Satisfaction with the start of the season got serious cracks in Chelsea. The Blues lost twice in a row, narrowly falling on the Everton and Wolverhampton pitches. And now West Ham is coming to Stamford Bridge, another tough nut to crack.
The panic is out of place yet, yet Chelsea fans can feel apprehensive. The legend of the Frank Lampard club in the role of head coach has a seemingly unshakable position, but the supporter, who is not very experienced in the coaching industry, divides his fans in the same way as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in Manchester United.
Does he have it or not? The eternal question keeps coming back.
Unscrupulous summer purchases made Chelsea an adept at the title, but after two failures on the opponents’ pitches, the ambitious team dropped to eighth place. Lampard is already looking for excuses.
“I keep reading about how we have the strongest staff in the league. I don’t understand that. The clubs that have won the Premier League in recent years had a staff full of wings scoring a lot of goals. We have a broken project, our work is not finished,” said the 42-year-old coach the best scorer in Chelsea history after the defeat at Goodison Park.
However, many experts see the problem in it. Lampard is a conservative player who does not react to the opponent or the current player equipment, he clings anxiously to the 4-3-3 formation, although – as he admits – he currently does not have his best wings due to injuries.
After the shooting rebirth of Olivier Giroud, who has already been written off, he moves Timo Werner to the left edge of the attack. The expensive German reinforcement, for which the Blues bet almost £ 50 million, is groping in this position, and its already unconvincing entry into the Premier League is becoming even duller.
“The Premier League is a little different from my former league. It’s harder and harder than I thought. I expected stronger fights, but I didn’t expect that much difference,” admitted the 24-year-old gunner, who has scored only three goals in thirteen rounds and currently eight long duels await an accurate shot.
It is not his own to play on the wing, he is inconspicuous in matches, drowned.
At the same time, during his engagement in Leipzig, Werner fitted the position of a looser forward in the two-pronged system. Effective collaboration with Yusuf Poulsen or Patrik Schick could tread similarly with Giroud.
However, “Super Frank” would have to compromise on the rigid emphasis on a single system and at least try to change. Instead, he blames Werner’s shooting torment for a busy schedule, and for injuring his wing supports, the impossibility of five substitutions.
Lampak will continue to miss Hakim Zijech against West Ham. So far the best functioning summer reinforcement, the most creative player, the creator of the game, the threat. A man who would be extremely suitable against the consolidated and firm defense of the Hammers.
Hammers really command respect. In recent days and weeks, the laudatory ode to the impenetrable and at the same time unexpectedly creative wall of medium-sized midfielders has been growing.
West Ham can beat Chelsea for the first time in history three times in a row:
Renowned magazine The Athletic hurried with an article about the “elite center of the field”. No wonder Chelsea longs for 21-year-old Rice and Bayern Munich for 25-year-old Souček, he wrote.
“Given the current form, it is legitimate to declare Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek the best backup partnership of the entire league.”
The author also pauses that their phenomenal cooperation lasts only a while and both have a huge potential for further considerable growth. Both shine even in the language of unquestionable statistics and numbers.
Smarterscout, a portal that analyzes in detail the impact of the game of individual footballers on their team, showed Souček in an impressive light. In the interim course of the Premier League, the Czech Republic is the best among the midfielders with a huge lead in terms of won air battles. He controlled 71 of them, the second Cheikhou Kouyaté from Crystal Palace is at number 44.
How he protects the entire West Ham defense in a key way is also proven by his running statistics. And among the elite ten of the league is also in the capture of the opponent’s passes. He leads N’Golo Kante from Chelsea with thirty “thefts”, Declan Rice has one less and Souček has succeeded in this important activity nineteen times.
All this in itself would be enough for Souček to be a valid member of the staff of any club in today’s football world. But the Czech midfielder also has a large offensive superstructure.
Only four midfielders have more shots in this year’s English top competition. And these are the most glorious names: Kevin De Bruyne, Bruno Fernandes, Jack Grealish and Mason Mount.
“Souček has already fired twenty-three times, he is better than James Rodriguez, Phil Foden, James Maddison and many other offensive stars,” said The Athletic. Souček does not hesitate to run into the lime, finds himself in dangerous positions, and even though he is not aiming the ball at him, he attaches great attention to the defenders’ defenders. Invaluable to the team.
Souček is not too much on the ball, definitely less than during the engagement in Slavia. And his short-distance pass statistics are rather negligible. Here, however, the mosaic is perfectly complemented by Declan Rice.
The young captain of West Ham and the English national team, on the other hand, have the ball often and every time he gets it, he looks for a way forward with it. He doesn’t have to be afraid. He knows he has Souček behind him. Thanks to the work of the Czech midfielder, Rice thus becomes a much more complex and offensive player than he has been so far.
The Rice-Souček partnership will be key in tonight’s derby at Chelsea. You can watch a detailed online report on Aktuálně.cz.
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