Penalties are too harsh of a punishment for most offenses in the box, similar to yellow and red cards the punishments aren’t fit for purpose (red often too harsh so refs scared to use, yellows pointless and second yellow also too harsh so scared to use).

First I’ll go over your suggestions.

But first we must be clear, the box should be a harsher punishment zone otherwise teams would sit in it more and it would be even harder to get through low blocks. Having the penalty area where the rules are tighter is a good thing.

Your suggestions.

Can’t prohibit stuttered run ups, too difficult to police you’re asking refs to define a stutter, that will end badly. Plus why should we rule stuttering as “not in the spirit of the game” and is there any evidence a stutter actually improves chances. We should avoid implementing things that make the sport more uniform, styles make fights and players with weird or wonderful techniques make football interesting. It’s cool that jorginho a random non athletic DM is one of the best PK takers in the world, we shouldn’t shut that down just to make pens harder.

Indirect freekicks are just a mess, fun for the novetly of a backpass but if they happened for every handball it would just be a cluster fuck.

Diving is a complex one, but it isn’t the issue imo, there is “beating your man and going down on a touch” and there is “going down from no contact” going down from no contact is pretty rare, most players who do that don’t appeal nowdays and we should allow players who win their 1v1 but get a tap to be awarded a pen, it’s good for attacking football that a defender can’t dangle a leg or just flail at the ball in the box.

Going back and penalising attackers who go down looking for that is fine, but don’t get var involved that will become a mess and players like Saka, Eze and salah will start getting sent off or will just dribble less which is not what anyone actually wants to see in their hearts of hearts.

You should be able to “win” a pen with quick thinking or good skill that’s a good part of the game and we shouldn’t go looking for ways to penalise attackers for doing it. Plus it becomes all too easy to send an attacker off who just fell over or slipped and that has to be avoided at all cost, again don’t give the refs that kind of leeway to fuck a game up, you’re asking for trouble.

Moving the penalty spot maybe… but really some fouls do deserve a normal pen, so now you can handball to stop a goal and then it’s a 0.5 chance pen. Seems unfair to the attacking team now.

Player fouled takes pen, good idea, but also most guys getting fouled are the forwards does it make much difference?

What you need imo is a two tier system, most igredious are denial of goal scoring opportunity.

Tier 1 - foul during 1v1 with keeper, foul with open goal, stopping ball that is goal bound with hand or serious foul play/dangerous/reckless.

Tier 2 - When a player isn’t about to score but is fouled or impeded.

Tier 1 would be standard pen, these things should get a 0.8 xG chance as punishment.

Tier 2 would be a 1v1 with the GK from half way line (like the american world cup).

This would add so much to the game, make penaties more of a spectacle and give keepers more chance to do cool stuff, give attackers the chance to pull off some outragous skill. Attacker to chip from 30 yards or run around keeper or try to sit him down loads of options so much individual skill potentially on show. Would reduce the guaranteed nature but make it still a punishment you would not want to be on the end of.

Football is entertainment at the end of the day and that would be an amazingly entertaining part of the game.

Compared to a penalty that’s usually just quite routine nowdays.

This should imo, go hand in hand with a review of red and yellow cards. An introduction of orange cards with a 10 min sin bin for situations where red is too harsh and yellow is meaningless.

People don’t like to say it because he did win us a FA cup, but the true CB banter partnership is Luiz and Mustafi. Luiz exemplified our banter era, old chelsea washed up, comical figure and super well known by opposition fans (hence the bantering). Also had many unfortunate moments as a CB. Although most most fans have a soft spot for him, as he was one of the better defenders we had for a long while.

True banter backline is Xhaka LB Luiz CB Mustafi CB Sokratis RB

And Runarsson GK.

All happened.

Yes delibrately reductive, because explaining every thing that is different since last season is like a 1000 word essay. I belive it’s the major reason our attacking numbers are down and things feel like they aren’t “clicking”.

Partey plays passes through the middle.

Partey turns through presses to make transitions.

Partey finds saka on the run against a lone defender.

Rince repeat until 88 goals for and 23 wins.

We’re adapting to not having that, we’ve shut down games more, largely because Rice provides that added security. But we struggle to create flowing cutting attacking moves through a team that result in high XG chances.

We are lacking his ability to turn under pressure and play directly through the middle or out to saka early enough for him to be on the run or 1v1.

If we are going to play partey it’s going to be in a double 6 with Rice or with rice at 8 (although essentially this is the same thing imo given rice has the legs to be basically everywhere). Or we’ll try that RB position for him again.

Either way, the best attacking football we’ve played over the last two years has been when partey is in his role as the deep progressor, recieving deep turning and playing quality passes through the lines or to saka. And that’s becuase he’s literally one of the best 6s at central progression in the world, he’s a cheat code in that respect.

Many people said this before we signed rice, the big tactical story this season will be about how we move beyond partey, but that isn’t going to be a completely smooth transition. There’s very few players like him and we are going to have to find new ways of playing without him.

Timber, Havertz and rice all potentially offered ways to progress the ball if partey isn’t there, that’s not a coincidence. It’s a huge transition for us tactically.