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Chelsea are a strange team. One minute they're electric in attack, the next they're defensively frail. Join FourFourTwo's Jacob Tanswell for a deep dive into the tactics behind the Premier League's most unpredictable side, breaking down their creative attacking patterns and the major flaws in their defensive press.
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Chelsea aren't really weird. They can defend, but then they can't defend
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And when they don't defend, they really do not defend very well
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Then they can't attack sometimes, and other times they are absolutely electric
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But JP Morgan isn't enough to be a top side in the modern Premier League
0:21
What? So what is it with Xabi Alonso's Chelsea? And how far away are this side from being a top team in England
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Well, I'm Jacob Oswald, 4-4-2's resident tactician, and this is why Chelsea are the most unpredictable side in the Premier League
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Now, we know Chelsea can be incredible going forward at times. They've scored 10 league goals in the opening fixtures of the Premier League season
0:51
ranking them as the second most frequent bagsmen in the division at the time of recording
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But what I like about this side is that as much as Morgan Rodgers' brilliant ball carrying and Cole Palmer's individual creativity get all the plaudits in this Chelsea side, their attack is a lot more than that
1:09
We often see them slightly under-loaded in attack due to them averaging 44.5% possession at the time of recording
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So movement from all of Pedro, Palmer and Rodgers is super important
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and you see here the ball is played to João Pedro and he occupies four Brighton players
1:26
allowing Morgan Rodgers to go from a deep starting position to an area in which he has separation
1:31
from the nearest defender and that's what João Pedro has done so so well in these opening games
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and you saw just how much they missed Pedro against Brentford they really didn't have that
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sort of glue in that attack that player who could reliably make it stick because the Brazilian will
1:47
happily step away from that leading role up top to pull players in and give other Chelsea players
1:52
high value opportunities. I mean despite his side having far less of the ball this season compared
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to last season he's still having pretty much the exact same touches of a football because he's sort
2:04
of the center of how this Chelsea side create opportunities but it's not just him. This movement
2:10
in the front line that you can happily see whenever you watch Chelsea seeps into the rest of the
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Chelsea team. Here Maxence Lacroix is in possession, stepping out the back line after
2:21
Rhys James has dropped in, ensuring Chelsea still have that 2v2 on the halfway line in their rest
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defence. But a midfielder dropping in, Rhys James in this case, also creates open space, so Lacroix
2:32
can carry and play wide, but he doesn't just stop here. He carries his run on as Gusto comes inside
2:39
dragging his marker with him and opening up the central area for Koal Parma to rotate into
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And then all of a sudden, Chelsea are in this lovely little 4v3 in the centre of the pitch
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Which is how Chelsea have scored a lot of their goals this season. Yes, it's really direct. Yes, it's getting up to them front three attackers and just let them do a bit of beautiful magic
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But it's also a lot of deep to high runs to make dummy runs, to get Cole Palmer in the pockets, to support players combining one-twos on the edge of the area
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And that's been really nice to see. However, as we know with Chelsea, quite a few goals go the other way
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Now this is the problem for me with Chelsea out of possession because here they actually done pretty well to cover the central options and it a half decent press
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But there is a lot of risk in having both your midfield players jumping all the way onto the opposition's 18-yard box
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to press their midfield. And it can work, absolutely. But not when your wing-back is jumping to the opposition's wide player
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and build-up as the ball is halfway to them. Because that's what Malagusta does here
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He doesn't start his jump onto that wide Leeds player until the ball's halfway to him
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which gives that lead player time to take a touch, set himself, give enough time for other Leeds players to make some little movements and create speeds
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And as we see, all he does is wait for one of the Chelsea centre-halves to commit out of that back lane
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and then you hit the channel to a wide 1v1, which a lot of strikers in the Premier League nowadays love to be in
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And Lucas Nemecha absolutely does. And that's the issue because it's not just like that was a one-off game where Leeds, you know, made the most of getting down the touchline against the Chelsea side who were a little bit unfortunate
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No, you see this every single week where the centre-offs commit out of the back line and then the opposition are through on goal just by going down that one of the left or the right channels
