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Chelsea played a double striker by chance, what to do after a big victory over West Ham is more important

11:23am, 23 August 2025Football

As we had expected before, with the Crystal Palace, Maresca would not attract criticism.

In addition to the fact that Crystal Palace is indeed not to be underestimated, the objective reason is that it is too easy to find. In this case, the gold medal effect of exemption from the Club World Cup championship will continue to protect Maresca.

However, no matter how you protect it, Maresca himself needs to face up to the problem. The Premier League has begun. Even if there is no pre-season training and no reliable left-center-back, if you don’t win, the impact will be on your own results.

So West Ham United became the unlucky guy. The unlucky part is that they happened to encounter Palmer's injury.

It is precisely because of this that Maresca made a change by putting João Pedro in Palmer's position, thus sending Draper at the center position. Apart from that, most of the key positions have not changed much, but the front and back combinations of Estewan and Gusto were sent on the right road.

So, although the idea was not intended, Chelsea still played a double striker in a fateful way, which is what we felt regretful in the adjustment stage of the last game. This showed its power in this game.

Of course, in the away game, West Ham United, as the home team, will eventually show some attitude. After the opening of the game, West Ham United invested a lot of manpower and energy in the frontcourt, which put a lot of pressure on Chelsea's backcourt shots. The aim was Adarabioyu, who was playing in the left center back today:

With the help of this momentum, they completed the frontcourt steal in the 6th minute. After Paqueta got the ball, he did not interfere all the way and scored directly:

From Porter's perspective, he would definitely feel that his game plan worked smoothly, so after scoring a goal, the team began to regain the formation, and Chelsea also formed a siege against West Ham United.

Faced with the 541 formation of the iron barrel formation, Chelsea did not have many ways in the early stage. The ball fell back and forth on the periphery, and could only hope to open a gap on the wing. This task was handed over to Neto, who was more experienced:

This cross was indeed good, but at this time it was the 14th minute. Before that, Chelsea did not form more threatening attacks, so it was inevitable that it still seemed a bit inefficient. However, in the set-piece opportunity formed by this cross attack, Chelsea equalized the score:

As soon as this ball was scored, the score returned to the same starting line, and West Ham United was forced to pull it out again.

In fact, thanks to the interlude of Phil Kruger's body and Bowen, West Ham United can put a lot of pressure on Chelsea when forming an offense, so they can create set-piece opportunities in the frontcourt:

. In this second attack of set-piece, Todibo stepped forward to form a threat attack. Although he was in an offside position first, he played a lot of defensive problems with Chelsea along the way. For example, when he inserted, Chelsea players did not command or echo each other at all, and transferred their defensive responsibilities:

And when he entered the ribs and sent a cross, all Chelsea defenders in the middle retreated into the small penalty area, allowing the outside and back points to miss each other. This is the reason why West Ham United kept kicking:

And in the 20th minute, Adarabioyu also made a low-level mistake in defense:

So from a single point to the overall, you can clearly see Chelsea's instability on the defensive end, and even lack of ability and consciousness. With the current defensive stability, there will be big problems when facing four opponents.

Of course, West Ham United will not be the four-match opponent, so in today's game, Chelsea's defense is poor, and West Ham United will not be much better. Just after the continuous chaos in the defense line, Chelsea completed a steal in the frontcourt and easily scored the second goal:

The score from leading to falling behind, West Ham United's mentality became anxious, but in the face of Chelsea's oppression, it was difficult for them to get the ball from the backcourt, so they had to rely on long passes to fight for the top to bypass the ground, but around 30 minutes, they lost a little in a row, and Chelsea formed an advantageous situation:

At this time, Chelsea's double striker formed an effect. In the 33rd minute, Drapp formed a fulcrum, allowing Estewan to smoothly enter the right rib from his side, assisting Enzo to score:

, it is difficult to achieve such a ball. However, Drapp really does not have Joao Pedro's relatively outstanding footwork skills, so the characteristics between the two will not overlap, and can form complementarity, thereby supporting the entire team's offense.

So, as long as you jump out of the fixed frame of 433, Chelsea will bring a lot of changes to your opponent, but if you can't jump out, there is nothing you can do..

After this, West Ham United's spirit was also hit. After all, they lost three goals in less than half, making their opening point meaningless. So at the end of the first half, they only played an unsuccessful cross from the right:

And after returning from the second half, although West Ham United also made substitutions, the problem on the defensive end could not be changed. With the support of Chelsea's two forwards, the left ribs were frequently hit, and Enzo would have the chance. Flying:

However, in the set ball formed by the second left rib cross, Chelsea scored the fourth goal:

4 minutes later, the attack was supported by the double striker and the fifth goal in the set ball:

After this, the score did not change, and the suspense of the game officially came to an end.

With only one draw in the first round, the second round won a 5-1 victory, which is obviously a great boost in morale. When it cannot be said that it is ready at the physical level, the improvement of mental state is also a boost.

But in this game, Chelsea can still see many of its shortcomings.

5 goals, 3 of them came from set pieces, so instead of saying how mercury Chelsea's offense is, West Ham United needs to solve its own set pieces defense problem. In addition, Chelsea's offensive highlights are actually maintained on the double strikers, but their double strikers stand one in front and one behind.

So, the suspense appears here.

In this game, Drapp actually did a lot of invisible work, but he did not get any offensive opportunities with the feedback from his teammates. From a certain perspective, this is the fate of playing center under the Guazhi team: you are mostly working, but most of the crosses of teammates will be passed to the inverted triangle direction.

In this case, Drapp's own growth depends on his own life. Compared to improving his abilities, ensuring that he is not injured is a good result. Otherwise, he will be discarded after using it. Just like Nicholas Jackson, what can he do if he has an eight-year and ten-year contract? The second is Joao Pedro. He formed a double striker with Drapp today, but he still played in Palmer's position, so whether similar double strikers can continue to appear is a question mark in itself.

Maresca has always been a habit of continuing to use it once, so whether this habit will affect Palmer and whether it will change Maresca is the biggest suspense.

After all, in the last game against Crystal Palace, Maresca did not play a double striker.

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