Premier League Tactics: What to Watch at Chelsea This Season
The Premier League season is, amazingly, just under two weeks away. On August 8, fans will gather for their well-rehearsed rituals ahead of the weekend's ultimate treat: competitive football's return.
Chelsea start their campaign on Sunday with a Community Shield matchup against Arsenal, who admittedly look far sharper, far fitter and far more organised at this point in pre-season. The following weekend welcomes the big kick-off, where the Blues will commence their defense of their Premier League title, won at a canter in 2014-15.
How are Jose Mourinho's men shaping up ahead of the new season, and what tactical nuances can we expect in his third season back in charge? We'll outline some of the key points and questions in preparation for 2015-16.
1. Cesc Or Oscar At No. 10?
The beginning of the 2014-15 season saw a consistent, stable Chelsea XI in which every player took the same position. Oscar started at No. 10, Cesc Fabregas partnered Nemanja Matic in the holding area, the back four settled instantaneously and the Eden Hazard-Diego Costa combination ruled up front.
Everyone had their roles and positions, with Mourinho resisting the urge to tinker with a winning formula; given the paucity of players he used to actually win the title, it wouldn't have been surprising if he'd have gone full Martin O'Neill and used the same XI 38 games in a row.
But something changed, forcing Mourinho to alter the makeup of the team. Oscar's batteries ran out again, meaning Mourinho had to reconfigure his midfield. Cesc was moved into the No. 10 role about 50 percent of the time, with John Obi Mikel or Kurt Zouma coming into holding midfield alongside Matic.
At times it was a 4-2-3-1, but at times it seemed closer to a 4-3-3, with Cesc breaking into the No. 10 space from deeper. Whatever it was, effective as it was, it lost its punch and tenacity sans Oscar. Cesc tended to take up the No. 10 role against the bigger sides as Mourinho favoured a workmanlike holding pair, while Oscar came back in against the weaker sides, pressing, forcing turnovers and having a big hand in some big scores.
One particular result that sticks in the memory is the 5-0 demolition of Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium—a team who finished eighth!—in which Oscar's energy and pressing was instrumental to mistakes deep in the Swans' half. Those were converted into goals in the most ruthless of fashions.
It's amazing to think, but Oscar has now completed his first genuine pre-season with the Blues despite joining three years ago; for once, international commitments haven't disrupted his summer. It'll be intriguing to see how exactly Mourinho wants to configure his midfield ahead of the new season and whether or not Oscar will be as integral as he was in 2014-15.
He could play Cesc-Matic/Oscar and replicate the pressing strategy, playing on the front foot, or he could play Cesc at No. 10 and bring Ruben Loftus-Cheek or Zouma in for playing time alongside Matic. There's even a possibility that Willian will slide inside and Oscar will play on the right—unlikely as that may be—which would further complicate the issue.
How Mourinho sets up his midfield on Matchday 1 will be a big indication of how attacking and how intense this Chelsea side will be.
2. Uniform Striking Discipline
Chelsea have three strikers in the first-team squad ahead of the 2015-16 season, and all are of a similar ilk. Their physiques may differ from player to player, but Costa, Radamel Falcao and Loic Remy are all expert channel-runners and smooth finishers—or at least, Falcao was pre-injury.
It's arguable there's a lack of a Plan B here—after Didier Drogba's exit, could Chelsea have plumped for Fernando Llorente as a bruising replacement, not Falcao?—but what the group does have are extremely similar instincts, which is a plus when hashing out a consistent game plan.
It became clear last season that in addition to Drogba's obvious decline, the Blues weren't entirely sure how to use him properly, or that there wasn't really a game plan devised to bring out his strengths. There were often huge gaps between himself and the rest of the team, and a few goals in Chelsea blue (plus that king's withdrawal on the final day of the season) papered over the cracks of a poor campaign.
The difference between then and now is that Chelsea have three strikers whose first instinct is the same: channel-run to split the full-back and the centre-back. Falcao's not the same man who pulled Gerard Pique all over the shop in Atletico red and white, but he still wants to be that movement-based striker. Costa's physicality and Remy's raw speed and directness also offer up a similar conundrum for defenders.
These unified intents will help the midfielders immeasurably; it should go some way toward devising a consistent game plan. None of the three strikers should ever look like a square peg in a round hole, like Drogba did last season, which means that should Costa duck out due to injury, a clear and organised scheme would be in place.
3. Costa Out Wide?
Something that's been glossed over this summer is the reunification of Falcao and Costa at Chelsea—a genuine two-headed monster at Atletico Madrid in 2012. While Twitter mocks Mourinho's faith in what many perceive to be a broken Colombian striker, there's a chance that this is just what's required to restore Falcao's thunder.
At Atleti under Diego Simeone, Falcao was arguably the finest prima punta in Europe, expanding a deadly poacher's role and incorporating good link-up play, exceptional movement and some brute-force athleticism when required. The confidence he oozed during that first season in the Spanish capital astonished; his 36 goals stands the most any player has scored in his first year at the Vicente Calderon.
