Official: Enzo MARESCA announced as new Chelsea Head Coach

[martin1905]

On 10/10/2024 at 14:42, Bison said:

Does feel that way. Games never really feel secure. 

11th best defence in the league last season.

Joint 5th best this year.

Huge improvement, especially after such a short time, we are only 7 games in. We keep improving at this rate and who knows just how good we can become. 

Exciting times.

[boratsbrother]

44 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

11th best defence in the league last season.

Joint 5th best this year.

Huge improvement, especially after such a short time, we are only 7 games in. We keep improving at this rate and who knows just how good we can become. 

Exciting times.

But where exactly is this "huge improvement" I keep reading about?

You say we're 5th best this year, but at the end of last season we were 4th and very close to 3td place Liverpool.

Not one of the issues in the team have been improved upon. Teams still run through our midfield like a hot knife through butter. We still look like conceeding goals galore every game. Our games are still like watching games of basketball.  Not that I'm complaining about that, because we are bloody good fun to watch.

What I see is Maresca continuing on from Potch in 2024.  I feared he was going to rip it all up and start again with tedious possession play, but I'm enjoying watching us, so i'm  very happy to have been proven very wrong so far.  

[martin1905]

On 11/10/2024 at 21:37, boratsbrother said:

But where exactly is this "huge improvement" I keep reading about?

You say we're 5th best this year, but at the end of last season we were 4th and very close to 3td place Liverpool.

Pretty obvious really, we had the 11th best defence last season now we have the 5th.

And before anyone goes on at me about how we were tthe3rd or 4th best team from January, It's irrelevant because in that same time we lost 4-1 at Liverpool,  5-0 at Arsenal and 4-2 at home to Wolves. All three of those were absolutely shocking. So was the 4-3 win against United. The 2-2 draws with Brentford, Burnley and Sheffield Unites also came in this 'run', which were some of the worst performances I have ever seen.

We also lost City in the FA cup Semi, Middlesbrough and Liverpool in the League Cup final.

So, this incredible run people always want to bring up includes 6 loses and 3 draws which were completely and utterly embarrassing and the United win which we scraped but we're atrocious, so 10 games when we were an embarrassment. 

And that's before I even look at games like Leicester and Leeds, Forest away, Brighton away off the top of my head. We may have won those games but we were rubbish.

If people can't see the difference between this year and last, don't want to remember how truly awful we were for the vast majority of the season, including lots of games during our apparent 'good run' then there really is no help for them.

Hanging on to a statistic rather than seeing what actually happened is a pretty desperate way to try and make a point.

[paulw66]

On 11/10/2024 at 21:37, boratsbrother said:

 

You say we're 5th best this year, but at the end of last season we were 4th and very close to 3td place Liverpool.

 

Martin said we have gone from 11th best defence to 5th best. That is correct. 

We averaged 1.66 goals against last season. We currently sit at 1.14. A circa 45% improvement, but still early days, granted

The equivalent games last season, we conceded 13 goals. 8 This season. 

In other areas, we are the PL 2nd top scorers behind City (+1).

We are averaging 2.28 goals per game, versus 2.02 last.

Equivalent games last season we scored 12, and we have 16 this season (despite a -4 swing against City)

 

We will know a lot more after the next 4 league games; games in which last season we picked up 4 points, whilst scoring 7 goals and conceding 10. 

[martin1905]

1 hour ago, paulw66 said:

Martin said we have gone from 11th best defence to 5th best. That is correct. 

We averaged 1.66 goals against last season. We currently sit at 1.14. A circa 45% improvement, but still early days, granted

The equivalent games last season, we conceded 13 goals. 8 This season. 

In other areas, we are the PL 2nd top scorers behind City (+1).

We are averaging 2.28 goals per game, versus 2.02 last.

Equivalent games last season we scored 12, and we have 16 this season (despite a -4 swing against City)

 

We will know a lot more after the next 4 league games; games in which last season we picked up 4 points, whilst scoring 7 goals and conceding 10. 

There's also the good old eye test.

Those that want to just throw statistics and numbers out there can carry on doing so. It's ridiculously easy to use stats to back up or debunk an argument but what can't be argued is  we look so much better as a whole. We look like a  team that  knows what they are doing. That is coached and drilled on the training ground. Everyone knows their job and each other's. The biggest compliment you can give any manager is that it doesn't matter who plays the system stays the same, the changes seamless. We ha e already seen this multiple times when the B team plays.

Last year was un-coached chaos football which relied heavily on individual performaces, much like all of Pochettino's teams. This year it is all about the collective and 7 league games in, 11 in total, the difference is night and day. 

I got a lot of criticism for calling  Pochettino early and then for not predicting any sort of points total or where we would finish this season. Quite simply  it is all about performances and less about results, of course they go hand in hand so if you play well you will pick up results. I had said for a very long time that this squad needed a manager that was focused on coaching a system, a style of play. As long as we perform well and show signs of improvement I'd be happy and the early signs are incredibly exciting.

The teams around us are going to have a very difficult time stopping us from winning the league in the next 3+ years. Whilst our rivals are going to have to constantly spend huge amounts of money to keep up we will continue to improve organically.  With a couple or three improvements in key areas we will be the team to catch. Of that I have no doubt.