Chelsea and the problem with relying on African players

This morning I watched Chelsea put together another frustrating 0-0 outing against a middling team (to a team that's allowed more goals than anyone outside the bottom 5).  It highlighted what's become a semi-annual theme for this team: the January lull.  And the reason for that, I think, is the way Chelsea's teams have been constructed.  More than any other big side in Europe, Chelsea relies on African players as core pieces.  Now, when most soccer fans think of Chelsea's success in the Abramovich era, they think of John Terry and Frank Lampard.  And those two have certainly played a valuable part.  But I'd argue that the most indispensable pieces haven't been Terry and Lamps, but rather Didier Drogba and Michael Essien.  The case for Drogba is pretty straightforward-- he's an absolute beast.  On his day, he was (and still is, really) unplayable.  Drogba is big, he's great in the air, he moves exceptionally well for a guy his size, he has one of the best shots in Europe, and he can create opportunities out of thin air.  Essien's case is a bit harder to make now, since he seems to spend 2/3 of every season injured.  But, 3-4 years ago, you could make a pretty good case that he belonged in the top 10 players in the world.  Essien was fantastic-- he covered a ridiculous amount of ground, was a very good tackler, got forward well, scored goals, and could play any position, from attacking center mid, to right back, to center back.  Most guys who can play that many positions are at best decent at all of them-- Essien was passable as a center-back, good as a right-back, and easily one of the 5 best central midfielders in the world.  He was a special player.

So why is relying on these two guys such a huge problem? The answer is, simply, the Africa Nations Cup.  The ANC is the worst tournament in global soccer.  Where most international tournaments occur every 4 years (World Cup, Euro) or, at worst, semi-irregularly (Copa America), the ANC happens every other year. And, where rational tournaments play during the summer, the ANC is in January.  In other words, smack in the middle of the season for all of Europe's biggest leagues.  Meaning that, every other year, top teams ship all their African players (because just about every African player good enough to play for an elite European club is also playing for his national team) away for the month of January.  For most clubs, that meant, at worst, 1 central player, and maybe a peripheral player or two (Barca in its day would lose Samuel Eto'o and, for a brief minute, Yaya Toure and/or Seydou Keita; Arsenal would lose some combination of Emmanuel Adebayor, Alex Song and Kolo Toure, who were never all key players at the same time; etc.), Chelsea would lose 2 of its most important players, plus a few guys who were in and out of the first XI (John Obi Mikel, Salomon Kalou).

This post isn't really as responsive to today's match as it is to the last few years (Essien didn't go to Africa this year, as he's retired from the international game, and just came back from a knee injury anyway), but the idea hit me over the head again today, as I watched Chelsea struggle to unlock a pretty weak defense and wondered what might have been different if Drogba, instead of the struggling Fernando Torres had been leading the line.

Chelsea-Man United Post Mortem

On Saturday, Chelsea had a huge away match against our biggest rival, Man United.  And on the scoresheet, it was ugly.  We went down 3-0 at half, and never really looked like we'd win the game.  But I went back and watched the game again and, in retrospect, it was as encouraging a performance as a 3-1 loss can possibly be.  So here are my key thoughts from the match:

1. Chelsea were the better team-- Everyone makes this claim about their team pretty regularly, but in this case, the stats back it up.  Chelsea had 22 shots to United's 14, 8 on target to United's 6, and 10 corners to United's 4.  The difference in the game was one thing: United took its chances and Chelsea didn't.  That's a problem on its own, but this was not a game where Chelsea got bossed or looked out of its element-- the team outperformed United, and were unlucky not to at least draw the game.

2. Andre Villas-Boas got his tactics right-- This is huge. The 33 year old manager put the squad in a position to win the game.  And that's all a manager can do-- he can't make his defenders mark, he can't put the ball in the net for his forwards, and he can't make passes for his midfielders.  But AVB put the squad in a position to win, and, when some things weren't working out, he made changes.

3. Fernando Torres is improving-- All anyone will talk about after this game is Torres's horrible miss.  Everyone's seen it by now: he took a through ball, took a quick touch past the keeper... and shanked the ball wide with the net open.  What everyone is ignoring is that he scored a brilliant goal to open the second half, and put himself in a position to score.  This is three strong performances in a row now for Torres, and he got on the scoresheet against the defending champs this time.  There have been two big problems for Torres: he lost his confidence after failing to score for awhile, and he's never really gotten the explosive speed he had before the World Cup back since he hurt his knee last summer.  The speed is coming back now, and I think the confidence is at least moving in the right direction.  If he comes back, this is a different Chelsea team.

