and penetrative runs. I wouldn't choose Zamora every time for this purpose, it just suited us for the way Chelsea play, but in addition to dropping him deeper, it would have gave him a better chance of being found with his back to goal, particularly at chest height, and therefore a better chance for us to hold up play and bring others in. That allows for a slow invitation of moving your defence and midfield units up the pitch together, rather than how individually we went about it, which further disjointed and disrupted our shape whenever random players wondered forward. I certainly don't think we should have defended much higher up the pitch, if anything, we were too high and too square initially and got the depth of our starting positions all wrong. We picked the position that allowed them to maximise the damage they could do with simple through balls, because it was an area where players could run across defenders or burst beyond them, and still have so much space to attack in behind. It meant every through ball that they played caused chaos and was potentially very dangerous for us to deal with, simply because they always had space to attack or run into just inside our outside the penalty box line. The depth of this type of play means the defence only have to make one slip up and the player is in, and that even if a through ball is over hit, the goalkeeper is also in the worst possible position between having to stick and stay close to his line to having to come off it and try and go for the ball. This is what happened with Torres' goal where he rounded Paddy Kenny easily, so they made life really difficult for themselves by getting a lot of the basics wrong. Had we played and forced them wide, you'd have fancied us more if they had to pump balls into the box and look for headers, but we played into their hands and lost the game in the centre of the pitch, which is something I touched upon in my previous article. Like you said though, if Zamora wasn't going to engage with Essien, then he needed to engage the centre backs and force the play to go in a particular direction, which he never did successfully. That would have been another way to deal with the situation, by making them go to one side of the pitch so that you know what direction they're going to have to play in. Doing that however usually just sucks a lone striker to one side and they'll eventually work it to Essien anyway and just quickly pop it out on the other side by using quick triangular angles to work around him (of which you then need that striker to work very hard to keep maintaining the defensive shape at the top end for you).

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BeauRanger added 13:04 - May 2 I think Myke has a point re' Zamora as if he had dropped deeper it would have effectively let them have a free back 4 to bring the ball out, which Cole & Terry are comfortable enough with. Perhaps it would have been better to try & force either Boswinga or Ferrera to try & play it out? But this would probably mean going to abandoning the 451 that had brought success recently & going 442 that MH thought may be too risky away? Obviously they were overun in midfield,picked off at will (missing Diakite's athleticism & mobility) & as mentioned this was made worse by giving the ball away cheaply through unforced errors & not executing the basics correctly in defence. All made worse by going behind so early on. A bit academic now though..

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westolian added 13:20 - May 2 That told him Neil LOl Straight out of the UEFA 'B' manual ??
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Neil_SI added 13:27 - May 2 That was the idea, let the back four take the ball out, it's more sensible letting those guys do it, rather than someone like Essien from the base of the midfield. If the pass to Essien was blocked out, it means the defence to not have the safety option of using him and going out as easily across the other side. It makes their passes more cautious, as they have to be more selective and knowing that they've got no protection behind them if they are the ones giving it away and losing the ball. It just reduces their passing angles and their passing options and puts the passes they can make into areas that you can more effectively double up on, which is something we never did throughout and left ourselves in too many one on one situations across the pitch. Also, if you looked at where Essien was picking up the ball a lot of the time, it was from very deep, almost from centre-back positions or taking it off the feet of the defenders, so at certain points Zamora easily could have engaged him and still been high up the pitch. Djibril Cissé and Jamie Mackie also didn't really defend on the inside, as in, a little narrower. They could have tucked in slightly and made their respective opponents play down the outside of them, making them go in the direction we wanted and therefore more predictable. It's about reducing their options down, so that when they're on the ball, we roughly know they can only play in certain directions, but by not doing that, and allowing them to roam from the base of the midfield, we let them play in any direction at all points in time. And with the midfield being stretched and trying to engage, leaving gaping holes and space, well, it was really easy for them to just knock it around us and continuously be able to pass and move in any direction when they were on the ball.

