Why Chelsea's attack look incohesive and clueless against big teams this season

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Lampard won the top 10 teams in the premier league at least once last season so impressive were many of the wins that makes Chelsea not winning a top 6 team this season, puzzling to me. I could have boiled it down to only tactics,

but I realized if it were only tactics, last season we would have been as poor against the top 6 as this season. if Lampard has been clueless tactically all the while but we were so impressive outplaying the opposition including Top managers most times

After carefully analyzing all our big games. I've come to a conclusion. A big reason our attacks have been mostly dull in big games this season is most of the matches is a lack of Chemistry between the front 3/4 attackers, based on the formation we played.

Manager tactics are massively important it is why I said "a big reason" not "the main reason". but I've found out in all our big games against teams in the top half and top 6 teams, we mostly roll out a Front 3 that are playing with each other for the first time this season.

The reason for that is a number of factors, ranging from The manager's choice when all are fully fit(of which a fully fit squad really hasn't happened for Lampard), injuries(especially new signings), player form, and manager's formations.

We end up for most of the big games putting players that haven't played together for a big game and they end up not working cause of lack of chemistry. lets go through all our big premier league games

1st time= First time playing together this season

v Liverpool- Werner Havertz Mount(1st time )
v Spurs(Cup)- Werner Giroud CHO(1st time)
v Southampton- Mount Werner Havertz Pulisic(1st time)
v Sevilla(H)- Pulisic Werner Havertz Mount
v Manutd- Pulisic Werner Havertz(1st time)

v Spurs- Werner Tammy Ziyech(only one with real continuity this season)
v Sevilla-Pulisic Giroud CHO(1st time)
v Everton- Werner Giroud Havertz(1st time)
v Wolves- Werner Giroud Pulisic(1st time)
V Arsenal- Werner Tammy Pulisic(2nd time)
v Mancity- Pulisic Werner Ziyech(1st time)

When you go deeper you also realize our best attacking performance came against Sevilla with attackers who already trained together and know each other for at least a year. the rest games all had at least 1 new signing and was never as fluid.

The second observation is the second half of Arsenal. when CHO came on and we had a front 3 of Pulisic Tammy and CHO all players with a previous year of working together and understanding.

i think its an interesting find cause we seem lost in attack in most of those big games, and the second most cohesive attack in those big games came v Spurs with a front 3 of Werner Tammy and Ziyech that started the previous 3 premier league games together.

They weren't at their best like in previous games but they looked to have a decent understanding of each other and managed to mount a fairly cohesive attack that should have scored at least one goal v Spurs.

It wasn't the best of attacking showings, but it is far better than the rest of the big game showings we've put on so far bar Sevilla and is only second best to the last 20 mins Arsenal showing

I think it's an interesting find because, in the rest of the big games we've looked clueless, a big reason why we resort to crosses, cause it is the easiest route to goal cause of no real connection and chemistry between the constantly chopped and changed front 3 themselves

and the rest of the team. so it's easier for Reece James and Chilwell to create because they are really good at crossing. why we fail to create much of real substance in those games. The defending really hasn't been bad in a lot of them. since the defenders are rarely changed

We had the issue of defence being constantly chopped and changed back 4, this season we are suffering from a non-constant front 3. the midfield have mostly been consistent but the front 3 hasn't.

like i said the causes for this has been injuries, form, rotations, lack of time on the training ground to play players together(Lampard has talked about having to make players gel during games cause of not training time).

but the manager also has to settle on what he wants and be fairly consistent because the lack of Chemistry in the attack is killing us, use in form players more, they give you the best chance to win the game.

Given no preseason with replacing many attackers, it has also evident affected the team's gelling process, so more time would do for the new arrivals to continue to understand their teammates. The 2 full weeks we've recently had is really important.

also, for now, We need some form of continuity in attack, hopefully with Ziyech fit we can the only change could be CHO/Pulisic and Timo/Tammy/Giroud. but Lampard might settle on a striker for most of the games also. We will see improvement for sure as they understand each other

follows the lines of what @liam_twomey wrote on the athletic today

check it out https://theathletic.com/2317765/2021/01/13/chelsea-lampard-football-soccer/?source=emp_shared_article

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