we ain't got no history 
07-05-2024 08:58
07-05-2024 08:58
WATCH: Marc Cucurella, inverted full back
In the last two and a half games, since half-time at Villa Park, Chelsea have outscored the opposition 9-0, winning seven points against teams above or around us in the table, despite working with a threadbare squad, a bench full of kids, and a team of still young, immature, inconsistent players. Thiago Silva did make a miraculously quick recovery from his hamstring problem, but otherwise every other player out there has been 25 or younger, emphasis on younger.
Incidentally, it’s been the oldest of that rest who has made a surprising impact. Marc Cucurella, practically ancient at 25, has been stepping into midfield when in possession, filling the void left by Enzo Fernández’s season-ending surgery and providing the platform for Chelsea to push forward more effectively and with extra numbers.
Cucurella, inverted full back. Didn’t see that one coming! The video embedded at the top, form FourFourTwo, does a good job of explaining the role and its application, using the game against Spurs as an example.
Basically, Cucurella forms a pivot with Moisés Caicedo while in possession, then goes back to a normal full back out of it. Meanwhile, Conor Gallagher gets to push on and join the attack freely. This isn’t necessarily a new idea — the concept has been around for at least decade, since Pep Guardiola did it with Philip Lahm at Bayern and made it part of the mainstream tactical discourse) — but it’s working brilliantly at the moment. It’s not a system without risk — no system is — but so far it’s working beautifully. And it’s showing that we are indeed becoming a proper team (or “chair”, if you will), functioning together as a unit rather than just a very expensive collection of shiny parts.
“The group has started to believe, they have started to feel between them. It is always a process that takes time [...] to live like a group of players to create all the links to compete. [We] are part of this process, to help them to grow, to be more mature and keep improving in every aspect. It is a massive step but it is the step we wanted to reach. Now it is to evolve in other aspects and the possibility to go with tactical evolutions and we can improve from there but without principles, it is impossible to evolve in other aspects.”
“[Before we could implement such a role] you need to build the belief, the confidence, the trust, the team needs to compete. The tactical evolution that we, the coaching staff, have in our heads — yes, we will apply in the future but the most important thing, you cannot sit if you don’t have a chair. You need to build the chair.
“The problem in football is if you don’t have a team, you’re expected to behave like a team. You are so selfish and after you need to share. The priorities in football, like an engineer who is going to build a building. You want to see quickly the nice furniture, you want to live there. That is why sometimes we make a mistake when we judge the job of the people, the coaching staff and young players.”
-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London
You gotta build the foundations first! (Though I’m not so sure about that last part there, Poch. If an engineer makes a mistake while designing a building, he should absolutely be judged.)
Incidentally, it’s been the oldest of that rest who has made a surprising impact. Marc Cucurella, practically ancient at 25, has been stepping into midfield when in possession, filling the void left by Enzo Fernández’s season-ending surgery and providing the platform for Chelsea to push forward more effectively and with extra numbers.
Cucurella, inverted full back. Didn’t see that one coming! The video embedded at the top, form FourFourTwo, does a good job of explaining the role and its application, using the game against Spurs as an example.
Basically, Cucurella forms a pivot with Moisés Caicedo while in possession, then goes back to a normal full back out of it. Meanwhile, Conor Gallagher gets to push on and join the attack freely. This isn’t necessarily a new idea — the concept has been around for at least decade, since Pep Guardiola did it with Philip Lahm at Bayern and made it part of the mainstream tactical discourse) — but it’s working brilliantly at the moment. It’s not a system without risk — no system is — but so far it’s working beautifully. And it’s showing that we are indeed becoming a proper team (or “chair”, if you will), functioning together as a unit rather than just a very expensive collection of shiny parts.
“The group has started to believe, they have started to feel between them. It is always a process that takes time [...] to live like a group of players to create all the links to compete. [We] are part of this process, to help them to grow, to be more mature and keep improving in every aspect. It is a massive step but it is the step we wanted to reach. Now it is to evolve in other aspects and the possibility to go with tactical evolutions and we can improve from there but without principles, it is impossible to evolve in other aspects.”
“[Before we could implement such a role] you need to build the belief, the confidence, the trust, the team needs to compete. The tactical evolution that we, the coaching staff, have in our heads — yes, we will apply in the future but the most important thing, you cannot sit if you don’t have a chair. You need to build the chair.
“The problem in football is if you don’t have a team, you’re expected to behave like a team. You are so selfish and after you need to share. The priorities in football, like an engineer who is going to build a building. You want to see quickly the nice furniture, you want to live there. That is why sometimes we make a mistake when we judge the job of the people, the coaching staff and young players.”
-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London
You gotta build the foundations first! (Though I’m not so sure about that last part there, Poch. If an engineer makes a mistake while designing a building, he should absolutely be judged.)