Gameweek 5: The Post Mortem. WHU v SUN, CHE v STO

West Ham 1 Sunderland 1, Chelsea 1 Stoke 0

Summary:

A tactically simple battle determined by the brilliance of the respective teams: Larsson showcased his vision and Fletcher showed his predatory instincts, while Kevin Nolan is now CONFIRMED to be really, really good at taking first time shots. Sunderland also show that they are improving at defending the lead, but their lack of initiative will cost them in terms of the team's mentality.

Chelsea field a really, really offensive lineup that warrants goals, but as Stoke defend deep, Chelsea do not have the answer. Or do they?

Lineups:

West Ham roll out the same XI that started last week as Matt Jarvis starts on the bench. Sunderland also roll out the same XI, and predictably we have a 4-2-3-1 coming up against a 4-4-1-1. While Sunderland's positional structure is considered to be quite static, with West Ham, as I have never clearly mentioned before, can either operate as a 4-2-3-1, a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-2-1-3. 

Sunderland have quality in their starting XI in James McClean, Stephan Sessegnon and Seb Larsson, and an apt finisher in Steven Fletcher to finish off their attacking plays while Colback and Cattermole do reasonably well to shield their back four. West Ham, meanwhile, will rely on manager Sam Allardyce's route one football philosophy to deliver the goods. With Carlton Cole (or Carroll when he's fit) to win aerial balls up front, Nolan, Matt Taylor and Vaz Te will be chasing the second ball down to create their chances.

Tactical Notes: 

• Sunderland take the lead from an error, West Ham exercise patience 

Sunderland's goal was the first attempt on goal for either team, so while you could argue that Sunderland caught West Ham cold, it came down to (a) James Collins not successfully playing an offside trap against a lone marker and (b) Collins choosing not to use the offside trap but laxly marking Fletcher, who was afforded too much space to have a shot at Mignolet.

What followed the goal was predictable to some degree. Since Sunderland's starting XI tend to run more dangerously without the ball rather than with it, they conceded possession to West Ham, who only had Diame willing to bring the ball forward.

To West Ham's credit, they stuck to their guns, didn't lose their defensive shape, and relied on their set piece/long ball approach to get back into the game. With Sunderland relying on counterattacks to catch West Ham off guard again, West Ham were very wary of that and didn't commit too many men forward, and resulted in Kevin Nolan's well executed volley as their best chance of the first half.

• West Ham bring their plan B forward, Sunderland defend relatively well but invite too much pressure

As highlighted last week's post mortem, West Ham's plan B was to bring on Jarvis and Benayoun for West Ham's wide players while Sunderland have the tendency to sit back and break with speed.

West Ham predictably used Matt Jarvis and Benayoun to increase the number of crosses made into the box, but Sunderland exercised something different. Sessegnon, who was used to link up Sunderland's counterattacking moves was replaced by Fraizer Campbell, who usually occupies a wide position. Couple that with Larsson coming off for Vaughan, and you have Sunderland defending with 10 men off the ball and attacking with the industrious Vaughan and the speedy Campbell and McClean.

With Sunderland sitting deep, the onus was on West Ham's offensive line to overload the box, as well as their central midfielders to start shooting from outside, while Sunderland had the choice to either press the crosses and minimise their crossing threat, or sit deep and break with speed. West Ham's shooters were disappointingly poor, and their set piece chances were just not threatening enough, while Sunderland chose to counterattack but couldn't make their quality count.

• Sunderland's improved defence not completely reliable... Yet

What's puzzling to me this game was that while Sunderland were doing the best they can offensively, the defensive midfield pairing of Colback and Cattermole were still not picking up the second ball because they were sitting too deeply in defence. (John Colback did decently well with his 3 blocked shots but Cattermole just had 1). Just like how they were exposed to Gerrard and Shelvey last week, and this week Nolan duly punished them. You couldn't say it wasn't coming.

Fantasy Implications:

This draw pointed out the improvements in Sunderland's defence, but signals that it is not investment worthy yet. West Ham, however, present a dilemma; With Nolan value for money at present, your investment in him comes down to whether he'll perform based on form alone. Other teams will be more alert of his threat sooner or later, and with QPR coming up next, you can't say that Faurlin wouldn't be alert in tracking him down.

