The post Graham Potter’s blues in CRISIS? appeared first on The Xtra Time.
]]>After a change in ownership at Chelsea Football Club, Graham Potter was hired to create a sustainable winning machine at Chelsea Football Club. Life at Chelsea Football Club started excellently for Graham going many games unbeaten which included beating Serie A champions, Ac Milan. Slowly, performance levels started to drop and Chelsea had gone 3 premier league games without any wins, the first time since 2012. This is an all-time low for Chelsea Football Club. Todd Boehly gave assurances to Graham that he had all the trust and would be given time to create his winning machine. Does Graham have what it takes to overcome this dilemma and bring Chelsea Football Club back to the top?
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]]>The post Arsenal are NOT built to keep up with City and they need a miracle January to challenge appeared first on The Xtra Time.
]]>The gunners have jumped out to an absolute dream start this season tallying 27 out of a possible 30 points. At the time of writing, Arsenal have a four point advantage over Manchester City and north London rivals Tottenham. However, Arsenal are ill-prepared to keep this momentum going into and coming out of the world cup.
With star players like Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Thomas Partey, and Granit Xhaka guaranteed to be on the plane to Qatar, the Gunners can not afford any injuries if they aspire to challenge for the Premier League this season. Arsenal’s transfer strategy will truly be put to the test this January window as players will be at a premium due to selling club’s needs and the inflation of player values coming out of the world cup.
Taking a look at the needs of the squads the entire starting XI is in form and the chemistry of the squad is top tier. However, there are quite a few areas on the pitch where the depth is not where it needs to be to contend with a squad the size of Manchester City. In defense Arsenal are solid with two players that could both start at right back, three that have started at left back and four players that could do that job at center back.
The midfield and attack is where things become shaky. An injury to Odegaard could prove to be catastrophic. However, Fabio Vieira has shown promise and Emile Smith Rowe will be returning from injury after the world cup. If Xhaka or Partey go down the choices to play in those positions are either Mohamed Elneny who is currently injured or Sambi Lokonga who has been shaky at times.
In attack, an injury to Saka or Martinelli would require Emile Smith Rowe to play out wide which is not his preferred position or move Jesus from striker to the wing meaning Nketiah would start at Stiker. Something similar would happen if Jesus was out where Nketiah or Martinelli would be seen as the number nine.
Mikel Arteta has shown promise as a manager by being adaptable to the squad he has at his disposal in previous seasons.This season Arsenal have started every game in a 4-2-3-1 and have been able to force their style of play on their opponents through this formation. For the sake of discussion we are going to assume Arteta will continue to play this formation when looking at
potential players. The three positions we are going to take a look at for the winter window will be a winger with potential to play on both sides, a midfielder behind Xhaka and a midfielder behind Partey.
As mentioned earlier Arsenal are looking for a player that can offer cover on both the left and right. Current backup Reiss Nelson does not offer the quality and Marquinhos lacks the experience but is an exciting prospect. In the summer Arsenal was chasing two key signatures, Pedro Neto and Mykhaylo Mudryk. Wolverhampton are in turmoil with a new manager to be hired soon and are unlikely to sell Neto unless he attempts to force a move to the Emirates in January. Even then, the price Arsenal will be forced to pay will not be reasonable for a backup winger in January.
The second option, Mykhaylo Mudryk, is looking to be the likely choice for Arsenal. Everton had a bid of 30 million rejected by the Ukrainian giants. The rising star has already increased his stock this season with two goals and two assists in the champions league this season. He also has one goal and five assists in just five appearances in Ukraine’s top flight. If Mudryk were to join Arsenal this January it would be for a price in the range of 40-50 million euros.
When taking a look at Arsenal’s midfield options there are two players that need to come in the door and one out. The out for Arsenal needs to be Sambi Lokonga given an opportunity on loan in another top league in Europe.
Throughout the summer Lokonga was linked to a move to the San Siro that would have seen him spend a season on loan. The move was even approved by Mikel Arteta during the summer window. The deal eventually fell through as Arsenal needed him to stay in case there were injury problems in midfield. It is likely with one or two midfield arrivals in January Lokonga will be going the other way to gain valuable game time.
Douglas Luiz has taken himself off the list of potential transfer targets for the Gunners after signing a brand new deal with Aston Villa. There are however still three targets that Arsenal could push for this January window. They are Tielemans of Leicester City, Locatelli of Juventus, and Danilo of Palmeiras.
