There has been a lot of talk following the game against Manchester United on Sunday, unfortunately a lot of the talk has been about whether Benitez should get the credit for the changes he made, personally i think the team selection was wrong from the outset but Benitez is not the topic of this blog post.
What we saw from the team on Sunday was a group of players really go for it, the pressure was put on Man Utd and this is something we have rarely done, the first half against Arsenal was another example of when we did this. All too often we are content to let the opposition have possession of the ball and allow them tons of space to come at us and we hope we can clear it from our defence, then we have a slow build up and try and break through a brick wall.
This time we put pressure on the United players, we harried them when they were on the ball and then we broke quickly to catch them out and we did on several occasions. This is the basis on what we need to work on for the rest of the season. We have hugely talented attacking players and we need to utilize them, we cannot expect them to beat 8 men every time, we need to give them opportunities to break at defenses with speed.
The managers biggest fault has been his refusal to play our only real defensive midfielder Mikel. Mikel needs to be playing every game for the rest of the season. When the substitutions were made on Sunday and the Chelsea fans were singing "you don't know what you're doing" i was surprised because the subs made sense. Personally i think it is because a lot of fans are a little precious when it comes to Frank Lampard, fact is that Frank does not always cut it in the formation that we play and this game was one of those. With Mikel alongside him Ramires is able to be at his devastating best. Mikel and Ramires is our best pairing and should be played together in the biggest games, Lampard and Ramires should be a combination played together, it just does not work and never has.
Ramires' runs from deep are what he is all about, even when played out wide his best work has been done on the break and running from deep, playing high up the pitch and trying to make things happen is not his best suit. Ramires is a bundle of energy, him breaking from deep with Mikel sitting causes problems for opposition defenses and he is able to make much more telling contributions. When played alongside Lampard he is the one expected to be more defensive minded and that is not his strong suit either, he can play well defensively, but positionally it is not comfortable for him.
Playing a high tempo pressing game suits the players we have and releases the pressure we put onto ourselves. We can play all 3 of Oscar, Mata and Hazard together and it will work very well, but the tempo of our play needs to be high for them to be as effective as they can be.
Can Benitez use what he saw on Sunday and take us comfortably to the end of the season without giving all supporters heart attacks? Or will his constant chopping and changing and random substitutions still continue?
For me we showed ourselves the way to play, hopefully the players can realize this and galvanize themselves for a decent end to a disaster of a season. We have a very good team of players and we should be looking to finish the season comfortably in 4th place not hoping and praying for 4th place on the last day of the season.
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