The Conte Era - Chelsea 17/18

He definitely pulled out of his hat the tailor made formation for everyone to flourish. It's concealing our defensive inconsistencies while also providing more creative outlets and passing options when building from the back.
Conte the genius

I'm really happy to see what conte is doing so far

The one question is, how long will we be suited to the 3-4-3?

Incredible. Exquisite. Impeccable.

16 scored 0 against. 5 wins

What a run.

Conte is magic

The way he has transformed Moses and how he uses Marcos Alonso is fantastic.

You have Pedro, Costa, Hazard all attacking by themselves alone but Alonso and Moses are always there to support without hampering the defence. It's basically 7 defending and 5 attacking while keeping the balance right.

Chelsea vs Spurs and City in the next few weeks will tell us more about how well the system works.

It's certainly working.

it's not going to always work, but let's hope we can keep it up until Christmas, because I'd feel confident of a league title by then.

Sticking of course to my position from last weekend regarding waiting till May to make any definitive judgements on him, but after a series of varyingly underwhelming duds, it looks based on evidence so far like the board has at last made a very shrewd appointment. Pretty sure in a thread made by you not long after Mourinho's timely dismissal asking out of about half a dozen of the names being thrown around, whom everyone preferred in order, nobody's first choice was Conte. The people at the top certainly deserve credit for identifying the simpatico between what he offered and what we needed. And it's all the more praiseworthy given that he wasn't the kind of flavour-of-the-month big name we usually jump at without wisdom or consideration. In many ways it was something of an arguably risky appointment. His name as a manager was made through domestic success with the far-and-away best side in its league and who struggled annually in Europe, and whose international stint, though solid, was too short to even have the chance to potentially really sparkle (like World Cup-winner and Euro-finalist Scolari's, for instance). Yet the compatinilty so far has been almost seamless and we're going from strength to strength at the moment.

It's certainly the case that Spurs and City will be real tests, and I look forward to them for that reason, but even aside from these two, it's simply unrealistic to expect this kind of soaring, flawless form to continue throughout the season. And that's when we'll really learn a lot about this side, and about Conte.

Another win, albeit a narrow one.

If we can remain undefeated against Spurs and City, I will be very happy.

Few stats for everyone;

Courtois's 7th clean sheet today, thats the most in Europes top 5 leagues.

Costa has now scored or assisted 13 goals in 12 games.

today was our sixth straight win which is the first time in seven years we've done that

And our sixth straight clean sheet which is the first time in nine years we've kept that many in a row.

Finally, 10 times PL clubs have won 6 in a row without conceding, 5 of those times were Chelsea.

Must say, I used to make fun of Pedro last season but he looks like his Barca self this season.

Yea, Pedro is starting to become really important. When most of our players shat the bed in the first half he put the game on his shoulder and scored this beauty out of nowhere. This goal reminded me of his wrongly disallowed goal in the 10/11 Copa del Rey final vs Madrid (inb4 Refdrid)
It's also due to Moses FFS. Conte's greatest invention. His presence on the right really allows Pedro more freedom in his movement and consequently a bigger impact on the game.
To truly be in his Barca self he needs to score more sitters in addition to those wondergoals tho.

The best way to beat this Spurs team is to match their intensity. Only then Spurs' lack of talent in their squad is revealed and they suffer. Leverkusen made them look average when they did that. Arsenal, sadly didn't.

In the first half Chelsea didn't do that either but towards the end you started to up the tempo and after that Spurs couldn't really handle it. And when Conte shuts up shop, it's very difficult for any team to break.

Yea I agree. We didn't match their intensity in the first half, but at the same time I believe Pochettino got his tactics right and got the upper hand on Conte.
The pressing was spot on, always high and always cohesive, up until they could hold on to it obviously, Alli/Eriksen/Son/Koodoo always found spaces in between the CMs and CBs and in between the wingbacks and the CBs. They didn't create that many goalscoring chances but because they weren't very sharp today, their final ball and pass prior to the final ball was lacking or otherwise they could have scored more and most likely seal the deal.
I think that has to do with the fact that despite us conceding 1 goals in 7 games we're still far from perfect defensively, however absurd and pretentious that may sound. I believe that when we press high with Kante/Matic we should also have the audacity to press higher with our CBs or at least 1/2 of them. Or when the opponents are launching a counterattack and our wingbacks are out of position, Cahill/Azpi should be more aggressive and try to nip their attack in the bud.
Right now they're a bit too timorous/used to being a CB in a 4 man defence and leave huge gaps in the middle of the pitch whenever the Matic/Kante line of pressing is avoided. Or when the enemy possession is on the wing, Cahill and Azpi  back off and Luiz has to press himself leaving a gap in the middle of the defence. If you compare this to another Conte's invention, BBC, that never happens. They always press very high with Bonucci covering most of the times, when the ball is on the left Chiellini presses it and Bonucci and Barzagli both move closer to the left, and viceversa for Barzagli. Or when it's Bonucci that goes further up to press, both Barzagli and Chiellini tend to get closer to each other.
I mean, Cahill/Luiz/Azpi are obviously still doing very well and will definitely improve as they keep playing in this system. Perhaps I'm just being needlessly insatiable .

Pedro is definitely turning it around. Him, Moses, Kante and Azpilicueta have really made that right hand side strong.

