Match report: Chelsea 2 Hull 1 - a worryingly familiar showing

After this fixture last year, which culminated in a nil nil draw, Luiz Felipe Scolari was sacked. Ancelotti’s Chelsea went slightly better to narrowly scrape a 2-1 win against Hull deep into injury time yesterday, but there were worryingly familiar signs before Drogba tucked the somewhat fortunate decisive goal away.

It was a certainly a rusty performance from Chelsea – midweek internationals could have contributed to that – and despite having the lion’s share of possession there was a lack of invention, sharpness in front of goal and accurate passing.

A turgid first half, in which Hull opened the scoring with a very fortuitous strike from Hunt (you’ll remember him as the man who caved in Petr Cech’s skull back in 2006), set the tone for the 90 minutes. The 4-4-2 diamond once again restricted Chelsea to playing entirely in a narrow channel up the centre of the pitch, trying to carve out opportunities through neat passing triangles in very limited space. There was the occasional good move, but this was a tactic that quite literally gave very little room to manouever.

As a result the job for a well organised and disciplined Hull was far too easy (they carved out some reasonable chances for themselves) and Chelsea’s passing moves regularly petered out through lax play or strong organisation from the northern visitors. Chelsea were in desperate need of someone to stretch the play wide – preferably at pace - but Malouda was clearly asked to play inside, it isn’t Essien or Ballack’s style and the full backs only made headway down their wings intermittently. Chelsea were just as slow and  predictable as they had been during some of the worse parts of last season, and if Hull managed to restrict them so easily better sides will inflict greater damage.

Watching a highlights package would convey a different impression of the game however, and it is true that there were a number of opportunities in each half that Drogba, Anelka and Essien should have put away that would have given the game a very different look. There were other positives too, notably Drogba’s beautifully-struck free kick for the first Chelsea goal and his general attitude throughout, the latter suggesting the Ivorian might have turned over a new leaf. Essien too was in good form in both halves, first on the right of the diamond and then replacing Mikel at its base.

But none of this should cover the worrying reality of yesterday’s game – that the formation, tactics and substitutions did nothing to create or shape a team that can be effective in the Premier League and only served to make Chelsea look extremely one dimensional. There was no plan B. I keep telling myself that we should give the diamond more time to prove its worth but I can’t avoid coming to the conclusion that such a narrowly-executed formation simply can’t work in the Premier League. Can it anywhere? 

More concerning for me was Ancelotti himself. Maybe his 4-4-2 will come good, and maybe he just needs more time to learn about his players and the league and create a system that works. But he made three substitutions yesterday – all of them at a time when the match was ebbing away – and not one of them sought to change anything more than personnel, smacking of Scolari’s most uninspired decisions. Bringing on Kalou for Anelka as a like-for-like change, for example, didn’t fundamentally change the way Chelsea played – it was basically a hopeful gamble that somehow one player would be more fortunate than another in the same position.

It is perhaps telling that Lampard, who had barely figured in the game, cut a disconsolate figure as he trudged off the pitch at full time. Ancelotti needs to start learning quickly. We need a formation that works and suits the players we have available (what the hell was wrong with 4-3-3?) and we need to be able to play in more than one way to mix things up when things aren’t going to plan. It is of course far too early to pass real judgement, but there was nothing from the bench yesterday to suggest any of this will be forthcoming in the near future.

bridgeviews.co.uk man of the match: only one option really. Essien was impressive, but Drogba looked inspired. Scored two goals and could have had more and played the game with a flawless commitment. Nearing his best at which he is unplayable – more of the same please, Didier.

Must do better: Ancelotti clearly wasn’t happy with John Obi Mikel’s performance, and asked Essien to take over in the holding role in the second half. It was a choppy display from the Nigerian, but Ancelotti shouldn’t be happy with his own performance, either.

Comments

[Tony]

"Can it anywhere?"

Yeah, I think it worked pretty well in Milan when they won the Serie A and the Champions League.

Depending on the source we "Created" between 27 to 33 attempts on goal yesterday, many it seemed to me right in front of goal. Convert a few more of those and you and everybody else is hailing Ancelotti and his diamond as the new "Special Ones".

Everybody it seemed was missing sitters. They're not always going to go wide, or over. Creating chances wasn't the problem against Hull, execution in the box was.

There are some wrinkles to be ironed out (Who would have thunk that after one game?), but questioning Ancelotti and his diamond after one frustrating game is just......well, assinine.

[Russell Saunders]

Hi Tony - thanks very much for your post.

Not sure it did work excellently at Milan? There's an argument to say that one serie A isn't quite good enough...

You make a good point about the number of chances though - had those chances been taken the whole thing would have been looked on very differently by most.

I try to avoid hyperbole (either positive or negative) in all my articles, and did stress that it's too early to pass definite negative judgement on ancelotti. From that perspective you're right to jump on my negativity around Ancelotti. I would say though that I've been critical of the 4-4-2 throughout pre-season on this blog, and was mostly just disappointed with his substitutions yesterday.

Plus of course - we got the win! Let's see what happens. 37 games to go...

You say there are wrinkles to be ironed out - would you keep the same team for the Sunderland game?

[Willi]

I tend to agree with Russell on the diamond formation. I believe that the formation requires the members of the diamond to possess both skill and creativity (pace will be an added bonus). On the basis of this, it can clearly be seen that Chelsea just doesn't have the personnel for a diamond midfield formation. There is little movement off the ball from our midfielders. This makes our play slow and predictable. This system will be countered very easily by premier league teams which typically like to crowd the center when playing stronger sides. As a Chelsea fan who has supported the club for 13 years, i am desperate to see us have a "signature", a typically attractive Chelsea way of play but i must admit that will only come afer a number of the present squad members have been replaced over a season or two.

[Dan]

I understand the frustration...waiting until the 92nd minute is never fun for a winner. However, you could see as soon as Deco came on he moved to a 3 5 2 (old school I agree) with Essien acting as Sweeper between JT and Riccy with Cole and Bos as Wingbacks with 3 pretty decent attacking midfielders.

I don't fully agree then that it was just a like for like personnel change