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Now, a big reason for that is because when they press and potentially try and go man-to-man or are in the mid-third, these midfield players aren't, for me, entirely sure of their roles properly
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there's usually a lot of confusion you watch a Chelsea game someone throws their hand up and asks what's going on and because they consistently mistime their jumps as a result of being confused
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it has a huge knock-on effect on those behind them who are then mistiming their jumps or are a yard
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away because that player jumped too early and it has a huge effect on everyone else in the Chelsea
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side meaning it's not a surprise that when it comes to final third ball wins they're near the
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bottom of the table at the time of recording and it's a common occurrence for this Chelsea side I
5:12
I mean, a lot of the stuff that you'll notice out of possession is something that's happening in every single game. But sides just happily play around their block and then just hook it down the touchline to a striker or a winger who's stretching that back three that are sat there on the halfway line
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And it just leaves so many gaps, so many holes that teams can then play in and enter the final third really easily
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Hull City played 74% of their attacks down the flanks when they went to the bridge
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and Arsenal had 76% of their attacks go out wide when they hosted the Blues
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But it isn't just the press that is causing Chelsea a lot of problems this season
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As we mentioned earlier, there are huge knock-on effects by their final third pressing
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which is leading some massive issues in deeper defensive states. They often sit in a 5-4-1 in their own half
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but their biggest issue is again in those wide areas. Their wingers are zonal, but the problem is their distances seem all wrong
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again. Rodgers being at this 90 degree angle means it will take time to reach Ben White
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He's also allowed Hato to go 1v1 with Saka and he isn't quite deep enough to close the space
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around Kai Havertz. So that means a Chelsea centre-back steps wide to monitor the German
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striker creating a huge disconnect across that back five. Now another problem is that when this
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goes wide Saka can take two touches before Hato has arrived and set himself to defend which closes
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the actual window for him to win the ball and allow Saka to draw other Chelsea players
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over with small touches Now it hard to properly place your finger on exactly why Chelsea have such big timing and jump issues because it the basics I mean I watched every Chelsea game so far this
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season when I was writing the script the Brentford game is not entirely part of this script because
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this is filmed the morning after but it feels like such basic stuff that they are continuously
7:08
just messing up entirely which leads us onto our next issue but it does allow us to cast more of a positive light
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on Xabi Alonso and on this Chelsea side which is what I always want to do if you watch a lot of the videos
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I'm always looking to try and be positive so ladies and gentlemen stick with me
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trust me we're coming back to some good stuff Chelsea are at it again Martin
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and we can't concede goals like that it's really easy to criticise Xabi Alonso's Chelsea
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trust me it really really is but we have to contextualize the problems that they have in order to truly understand how long
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term these problems are going to be and how much actually falls on the shoulders of shabby alonso
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the closest to his best pre-season team alonso got was the one that met ac milan now we see
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moises caicedo and palestra featuring this side in that game the distances they had to cover when
7:56
jumping were far smaller and a lot of that is because of who neto was pointing at here moises
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Caicedo. If we go forward slightly we see Caicedo as basically a lone midfield player which allows
8:07
for the rest of the team to commit man to man and be brave out of possession. Now in the Premier
8:12
League with a Gusto or potentially a Lavia or maybe a Rhys James none of them have the distance
8:19
coverage of Moises Caicedo and that's not a slight on them. Moises Caicedo is just arguably one of the
8:24
best defensive midfielders in world football but his ability to cover such big distances allows
8:30
other Chelsea players to jump earlier to go and press without any hesitation because they are so
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sure that Caicedo will probably bail them out he will cover that ground to win the ball back
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like this scenario Nettles seems reluctant to leave that 1v1 behind him so he doesn't jump
