Scolari: What to Expect this Year

Scolari has come to Chelsea to restructure and reform. Chelsea fans don’t mind it at all.

What can we expect of his new “structure”?”

It is quite safe to say he has moulded his approximate formation.

Defence:
Playing Portsmouth, Scolari used a 4-3-3, with the expected back line. A flat back 4 consisting of Bosingwa, Carvhalo, Terry and A Cole, using Bosingwa and A Cole as wingers with attacking mentality. Carvhalo and Terry’s job was to stop direct attacks, from the centre. I could only remember 1 or 2 balls getting passed the solid defence. Our defence didn’t have much to do as Portsmouth harldy had any attacking breaks.

Bosingwa and A Cole also had chances to push forward. Mikel, Deco and Lampard created triangles in the centre of the field. This narrow midfield gave Bosingwa and A Cole acres of space to run into this provided the wide options for the attack. They placed crosses to J Cole and Anelka.

Bosingwa, Carvhalo, Terry and Cole had excellent games but they might have to give up positions with Belleti, Bridge, Alex and Ferreira.

Midfielders:

In the midfield we had a flat 3 of supporting players to the front three consisting Ballack, Mikel and Lampard. Ballack and Lampard were Central Attacking Midfielders who had three main options of:
1)    Short passes with one twos to get passed the defence
2)    Through balls to the front line of attack
3)    Dribbling passed them if allowed the space

Mikel played the traditional central midfielder providing shape and structure to the centre of the field, also providing options to everyone.

The midfielders played with excellent fluidity and accuracy in passing. You wouldn’t expect this Chelsea squad to be able to play as a team, as they were all one man teams. With Anelka up front and an array of talent in the midfield and beside Anelka, who would take the ball up?
But Chelsea gelled perfectly. Everyone on the ball had about 2 or 3 passes on. There was great movement within the squad; this was obvious with Joe Cole’s goal from the right side of the area.
J Cole, Anelka, Ballack and Deco were shaped as a diamond, with one Pompey midfielder between them and the flat back defence in front of them. Deco had control of the ball at the back of the diamond. He found Anelka sitting just deeper than J Cole; he received and passed to Ballack on the right of Deco. J Cole made a run to the right in between the two far Pompey defenders and received Ballacks through ball. J Cole dribbled into the 6 yard box and shot left to the keeper. Goal!

The midfielders had brilliant plays like this throughout the course of the game. Most of the chances came from the third man running.

You can expect Scolari to keep on playing Deco, as he definitely show favouritism to the Portuguese protege, J Cole, Lampard and Ballack but Anelka will probably have to make way for star striker Drogba. Mikel will also probably have to share his spot with Malouda, Belleti and Essien.

Striker:

Anelka played quite deep as his supporting striker J Cole sat quite high. Anelka was constantly creating space behind J Cole. You could say Anelka is a bit tactically retarded, playing wherever he feels fits him and leaving Joe Cole to find space for himself.

Goalkeeper:

Cech made some brilliant saves. His clean sheet says it all. You can expect him to play for the rest of the season. He is rated top 3 keeper in the world with Buffon first.

The Wigan game saw a few Changes to Scolari’s tactics:

The flat 4-3-3 changed slightly into a triangle 4-1-4-1 (still could be known as 4-3-3), with Essien taking Mikel’s position. Essien played well this game so you should look forward to seeing more of him during the course of this season. The only thing Essien was lacking was an attacking mentality, he played a more defensive midfield role. Sometimes he was the last man.

Deco’s free kick goal secures his place as Chelsea’s direct free-kick taker. With Bosingwa and A Cole pushing up it seemed like a 3-5-2.  With A Cole and Bosingwa constantly running up and down the field you don’t know how long they’ll last. It is a bit demanding for the wingbacks but this certainly does help out with the attack. Scolari probably will keep Bosingwa and A Cole as flying wing backs as it is quite effective.

‘Effectively they’ve got the focal point in Anelka and they do flood the midfield with people,’ analysed Steve Bruce. ‘They do get their width from the full-backs.’

In this match Deco was willing to drop deeper. Cech again played an amazing game with his second clean sheet this season; he is the definite first choice keeper this season.

Deco is definitely Scolari’s favourite player. Scolari stated ‘Deco is intelligent, when he sees the goalkeeper make a mistake of one metre, he changes and shoots in the other side. It is why he is one of the best in the world.’

If Ballack, Lampard, J Cole and Anelka play well with Deco they will almost certainly play for the rest of the season.

Against Tottenham Scolari played a flatter 4-1-4-1 with Beletti on for the injured Ballack
Other than we he scored off a corner Beletti had quite an average game. Ballack is probably going to play again as soon as he comes back from injuries.

Again the same back 4 was used, they defended well, A Cole and Bosingwa still came up for the attack and both even got some nice shooting opportunities.

Other than Ballack the midfield stayed the same. Each of them had wonderful shooting chances, but the closest came from Essien’s flyer from outside the box, which hit the crossbar and came out.
Lampard played a good game apart from the fact that his tackle lead to Bent’s goal. Anelka’s shooting is getting poorer and poorer, he should’ve converted a goal this game.

Cech again played a brilliant game and the only goal scored against was impossible to save.

The reason for the one goal scored against is not all to be blamed on Lampard, you need to note the fact that our defence was very loose and the scorer Bent only had to pass one defender before being give five metres in front of him and only the keeper to beat.

If say Chelsea used second defender not only would the defence have a sense of direction but a second resort after the first was beaten.

Skip to mid-season and you’ll see Chelsea’s established style of play. Scoalri Quotes he wishes to play a Samba style and make it as Brazillian as possible. If the players train properly than by mid-season we’ll be playing like Brazil in the 70’s.

He said (from Sky News): “The idea is to put on the field, to play our game, in a way that is as similar as Brazilian football as we can. But I have players who are made for English football, their characteristics are different.

“We will try to learn about dribbling, controlling the ball, passing the ball, touching the ball and one-twos.

“But I need to respect the identity of the players and the quality of the players. We have some players who play similar to those in Brazil. But others don’t.

“Abramovich wants Chelsea to play very well and win. The fans are the same, it’s not just Mr Abramovich.”

By mid-season Scolari would have established a preferred formation. If you closely analyse the first three games you’ll see that this formation would most likely be, as follows:
———————–Cech———————————

—-Bosingwa–Carvhalo—————-Terry———-A Cole—–

———————–Essien——————————–maybe Mikel or Belleti)

—Deco——Ballack——————Lampard—–J Cole——

———————–Anelka——————————- (Drogba when he returns)

If Ballack doesn’t play then Essien replaces him and Belleti or Mikel play Essiens spot. A Cole and Bosingwa will most likely continue playing up and down the wings. The midfielders will stay play very narrowly.
The passes will be short.Instead of playing single strike, when Drogba comes back he could put both Anelka and Drogba up front and remove a midfielder, if he chooses to do so one more quality midfielder misses out on game play probably forcing him to leave Chelsea

Chelsea can expect to finish top 2 or even win the title if they play well and consistently.

Written By Aaron Chen