Oluwaseun 🇳🇬

Chelsea lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with little change from the Everton game, Cucurella came back into the side with Gusto returning to RB, the rest were the same, whilst Fulham lined up in a back 3 for one of the few times this season with Bassey back in the side, Robinson and Castagne as wingbacks.

The change from Fulham to a back 5 off ball and back 3 on the ball, surprised Chelsea a bit,(Fulham usually play in a back 4) as Chelsea struggled with their press early on. Anderson acted like a DM in the build-up, Diop and Bassey spread out with Castagne and Robinson high and wide, Lukic was the base of a 3 man midfield of Iwobi in the LHS and Pereira in the RHS, so Adnersen and Lukic formed a pivot in the build-up

Chelsea had to go M2M before long, Cucurela on Castagne, Sancho on Diop, Cacideo pushed up to Periera, Palmewr on Lukic, Jackson on Anderson and on the Gk when trying to press them back, Enzo on Bassey Gusto on Iwobi, Colwill on Adama and Tosin on Jiminez

The Press had lapses, Fulham also wanted to play on the Chelsea M2M marking by doing lots of rotations to confuse the markers, remember we struggled with this against Southampton too. For example notice Iwobi's positioning here from the left wing, then how he rotates with Periera into the LHS, then drops deep into the pivot, and manages to receive the ball free. so Chelsea struggled at times with it,

in this light, For Bassey's chance where he went on a solo run and almost scored, Iwobi dropped deep and Enzo losing his marker almost scored from it.

Fulham's biggest attacking threat is the bombing runs of Robinson on the Left and now that he had been freed up by being a wing-back instead of a LB, he could make those runs every time now, Neto would have tracked it before if Fulham played a back 4 but now Neto had to be aware of him all game, so much that he was playing as deep as Gusto since Gusto was on Iwobi

Fulham's plan was to use Iwobi to drag out Gusto and then play in the runs of Robinson as the 3rd man run. Neto stayed tight to him all game, wel except for the equalizer. we will get to that and what happened there

Chelsea's plan in Possession was to attack Fulham with a 3-1-6(Diamond midfield), Cucurella inverting from left back into the LHS, Enzo at the right, Caicedo at the base, Palmer at the tip, because of Fulahm's back 5.

It did work to open Fulham's 5-4-1 shape up, you could see it on occasions as we didnt sustain pressure enough to make it count, It worked when either one of our players beat his marker, drawing another marker towards them which freed Palmer in the process

When Fulham were in their 5-4-1 shape, they didnt really necessarily man mark him so he had just that little pocket of space where he was free for seconds, before being marked by the Fulham CBs who would step out to mark him if not he was free and would have to be marked by the Fulham midfielder

It didnt only free Palmer, whenever Fulham tried to press Chelsea from their mid-block shape, and didnt get it right, Chelsea could use any of the 3 men in the half spaces to progress the ball into the final third. In this case Cucurella was free and Tosin found him but look at how free Palmer and Enzo were too

Thats why Traore and Iwobi had to be careful of leaving Cucurella and Enzo free in between the lines. whilst Periera and Lukic had to be aware of Palmer

If Fulham wanted to force us back, so we didnt have enough time and space to pick out Palmer free, the Fulham CBs would jump out to Enzo or Cucurella to compress the space and force the back pass, Gusto was forced to do that a lot, that triggered the M2M Fulham press once again. Iwobi won the ball here

It also worked for Palmer's goal, let's analyze what happened. Gusto played a huge part tactically as his ball-carrying from RCB dragged Iwobi deep, attracting Bassey too. Enzo trying to run in behind attracted the attention of 2 players. Neto pinned Robinson. So when the ball came back, Gusto and Neto still remained wide, Caciedo's presence took Jiminez's attention, so Palmer was free in between the 2 CBs, received the ball with just enough time to wriggled free and produced some Eden Hazard-esque magic to score

The same thing happened again where we almost scored from too which left Palmer free, Gusto made his run forward too, took Iwobis attention, Palmer found a pocket of space and weaved his magic again

Fulham responded with a M2M press of their own when we built up which made us go long a lot of the time to try to go over the press to Jackson, but Jackson isn't strong in the air holding up play like that and he was competing with 3 CBs so we lost the ball a lot when we did that.

Sanchez also usually looked for a switch to Sancho or Neto, which was hardly on and wasn't accurate yesterday.

As part of Fulham's attacking strategy, When Fulham won the ball, they focused on transitioning quickly with fast players like Adama ball carrying to get up the pitch. it was a theme of the 2nd half especially when we failed to control the game and showed in the Fulham winner

Sometimes we gave the ball quite cheaply for those transitions

Whenever Fulham tried to attack quickly, Chelsea tried to take advantage and attack quickly as well. either by that or winning the ball high and attacking quickly which to be honest we didnt see much of as Fulham had enough bodies back most of the time, instead we lost the ball and that was the beginning of the basket ball periods of the game

Another way Chelsea tried to bypass Fulahm's press too was balls into the channel for Jackson, happened a lot also in the 2nd half, especially from Colwill and It was a regular way of us getting forward. we created some good chances from it

Robinson's runs were really causing Chelsea problems in the 2nd half, Neto seemed to be the one tracking it better, when Gusto or anyone else by circumstance had to track it, they did so with less intensity. Here Gusto didnt track it well and a chance

Like the goal too. Robinson gets away from Gusto who is now marking Iwobi after Iwobi got away from Neto, Enzo didnt track on time and we concede with Colwill not keeping the box highline accurately.

Fulham then began to push us back even more and we began to give too much space at the edge of our box for shots. the rotations were causing problems. Notice Iwobi's starting positions and how he frees himself from his marker, Gusto.

Chelsea couldnt really build up a proper 3-5 minut spell of pressure like we have been doing in the past few weeks, well it wa the same against Everton. Because we rushed play, almost every goal kick became long balls, which we didnt win without any presence upfront. we need to find build up solutions for this or get a Striker that can hold the ball up to give us another option. Our Press began to wane and it was easy to bypass us into the final third

Then there were times that we lost the ball unprovoked in moments where if we kept it we dearly momentum. it was even worse in the final 10 minutes when it became a basketball match and we paid dealry for it

The only time we felt in control of the game was the first 10-15 mins of the 2nd half. where we were more careful with the ball and recycled it well and won the ball immediately we lost it

The lack of control was apparent in the goal. Sanchez understandably wants to launch it for a chance to score but it was not hit in the right area and immediately pushes us to the back foot, players fail to recover quickly. there wasnt any intensity on the ball, the ball was far enough for us to win it but we didnt and we concede.

The whole game was a wormhole of mistakes from both the players and the manager, who failed to try to control his team and didnt bring in enough reinforcements to help the team especially when it became clear that they were getting tired. He also failed to recognize the space Fulham started to get on their right side and to stop it. Truly an off day for the Manager its important how to know how to manage these types off the ball and dig out the points when needed. Lots of work to do. unto the next

End of Thread Likes, Reposts and Comments are duly appreciated as always Thank you What do you think the issue was against Fulham and how can we fix it?