Chelsea playing the midfield diamond in the first half, played right into Man U's hands. That was a tactical mistake by Jose considering how Man U will use the wings. Neville and Heinze looked bored through most of the first half due to having nobody to challenge. Any Chelsea player breaking through the middle suddenly had a center back AND a full back on top of them because the Man U full backs had no Chelsea wingers to worry about. It was obvious after 15 minutes that the diamond was the wrong choice and Jose should have changed the set up a lot sooner than he did. It had nothing to do with the quality of the players. The formation and Jose, quite simply were wrong.
Ashley Cole had to concentrate on defence with Ronaldo zipping down the line at every opportunity, so that was our left side nullified altogether. The diamond is a good formation on the right day, but against Man U with their style of play, it was the wrong decision by Jose. I guess he thought that most of Man U's play would come through the middle so he wanted us to be strong in midfield. That left lots of empty spaces all over the pitch which Man U cleverly used.
It wasn't Robben and Cole who changed the game for us in the second half. It was the fact that we changed the formation, (and not before time). That gave us width, and also gave Neville and Heinze more work to do than they would have liked. This left more one on ones for the Chelsea players to deal with, rather than being surrounded by spare Man U players as in the first half. We pinned Man U back as we went for the equaliser, with them now relying on a counter attack to threaten our goal, which they did a few times too.
I enjoyed the game. It actually turned out to be a better game than I expected beforehand. Man U dominated the first half without doubt thanks to that awful diamond thingee, and the second half was dominated by us because we no longer played with that awful diamond thingee.
It does not suit Lampard, Ballack, Sheva, Drogba or Essien to play that formation, they end up looking under used and peripherral. In a 442 they know where they are and more importantly, they know where their team mates are.
I'll take the one point, but with the right formation from the kick off, we would have won this game.
Ashley Cole had to concentrate on defence with Ronaldo zipping down the line at every opportunity, so that was our left side nullified altogether. The diamond is a good formation on the right day, but against Man U with their style of play, it was the wrong decision by Jose. I guess he thought that most of Man U's play would come through the middle so he wanted us to be strong in midfield. That left lots of empty spaces all over the pitch which Man U cleverly used.
It wasn't Robben and Cole who changed the game for us in the second half. It was the fact that we changed the formation, (and not before time). That gave us width, and also gave Neville and Heinze more work to do than they would have liked. This left more one on ones for the Chelsea players to deal with, rather than being surrounded by spare Man U players as in the first half. We pinned Man U back as we went for the equaliser, with them now relying on a counter attack to threaten our goal, which they did a few times too.
I enjoyed the game. It actually turned out to be a better game than I expected beforehand. Man U dominated the first half without doubt thanks to that awful diamond thingee, and the second half was dominated by us because we no longer played with that awful diamond thingee.
It does not suit Lampard, Ballack, Sheva, Drogba or Essien to play that formation, they end up looking under used and peripherral. In a 442 they know where they are and more importantly, they know where their team mates are.
I'll take the one point, but with the right formation from the kick off, we would have won this game.
