A conversation around Poch & some general thoughts on the recruitment and tactical approach
My views with some input from Si....
Good Afternoon Ladies and Gents,
Happy New Year to you all and I hope you have all had a lovely festive period.
I have been away from my daily articles since a few days before Christmas and having a much needed chill time with family, but I am back now and buzzing to get back to releasing daily articles for you all.
Since my last contribution we have had the disappointing Xmas Eve defeat to Wolves which Raheem Sterling is 95% accountable for in my view, although I am far from his harshest critic. We then have had two really good wins and performances against Crystal Palace and Luton (apart from the last 20 v Luton).
It is safe to say that helped me enjoy the festive period a lot easier.
After the Crystal Palace game Si and I exchanged some messages as I wanted to get his opinion on a few things that I thought the club and the hierarchy, as well as what Poch could do against Luton with his attack, at the time I didn’t know that Mudryk was injured and in hindsight giving Nkunku a rest was a good idea (why I rate Poch’s man-management highly).
I wanted Poch to play a front 4 of Mudryk (LW), Palmer (CAM), Noni (RW), Nkunku (ST), with Nkunku and Palmer rotating between who drops deep and who stays a little higher. I still believe that currently this is our best attack until we solve our long term ST problem. Si agreed with me and I think the majority of the fanbase called for the same thing.
We then went on to discuss Poch, I asked Si if he had any question marks over Poch and at the same time detailed what mine were;
I said; The Colwill LB experiment is frustrating but Maatsen proved tonight (v Palace) that he is uncomfortable at the level, for me, and maybe he wants to be a winger/attacker, otherwise why would he not say to Poch I only want to play LB? The only other Poch issue I have is the slow build up and lack of forward planning with our passing, it should be like snooker, every player should be thinking 2/3/4 passes/moves ahead!
Si then said; Agree with all you said here. Poch has incredible man management but I think the rest can be questioned at the very least. Playing players out of position is a massive problem, and a lack of attacking patterns is another. He’s blatantly improves players like Mudryk, that’s obvious and evident. But his stubbornness, reliance on players who he seems to trust too much, and playing specialist players in wrong positions could actually end up being his downfall.
Neither of us have said ground breaking this here and very much what the entirety of the sane part of our fanbase are thinking/saying. But, my point is that Poch is doing a good job in my opinion apart from a few little issues that can/will change. He is being forced to play Levi at LB currently but even when he had fit LB’s he chose to play him there, lets see if that changes when the likes of Chilwell return.
My only other issues at the moment are the reoccurrence of individual errors, they seem to happen multiple times per game, Poch clearly asks them to play out from the back and they must work on it daily, BUT how a professional footballer can not decide to kick the ball up the field or out of play when they are under serious pressure is beyond me, it needs to be 95% training but 5% in game management/using your brain. I genuinely believe that slight tweak will improve our for massively.
Whenever we lose games or don’t play well it always stems from individual errors.
My last current issue is a club/recruitment one and this is me being a little bit picky, we have been pretty good in terms of recruitment in my view, I understand we don’t have a world-class no.9 and that in some peoples view we may have signed a few too many U21s/development players, BUT I can get past that. My issue is I believe that Axel Disasi as good as he can be and has been on occasions was the wrong player for a Poch system, and I am unconvinced on the ceiling of Nicolas Jackson, and this isn’t me giving him a hard time like pundits have been recently. I actually thought he was very good v Palace and Luton, BUT long term I do not see him hitting the levels needed to be a long term no.9 at Chelsea.
I would still argue that Broja has the higher long-term ceiling.
These are my views and opinions (with some input from Si) and I just wanted to share these with you all. Please give me yours in the comments!
Thanks for reading
Luke Rushbrook
Luke
1st of all Happy New Year and thanks for all the hard work in 2023.
I do happen to agree with your front 4 entirely however Darren has raised an interesting point about their defensive commitment so I will pay attention to that during January.
So I’m going to move to the point of Broja who if you go back over his career averages a very poor 1 goal in 5 appearances or less, in my opinion he has already exceeded his ceiling and playing for the first team 33 appearances in 4 years and just 2 goals source transfer market.
For Southampton on loan 34 appearances 8 goals a true purple patch. Vitesse on loan 31 appearances 10 goals.
I made this point more than once over the last year he is Championship Quality as a Striker but clearly not Chelsea Quality.
Jackson meanwhile 20 match’s in all comps & 10 goals in all competitions or a 1 in 2 stat just imagine if he could sort out his shooting et cetera and officially he position is described as a midfielder from the information I’ve seen.
For the Jackson knockers I say this I’m not listening he can only get better he is 21 & for the Broja supporters I say this you will grow old waiting for him to score.
David makes a very good point about Disasi btw sell and promote Gilchrist and think twice about a loan deal the lad looks ready.
Hi Luke,
Happy New Year.
The problem with your front 4, is that 3 of them don't defend properly or track back.
Noni, Mudryk and Palmer all have a massive flaw in their game, when it come to doing the dirty work.
For example, Palmer being at fault for both Luton goals on Saturday..
Noni ambling over to Saka, before Saka crossed for Trossard to equalise. These are to name but a few.
That's why the likes of Salah, Mane, Bernardo, etc etc. Are the next level of players above them, because of their defensive work.
If they did play together, it would leave us open, time and time again to counter attacks all the time.
You'd like to think that Poch would add this to their game.
However considering we concede goal after goal from corners and crosses , and yet still Poch does nothing about this.
I'm not sure Poch is capable of addressing this.
Great to see Chilwell finally back with the first team squad, but let's not forget, that Poch played him at LW before got injured.
I like many others want to see him play LB, when returns and not Colwill who has been awful playing LB this season, and its not his fault.
Agreed on the signings , but for me, Broja will never ever be good enough for Chelsea.
14 months down the line and he still hasn't played 90 minutes nor does he look fit.
We can't wait for him to come good or get fit, he needs to be shipped out and play without pressure.
He is not the answer.
As for Poch, I'm seriously underwhelmed for all the reasons you have stated..
He's got to get it right this month or he goes.
As it stands on Jan 2nd, with no striker being signed.
I'd take 10th and winning the League Cup this season