Tielemans would be the midfield option to share minutes with an in-form Granit Xhaka. Leicester had previously rejected potential moves for the midfielder who had expressed a desire to leave in the summer. In ten appearances this season Tielemans has registered just a goal and assist. With only six months left on his contract, Tielemans will likely cost the Gunners around 10 million euros to secure him in January instead of the following summer on a free.
The other two options who would be sharing minutes with Thomas Partey are Manuel Locatelli and Danilo. Locatelli seems to be on the chopping block for Juventus manager Max Allegri as he looks to revolutionize their squad. Arsenal had previously made an attempt to sign the Italian international in 2021 before he signed with the old lady. Danilo is an up and coming Brazilian talent that is looking to make an impact for a big club in Europe. Danilo has made 52 appearances for Palmeiras in all competitions tallying seven goals and four assists in the process. The Brazilian is yet to make a cap for his country but will be anticipating a move to one of Europe’s top five leagues for a price of roughly 35 million euros to establish himself in the Brazil setup.
Of the options that have been discussed there are three clear choices for the Gunners. For the winger it has to be Mudryk. At this moment Neto is yet to offer a goal contribution for Wolves this season and Mudryk is the obvious man in form. In the midfield, Youri Tielemans and Danilo both should be pursued once again, this time completing a deal for both. With the addition of Mudryk, Tielemans, and Danilo, for a combined fee of 95 million euros, Arsenal will have not only the depth but also the quality to challenge serial title winners Manchester City.
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]]>The post Short summary of CWC win appeared first on The Xtra Time.
]]>What better way is there to spend your February than escaping the cold English weather to follow Chelsea in the Club World Cup in sunny Abu Dhabi? A very misunderstood tournament by many in Europe, yet revered on every other corner of the globe, it was interesting to see just how significant this cup was to the teams competing in it. A question mark still stood over how seriously Chelsea would take this, but if the strength of the travelling squad and sharp words from Thomas Tuchel in the media were anything to go by, they were there to win it from the start… because winning trophies? It’s a Chelsea thing.
The first test came in the semi-final against the 2021 AFC Champions League winners Al Hilal. A team with a very strong following in attendance, they were never going to make it easy. However, they were not the only team with a passionate following in Abu Dhabi. It was great to meet several fans from both the Dubai Blues group & the Kerala Blues who were in full voice before, throughout and after the game. A somewhat uneventful first half was livened up just as the clock passed 31 minutes as Romelu Lukaku was in the right place to slot home what came to be the match-winning goal. The next 60 minutes were nail-biting as Chelsea held on to reach the final of the Club World Cup for just the second time in the club’s history.
Being in Abu Dhabi for this tournament, and around fans from clubs from all over the world, I really came to understand that no country respects this tournament more than the Brazilians. Second, behind only the World Cup itself, this trophy would mean a lot to Palmeiras and their fans who were also looking to win it for the very first time in their history. The noise inside the stadium was electrifying throughout, with the Brazilians vastly outnumbering the travelling Chelsea fans who still could be heard loud and clear (we even had Belle Silva, Thiago Silva’s wife, a few rows behind us in the stands starting the “Ohhh Thiago Silva” chants during the game). A rumoured 15,000 Palmeiras fans made the 18+ hour trip from Sao Paulo to Abu Dhabi, washing over the city in their famous green kit. But through the sea of green, it was the blue wave that broke the tide, a decisive 116th-minute penalty by Kai Havertz handed Chelsea their first Club World Cup trophy, sending the Chelsea fans in the stands into absolute bedlam – an experience I will never forget.
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]]>The post HAALAND – City’s path to redemption appeared first on The Xtra Time.
]]>Big, strong, tall( 6″5) and astonishingly quick for a man his size, Haaland is simply just a goal machine, plundering goals literally everywhere he has been. His club career really took off at Molde in his home country of Norway, scoring 14 goals in 39 appearances as a 17 year old but it was at the U-20 World Cup in 2019 that Haaland arrived on the world scene scoring NINE goals in a 12-0 win for Norway vs Honduras. By then he had also moved to Red Bull Salzburg and Haaland introduced himself to the Uefa Champions League, becoming the first player ever to score 6 goals in his first three games, banging in the goals vs the big guns. Perhaps, the most impressive came against a Virgin Van Dijk led Liverpool only 4 minutes after coming on as a substitute.
