Lacking Plan B

It’s been a nearly season so far for Chelsea, results just haven’t gone our way even when we have dominated games. The recent draw against Norwich however, just highlighted that AVB’s unwillingness to divert from his football philosophy, showed that if ‘plan a’ doesn’t work, then Chelsea don’t win.

After 30 minutes against Norwich, Lampard limped off with a calf injury; Lampard’s midfield role is where AVB likes his attacking midfielder to play, his ‘Modric’. Now on the bench, AVB had Malouda and Essien available, instead of bringing on Essien like most people in his position would have done, AVB opted for Malouda because he is seen as more creative than Essien.

The result was, we had a midfield with a player who simply cannot play in the central midfield role, while our most creative midfield player Juan Mata was stuck out wide, not able to dictate play. The unwillingness to divert from the original plan left us static and easy to defend against; needless to say we had enough chances to beat Norwich and should have done with great ease. But the problems would still be there, but people just wouldn’t highlight them.

Only once this season has AVB moved away from his ‘plan a’, Manchester United away, when in the second half we dominated United and were again, just a stroke of luck away from taking something from the game. Mata came central and another winger came on, something that perhaps should have happened against Norwich, with De Bruyne signing this week, maybe this is the signing that can help bring Mata centrally, but that would mean Lampard would be playing a bit part role this season, something he has openly been upset about.

AVB’s ‘plan a’ does work, it did it with Porto, but he had the players to do so. Maybe he has been naive with his loyalty to his philosophy, but is that a bad thing? Perhaps based on the league position yes, but with a few more round pegs being signed, the squares ones can move on.