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themodfather added 16:07 - May 2 zamora cannot lead the line on his own...why won't he go down, when fouled, that's not cheating....?? cisse stayed on the sideline resolutely ( i was gone at 4-0...too painful, i'm no sado!) kenny was poor and only mackie seemed to have heart. short passes were the order of the day and we went long or long passes, doh!?
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dixiedean added 17:16 - May 2 if we beat Swansea, Arsenal & Spurs by letting their back 4 have the ball and stop their more creative players having space nearer to our goal, what possessed Hughes to think we'd be better off with a different system for this game ?( granted Samba & Adel were N/A ) It's not being wise after the event to say Traore was the obvious choice for left mid . Did we not get a clue from the way they played at Barca ? Then again , tactics are irrelevant if the personnel aren't good enough. With impecccable timing the club are asking for nominations for POTY. HAHA- maybe they should scrap it altogether after this debacle. Can't imagine there'll be a scramble for tickets for POTY bash this year.

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francisbowles added 17:23 - May 2 Excellent analysis and a great addition to the site, just to take up more of my 'valuable' time! I hope that I don't have to regularly read where we went so wrong. Can someone get the manager, staff and players to read it as well.
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Neil_SI added 22:12 - May 2 Interestingly Newcastle played 4-4-2, but they switched between Demba Ba and Papiss Cissé (mainly Ba) picking up Jon Obi Mikel at the base of the Chelsea midfield and completely allowing their defenders to be on the ball instead. The play was often forced wide as a result, making them more predictable, but both strikers simply dropped a little deeper, meaning the Chelsea back line had to either dribble through themselves or try to find and pick a pass. Whenever Newcastle won possession of the ball, Ba and Cisse moved correctly away from Mikel and into more attacking positions as they moved up the pitch.

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BrianMcCarthy added 22:36 - May 2 Enjoyed the article and debate again, Neil. Thanks.
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newgolddream added 23:28 - May 2 Fantastic result(s) tonight. Goal difference shouldn't be a problem if we finish level with Bolton. A win on Saturday might just be enough. Latest odds with Bet 365 are - Blackburn 1/33, Bolton 10/11, QPR 10/11, Villa 20/1, Wigan 22/1. And what a performance from Newcastle tonight. Europa League football at the Bridge next season?? Just a pity The Toon let us down at Wigan on Saturday. Still our destiny is in our own hands again with 2 games remaining and who would have envisaged before our nightmare run-in.

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newgolddream added 23:30 - May 2 Fantastic result(s) tonight. Goal difference shouldn't be a problem if we finish level with Bolton. A win on Sunday might just be enough. Latest odds with Bet 365 are - Blackburn 1/33, Bolton 10/11, QPR 10/11, Villa 20/1, Wigan 22/1. And what a performance from Newcastle tonight. Europa League football at the Bridge next season?? Just a pity The Toon let us down at Wigan on Saturday. Still our destiny is in our own hands again with 2 games remaining and who would have envisaged that before our nightmare run-in.