It was evident that Salzburg wouldn’t be able to keep such a talent for long and after 29 goals and 7 assists in only 27 games, he moved to Dortmund and announced his arrival with a hat trick in just twenty minutes of play in his debut match vs Augsburg, which he followed up with two goals in the next match as he became the first person to score 5 goals in his first two bundesliga games. Haaland scored 86 goals and gave 23 assists in only 89 games for Dortmund and he did all these between the ages of 19 and 21.
He boasts an astounding tally of 23 goals in only 19 UCL matches.
It’s a new dawn for Erling Haaland now though. It was an open secret that he would end up leaving Dortmund too for one of the heavyweights with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man City all seeking his signature, Man City has won that race though and if we thought their team was great before, we might be about to witness something truly special with Haaland now on the team.
If there’s one small thing Man City have struggled with in recent memory, it’s finishing the plethora of chances they create in a match and although they usually do more than enough to win most of the time, some moments have been when it cost them dearly, most notably in their Ucl quarter final match against Lyon in the 2019/20 season where Raheem Sterling missed from point blank range and they were eliminated and in more recent happenings in last season’s Ucl Semi final vs Real Madrid with Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez guilty of big misses that contributed to them being eliminated by the eventual champions.
Haaland is the closest thing to a perfect solution to that problem, scoring 10 goals in his first season in the UCL and taking home the golden boot despite getting eliminated at the round of 16, it would seem like City is destined to cross the coveted UCL line now with his addition.
A goal on his debut against Bayern during pre season might have been overshadowed by a rough game in the community shield but that will not be a constant happening, and he showed
that on his premier league debut scoring twice against West Ham, a penalty he intelligently won and a calm and collected finish from a Kevin De Bruyne pass.
At City, he will get every type of chance he wants. He usually prefers to latch onto passes in behind, and that will be taken care of by players such as Kevin De Bruyne, easily one of the best passers in football at the moment and with players like Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden also available, it’s hard to see Haaland not delivering like he so usually does.
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]]>The post Post-Match 5 – Aston Villa vs. Chelsea appeared first on The Xtra Time.
]]>Kepa has come a long way from that dismal year under Lampard, where he finished the season as second choice to Willy Caballero and underperformed in terms of saving shots on goal (he had a PSxG +/- of 9.5, meaning he conceded at least 9 goals more than expected). The performance at Villa Park was arguably his greatest in a Chelsea shirt, a triple save followed by a world-class stop from a Danny Ings header that had shades of Cech vs. Javier Hernandez in the 2013 FA cup quarter final.
He has really taken the opportunity to step up under the new manager, having come in due to Mendy’s injury, and looks keen to remain as first choice under Potter. He already looks far more commanding, sharper and more confident than in previous years, something he himself has said really helps in providing a platform for greater performances.
With 3 clean sheets in 3 Premier League games, coupled with preventing more goals than any other keeper (3.2, the next closest being Alisson with 2.7), he deserves to continue his fine form as Chelsea number 1. But as with Rudiger under Tuchel, it will likely take a few more months of world class performances to really win the backing of all Chelsea fans to remain first choice and wipe clean those memories of the 2019/20 season. It appears Edouard Mendy has a lot of work to do to wrestle back his position following some poor performances in 2022.
Now I could have written a few paragraphs about the ever-present Mason Mount, following an impressive display where he finally got off the mark in the Premier League. However, it is Ruben Loftus-Cheek who has impressed me the most the season. You would often see a level of doubt amongst the Chelsea fan base when Ruben lined up as a double 6 under Tuchel, due to him enjoying carrying the ball up the pitch and often being caught out of position defensively in transition. This season he appears to be every Chelsea fan’s first name down on the team sheet in midfield.
The 2018/19 season under Sarri is always brought up as a talking point when it comes to RLC. A dominant number 8, he excelled in his link up with Eden Hazard, contributing to 15 goals in 35 games across the Premier League & Europa League. But this year he is a different player, more disciplined in his defensive duties with less of an emphasis in his contribution in the final third. He is using his dominant frame to get in-between opposition players and the ball, winning duels with his strength and continuously playing Chelsea out of trouble with his nimble footwork by dribbling out of a press or winning cheap fouls.
If there is any Chelsea player that deserves an extended run in the first 11 it is Ruben Loftus-Cheek. He is the perfect example of a Cobham graduate who has continued to fight for a real role in this team, having been happy being a squad player under Tuchel, operating in 3-4 different positions just because he wanted to be on the pitch in a Chelsea shirt. He now appears to be a genuine number 6 option for Potter going forward and it will be interesting, with Southgate having watched on at Villa Park, whether he gets his deserved spot in that England squad for the 2022 World Cup.
