What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

I diverge from my two-part series for this post. The second half will be posted shortly.

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

#1- A coach can make a big difference, but the players ultimately decide a team’s fate.

I don’t intend to embark on anything close to discussing the Andre Villas-Boas sacking and all that led to it. That is a topic for a different post; but who can argue that Chelsea have made an incredible turnaround in a matter of days? After dropping points in numerous league clashes with lesser sides and standing at the brink of elimination from the Champions League and FA cup, Chelsea turned round their fortunes by nabbing two league wins and forcing decisive victories against Birmingham and Napoli to progress in the FA cup and Champions League, respectively. Many would venture to mark this renewal at the Bridge as evidence that AVB needed the sack and once he was gone and Roberto Di Matteo stepped in, the rot that had been causing Cobham to stink so badly was finally on the mend. Similar situations were witnessed at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was sacked and Avram Grant took the helm for the remainder of the season as well as when Luiz Felipe Scolari was shown the door and the ever-popular Guus Hiddink called the shots until the end of the season.

Of course, a coach makes a load of difference, but I would venture to guess that in some situations, especially those in which the players often exert an incredible amount of influence in the dressing room on account of their experience and personality (such as the case at Chelsea), the players may have even more pull than the coach. Call me crazy, but there was a very visible and distinct difference in not just the playing style of Chelsea, but also the attitude and moral of the team from under the last days of the Villas-Boas reign to these first few days of life under Di Matteo. To take it one step further, Chelsea’s performance against Stoke in their second game under the interim manager was dismal; the player’s attitudes reminding me of the previous weeks under AVB. The coach made some difference but it was the players that needed to change to gain big wins over Napoli and Leicester City.

To make my point clear, I take you back to when Chelsea played Manchester City earlier this season. I saw a Chelsea side that made me long for previous winning seasons. AVB was still there, and I highly doubt he completely changed his coaching style for the second half of that match, but the players changed their outlook and got the 3 points they were looking for, playing a style that was so familiar from their previous title-winning seasons, a style that Villas-Boas had never even tried at the club. I saw many similarities between the home and away fixtures these clubs played this season. Unluckily, Chelsea fell short in the latter one, but they played much the same because they decided to.

#2- You can pay for talented players, but you cannot pay for class.

Don’t worry, not all my points will be as long as the first. Me being a Chelsea fan put aside, I was extremely disappointed with some of the performances made by Manchester City players in Tuesday’s game. First: I am sure I was not the only one to see Toure push Mata in the face and kick him when he did not even have possession of the ball. There is absolutely no reason for that, and it goes to show that talent does not always equal class on the soccer pitch. Second: It is no secret that Mario Balotelli has a sketchy attitude, at best, but seeing him give up several times on chasing a loose ball for no apparent reason, and rarely show any desire to be on the pitch was only affirmation that a paycheck does not determine if you are going to get a good showing from your stars.

My third and final example is (do I really want to start this conversation?) Carlos Tevez. The form and length of his punishment is not my decision to make and I admit he did have to sit out for a while, but after what he did to that club, and continued to do after his first offense would have been more than enough for me to give him the sack, and I cannot believe that they put him back on the field, and to applause! If this was the first and only time something like this had happened in his career it would be different, but isn't that why he left Manchester United? Don’t be surprised to see similar outbursts from the “superstar” in the future. Manchester City have certainly paid for bags of talent but in the process have been unable to harness the class required for world-class squad. Why do you think they have been knocked out of two European competitions this season? Because raw skill alone cannot compete against teams that have skill and class.

#3- A player’s form and confidence can change in a very short period of time, and just because a substitution has worked in many games does not mean it will work in every game.

I bet you can’t guess who I’m talking about. I was never one to give up on Fernando Torres. His motivation was never lacking, or his work ethic. What was lacking was his confidence. I will speak more on him in another post, but that confidence was vastly improved as a result of his two goal two assist showing in the FA cup. He was looking extremely sharp and for every minute his regular hard working self in the Manchester City game, even coming back on numerous occasions to play defense. In so many situations in the past, Didier Drogba has been brought on as a substitute in the closing minutes of a game (often for Torres himself) and has changed the course of the game into a win. I do not doubt his immense skill, but it was only five minutes after the bringing on of Drogba for Torres that Manchester City staged their comeback. I feel the substitution was a deciding factor in the outcome of the match.

As well, from the look on Torres' face when he was being brought off, it was a blow to the player's confidence when he was doing so absolutely well. A substitution working many times in the past does not warrant it to work every time, and each game and substitution decision needs to be made in context and taking into consideration the current performance of the player on the field, and the difference he is making.

Joga Bonito

Dallin