4. Frank Lampard isn't good enough to start for this team-- It's always hard to push out a club legend, but this game really underscored the truth: Lampard, at 33 years old, just isn't a starter for a title-winning team anymore.  At his best, he was a box-to-box player who ran all day, scored 20 goals a season, and provided thrust in the middle of the field.  Now, he's lost the ability to outlast his opponents, and it's made him a pretty middling player for this team.  He can't keep up with quicker midfielders, and his passing isn't good enough that he can operate as a playmaker.  The United game made this painfully obvious: he didn't have the movement to close down space in the middle of the field, he wasn't quick with the ball, and the team improved when Nicolas Anelka replaced him at half.  I don't think Lampard should be forcibly sold-- you can't get rid of a guy like him against his will-- but I think he's a squad player at this point.

5. What this team needs is... Frank Lampard-- Not today's Frank Lampard, but 2006 Frank Lampard: the Frank Lampard who brought energy to the middle of the park and chipped in regular goals.  A month ago, if you'd asked me what this team needed, I would have said Luka Modric.  Modric still wouldn't hurt.  But Juan Mata is a guy who's very capable of playing as a creative central player (even if he plays in a more advanced role than Modric).  What the team needs is a box-to-box guy.  Strangely, it's not Modric the team needs, but Scott Parker, who's only a couple of years younger than Lampard, but is visibly more energetic and better able to provide the energy in midfield that this team needs.  I think Moussa Sissoko from Toulouse would be the ideal signing, but he may be a year or two away.

6. This is not a 4-3-3 squad anymore-- The United game made it clear that a 4-3-3 doesn't really suit this team's strengths.  Especially with Michael Essien out, three central midfielders are not optimal for this squad.  Instead, at this point, I think a 4-2-3-1 is ideal.  At the moment, that would mean Meireles and Ramires in front of the back four, with Sturridge, Mata and one of Anelka or Malouda behind Torres.  Once Drogba comes back, he'd rotate with Torres, while Essien would work into the Meireles/Ramires rotation in central midfield.  That formation would be the ideal combination of central thrust and attacking link-up play for the personnel on this team.  The squad's improved performance when Lampard came off and the team went 4-2-3-1 just underscores the need to move to this formation on a permanent basis.

Mata to Chelsea: My Take

Chelsea officially added Valencia winger Juan Mata today, strengthening the squad further in the run-up to the season.  Really, this is the first buy that will actually help the squad immediately-- the keeper Thibaut Courtois from Genk is one for the future (and was loaned to Atletico Madrid right away); Oriol Romeu couldn't break into Barca's squad, so he'll have trouble unseating Chelsea's central midfield veterans, and Romelu Lukaku is probably the fifth choice at striker right now, and is still only 18.

Mata, on the other hand, slots in instantly.  He's still young (23), and since breaking into Valencia's squad four seasons ago, has scored between 8 and 11 goals every year, and had double-digit assists twice in three years.  For the 4-3-3, he's just what the squad needs.  Now here's the problem.  Right now, the team has, by my count, 8 guys who can play in the front 3 slots: Drogba, Torres, Anelka, Sturridge, Malouda, Kalou, Lukaku, and now Mata.  Of those, FIVE are ideally central forwards (all but Malouda, Kalou and Mata), and three (Drogba, Torres, and Lukaku) can't really play out wide.  So by my reckoning, this means one of Malouda, Sturridge or Kalou will be starting wide left, one of Torres, Drogba or Lukaku will be starting centrally, and one of Mata, Anelka, and Kalou again will be starting wide right.  But Drogba is still probably the most effective central striker in the squad, and Torres cost 50 million pounds, so he'll be in the lineup most games too.  That leaves a whole bunch of bodies for only a few slots.  And there's still no creativity in midfield.

I think the next move here is clear-- trim some fat by dumping Anelka, Kalou and Alex (Ivanovic can slide over to RB, so he's cover at two different spots).  Then use that money in part to finance a deal for Luka Modric.  Now all of a sudden, you've got a pretty formidable lineup:

Cech; Cole, Terry, Luiz (or Ivanovic), Ivanovic (or Bosingwa or Luiz); Ramires, Lampard, Modric; Malouda (or Sturridge), Torres (or Drogba), Mata.  Then you've got a bench of Hilario,  Bosingwa, Mikel, Essien McEachran, Sturridge, and Drogba.  Of course, this means leaving Benayoun, Lukaku and Gael Kakuta out of most squads, but I think this should probably be Drogba's last year in the squad (and maybe Malouda and even Lampard's too), so you can plug them in next year and hopefully not miss much.

But I think Chelsea are a creative mid from having easily the best squad in the Premiership; and I think Modric is that creative mid.