Galatasaray Escape Classic Roberto Mancini Tactical Blunder in Draw with Chelsea

Perhaps it was a rush of blood, perhaps it was a show of faith that near fatally backfired.

Whatever the reason, Wednesday night saw English football fans conjoined in a collective shaking of heads as Roberto Mancini delivered a classic tactical clanger on the biggest of footballing stages.

Sky Sports' commentary team relayed to the watching public that, in discussions with Turkish pundits before kick-off, the Galatasaray XI picked to face Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League round of 16 had been dubbed the Italian's riskiest selection yet.

Mancini sprang a surprise with both his formation and his personnel, leaving many Lions fans perplexed as to what had been in the manager's thinking all week.

Semih Kaya, Gala's standout central defensive performer, was relegated to the bench in favour of the error-prone Hakan Balta and 22-year-old Izet Hajrovic came in for his Champions League debut.

The home side also started with a relatively flat-looking 4-4-2/4-4-1-1—despite utilising a 3-5-2 in the run-up to the match—with Wesley Sneijder off the left, Hajrovic on the right and Didier Drogba sinking deep to receive the ball.

Attacking, risky, positive, bold; pick whichever adjective you like, but the correct choice is naive.

Uncredited/Associated Press

Expecting Hajrovic, an inexperienced debutant, to have the nous to cover for the roaming, sometimes reckless, Emmanuel Eboue was beyond comprehensible. You can't lay the blame at the youngster's feet due to his inexperience , but you can certainly question Mancini for pairing them together on the right.

Fernando Torres' opener in the 10th minute was borne directly out of an Eboue-Hajrovic mix-up high on the right side; the former was dispossessed and Andre Schurrle broke with pace, feeding the underlapping Cesar Azpilicueta on the inside, who in turn slotted his countryman in for an easy finish.

Despite the system's strong look on paper and the holding midfield duo's ideal deep starting position, Mancini's selection was a disaster from the word go. Nothing says "mistake" like a 30th-minute tactical substitution, and that's exactly what happened when Hajrovic departed for Yekta Kurtulus.

To many, it will leave the Bosnia and Herzegovina international looking subpar, but he was merely the victim of another odd, brash tactical setup from his boss.

The change saw the Lions switch formation to a 4-3-3/4-5-1, with Yekta slotting into the midfield and Burak Yilmaz filtering wide to the right. It allowed Gala to level out the possession battle, take control of the midfield through Selcuk and introduce some experience on the right-hand side.

Burak was a better presence on the flank and with only one central striker, Sneijder was free to cut in off the left leaving space for Alex Telles to advance.

Aurelien Chedjou's second-half equaliser, albeit from a corner, was a just reward for Gala's improved effort in the second half—which also involved sending Kaya on at the break—but also sparked fresh, longing questions in the direction of the manager.

Why wasn't this the original game plan? English fans shook their heads because they'd seen this before, countless times, at Manchester City.

Mancini has an awful record in Europe thus far, and perhaps this sort of occurrence is a major factor as to why.

As it stands, Gala have it all to do at Stamford Bridge in March; the fans will be praying the Italian sticks to his strengths for their long trip to London—he needs to if they have any chance of progressing.