In his second coming as Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was tasked with the responsibility of making the team play expansive football while not comprising their trophy cabinet. The season started well as the players got accustomed to the new style of play. However after 6 goals conceded against Stoke and Sunderland, this had to soon be abandoned in favour of pragmatism. Mourinho has spoken out in favour of a high defensive block with the team pressing. He mentioned that it was how we wanted Chelsea to play. This allows the game to be played in the opposition’s half with continuous, relentless pressure when the team is in possession. To do this effectively, all outfielders are required to put in a tireless shift.
It starts with the defence.
The centre-backs push up and the full-backs push out and relentlessly patrol the flanks. Defenders do not typically enjoy playing so far away from their goal. Especially the ones we’ve got at our disposal. John Terry, Gary Gahill and Kurt Zouma are not especially fast. As such the acres of space behind them can be easily exploited by a clever through ball into the path of a fast striker, or by wingers that love to have a go at the full back. Andre Vilas Boas tried that at Chelsea last time around and failed miserably. So why is Mourinho giving it a go? Because if the opposition doesn’t get enough time on the ball, the threat is considerably reduced. This is more complicated than it sounds. Since the stakes are so high, the whole team is expected to close down opposition players in possession and reduce their time and space on the ball. Such a system requires a great amount of hard work and fitness from the entire squad. Hence Mourinho’s insistence on industry. But that comes at a price. For all his talent and magic, Juan Mata was deemed unfit for the number 10 role.
The man he chose instead: Oscar
Apart from his obvious attacking talents, Oscar is like an attack dog: constantly hounding the opposition and closing down spaces quickly. This gives a ball playing defender or a defensive playmaker (looking at you Andrea Pirlo) little time on the ball and hence tries to stifle any control they may have on the game. This often leads to a sideways non-risky pass to the full-back or wide wingers. This where our wide players come in. They too are expected to press the opposition full-back now in possession, while the full-back keeps an eye on the winger down that flank. This helps avoid the scenario of the opposition winger and full-back doubling up against full-back and crossing or playing the ball in from a dangerous position to an oncoming forward who could have made significant ground in the race against our centre-backs.
Introducing: Willian, Salah, Schurrle and Hazard
All of them offer a different set of skills in attack and are the envy of the league, but it’s their defensive contribution that makes the system work. Mourinho has placed great emphasis on balanced teamplay and justifiably so. Oscar pressing doesn’t really achieve anything, if the team doesn’t do the same. This often requires superhuman stamina from the wide players.
Willian has received a lot of flak from Chelsea fans this past season, not because of his supposed inefficiency high up the pitch, but because of the simple fact that he cost the club a hefty 30M pounds. When a team pays that kind of money for an attacking midfielder, it is natural for the fans to expect something special and skillful from the player. While we would like to see more from him going forward, Willian plays his role to perfection. He’s just as likely to be covering his colleague at full-back as he is nutmegging the one against him. Even Hazard has demonstrated his willingness to track back, but failed to do so on one notable occasion: the Champions League second leg against Atletico Madrid at Stamford Bridge. This allowed the full-back plenty of time and space on the ball which directly lead to a goal. After the game Mourinho didn’t hold back his criticism of his star performer, once again highlighting the immense effort required by even the most talented of players on the squad.
With the attacking players closing down spaces, the central midfielders are expected to break play, intercept passes infield and quickly recycle possession back to one of our forwards making their runs.
Enter: Cesc Fabregas and Nemanja Matic
Whenever Chelsea played with Matic in midfield, which was quite often post his signing in January, we looked considerably stronger. His best performance last season came against Manchester City at the Etihad – more than containing Yaya Toure and generally bossing the midfield. Chelsea drew just 2 games in 8 against Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United. It wasn’t the big boys in the park we struggled against. It was the likes of Newcastle, West Ham, Sunderland, Aston Villa and most of all, Crystal Palace that we struggled against. They were happy to sit back and defend against us knowing fully well that we lacked the ability for a killer pass and that our forwards were toothless. They played with 10 men behind the ball. These games got incredibly frustrating as we struggled to find the perfect pass to a striker that could take the limited chances he got. There are two parts to this problem: a playmaker and a quality striker. Cesc Fabregas solves that problem. While fans might not really like him very much, there are few midfielders of his ilk in the world. His ability to see the game unfolding before him split seconds in advance allows him to play beautiful and incredibly threatening through balls. His signing has divided the Chelsea fans and he’s been a largely unpopular figure around these parts for a host of reasons, but the man gives us something we’ve missed all season.
