CHELSEA: THEIR PROBLEMS AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Chelsea lost 5–2 to West Brom at the Bridge as goals from Callum Robinson,Matheus Perreira and Mbaye Diagne beat a Chelsea side who got a consolation through Mason Mount having initially taken the lead through Christian Pulisic.
The match recap however is not my biggest concern. This game shows a weakness in this Chelsea side. A weakness which will benefit the teams around them in the table and in the UCL.
One thing I think Tuchel should very much change is the system of creation. They attempted a whole lot of crosses despite the fact that none of Abraham or Giroud were on the pitch and Alonso,Werner and Pulisic are not all that good in the air.
With Pulisic,Ziyech,Werner,Kovacic and Havertz and Mount who came on in the second half it would have suited to play most of the game on the carpet. Short passing,low through balls and crosses in for the quick intelligent runners. No point putting balls in the air if they’ll all be won by the opposing center backs and you won’t take advantage of the second ball.
Jorginho is also a bit of a bad point. Jorginho is a world class midfielder but he can be susceptible to mistakes. Not to mention he lacks the defensive presence. He works best in a 4–3–3 flanked by two defensively accomplished midfielders. Meaning if Jorginho is to start he should be partnered with Kante and Kovacic or Mount.
Sloppiness in playing out from the back is a problem for Chelsea. They couldn’t beat the press well enough. When they lost ball their you’d think they were safe because of the presence of a back three but their back three didn’t react adequately enough.
Sloppy passing,lackluster defending but the biggest problem in my opinion is the amount of space they left for West Brom. While this was in part due to the red card and also trying to mount a comeback it is not a good thing to leave that much space for the most common tactic in any competitive activity-counterattacking.
Chelsea however can counter all this problems with such a lineup.
With Giroud up top they could have a target for all their crosses. Ziyech and Mount could function as both creative and goalscoring forces. Kante and Kovacic could help them create as well as defend as they would account for Jorginho’s weaknesses and James and Chilwell bombing forward to attack.
Jorginho could show his quality on the ball and the duo of James and Chilwell could act as a creative force. This would also favor Chelsea who are a counterattacking team. They have good long passers in midfield and defense. They have fast attacking full backs, very creative and intelligent widemen and a striker who despite his lack of pace can hold up the ball really well and link with the attackers before arriving in the box to finish moves off.
This system however is heavily due to the fact that they have to accomodate Jorginho, not to mention injuries to Pulisic and the lack of form of Havertz,Werner and Abraham. This system is not beyond Tuchel who at PSG last season, used a very similar lineup(though Marquinhos is more defensively solid than Jorginho and Giroud and Mount are obviously not Mbappe and Neymar). Werner and Mount could replicate the Mbappe-Neymar dynamic but Werner despite having a similar profile is in very poor form infront of goal.
This however is my idea on how Chelsea could look to avoid similar results in the future. You could share your thoughts and ideas with on twitter https://twitter.com/teenage_pundit . If you liked the article please follow me here and on twitter as well for more.