As for Sunderland's Fletcher, he's certainly doing a Papiss Cisse now, and as a firm believer of fixture (tactics at least) over form, only Wigan look like a certain points source for him. As for West Ham's defense,  it seems that only defensive errors will be the source of allowing goals, and Collins' error aside, we have yet to see any patterns in breaching them. 

Chelsea 1 Stoke 0

Lineups:

Chelsea field a lineup so sexy that Lampard's wouldn't feel too bad being relegated to the bench. With Mikel sitting in front of the back four, Chelsea line up a 4-1-4-1 with Oscar, Ramires, Hazard and Mata behind Torres with the aim of wearing Stoke down with quality. Gary Cahill stepped in to replace the injured John Terry. Stoke have Geoff Cameron in for the injured Wilkinson. Stoke play the same 4-5-1 against Man City, with Walters out wide right and Kightly on the left flank.

With Stoke's offensive plan being the Crouch and Walters show, any source of goals will rely on either set pieces or the performance of Peter Crouch, at least on paper. This provides room for Stoke's supporting cast to make a case for themselves to Tony Pulis. Kightly can be easily swapped with Etherington, while Adam and N'Zonzi can always be sacrificed for Owen or Jones. Chelsea, however, need to exercise caution themselves; while they are expected to score goals, Stoke do utilise their set pieces quite well and Chelsea will take careful note to either not foul them or foul them in their own half, nothing more.

Tactical Notes:

• Chelsea struggle against Stoke's deep defense

Chelsea dealt with Stoke's deep positioning using several approaches. Initially, with the midfield pinned so close to their defence, Chelsea's fullbacks were allowed to roam forward, resulting in Ashley Cole and Ivanovic appearing in really, really offensive positions. When overloading doesn't work, one would beat numbers with quality.

A feature on Stoke's defending is that while they don't afford Chelsea a lot of space to work with, they afforded Chelsea time. With Stoke dropping so deep into their own half, they had to be cautious in their tackling and hence Chelsea's playmakers had quite a lot of time to make decisions, and Stoke were relying on cutting out those options. 

Chelsea had that golden opportunity as well when Mata, afforded time, found a well timed run by Torres, only for the Spanish international to once again fluff a golden chance. Curiously enough, Stoke actually held a defensive line on the edge of the penalty box leaving some space between Begovic and the defense for Torres to run into. 

• Stoke forced to pick their poison, but credit to Chelsea for capitalizing

Tony Pulis recognised their passiveness in defence and Stoke's defensive midfield to be more assertive in defense, constantly chasing down Mata and Oscar. However, with 3 creative midfielders (Mata, Oscar and Ramires) outnumbering 2 defensive midfielders (Whelan and N'Zonzi) Stoke left themselves open to being beaten by Chelsea's playmakers. 

Whelan and NZonzi's relatively advanced positioning also allowed Chelsea's playmakers (and Ivanovic) space to run into, allowing attempts on goal such as Oscar's and Mata's. When Pulis recognised that the game was getting out of control, he ordered his defensive midfield to revert back to his first half's passive style, and Chelsea reacted by overloading the box by bringing Cole and Ivanovic forward again, and they also brought on Moses, who is an orthodox winger. 

Curiously enough, while Moses is meant to operate on the flanks, he was positioned relatively centrally in Chelsea's play, particularly in the buildup to Chelsea's goal, when Chelsea's width came from Cole and Ivanovic, while Moses, Mata and Lampard all linked up for Cole to finish. 

The key here is Cole's role swap with Oscar, which wasn't present previously when Hazard was on the field to play the wide role: Cole actually had switched places with Oscar pushing out wide to draw out Cameron, and while Stoke noticed that Oscar was pushed wide and didn't track his movement, there was literally NO marker on Cole as soon as the ball left his feet. 

Whether this should be attributed to Cole's movement or Stoke's marking I'm not quite sure, but we at least know that Oscar's original marker, NZonzi, seeing that he had no one to mark, retreated into the box to cut out Ivanovic's pass, leaving his two centerbacks to mark Torres, Mata and Cole. 

Fantasy Implications: 

While Stoke never had the chance to utilize their strategy, the pairing of Crouch and Walters are still decent differentials going into each gameweek, especially if they're playing against teams who struggle against height (United and Swansea come first to mind). As for Chelsea, judging on this performance, RDM has demonstrated that he has a few tricks up his sleeve, and I can safely say now that your investment in Chelsea will be for the short term rather than the long, as different Chelsea players would contribute to their victories rather than a consistent one banging the goals in.