There have been quite a few people though who have questioned his defensive skills to be able to play in a two-man central midfield given the fact that he was playing in a much advanced position for Barcelona and Spain. This has led to calls for him to replace Oscar in the no.10 role or a switch to a 4-3-3. I for one have a slightly different opinion on the matter:
- At Arsenal he played in a more central role, and that changed at Barcelona.
I always want to get forward as I was used to at Arsenal, where the football is more nervous. Now my position is higher up on the pitch, sometimes I don’t touch the ball as often as I used to, so I have to be patient.
He wasn’t really suited to Barcelona’s system. While his creativity, direct passing and sense of urgency is what lead to stellar performances for Arsenal, these same traits were not appreciated as much in Barcelona’s patient style of play.
- Chelsea’s 4-2-3-1 actually doesn’t differ much from a 4-3-3. The three-man midfield more often than not would be a combination of Matic-Fabregas/Ramires-Oscar/Ramires. Those calling for the switch think that moving Oscar/Cesc deeper will help address our creative woes, but this analysis ignores the fact that Oscar is far from contained in his role as a number 10. He’s always moving around with or without the ball. When the team is in possession you’ll see him drop deep to pick up the ball, double up with our attacking midfielders on the flanks and play quick one-twos on the edge of the box. Many a time last season we saw Ramires burst forward from midfield when we were in possession while Oscar provided cover. When the team doesn’t have the ball, he’ll hound the opposition in an attempt to recover it and succeeds fairly often. Playing Oscar deeper means that Chelsea would be compromising his defensive skills without actually making him any more efficient.
- Playing Cesc Fabregas in the centre means that if he decides to venture forward when Chelsea have the ball, Oscar can and probably will drop deeper to cover for him. Should they both remain forward, we’ve still got Nemanja Matic in the centre and one of the two central defenders to press forward in an attempt to reclaim the ball. Alternatively it also allows Oscar to remain higher up in the opposition third while Fabregas controls the play from midfield. This should allow Oscar to become a greater attacking threat as well. On the other hand when Chelsea are not in possession, we’ll have Oscar and the rest of our front line pressing the opposition making life generally miserable for them while Cesc keeps an eye on his opposite number.
All in all, the effective use of the high press system goes a long way in ensuring that Cesc Fabregas is not a defensive liability and Mourinho seems to think so too:
My opinion is that Fabregas is the right player to occupy the central position in midfield. Fabregas is the player we need to modify a little bit the profile of our game, which we need. We want to give the next dimension to our game in midfield and Fabregas is this kind of player which I like to call the 7, because he’s not the 6 and he’s not the 8. Normally the 7 is the winger, I also call the 7 the guy in midfield who’s not the 6, he’s not the 8. He’s a 6 and 8 at the same time. So he’s a 7 and we need him a lot.
Midfield Alternatives
In games that require stamina and counter-attacking football you can expect to see Ramires line up in midfield alongside Matic and one of Cesc/Oscar in the number 10 role/furthest forward in the midfield ‘3’. Ramires adds that extra bit of pace through the midfield that is ever so important when the goal is to counter-attack. Another important skill while counter-attacking is the ability to play the final pass, and this is the biggest complaint against him. On many occasions we have seen promising attacks break down due to a failed pass or a poor decision from the Brazilian. Biding in the time in the shadows is a young man: Marco Van Ginkel. We signed him from Vitesse last season, but he picked up an ACL injury in a pre-season game against Real Madrid and has been out of action ever since. He seems to have recovered now and even got called up to the provisional Holland squad for the World Cup. Make no mistake, ACL injuries are extremely tricky and very few players manage to get back to their best. Having said that Van Ginkel is just 21 years old and has shown plenty of promise during his days in Holland. He can pass the ball well enough, has a great eye for goal, makes quite a few interceptions in midfield, is strong in tackle and has immense stamina. If he can reach the levels that were expected from him when he first arrived, he could well become a regular feature in the side.