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qprmick added 02:40 - May 3 My bottom line is just this. I don't like Zamora, he has improved but not enough. Even SWP could have done the job better. Bolton shouldn't get another point but no doubt they will get a win and we won't so if we stay up it will be a miracle.
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ozexile added 04:08 - May 3 Excellent analysis. I agree Zamora should have been on Essien. That's the way Chelsea like to play so why not make it hard for them. I really believe Footballl managers are there own worst enemy sometimes. They over analyse everything. Which just leads to confusion for the players. And more often than not sending out at team that looks ragged.
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Myke added 12:20 - May 3 Hi Neil, Thank you for the detailed response and I do recognise the depth of thought behind your analysis. My point though is this - the higher up the pitch you engage the opposition (a) the easier it is to defend and (b) the greater the chance of forcing an error out of them in a dangerous area. And when I say 'engage' I don't mean attempt one half hearted tackle and then give up. I mean hassle, harry, track back and generally annoy the hell out of the opposition until they make an error. And when they do KEEP the ball. Backwards sidewards, as Swanseaesq as possible but KEEP the bloody ball. I know Clive hates the way Swansea play but frankly in our position weshouldn't criticise the way Stoke play never mind Swansea. Then if you lose the ball again, back to harrying and hassling until you get it back. Frustrate the opposition, they will make errors and often in dangerous areas if you are hih enough up the pitch. But you need players with commitment and heart to achieve this - 11 Mackies in terms of commitment - Barton should be snapping at the heels of Lampard last Sunday, Derry should'nt give Essien an inch and Ferdinand should be crowding Mata. Then get the ball to ball to Buzaki and Cisse and CREATE SOMETHING. Don't play with fear. I coach u-16's and we play exactly the same at home and away. Hassle the opposition out of possession and then KEEP it ourselves. Won our division 3 times in last 7 yrs and never below 4th. Sorry for rant but so frustrated with bunch of prima donnas who can't be arsed and I can get get a bunch of kids to run through brick walls - just for the fun of playing

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thomgibbs added 22:09 - May 3 I tend to find these tactical articles something of a struggle elsewhere (not naming any names <cough>Zonal Marking</cough> but yours are a joy to read Neil, and not wrapped up in the jargon which makes some others such a slog. Keep it up! Although I imagine things will become a lot less nuanced in the Championship next season....
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Neil_SI added 22:28 - May 3 No problem Myke, I enjoy your views. The press and harry approach is hard physically and mentally to do for 90 minutes, which is why you never really see it happen. Usually you might get it in bursts, but it's very difficult to sustain and can cause more opportunities for the ball to changeover possession in quick succession. That can actually be dangerous, particularly mentality, as it creates many situations where you go from defensive to attacking and somewhere inbetween where you're cautious as it becomes more frantic and can cause confusion and a loss of telepathy between your team-mates. In addition, the quick cycles and changeover of possession can cause havoc for your shape, if you think about closing down and defending being nice and tight and compact, versus spreading out and getting good space and width when you're on the ball. Congrats on the successes with your team. :)

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Neil_SI added 22:32 - May 3 francisbowles, BrianMcCarthy - Thanks, appreciated. All just my opinion of course and the way I see things. :) qprmick - I'm still trying to work Zamora out. I get frustrated sometimes because I think players of his experience should know better, but who knows. It's hard to know what his role was or what the actual game plan was and for all we know, he did everything asked of him. ozexile - Thanks and I don't disagree, it's very easy to over analyse, so always hard to find the right balance. Quite often a lot of coaches overlook the most obvious and basic stuff staring them in the face though, so it's not an uncommon problem. thomgibbs - Cheers Thom. :) Bit more kick and rush down there. ;)

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Myke added 00:30 - May 4 Hi Neil, Enjoy discussing different viewpoints too. I agree my method sounds more frantic than your measured approach, but actually 80% of my 'game plan' (hate that expression) is about ball retention. Keep the ball at all costs - so (ideally anyway) there is not too 'many quick cycles of changeover of possesion' . I agree that constant harrying and pressing can only be done in short bursts, but if you keep the ball for long periods then that's all that's needed. The bottom line is however, that we failed abysmally to match Chelsea in any sector last Sunday so really any discussion on tactics is moot. Unless a team actually has the desire or commitment ( ability is actually less important) to give it their all for 90 minutes then the outcome is inevitable. And so to Stoke... Regards Mike

