Tactical Breakdown vs Chelsea Away

Welcome to my tactical breakdown of the Chelsea vs Leeds game coming this weekend, in case you don’t know the time it’s at 3pm on Saturday 11th December.

Usually we do this in video format but we have made the decision to make this a regular written piece rather than video, the data on display will be easier to visualize and I’ll still talk about some of it in the Big Match Preview prior to each game, let us know in the comments if you prefer it this way.

Formations

Firstly lets go over what formation we could expect to see from Chelsea, this season Thomas Tuchel has been going with a 3–4–3 formation in two different styles mainly, the system he has used slightly more is 3–4–3(Wide), which looks like the below.

The 2nd formation which I’ll call 3–4–3(Narrow) looks like the below.

As you can see the only difference between the two tactics is in the attacking third, in the narrow formation you have 2 attacking midfielders(AM’s) behind the Striker(ST) and in the wide formation you have two wingers(WI’s) instead of the two AM’s.

Chelsea have used 3–5–2 a couple of times and also 4–3–3 once but it looks quite likely that Tuchel will prefer to use the systems that have brought him so much success in the league this year.

Now we think about how Bielsa will likely look to match up the opposition team for his man to man marking system. We’ll look at the 3–4–3 wide system first, and I’d expect us to play a 4–4–2, just as we have done against other 3–4–3 sides in recent weeks. Below is how we will look in our man marking structure.

I will go into personnel I expect to play for both sides later but for now we see players matched up all over the pitch, besides the LCB who is the “Free Man”, he will be there to watch out for any breakdown’s in the marking system and clean up any problems.

Then if Tuchel decides on the Narrow 3–4–3 formation here is how it will look.

There isn’t a massive amount of difference, other that our fullbacks will be marking a player who is more central, this could cause us problems as when our fullbacks do tuck in to follow their man, they will leave a lot of space in wide areas, and if the Chelsea wing backs(WB’s) break free from the man marker we could see the below.

So it is key that the man without marking responsibility(Free Man) can monitor those spaces to ensure he is ready in case our wingers lose their man. Despite not having an assigned player to mark, the key player defensively for us could well be this man as he will need to intelligently assess where he needs to be at all times.

Style

Chelsea play a style of football orientated around patient buildup, they have the 3rd highest average possession in the league with 58.9% average possession to our 57.8%. On top of this they complete the 3rd most passes p90 with 500 passes p90 and 2nd highest pass completion with 84.6%.

Due to the general difference in class of our players and their players I would expect Chelsea will dominate the ball, but if we can ensure we closely mark their forward players and limit balls into the box we can try to keep the possession they have inside their own half.

We will of course try to keep hold of the ball with our own style and it will be an interesting battle but I suspect we may allow them some more of the ball, with the aim of trying to win the ball back high up the pitch.

The part of Chelsea’s game that worries me is that they have a number of talented direct dribblers and they use them a lot. They have completed the 2nd most dribbles in the league with an average of 10.1 completed dribbles per90 and in addition they have the highest dribble success rate with 62.9% of their dribbles completed. We have seen how much direct dribblers can hurt us and break apart our man marking system.

Chelsea have the players at their disposal to play a very high pressing game should they decide to do so, they complete an average of 35 high pressures p90 which is 6th most in the league and only just behind our 38 high pressures p90, when we do have possession I would expect them to press our wide players similar to other clubs have done, I hope they don’t but I have a feeling they will.

When it comes to crosses they attempt 12.7 p90 which is 8th in the league, however they only complete 1.4 p90 which is 4th worst in the league, obviously cross success will vary depending on opposition but it is quite interesting that they have such a low amount of completed crosses. But this could just indicate that teams pack the box against them and with Lukaku in the box you have a very capable finisher of crosses, both low and high, so you’ll do all you can to stop those crosses.

Individual Players

Now let’s get onto the players we have to watch out for, who can cause us the most damage or alternatively stop us causing damage.

The first player I want to look at is Reece James, the England international will hurt us a lot and I think that we will find it very difficult to deal with him. James is a threat to us both attacking and defensively as he is just good at everything, as his below FBREF profile shows.

With what I mentioned previously about space in wide areas, if James gets past his man he is very capable of creating chances with 4 assists so far this year on top of the Shot creating actions you see above. He is also a goal threat himself with 4 goals so far this season he is the whole package.

One thing we may be able to get at him for though is direct running, despite all his strong defensive statistics he is weak at stopping dribblers, he has only stopped 33% of the players trying to dribble past him meaning he has only stopped 5 dribblers out of the 15 who attempted it this season and even in prior seasons he is only slightly higher at 40% of dribblers stopped.

It will most likely be Jack Harrison marking and attacking James, James will struggle imo to deal with James’ combination of strength and pace however I feel James will also struggle to deal with Harrison, that is if Harrison has a good game and is able to get past him and make good decisions with the ball.