There will however be games in the season when we play against opposition superior than ourselves. The likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester City and probably United (under Van Gaal and especially if rumoured deals for Arturo Vidal and Angel Di Maria go through) could see us attempting to soak up the pressure and attempt to hit the opposition on the counter. At such times we are likely to see Mourinho call upon John Obi Mikel who is essentially a defensive rock and great at intercepting the ball and breaking up play.
The final piece of the puzzle
Returning to our inability to break down tight defenses last season, let’s take a look at our strikers. Demba Ba, Fernando Torres and Samuel Eto’o managed a combined total of 13 goals in the league. City on the other hand had an abundance of attacking talent last season that led them to come within a goal of breaking our “Most Goals Scored in a season” record. Liverpool too possessed great bite up front with Suarez and Sturridge (sorry, couldn’t resist). Needless to say, Chelsea needed a new striker that would actually pose a genuine goal scoring threat. Jose had spoken about the need to sign a new striker multiple times last season and in Diego Costa, it looks like he’s finally got his man.
Diego Costa, is a striker like no other. He’s grown up playing the on streets of Brazil and has had to work extremely hard to get to the level he is at today. The manager admires that about him:
He is a guy whose life was not easy, nobody gave him anything for free and he always had to fight a lot.
While he’s been good for Atletico Madrid in previous seasons, he was often overshadowed by Falcao. But he had a breakout season last year. With a total of 33 goals in 56 appearances in all competitions last season, he presents a real threat on goal. He links up well, his movement around the box is great, and he tends to draw the opposition centre-back out of position. Costa’s work rate is impressive too which is a great asset when the team doesn’t have possession of the ball. None of our strikers pressed high up the field last season and we suffered as a result. Not just in attack, but defensively too. This would give a ball-playing defender ample time to pick out a pass, bypassing the midfield and even the back four. Additionally he possesses a win-at-all-costs attitude that has seen him get into trouble in Spain, but is exactly the kind that Jose likes. He’s always ready for a great physical or verbal battle and defenders hate that about him.
How it all comes together…
Too often stopping Hazard meant stopping Chelsea. Now with Diego Costa’s movement around the box and goalscoring threat, together with the ability of Cesc Fabregas, Eden Hazard now has an excellent opportunity to shine. You could even argue that the team is now built around him. Earlier on teams doubled up against Hazard, with the opposition full-back and winger giving him little to no space to work in and the times he did manage to get past them, Eden had the centre-back for company. Ideally you would expect our full-back to help out, overlapping from deep and providing an alternate option, but given the fact that Azpilicueta played at left-back and the priority was to defend, this wasn’t really an option. Playing Cesar there secured our defence but him being right footed (like Hazard) meant that by the time he switched the ball onto his preferred foot to whip in a cross, the opposition had reorganised and the opportunity was lost. Behold Filipe Luis. The 29 year old left-back does just that. Not only can he play excellent crosses from deep in his own half and the by-line, he’s got a tremendous work-rate as well. This has the further advantage of allowing Azpilicueta to return to his preferred right-back spot and give us some attacking advantage down the right flank as well. Mourinho has preferred Ivanovic at that spot since he can also play as a centre-back in a three-man defence should we choose to bring on an additional striker, and go with a 3-5-2 structure should we be chasing games. In that look no further than Didier Drogba. The legend returns to the club and while age may not be on his side, he can still be quite a handful for an opposing defender. Together he and Diego Costa would be a complete pain to deal with and that makes Didier an excellent option off the bench.
Chelsea have an extremely strong and balanced squad and for the first time in many years, we actually look like top contenders for the Premier League title. We’ve got an extremely fluid and adaptive squad with players posessing a wide range of skillsets and a manager who recognises that fact and chooses his team accordingly. World, we are coming.
