MY TACTICAL ANALYSIS OF WHAT OSCAR AND FABREGAS COMBINATION MEAN. Why Oscar is Important for Fabregas to Shine When Chelsea signed Cesc Fabregas many of us assumed that Cesc coming in was an alternative to Oscar. Over the last few weeks, it has emerged that Jose intends to play Fabregas primarily in the pivot next to a holding player rather than as number 10. While Cesc remains an option as a number 10, Mourinhos quotes indicate that Oscar and Willian will play the role more than Cesc will, barring injury to the aforementioned duo. In this article we will understand various midfield combinations and how the midfield options intend to be used. First we need to understand the template we will be using for this year. It is quite clear from the onset that Mourinho favors two formations based on the opposition. The 4-2-3-1 and the 4-3-3. Keeping this in perspective let us analyze the situation. The 4-2-3-1 is the primary formation. 4-3-3 is the secondary one. This means in your 25 man roster you need to have 5 players who are pivot options. At the same time it`s important that the 5 players are different to one and another giving you true tactical flexibility. An ideal 5 man roster must have:- 2 central midfielders 2 defensive midfielders 1 utility player. People often confuse pivot players as DMs or CMs only. People also confuse CMs with DMs. A DM can be:- a ball playing DM - like Matic, Busquets etc. be a true holding player - like Mikel, Makalele. The ball playing DM is an evolution in football. True holding players are a dying breed in top clubs as it is becoming increasingly a game where all outfield players are expected to contribute in attack either directly or indirectly (transitioning attack movement), a true holding player like Mikel or Makalele is still very useful in scenarios where you play to kill of games in a 3 man midfield (this was the role Mikel was used in last year). The good news about Matic is he can play both roles perfectly and even be used as a CM in an injury crisis due to his vision and more importantly quick transition of the ball. A CM is again of many types:- a box to box - Gerrard, Lampard, Ramires, MVG be Deep lying playmaker - Pirlo, Xavi, Cesc (when played in the pivot) Also there are certain players who combine two or more typical roles;- Xabi Alonso- holding player + DLP Khedira - ball playing DM + box to box Schweinsteiger - box to box plus DLP. In a 2 man pivot using two DM`s leads to poor transition of the ball making your attacking line come back for the ball. Also between the attacking line and DMs is a gap that the opposition can easily exploit (remember De Jong + Van Bommel - picked apart in the Euros). Two CMs is also prone to being overrun unless both of them have defensive nous that combines well to create a shield (this variety of CM - is hard to find and very rare). eg - two Gerrards / two Lampards in a pivot will be overrun but two Schweinsteigers can do a job. So ideally you want to have a combination of CM +DM in your pivot. This means your 5 man pivot roster should have:- 2 - CMs 2 - DMs 1 - utility player who plays multiple positions. 3 MAN MIDFIELD - a 3 man midfield is ideally made up of a DM flanked on either side by two players. One player is a box to box player who contributes immensely in defence while also contributing in attack. The other one is a player who is more attack minded. He could be a DLP / goalscorer / trequartista. The 3 man midfield works only when the combination is correct. Example 1- Chelseas legendary midfield trio Lampard / Deco on the left - Makalele / Mikel in the DM role and Essien / Tiago / Geremi as box to box. Example 2 - the German midfield - Khedira as the holding player. Schweinsteiger shuttling back and forth and Kroos pulling the strings. The idea is BALANCE - The 3 midfield players are complementary to each others strengths and weaknesses. There is a reason Lampard-Gerrard never worked together well. No matter who the DM or how good he was Lamps and Stevie were too similar in attack and defensive contribution. It doesn`t matter if you have a Makalele. You need an Essien or Schweinsteiger to do the graft for Lampard or Gerrard to shine. This is precisely what people don`t get when they come up with fantasy midfields like Fabregas-Matic-Kroos. It just isn`t a viable option unless you are chasing a game in the final minutes. It`s a recipe for defensive imbalance and having your midfield overrun. For every Cesc / Kroos you need a DM AND another CM who puts in a lot of graft to free them. Fantasy formations like Lampard-Scholes-Gerrard OR Kroos-Matic-Fabregas look wonderful on paper but they aren`t viable in footballing terms over the course of 30-40 matches. Teams will find a way to overrun fantasy midfields