What's the matter with Chelsea's defense?

7 games, 14 goals conceded.

Tied second worst defense of the league so far.

I don't watch them so someone please explain? How come?

This is a decent analysis from Gary Neville on Chelsea from 14:45

Simple: Ivanovic has dropped off a cliff and Matic is half the player he was last season. Oh and Terry was the best CB for Chelsea last season.... if anything, Cahill should be on the bench.

And Courtois is injured

why not try Baba at LB and have Azpi play RB again ?

It's Curse mind u its curse

farfan wrote:why not try Baba at LB and have Azpi play RB again ?

José did that against Tel Aviv but we know his 'experience' fetish and his inability to trust young players so he reverted to the same old again.

sportsczy wrote:Simple: Ivanovic has dropped off a cliff

Nah he's always been like this, it's just he got away with it because he was contributing at the other end and the midfield constantly covered his positional errors.

Cesc being Cesc and Matic not performing to the required standard as meant his obvious issues being more clear.

Mourinho

^^ his third year curse is the only problem.

They are also losing a lot of balls in midfield.It's getting pretty easy for teams to press and get past through that midfield.

It's the Champions' Curse. We see this every now and again. You win the league and lose a bit of motivation. Happened to United, too, when Fergie left.

I mean, what it is that motivates these Chelsea players? They've all made it already. Almost none of them are playing to get a fatter contract. They won the league last season. It's just human nature that when you reach the top, you lose just a little bit of the motivation that took you there.

And I don't mean they're slacking off in training or have become exactly lazy. But it's fine margins at this level. If you suddenly give a yard more of space to an opponent player when you should be closing him down or tracking his run (Matic), if you become a bit overconfident in your ability and don't put that extra 5% in at the training ground to maintain your absolute peak form (Hazard, Ivanovic), suddenly the results stop going your way.

There might also be something true about Mourinho's "third season curse". I don't know, just speculating here, but he seems obsessed with winning and success. That kind of motivation works usually great in short-term, but not in the long-term. Think of a manager or team leader at a workplace who's whipping his subordinates with a "come on, guys, let's be the best! Let's work real hard to show there's none better than us!" attitude. Usually works initially, but long-term motivation is based on softer values, like togetherness, self-improvement, working for each other etc. Mourinho seems like a "hard" motivator, not a "soft" one.

So, yeah, on paper Chelsea's defence has been the problem, but if they were playing better in midfield and attack, too, their defence wouldn't come under as much pressure. I think their problem is that they've simply come back from the summer break that 5-10% less motivated. Exactly what happened with United when Fergie whipped them to the title in his last season. No way those same players were as motivated to work as hard for Moyes. Up to Jose now to show he can keep his team motivated after a title-winning season and turn this around.

farfan wrote:why not try Baba at LB and have Azpi play RB again ?

Baba is below quality from what I have seen.

Ivanovic being the worst fullback in the League right now.
Courtois' injury.
Terry going from the best defender in the League to benchwarmer.

in short Cesc and Ivanovic, complete liabilities.

I have been saying that Ivanovic is overrated for years but this worst fullback in the league stuff is way OTT

Cesc is like a traffic cone, I think stats wise he's the most beaten player in the league in terms of people running past him and that really doesn't surprise me

He seriously isn't made for a CM role, well defo not in a midfield 2.

Abramovich wrote:Cesc is like a traffic cone, I think stats wise he's the most beaten player in the league in terms of people running past him and that really doesn't surprise me

He seriously isn't made for a CM role, well defo not in a midfield 2.

he isn't a good AM either

Matic is awful as well.

Start RLC you scrubs

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has questioned the "unstable attitude" of some of his players during the club's poor start to the season.

"Clearly it's an attitude perspective of some individuals," he said.

"And when you have individuals with that unstable attitude in terms of motivation, desire and commitment you will pay."

"There are champions who win something - and there are lots of them - but there are the other champions who during their career win one, two, three, four, five, 10 or 20 titles.

"We have 25 champions from last year - but serial champions in this squad, how many do we have?

"I can be five or 10 years without winning a title, but I will still be a serial champion in my approach and my attitude. This is the problem we have at this moment."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/34386986

That's exactly the sort of approach by Mourinho that doesn't motivate your players in the long-term. He thinks it should be taken for granted that players have top motivation all the time. And if they don't, he blames them rather than tries to find new ways to motivate them.

He says he can be 10 years without a title, and yet regularly takes digs at Wenger for the same. Hah.

Art Morte wrote:

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has questioned the "unstable attitude" of some of his players during the club's poor start to the season.

"Clearly it's an attitude perspective of some individuals," he said.

"And when you have individuals with that unstable attitude in terms of motivation, desire and commitment you will pay."

"There are champions who win something - and there are lots of them - but there are the other champions who during their career win one, two, three, four, five, 10 or 20 titles.

"We have 25 champions from last year - but serial champions in this squad, how many do we have?

"I can be five or 10 years without winning a title, but I will still be a serial champion in my approach and my attitude. This is the problem we have at this moment."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/34386986

That's exactly the sort of approach by Mourinho that doesn't motivate your players in the long-term. He thinks it should be taken for granted that players have top motivation all the time. And if they don't, he blames them rather than tries to find new ways to motivate them.

Gil wrote:Ivanovic being the worst fullback in the League right now.
Courtois' injury.
Terry going from the best defender in the League to benchwarmer.

the guardian has more complete quotes of the one cited from BBC by Art, and it's funny what's in between those lines:

Mourinho wrote:There are two sorts of champions. There are those who win something, and there are lots of them. But there are the other champions who, during their career, win one, two, three, four, five, 10 or 20 titles. In this club we have 25 champions from last year, but serial champions in this squad? John Terry, Jon Mikel [Obi] and [Branislav] Ivanovic are serial champions. Almost every season they have something in the pocket. But how many other serial champions do we have?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/28/jose-mourinho-questions-chelsea-porto-champions-league

Ivanovic, Terry and Mikel lol. Doesn't sound like Mourinho has identified them as a problem like most of you have.
Or is he paying them lip service before he drops them?

The issue is their midfield. If its fixed defense will automatically look much better even with the same players.
Fabregas needs to be benched for the kid rlc.

Shameless Hans wrote:Ivanovic, Terry and Mikel lol. Doesn't sound like Mourinho has identified them as a problem like most of you have.
Or is he paying them lip service before he drops them?

He probably mentions those players because they show the attitude and motivation in training. The problem with them being his star pupils is that two are declining due to age and one has never been that important.

If you want to motivate the people working for you, you have to find a way to become close to them one way or another. Mourinho seems incapable of that. Maybe Terry, Ivanovic and Mikel show the attitude Mourinho wants to see, but he needs to figure out how to motivate the actually important players.