8:46
if Caicedo was maybe in this position maybe the peace of mind that he knows Caicedo can cover the
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ground would encourage him to make that aggressive pressing move and it's almost similar with
8:57
palestra i think especially with the wingbacks we've obviously nettle's been playing there and
9:01
i think he's been all right really really okay nothing much more than that and then at left
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wingback you've sort of had a mix up of loads of different players we had pet playing there against
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brem fad with high garyl had still playing there and these are players who maybe aren't entirely
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suited to what is a really complicated role within a xavi alonso system so bringing palestra who was
9:23
a main state in the pre-season team prior to injury bringing Moises Caicedo with their distance
9:28
coverage and maybe we see a bit of a change to the way Chelsea are pressing teams and how effective
9:34
they are when they do these pressing actions however we've got one more problem to look at
9:38
and it is this this is a problem that's plagued Chelsea for god knows how long they're in a 4v3
9:44
here okay four versus three on the Hull attack Hull City attack Wesley Fafana is in arguably an
9:52
ideal position to try and win this first contact contest the first duel now he's against Oli
9:56
McBurney so if he doesn't win it that could be a problem but actually Chelsea have four players
10:00
creating a box around the ball which allows them to be pretty confident they should be winning this
10:05
knockdown but then I want to look out wide and look at Pedro Neto so in this game I believe he was playing off the right wing but he obviously dropped back because we in a set piece scenario here now Pedro Neto has entirely closed off the idea of tracking back here because he looking
10:21
the other way his body positioning closes off any idea of him turning and recovering this flick on
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from Oli McBurney so when it's flicked on instead of Chelsea being 2v1 toward the byline with Neto
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and Gusteau around Ryan Giles. It's a 1v1 and Gusteau is in a leg race with Ryan Giles who shrugs
10:43
him off entirely. Now being in a 1v1 prior to being shrugged off really isn't the end of the
10:48
world. You kind of trust Gusteau to be able to at the worst really make it a really horrific cross
10:55
from Giles or let him force you into giving a corner away. But Gusteau obviously gets shrugged
11:01
and it allows Giles to just boot a ball into the box. Now, this is a horrific position for Chelsea to be in
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because now, despite being in a 4v3 in their defence versus their attack
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and having two support midfielders just in front of the first contact from Molly McBurney
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they're now in a 3v3 inside their own penalty area. That is absolutely shambolic to get into that scenario
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And it actually gets worse because Giles Hattel, I know he makes a mistake, which we're going to touch on in a second
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but he's not in an easy position now because he's now trying to read a ball that's dropping
11:33
straight down which isn't always as easy as you may suspect especially when you're right under it
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and he's got Bellumi with momentum to come and contest the first duel if he does want to now
11:44
Bellumi doesn't even have to do that because Joel Hatzel makes a mistake misreads the bounce it
11:49
then bounces over him and now Bellumi's got a shot on goal with almost the entire goal gave him for
11:55
him in a huge opportunity for whole city despite them starting to move in an underloaded attack
12:02
four versus three against chelsea's defense and that's where i sympathize with shabby alonso because
12:09
yes they've not been great in the press but i think a lot of the problems that they are having
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it comes down to individuals they've got a semi-decent structure at times like that whole
12:19
goal there was not a bad defensive structure set up by the set piece team or whoever was involved
12:24
in it but it's like brain farts that's what i'm gonna call i'm gonna put it down benefit the doubt
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brain farts leads to a massive chance for hull in a position where hull should have had zero chance
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to even get a shot off or think of a shot but i'm gonna get a little bit philosophical on you here
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because a manager can have tactics he can have structure he can have a system he can sort of
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bring patterns of play into it but the best tactic a manager can have is the players he has
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his disposal and if your players are making bizarre decisions then it feels like the tactics you're
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deploying are bizarre decisions but sometimes it's not necessarily entirely that so i'm going to leave
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you with a question can chelsea actually put together a solid run of form and be pushing in
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that top four in the top three in the top two or are jp morgan not quite enough for this chelsea
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side to really make a do it at this season let me know in the comments below and we'll be back
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in the future with some more brilliant ysis and thank you so much for the support on the
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recent videos really doesn't go unnoticed
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