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TacticalR added 16:32 - May 4 'We were incredibly naive from start to finish and didn't do any of the basics I mentioned in last week’s article'. So was the problem that they didn't read your article, or that they did read it but didn't follow your instructions? :) Both you and Clive focused on Bobby Zamora's shortcomings, but I do wonder if he just did what he was asked to do? One weakness of the 'one up front' system is that if you cut off the supply to 'the one' then there is little attacking threat. I have seen this happen to Portugal with Ronaldo up front. Opposition midfields have stifled him by cutting off the supply, and consequently Ronaldo couldn't get into the game (so looked lazy). The reason I am sceptical about laying so much blame on Zamora is that I felt he put in quite a shift against Arsenal and Tottenham. Chelsea seemed to pass through our midfield so easily, and we were short of ideas in midfield. I don't know if that's related to over-dependence on Taarabt. We needed every player to be on top of there game, and a lot of them weren't. We also lacked a plan B. I agree with your point that we were too high up the pitch (especially compared to the matches against Arsenal and Tottenham). Our back four was all over the place. Anton Ferdinand seemed zoned out. I notice in your diagram you show the two full backs ahead of the centre-midfield (I am not sure if that was intentional). Onuoha was nowhere to be seen for the fifth goal which came from Chelsea's left, and Taiwo was nowhere to be seen for the sixth goal which came from Chelsea's right. To put things in context 1) I think there are some similarities to Norwich's 1-6 defeat at Carrow Road. Manchester City's quick passing through the midfield and accurate shooting saw goal after goal fly in, and we know Paul Lambert is not tactically naive as he learnt his trade under Ottmar Hitzfeld at Borussia Dortmund. 2) The two QPR players that caused Chelsea's players to be sent off at Loftus Road were missing (Taraabt and Faurlin).

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Neil_SI added 17:26 - May 4 For me, it's not really about blame, it's just looking at what worked and what didn't work, and what contributed to causing our system and approach to collapse in this particular match. And you can only really judge that on a game by game basis, irrespective of what somoene has done poorly or well before. There are several ways to go about tackling a side like Chelsea, but what I would look for is what makes them so effective and strong. What's the focal point that makes their system so consistent and mechanical? Where are they most comfortable? For me, it's the base of the midfield and the way they recycle the ball and generate attacks from there, so the idea is to try and reduce the impact of that part of the chain to see if you can cause it to collapse. It's just the way I see it and I don't think they went for that type of game plan, which is fair enough, but I thought Newcastle did this excellently against them the other night. I didn't do the diagrams by the way - but I think Clive was trying to emphasise certain aspects of my piece with how he laid them out. We just didn't compete properly in any of the situations you would expect a footballer to do so, in any area of the pitch, which was what was so weird and disappointing about this game and isn't the first time it's happened this season. As for some players, sometimes there's a difference between being a smart footballer and an knowing how to be an effective one, and I think Zamora falls into the latter camp and is why he flirts between playing well and poorly. You'll get matches where he knows how to play to his strengths and facilitated by others being able to service him with the ball in the right way and the right areas and increasing his effectiveness, but you'll also get those games where he's starved of the ball and needs to show genuine class, mobility and intelligence to maintain or increase his impact and that's sometimes where he falls down a little bit. There's no problem with being that kind of player, but it's the coaches job to make him understand what his strengths and weaknesses are and how to play to them even more effectively. There was a dozen times or more that I kept pointing out to Clive during the game about what Zamora was and wasn't doing. He never reacted to situations that were clearly urgent and required his attention around him, which was strange, but even if he wasn't supposed to, he was never really on his toes either or on the half turn looking to receive the ball off a sudden break. So he couldn't really offer us anything in defence or attack either way. It's hard to play up top alone of course, so you always have to understand that it can go this way for your striker, but a smart one still knows how to make himself that little bit more effective. If you think about how Djibril Cissé played against Liverpool, he was utterly superb and alive whenever the ball came up to him. He found time and space, was always dangerous on the half turn and always ready to ask the Liverpool defence questions, yet he was starved of the ball for long periods during that game but made his quality apply whenever he was involved. During the course of a 90 minute match a player tends to get around 3 minutes of time in total on the ball, not a lot when you think about it that way, so you've got to make sure it's a great 3 minutes.

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