Chelsea exit the FA Cup; City Through, Goal Analysis

Chelsea's proud FA Cup run of not losing in the normal 90 minutes for 29 games running came to a halt in rather disappointing fashion at the Wembley Stadium after City won through goals from Samir Nasri and Sergio Aguero. It was a tale of two halves really, where City dominated the first half, they were hanging on desperately in the second. Match Analysis and Goal Analysis up next.

It started at a high-tempo with Manchester City enjoying a lot of possession and creating decent lot of chances. Chelsea weathered that storm and were looking to get into their own groove but as we have seen in the recent clashes between the two side, the muscular and physical side of City always got the better of the much smaller, and less physically built players of Chelsea. This perhaps was known beforehand that the combination of Yaya Toure and Gareth Barry will be ordered to bring out their physical game and challenge aggressively against the likes of Hazard, Mata, and Oscar. And with the formation that Chelsea play, if you negate the midfield trio the attacks dry out.

Both teams set up in the 4-2-3-1 formation but with a completely different set of trio behind the strikers. Manchester City were deprived of the services of David Silva, so they went in with James Milner, Samir Nasri, and Carlos Tevez. Very different attributes; very different styles of all three; thus, creating a lot of headache for Chelsea to understand some of the initial movements from City. Chelsea started off with their MAZACAR trio behind Ba, all very similar players, all non-physical players. Coming to the pivot, Ramires can be compared to Yaya Toure or should I say be called an elite level of Ramires both in terms of quality and physicality and well Should I compare John Obi Mikel with any one, even Gareth Barry outshone him in this match, making some crunching tackles and even committing some fouls to halt the Chelsea counter-attacks. Mikel on the other hand did what Mikel does best, and that was just to slow-up the game.

I am not going to rant about Mikel here, as I am going to run another article on how badly Chelsea FC need an upgrade to Mikel, here I am going to analyze just how the goals were scored. 

Samir Nasri (35’)

People were talking about Yaya Toure breezing past Juan Mata, but why should’nt he? Look at that specimen, that physique, that built, even a fully fit Mata would not have been able to catch him, and well that isn’t his job either. Ramires or John Obi Mikel are the ones who should be cutting out these runs, just like Gareth Barry did when he crashed a Chelsea counter-attack, perhaps it was Oscar on the ball in the first half. But where is the so-called really competent defensive midfielder whose offensive impotence has been overshadowed by an imaginative skill-set of his defense. He is nowhere near Toure, who gallops forward with the ball at his feet beautifully controlled, lays it towards Aguero who gives it back to Nasri, Nasri is that person who was running with Mikel, or should I say ahead of mike, or to clear it more, a lot ahead of mikel.

Mikel is close to Nasri

Mikel stopped following Nasri’s run, he got into the box, got lucky, rebounds and richochettes, and then an easy poke past Cech.

And now Mikel does not have any motivation

I blame Mikel solely for this as he was perhaps even not motivated for the FA Cup so stopped tracking back Nasri’s run. So, if he is not supposed to do that, what is he supposed to do then and why does he keep on playing for the side?

Furthermore, I realized how David Luiz gave Nasri clear air to poke the ball past Cech. This I did not see at the first viewing of the goal, but after watching it a few times, I saw how Luiz moved away from Nasri's way to give him a clear shot on goal. Now, why would a center-back do that?

Look at where he is now, horrible position already!

 

and now he moves away from the ball, horrible defending

See how he instead of lunging in to get a block, putting himself on the line, he evades the ball and goes to the side, maybe momentum, maybe laziness, maybe tiredness, but whatever it was, it was an awful defensive error from the Brazilian.

Sergio Aguero (47’)

Earlier in another analysis post, I wrote about the defensive line, and what they tell you in the training ground about defending. Perhaps, Rafa Benitez does not say anything to his defense as most of the times; defenders tend to make decisions on their own completely forgetting that there is an “off-side” rule in the game.

 

this is what a defensive line should be!

this is what a catastrophic line looks like!

Luiz goes high, Ivanovic does not follow, and Azpilicueta is even behind Ivanovic. That plays Aguero on-side, who is also goal-side of Azpilicueta. Ivanovic does not go up, does not take Azpilicueta with him, and that presents the Argentine with a glorious chance which he takes most outstandingly. What a confident and delightful finish by Sergio Aguero!

Demba Ba (66’)

A simple, direct long ball played by David Luiz towards the strikers but whats the difference? Kompany was clearing these types of balls all day long, but what happened here?

Kompany has company to deal with!

A change of tactic at long last from Rafa Benitez putting two forwards upfront. Kompany decides to go with Torres’ run and the ball flies above him straight into the path of Ba who for the first time in the game was one-on-one with young Nastasic. The finish was a real beauty, another one in the ever growing collection of Demba Ba and that put life into the game.

The game was end-to-end stuff with chances a plenty for both sides; although the refree once again hampered a top game. I think it was the just result, but, I can guarantee there were people who wanted this to go to extra-time as it was such a delight to watch two teams attacking and playing the way they were doing.