like they did with Lamps- Scholes/Hargreaves-Gerrard- despite all the 3 players being top drawer individually. Now that we are done talking combinations lets come back to Chelsea. It`s evident that Fabregass primary role will be as a DLP next to the DM - Matic. While his vision and transition are flawless his defensive contribution won`t be very high. Yes, that side of him will improve under Mourinho but Cesc is player that needs protection so that he focuses on his primary job of deftly spraying the ball around or into the lanes. Pirlos success in a deep role has a lot to do with the shielding Vidal and Pogba (or Marchisio) do. This is where your number 10 comes in. Usually the number 10 is your offensively strong-defensively weak player who is protected by his pivot. That`s the conventional thinking. But Jose has turned it upside down. It`s actually something that works pretty well. But number 10s with defensive nous are so rare that not many managers can use it. The Logic basically is this. Why wait for the ball to come to the middle of the pitch when you can win the ball higher up. All big teams build their attacks from the back. And all hispster managers like to build up play from behind. By choking them high up the pitch you reduce their chances of winning by a huge margin. This is the fundamental reason why Chelsea were beating all the big teams last year without even having a true striker who was scoring for fun. It`s the perfect way to beat big teams. But SABER- you think. Our problem wasn`t the big teams. It was the little ones. EXACTLY! The high pressing number 10 was only half of the strategy to the perfect system. What we lacked last year was the DLP who would complete the system. Against big teams Oscar or Willian were very effective because big teams bring the ball from the back. And their pressing (for eg - Willians job on Toure/Oscars job on the Arsenal pivot) meant we cut off their supply at the starting point. The smaller teams like Palace and West Ham bypass this entirely by playing the ball above this area of the pitch. This means Oscar/Willian cannot do what they do to big teams. This also means that given the absence of a DLP to play the quick pass Chelseas build up was slow forcing Oscar/Willian to come deep into our side to collect the ball negating their offensive contribution. You want your number 10 to receive the ball higher up the pitch as soon as possible before the palace or West Ham defense reorganize. But this never happened. THIS IS WHERE THE SYSTEM NOW COMPLETES - Gentlemen now that we have covered the basics we move to how Oscar-Fabregas will be complementary and fundamental to each other. Fabregas as a number 10 would have two players in the pivot protecting him so he could pull the strings but that would also mean that the opposition team moves the ball out from defense in a manner they like spoiling our high press. Mourinho is inverting the concept. Fabregas will be protected by his DM partner in Matic next to and behind him and will be shielded by the number 10 in front of him. Oscar was the World Cups top tackler. He is the definition of a ball-winning number 10 - a new breed of player in football. The problem is for his offensive side to work he also needs to receive the ball in higher areas of the pitch because when he turns on his attacking flair he is damn near unstoppable. The reason why we never get to see this is that Oscar does his side of the bargain but doesn`t have someone to partner him and do their bit. Fabregas is the man. While Fabregas benefits from Oscar shielding him (during offense to defence transition) and even dropping deep when Cesc makes runs into the attacking third, ultimately bringing out the best in Fabregas - Oscar will benefit equally during the defense from offense transition where he no longer has to drop deep to receive the AND receives it before the opposite team reorganizes. What this system does is stifles big teams like we did last season from playing the ball out it also makes sure that with the presence of a protected Fabregas long ball tactic teams will have very little time to reorganize their defence when Chelsea win the ball back. In short Fabregas was the missing link to make our system a system for all teams not just the big ones. If it wasn`t for the World Cup we would already have been enjoying the results of this set-up. Right now we just need to wait. In time this symbiotic relationship of the DLP and the high pressing ball winning number 10 will take shape and combined with a lethal number 9 we will see a very formidable team that will kill opponents of irrespective of their style.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 00:45:59 +0000
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