With Trent Alexander Arnold’s poor form continuing and Joao Cancelo’s mistake against Liverpool highlighting a real weakness in his defensive reading of the game, it is with good reason that Chelsea fans consistently push Reece James as the best all round right back in the league. Brute strength, gifted athleticism, quality striker of the ball, impressive passer, defensively dominant and equally imposing going forward, his only weakness seems to be the big injuries he appears to pick up each season. Every Chelsea fan’s worst fears were confirmed last Friday when news broke that Reece James could be out for up to 8 weeks, missing what is a hectic schedule where Chelsea play 8 games in 24 days.
He was a big miss on Sunday, where Sterling was deployed in Potter’s inverse ‘Trossard role’ he enjoyed using as manager at Brighton & Hove Albion. This clearly did not work as Chelsea were overrun in the first half, Trevoh Chalobah dealing fairly well in his defensive duties to try and manage Ollie Watkins who was a handful in the first half. Ashley Young was able to enjoy some freedom of getting forward and attacking the less defensively astute Sterling, with Potter even changing mid-first half to get RLC in that RWB role to support defensively. Bringing on Azpilicueta helped numb the pain of no Reece James down the right slightly, however, this is going to be one area over the coming weeks that Potter will really need to find solutions for to manage in James’ absence. Let’s hope for a positive recovery period and no stupid decisions from the FA to try and rush him back into the England set up for the World Cup.
There is nothing more frustrating as a fan than watching your team’s initial game plan go wrong, but have your manager wait until either the 60th minute or until you concede to try change things about. Chelsea fans will shudder at the memories of the Barkley to Kovacic, Kovacic to Barkley substitutions on a weekly basis, a team struggling to breakdown deep blocks unless a piece of Eden Hazard brilliance saved the day and be grateful that Potter does not hang about when he sees his set up is not working.
In the first half against Villa, Potter moved Sterling from ‘RWB’ to RW, Mount back into CM and RLC out wide to deal with the threat Villa were posing down their left flank. He dropped the defensive line further back to counter the long balls into Ollie Watkins who was a handful for a large part of the game. He subbed the rash Cucurella for a more dominant penalty box defender in Koulibaly to deal with the number of crosses coming in and took off the invisible Kai Havertz for Azpilicueta to fill in as a more natural wing back.
Alongside Kepa’s brilliance and Mount’s well taken goals, Potter being proactive in making these tactical changes early were one of the reasons Chelsea walked away with three points on Sunday. We have seen a real positive impact from Potter so far in the way he sets up and manages games, which will be all the more important with matches coming thick and fast in the build-up to the World Cup. Not all games are going to be pretty wins like Wolves or the home game vs Milan and we should expect more testing fixtures in the weeks ahead, but it looks like Chelsea have got a manager who relishes the tactical challenge these games bring.
Chelsea’s next game is against Brentford away, a fixture that exactly a year to the day of Kepa’s heroics at Villa Park, saw Mendy singlehandedly secure an important 3 points for Chelsea with some outrageous saves to keep it 1-0. A tough place to visit, Chelsea will have their work cut out for them with the dynamic duo of Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbuemo forming a deadly partnership so far this season.
When it comes to rotation, I think it is important that Chelsea factor in the physical aspect of this Brentford side. They are a team who tend to excel from set pieces, using their physicality to win aerial duels or latch on to second balls and make it a really tough game for any away side. With Thiago Silva unfortunately a doubt, and more likely to be rested for the big game against Manchester United next Saturday, Koulibaly will have an important role to play in trying to manage Ivan Toney. I have some slight reservations with playing Cucurella at LCB against this Brentford side following some wobbly defensive performances, but he is talented enough to not let those affect his overall ability and I would expect him to step up a notch if he gets the nod again.
In attack, I think it is finally time for Armando Broja to get his first start in a Chelsea shirt. Of our number 9 options, he offers the most in intensity, physicality and his height could be useful in defending set pieces. Havertz may start again due to the same reasons, however, he will have to offer a lot more than the rare flashes of brilliance if he wants to remain a starter in this Chelsea side. Looking ahead, the calmness, physicality, and defensive know-how of the missing defensive trio of Thiago Silva, Reece James and Wesley Fofana are a huge blow for a Chelsea side sneakily gaining momentum in the Premier League.
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