6 thoughts about Town’s 3-0 defeat to Chelsea

The dust has settled on Town’s opening day 3-0 defeat to Chelsea in the Premier League and I feel better about it now I’ve had time to think on what happened. The result is a bit disappointing, the performance had good and bad points, but overall I think it wasn’t that bad a day.

Here are a few of my thoughts about the game…

The tactics weren’t wrong but they could have been executed better

Playing open and expansive football is likely to lead to a pummelling against the top teams. We experienced it last season against Tottenham, and were similarly exposed in the first half of the friendly against Lyon when we tried to press them high up the field. Lyon spurned their opportunities, but there must have been four occasions where they broke our press and their attackers flooded past our defensive line and had a clear path to goal.

So it was the right move by David Wagner to play a more restrained system against opposition that are at a completely different ability level to Town. We allowed them possession if they wanted it, but sat deep and didn’t give them space in the final third to open us up. The goals didn’t come because the system wasn’t working, they came because of players not sticking to the system.

The problems mostly came from individual errors. However, one area we can improve on in playing three centre backs is getting the wing backs forward more, particularly Hadergjonaj on the right. He was given a torrid afternoon by Willian, so didn’t make his usual driving runs forward down the flank.

We can’t blame the result on the ref

I don’t think he was wrong about either penalty incident. There was minimal contact between Schindler and Alonso, but he did catch his foot without touching the ball. It’s hard not to be biased with these fine margin decisions, but I’d have been outraged if Town weren’t awarded an penalty if the roles were reversed.

Similarly, Pritchard being bundled over in the box would have seemed like a soft decision if it were given. It was weird that the ref gave a free kick the other way to be quite honest, but I don’t think we can point to this as the reason we lost.

Chelsea started poorly, but showed their ability in the second half

It was clear that Chelsea weren’t familiar with the tactics Sarri has introduced and their performance was relatively poor in the first half, when you consider the talent assembled for Chelsea on the pitch. Town contained them well, but Chelsea clearly struggled to get going.

The team talk at halftime must have had an effect though, as Chelsea looked like a far better team for the first twenty minutes of the half. They managed to get the ball forward quicker and found players in space in our final third, where they’d not been able to in the first half. Town didn’t play particularly well during this passage, but this was mostly because Chelsea weren’t allowing us to.

Luck plays a huge part in games against top teams

There was an element of bad luck about Town’s defeat yesterday. Here’s a quick run down of the things that didn’t quite run for us:

• Kante’s shot was a poor connection for the first goal, but this made it spin up off the ground and it was hard for Hamer to stop it
• Mounié’s header hit the woodwork shortly after, but it was incredibly close to going in
• Schindler’s tackle for the penalty incident was very close to connecting with the ball, which would have meant the subsequent contact with Alonso’s foot wouldn’t have mattered
• Pritchard getting bundled over in the box could have resulted in a penalty on another day

I’m not saying that we deserved anything from this game, but these key moments went against us, which meant we were always going to struggle. Momentum is very important in football, and just as it felt to be swinging towards Town we conceded, or at least that’s how it felt to me.

Mounié and Depoitre together should work but it doesn’t

This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to play Mounié and Depoitre up front as a strike partnership, but despite them being good friends off the field, there’s no chemistry when they play together. It may be that they’re too similar or that neither is used to having a strike partner, but it just didn’t seem to come off for them.

If we are going to play with two strikers then it would probably be better to play a combination of players that complement each other better. Mounié and Depoitre are too similar in style to work together, but Diakhaby or Mbenza could be good strike partners in those occasions we want to play two strikers. Their pace would be valuable for latching on to flick ons and knock downs from either Mounié or Depoitre, who are both strong in the air.

The state of the pitch made us look bad

My final point is a bit of a whinge, but it was embarrassing to see the state of the pitch at the “Little Mix end”, where it seemed like the grass still hadn’t properly bedded in and there was an obvious deterioration in the quality of the pitch.

I don’t think the pitch made any difference to the outcome of the game, but I am curious about what would happen if Eden Hazard had skidded over on the patchy turf and broken his ankle. Could Chelsea sue the stadium management company for not providing a suitable playing surface for their multi-millionaire playing staff to play on?

I have no idea about the legalities, but it seems like someone made a huge mistake when they put up the stage for the Little Mix concert. Hopefully it’ll be looking as good as new by the time Cardiff come to Town in a couple of weeks.