During Falcao's two years at Atleti, Costa was right there by his side, literally. The Brazilian only assumed the starting striker's role at the club after Falcao had departed for Monaco; during their time together, he played from a wide position opposite Arda Turan or alongside Falcao in a 4-4-2.
Pre-season has proved that Mourinho is serious about finding avenues that will allow him to give Falcao minutes, and one such avenue could be the replication of the Falcao-Costa tandem, with Costa splitting wide or lining up next to him.
There's absolutely no doubt who the better No. 9 is, as we stand: Costa is miles ahead of his colleague—sharper, fitter, more confident and far more deadly. But with question marks over Chelsea's wing position opposite Eden Hazard, perhaps an occasional solution is to play Costa wide of Falcao. It's certainly something for Mourinho to chew over; if 2012-13 can be replicated, it's well worth trying.
4. Width?
Tactically, Chelsea were excellent last season, but there was one noticeable issue that even Mourinho acknowledged midway through the campaign: a width imbalance from the right side.
Willian is truly blossoming in blue, and if his Copa America 2015 performances are anything to go by, he's set to take the Premier League by the scruff of the neck this year and put in some commanding, dominant performances. It's about time Hazard received some help, in truth.
But Willian isn't a natural winger—he looks to come inside from a wide possession and rarely takes the outside track—consistently looking to his left to play passes back into the centre or eyeing space for a shot. He's a No. 10 playing on the right, and it shows, stunting Chelsea's width in the forward areas.
Branislav Ivanovic did a stellar job rampaging forward to provide an overlap option last season but tends to get carried away, taking shots from distance and at times neglecting his defensive duties. It's unhealthy to rely solely on a 31-year-old full-back for width on one entire flank.
Mourinho knew this and plumped for Juan Cuadrado in January. The Colombian is a natural right-sider capable of stretching the pitch, hitting the byline and crossing. The only issue is, he appears to be as broken as Falcao; his half-season from January to May, in addition to his pre-season so far, have shown a player bereft of confidence, unable to do even the simplest of things.
Wingers playing opposite Hazard have traditionally struggled—Mourinho asks a lot of them in a physical, tactical and technical sense—but even Mohamed Salah managed better than Cuadrado has. He's the key to opening up the right side in terms of width, but so far it's gone horribly wrong.
Costa, Willian and Oscar displaced are better options than Cuadrado right now, but only the latter possesses the skill set and inclination to do what Mourinho so clearly wishes for: be a true wide presence in a forward area.
Can Mourinho fix Cuadrado and finally unlock a new area of the pitch?
5. The Re-Education of Kurt Zouma
Mourinho has shown a desire to get Zouma involved however possible, be it at centre-back in place of Gary Cahill or in holding midfield to shore up the central zones. Once a lumbering, physical project of a player, the Frenchman spent the first half of 2014-15 learning from the very best in the game (John Terry) and clearly took every lesson on board.
At Saint-Etienne, he got by partly on immense physical gifts; he was bigger, stronger, quicker and more aggressive than everyone else, often able to mop up his own mistakes using his own God-given attributes. But as he enters his second full year at Stamford Bridge, he's a wiser, cooler, more tactically capable player than ever before.
That fact is far from lost on Mourinho, who seems just as impressed with his drastic improvement in defence as he is with his ability to take to holding midfield like a duck to water. You'd never peg Zouma as an anchor based on his tangible skills, but in a pure cancellation role he's superb.
The job he did on Marouane Fellaini one-on-one late last season, in addition to the part he played in swamping Harry Kane out during the Capital One Cup final, proved that he's a wonderful situational talent to have at your disposal.
The trend of finding Zouma minutes, wherever on the pitch they may be, should continue into 2015-16, opening up several more possible nuances in how Chelsea set themselves up this season. A Zouma-Matic pair in midfield in the big games would be physically and spatially dominant, while Cahill may expect to see his minutes diminished yet again as the Frenchman plays in defence against some of the weaker sides on the schedule.
Projection
There's something to be said for the continuity Chelsea will carry into the new season; with barely any changes to the squad and only a sprinkling of new additions made that don't really impact the first-choice XI, they're as settled as possible ahead of the big kick-off.
But in football, they say if you're not spending (and improving), you're standing still. The Blues' march to the Premier League title last term was unstoppable—they won the league by a margin of eight points—but the rate at which their competitors are retooling their own squads could be cause for alarm.
True, for Chelsea to improve they basically have to sign Nicolas Otamendi or Paul Pogba, and if Mourinho wants to stay within the Financial Fair Play limits, he shouldn't break the bank for a marquee player, but this will be a far, far tougher campaign; that much is certain.
Many will still hold them favourites to retain the trophy, and if Cesc avoids a post-Christmas dip, Cuadrado bursts into action and Costa stays fit, they could well edge everyone out. Plus, if Mourinho is right and Hazard can get even better—"He has all the conditions to improve; with his age he can improve," he said via The Daily Star—then perhaps they'll be unstoppable once again.
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