Chelsea lost on Sunday. What hurts is less the fact that it was defeat to Liverpool, but that the defeat makes clear how much work is necessary.
As several commentators have pointed out, this was Chelsea`s second consecutive home defeat, something that Chelsea haven`t suffered in all the Abramovich years. It might hurt, but the club and the supporters need to recognise where we are: once again, Chelsea will be lucky to be targeting Champions League football next year.
We can start by diagnosing where the problems are, and then assessing what we can do about it. As yesterday`s game displayed, the problems are pretty much in every area on the pitch. Starting with the backline, it is a severe indictment of Chelsea`s defence that the 0-1 against Blackburn, the lowest team in the table, was hailed for Chelsea keeping a clean sheet. By my calculations we have kept some 2 clean sheets in the League so far, and conceded 17 goals in 12 games.
Yesterday, David Luiz (a player that we love to like) was given a mandate to go forward, which was suicidal given that Liverpool were playing on the counter-attack, and all the more so in that JT is not the guarantee that he once was. As many people have been pointing out, John Terry might have looked better than he was because he had Ricardo Carvalho to complement him. John Terry was complicit in our hammering from Arsenal and he looked like a liability on his own (i.e. with Luiz up the pitch) against Liverpool. We need to stabilise the defence and that might mean reigning in some of the attacking instincts; ultimately the most damning condemnation of our backline is that Glen Johnson, of all people, took on the entire defence, on his own, and won. And that has to mean, perhaps, benching JT of all people: as one other website points out, this season Terry`s tackle-success rate has dropped to a seven-year low of 68%, compared with a high of 93% in 2007-08.
In midfield, it would be too easy to suggest that the problem is Jon Obi Mikel, and some of our difficulties stem from a very poor team selection. In which universe is the liability that is Mikel selected in front of (say) Raul Meireles? It is tempting to simply point to Mikel`s errors and to suggest that we need a better defensive midfielder, but apparently the solution was simply to dispense with the role, bringing Mikel off and throwing on Sturridge. That was the moment of courage and optimism, and potentially what could have won the game for us. If only.
Up front, it is baffling that Didier Drogba was selected rather than Daniel Sturridge. Back in the day, Drogba was unplayable. The problem is we don`t have any more of those days, and his first touch (never great) has got a lot worse. If the gameplan was play the big man up front, you need to be sure that the opposition defence isn`t going to smother you, as they did yesterday. In support, it would be tempting to hammer Malouda, but at least he was trying to get into the box.
Chelsea were let down yesterday by any number of factors, of which players simply not being up to it is one. Another is the quantity of errors that our players are committing. Liverpool`s tactic was to harass our players all the time, and they certainly had the personnel (Bellamy, Suarez, Kujt, Skrtel) to do just that. You can`t make errors of the type that we did when the opposition are in your face all the time, as it happened we were giving the ball away cheaply. In hindsight, we might have considered ourselves lucky to have only gone down by two.
The tactics are also not working. Despite the introduction of, say, Juan Mata and the use of marauding wingbacks, even the sterling work through the middle of Ramires, our movement up the pitch is still slow and we depend on hoofing it up to the centre man. It is neither effective nor pretty and, against a disciplined defence not that difficult to defend. It also leaves us open to the counter as we were defending far too high.
Too many of our players seem to have lost their edge and we have to ask whether we can continue to indulge them at Chelsea FC. Without naming names, these are players who are on the wrong side of 30 or who have had ample chance to make their mark.
But perhaps the most serious question is to ask what is André Villas-Boas` mandate with this Chelsea? Obviously he should be winning games, but we had thought that the manager was to be given a long-term perspective. That should mean preparing the next generation of players, even at the expense of a period of transition. By way of example, Oriol Remeu looks twice the player Mikel is and moves the ball so much better and quicker. He is exactly the kind of youngster that Chelsea need to be cultivating. Daniel Sturridge has showed why he should be the first choice striker compared to others for whom experience simply doesn`t justify their inclusion. Sturridge`s numbers speak for themselves, he is the only in-form striker out of five. The new manager therefore should have the courage to bench not only Fernando Torres (as he did) but some of the other strikers, whether Drogba or Anelka.
It was by benching Frank Lampard that the player, written off, was stung into one of the performances of the season a month ago. There are others in this Chelsea team who need to feel the chill wind of the bench to whip them into shape. John Terry could well be one of those. Above all, AVB should demonstrate that he is genuinely picking players on form and not on name, and be prepared to bench some of those that risk becoming dinosaurs. Again, if there is an idea that we need to make a transition to a brighter, younger future, then we might as well play those youngsters rather than having mould on the bench. After all, we appear to be losing anyway.
In addition, AVB needs to be aware that his tactics are stale and predictable, and it takes little to unpick them. We are reminded of the butt-end of the Scolari years when Chelsea were overcome by everyone after Rafa Benítez worked out how to beat us, and at the time we were severely handicapped by not having a plan B. By definition, when you lose a game the gameplan is wrong, so even if the manager is wedded to a philosophy, he is going to have to change it, adapt it, and shake things up, possibly several times within a game.
It is too early and frankly counter-productive to start questioning the manager, and Chelsea are never going to go anywhere if the coach is replaced every season. It is André Villas-Boas who has to realise that this is simply not good enough and to take the necessary measures to right our season.
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