Phenomenal result, amazing spirit, fantastic individual quality. Not the greatest collective team performance it goes without saying, especially in the first half, but our clutch players stepped up when needed (in the way no one could or did for us last season) and it proved very much the difference against a strong side undone by individual fecklessness on the day. The "BUT BUT BUT, IF IF IF, WOULDA COULDA SHOULDA" brigade is out in full force (especially on Bluemoon, as you'd expect), but we maintain our increasingly-habitual lethal, clinical finishing and took our chances, and deserved our win as a result. And if we're going to play that game in the first place, IF Hazard had scored his own open net in the first half, we'd had been 1-0 up with something to protect and force them farther out and leave even more exposed – so it's moot.

This is a very decisive statement from our boys, in conjunction with the 7(!) straight wins leading up to it, and to be top of the pile a third of the way into the season having already played every one of last season's Top 8 as well as Everton really sets us up nicely heading into the festive period.

I just found out thanks to your post the existance of the bluemoon forum Been scrolling it and feeding my schadenfreude

I'm still ecstatic as of now, will post a more thought, kenjataimu post later.

It's the blue-tinged iteration of RAWK. Media campaigns, FA conspiracies, referee bias, "everyone's out to get us", and much, much more on unending offer.

It was without a doubt THE best game of the season.

Amazing game, soured only by Aguero trying to obliterate Luiz's kneecap.

The turning point was De Bruyne's miss, at which point we woke up and began to play very clinical football.

Aguero out for 4 matches, Fernandinho out for 3 and City are 4 points behind. Things couldn't go worse for them, and as long as Matic's, Luiz's and Costa's injuries are not bad, things could not go better for us.

KTBFFH

Shed wrote:It's the blue-tinged iteration of RAWK. Media campaigns, FA conspiracies, referee bias, "everyone's out to get us", and much, much more on unending offer.

Oh, I see Well tbf referees in England are pretty scandalous. I'll never forget the ref sending off Gibbs instead of Chamberlain in our 6-0 game a couple of years ago

Like you said, one of the reason we won was due to our team spirit and resilience. Molding the team after his tenacity and passion and instilling those to the team is IMO as huge of an accomplishment of Conte's era so farhuge as the 8 wins in a row and first place.
We've witnessed him getting called out for "celebrating excessively" or clashing with Costa for criticism during a game, but that's exactly Conte. He's an overly passionate manager who lives the game as if he was playing and as if it was a matter of life or death. Like seriously at Juve he had a 49 games unbeaten streak and when he finally lost he was in a visible PTSD Vietnam flashbacks mindstate and stated that losing is like death to him   By the same token he'll cherish a win like Andy Dufresne when he escaped prison.
And he has a control freak approach to being a manager, so he'll insult your whole last 5 centuries genealogical tree if you don't abide to his instructions.

As for the game itself, we looked a lot less dominant and a lot more vulnerable than the flattering 8 wins in a row and 2 goals conceded in the process stats may suggest, but that was expected. We suffered Tottenham, but City was a complete different beast.
The way they pressed, the way they were positioned when pressing so that they would always get the most out of it, the way they evaded our pressing and always found a spare man to pass to and always forced us to retreat and allow them to advance further was frankly beautiful to watch. Even as a neutral, no, opposing point of view. It is Pep "el puto amo" Guardiola after all.
But IMO we withstood the pressure well overall. We were lucky with De Bruyne's chance, yea, but I guess it evens out with Cahill's bad luck in the own goal. And our offensive players were ruthless and on fire today

I think having a guy like Cesc that even in games when we are on the backfoot and don't have the control on the match can just carelessly produce a 50 yard pin point pass and put the striker in front of the keeper is extremely valuable. He's a really unique player in our team and in the Premier League as a whole. If we want to win the PL we need to keep him at all costs in january.
And Costa, FFS. I know that this comparison is cheap and has been made countless times, but he really reminds me of Drogba. The way he justs holds the attack alone, single handedly keeps in check the two CBs (this game 3 ) creates goalscoring chances out of nowhere
He also improved a LOT when it comes to to sending others through on goal. His assists for Moses vs Spurs and for Willian were sublime.

Kick wrote:
Aguero out for 4 matches, Fernandinho out for 3 and City are 4 points behind. Things couldn't go worse for them, and as long as Matic's, Luiz's and Costa's injuries are not bad, things could not go better for us.

KTBFFH

Yea that's nice but they are far from done lol. I think it's too early to look at how many points we're distantiating our rivals. I believe we were 8 points off first place at some point? That's why I wouldn't rule out of the title race even United and Spurs.

https://twitter.com/chelseafc/status/804978486792228864

How could anyone not love this man ffs

His english is pure poetry tbh

Love this manager, my favourite manager since Mourinho first stint.

Shed wrote:It's the blue-tinged iteration of RAWK. Media campaigns, FA conspiracies, referee bias, "everyone's out to get us", and much, much more on unending offer.

Reminds me how majority our fans were when Mou was in charge. So glad Conte is here.

This season has been so fun, Excellent job by Conte utilizing the squad. Man this is going to be so much fun when Conte tweaks the squad and get his guys in.

Kick wrote:It was without a doubt THE best game of the season.

Been saying that a lot lately tbh.

Abramovich wrote:Love this manager, my favourite manager since Mourinho first stint.

That's not hard, tbh.

Him, Di Matteo, and Ancelotti are the only choices, really.