The next player I want to look at is Reuben Loftus-Cheek, while he is a backup player for Chelsea only starting 5 games so far, he is still a very capable player and one who can also hurt us. Chelsea have their more regular first team midfielders injured so I expect the midfield pair for them to be Loftus Cheek & Jorginho but this isn’t definite.

While Loftus Cheek doesn’t have any creativity to speak of as you can see above, what he does have is a lot of stamina, strength and good dribbling ability. He completes on average 2.9 dribbles p90 but this season this is up to 3.5p90. This may be impacted by the small sample size but it’s still something we need to be aware of.

The next player I want to look at is Antonio Rudiger, Rudiger is a very capable and in demand defender at the moment, he is solid defensively, rarely letting his man beat him stopping 63% of players trying to take him on.

He has completed the most tackles in Chelsea’s defensive unit, also has the best aerial success rate out of Chelsea’s defenders with 70% of them won. He will not only be a danger to our attackers in stopping their attacks, he will also be a threat at any set pieces as he showed us last season and this season he has 2 goals from set pieces.

The final Chelsea player I want to look at is Mason Mount, he has the combined most goals & assists for Chelsea this year with 5 goals & 4 assists. He is a capable dribbler, has great pressing ability and he has a great eye for a ball. As you can see below he again is the full package.

I expect him to play on the right side of Chelsea’s attacking midfield which should mean he is being marked by Junior Firpo and Mason will in turn be the one mostly marking Junior, Junior will have a big challenge on his hands dealing with Mason. He has a lot of energy and and is a very good presser, this means Junior will need to be quick at moving the ball around to avoid giving away the ball in our half.

He is a danger both creatively and offensively and I feel this is a player we may need to make use of the free man a lot, so whoever the free man will be will need to keep an eye on Mason in particular.

Of course Chelsea have many top level players including Romelu Lukaku, Kai Havertz, Christian Pulisic & many others. Just wanted to highlight a couple of players who I feel will be either the biggest threat or maybe players who you wouldn’t expect to be a threat so aren’t caught out when they do play.

Expected Lineups

I am judging the below from recent heavy rumors that Bamford, Cooper & Phillips are all injured and also hoping that Struijk is fit. If not I would expect there to be further changes, if Struijk is injured I would expect Dallas to go to RB, Ayling to CB and Klich come in to midfield.

Chelsea’s squad is much weaker at the moment, on top of the injured midfielders I mentioned earlier they are also missing Ben Chilwell, which means they have their backup LB in Marcos Alonso.

There is of course other players who could slot in to the above team, especially in advanced areas, we could see Kai Havertz play in any of the attacking positions as well as Hakim Ziyech or Christian Pulisic. I just feel the above players are the ones most likely to play.

In addition there is players who could come in for us, we do have a lot of injuries at the moment but there is a chance Mateusz Klich comes into the team but I do feel the above lineup will be seeing.

Strategies

Despite the many threatening players Chelsea possess I do feel that we are able to beat them if we play to the best of our abilities, or at the very least obtain a point.

Chelsea will be missing their best LB in Ben Chilwell, he will be replaced by Marcos Alonso, Alonso is a good player going forward and is a very capable crosser so we will need to try to limit his deliveries. But we can get at him going forward, I would like to us try to get Raphinha one on one with him as Alonso won’t cope with Raphinha’s close control.

Most of Chelsea’s defenders are very confident on the ball and can handle being pressured, I don’t think we should look to press them as intensely as we would normally, as they will play through it quite easily.

Rather than pressing them we should try to limit their passing options by blocking passing lanes, putting pressure on their wide players who are a little less assured in possession. In addition we should look to block passes to Jorginho who has the ability to pull the strings for Chelsea.

Reece James I have already identified is one of many good players Chelsea possess, however he does have one weakness and that is people dribbling at him. Historically for Chelsea he has only stopped 40% of the players who run at him and this season it is less at around 33%. If Jack Harrison can run at him he could be able to get by him and deliver a cross unimpeded.

We will however run into trouble trying to run past Chelsea’s defenders, they are all very capable of stopping dribblers with Christensen & Rudiger both having over 60% success at stopping dribblers, Thiago Silva has been a little more vulnerable at 50% success so if we have to try to run past one of them I would say he’s the one.

Speaking of Thiago Silva, it isn’t in question how much of an elite centre back he is, he has top positioning, can tackle and intercept balls very well. One thing he doesn’t possess though is pace, if Dan James can do better at timing his runs then he should be able to leave Silva behind quite easily, but recently Dan’s runs have been caught offside a lot so hopefully he can make some improvements on Saturday.

As I said on last night’s Big Match preview I am reasonably confident that if we turn up and play like we know we can I am predicting a 2–1 victory.

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All stats contained in this article are sourced from FBREF.com