One thing I noticed in the Southampton win last night was that we were getting the most joy in terms of attacking play when Filip Jorgensen lobbed a short pass forward or hit a ground pass through to Pedro Neto, rather than passing it back and forth to Enzo Fernandez hoping that we could squeeze a pass through the press.
Of course, when you play through a high press it can have high rewards. But also, if you don’t play through it, and you are playing against good attackers and a well-drilled press, you are at real risk of conceding a big chance or a goal. I see that as scoring an own goal, if the opposition score from us having possession from our own goalkeeper. It’s just as bad.
Conceding a goal from this might not actually happen that often, but it does put us under immense pressure and at risk.
I actually felt sorry for Filip Jorgensen last night. He had just made a big mistake to lose us the game against Aston Villa at the weekend, you could see he was feeling the pressure. And playing out from the back against Southampton he was a nervous wreck. The crowd felt it, his team mates felt it, everyone felt and saw it. It was far from ideal. You can moan at fans for groaning when this happens, but can you really blame them!?
It was so frustrating to see Fernandez just keep giving the ball back to Jorgensen in really tight areas, then Jorgensen give it to Levi Colwill or Tosin Adarabioyo in even more tighter areas because they could not get out. This just encourages the squeez and the closer we get to our goal then, the more dangerous it becomes.
The biggest issue was that Saints were man-marking, so there wasn’t the available options for Jorgensen to pass to. So playing out from the back and trying to play through the press was what we had to try and do. But was it? Or is this just the only way that Maresca wants us to play? Unfortunately, it sounds like the latter.
Maresca said on Jorgensen getting jeered by fans when kicking short out from the back:
“My message to Filip was if you play a long ball, I will change you, I am very happy. It is difficult for all the keepers [when that happens] but they just need to follow the plan.”
I actually cannot believe what I am reading here. He’s forcing his goalkeeper to ALWAYS play short. Why? Why can’t you switch it up sometimes? Why does it always have to be this way? I truly do not understand it. I get you have a style of play and way of playing the game, but why so stubborn to it? I get this is the modern way of playing. But why not be able to switch things up under circumstances where the opposition are man-marking and there are no options for the keeper? This is my biggest gripe with Maresca and those who hired him, his lack of flexibility in his tactics and lack of pragmatism. I think any modern day manager to succeed at the top level now needs to be able to adjust and adapt. Football for me is moving on from pure possession play that saw Pep Guardiola succeed for so long. Teams are adapting to it and learning how to play against it. Playing out from the back is not something I am against at all and see the pros, but some of the best teams now are more hybrid with this and will look for passes further forward if they are on. Some even use the more old fashioned way of having a target man, imagine that?
I’ll go back to my first sentence, Chelsea got their most success in terms of getting up the pitch fast and doing more than just passing the ball across our 18-yard box when Jorgensen decided to pass a bit further forward, clearly against the orders of his manager who threatened to sub him off if he kept doing that! What the hell!?
I am not saying the keeper should aimlessly lump it forward. But what Chelsea had last night was actually a good focal point in Pedro Neto, who is surprisingly strong and good holding the ball up. Jorgensen could see that and used him a couple of times with some long ground passes that by-passed the high press. This was the key to get through due to Neto’s intelligent and quick movement to get away from his marker.
I also saw a couple of good lobbed passes by Jorgensen to get by the initial press, and they worked quite well mostly as well. Even the commentators last night could see that this was what Chelsea needed to do in this moment.
Why would you not want to use unpredictable plays as well as simply just passing out short? I honestly don’t understand it. Be diverse, switch it up, trump your opponents, adapt to how they are setup. It’s all common sense, no?
Why stick to a way of playing when it was clearly not working (first 25 minutes)? My god that was so bland, so slow, and so frustratingly annoying just watching Jorgensen passing it back and forth to Fernandez whilst the Saints attackers were getting closer and closer to nipping in and winning the ball back. We got dead lucky there. Against a better opposition, we would have been severely punished doing that.
I’m not some old school ‘route one’ smash it forward kind of guy. But I am very balanced in nature and in life, so I want to see us having and using other options to be able to play out when the short passing is not working. Why would you even want to play so predictable ALL the time?
But unfortunately our manager is stuck with one way and one way only. Bookmark this article, because this way of stubborn thinking is going to come back to haunt us soon. I admit when we can play through a press then it works well, but do we have the quality goalkeepers and centre backs to be able to do this right now? No, we absolutely don’t.
