Hello all, hope you’re doing well.
Argh, don’t you just love watching football? After suffering through 2 weeks of pointless international football, I was so excited to watch Chelsea play again. Knowing how bad Southampton’s defense is, I had a great feeling that Timo Werner would get off the mark against them. And I was hoping for a great team performance in order to get some momentum going.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of the most frustrating games I’ve watched in the Frank Lampard era so far. I cannot stand how slow this team moves the ball. Maybe the players are still figuring each other out, but there is no sense of urgency to kill the game off, and it seems like they have no sense at all. Granted, in the early stages of the game, the boys looked great going forward, and there was plenty of positive movement. But sure enough, they took their foot off the gas and started playing like they didn’t have a single football brain amongst the 11 players on the field.
To give Southampton some credit, they started pressing the fullbacks higher up the field, and as a result they were causing a lot of problems for us. Southampton actually controlled the tempo for large portions of the game, once they gained some confidence after realizing how easy it is to score against us. But it was so infuriating to watch. Because even children know how to beat the press. JUST GO OVER IT!! Get the ball up the field! Kick it into open space.
We had Werner and Christian Pulisic leading the line, playing against some of the slowest defenders in the league. Just kick it forward and let the speedsters run onto it. Eventually it would have worked, and Southampton would have had to stop pressing so much. That’s just common sense. But, what did Chelsea do? They played it sideways, passed it back to the defense, then back and forth amongst the defenders. Continuously wasting time with no real intention of building an actual attack. Perhaps they were trying to calm things down.
But read the game! The tide was turning, Southampton were bossing it. So counterattack them! Our defense is our weakness, we shouldn’t be letting them spend more time on the ball, especially in a 1 goal game. The more time our defense spends with the ball, the more likely it is they will make a mistake. And sure enough, the mistakes came again, and we dropped points.
For the life of me, I cannot understand how this team can look at the high line that Southampton were playing and just continue to move the ball sideways and backwards. Especially when the one time Jorginho went over the top we scored a goal! It was a good pass, but Timo turned it into a great pass. Just keep doing that! We have superstars up front, eventually they will make something happen. Get the ball up the field away from the players that keep costing us games.
I know Frank wants to use the width of the field to build attacks, but Southampton wasn’t letting our fullbacks get up the field as the game went on. So, then you have to bypass the press. It’s the most basic stuff, that is why it is so frustrating.
The players and the manager need to give their head a shake. That was an embarrassing performance, both tactically and technically. The lack of communication on this team is shocking. We need leaders, and we need to grow some balls. This team is soft, and they lose confidence so easily. These mistakes will continue to happen unless everyone gets their head out of their asses.
But what do I know? It’s easy for me to say while I’m sitting on my couch and yelling at the TV. I’m sure they will figure it out eventually. Alright, rant over for today…
Thanks again for giving us fans this community space to vent some frustration. We have a big week coming up, so on to the next one! COYB!
Nate
