Why 4-2-3-1 Should Be the Go-to Formation for Jose Mourinho's Chelsea in 2015/16

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right?

It is a mantra that has long been repeated from the King’s Road to further afield and certainly in the four corners of the world where you can find Chelsea fans these days.

Those fans have got used to seeing Jose Mourinho do his own thing, and his own thing more often than not includes holding trophies above his head and watching on as his players do the same. As we all know by now, Mourinho puts in meticulous work to get in the position to experience such highs.

For him, winning is about programming; programming his players to play his way and programming his rivals to lose their focus.

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Part of that programming includes instilling a relentless will to win into his players, who are more often than not completely in awe of the powers of the posturing Portuguese performer.

Tactically, though, the Chelsea boss has specific ideas in mind in how to combat opponents and how to get the results that he wants—as witnessed in his first away game in his second spell as Blues manager in the goalless draw with Manchester United at Old Trafford in August 2013, or at the tail end of last season when he took his team to Arsenal and played for the point which took them ever closer to winning the Premier League.

On both occasions Mourinho opted to field false nines—Andre Schurrle in Manchester and Eden Hazard in north London—and while that is a tactic he does like to employ on occasion, it only seems to come when he is looking to “spoil” a game for a specific gain, something he does do occasionally although not as frequently as his critics would have you believe.

But while that approach offers a change at the front of his team—and might be seen at some point over the next nine months and beyond—the key tactical decision as Chelsea look to defend their crown in 2015/16 will depend on the centre of it.

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With Nemanja Matic rightly anchored in place as Mourinho’s trusted lieutenant in front of his back four, the identity of the man to play alongside him often tells you a lot about just how the manager is approaching a fixture.

If it’s John Obi Mikel or Kurt Zouma, then the boss has got the handbrake on that famous Chelsea bus of his; he’s daring his opponents to try to find ways of beating his team, and he’s fairly confident he’ll pick them off if they do. His 4-2-3-1 has the look and feel of a 6-3-1 at times.

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But even though they are the same digits, the fielding of a “true” 4-2-3-1 turns Chelsea into a different outfit altogether and one for which accusations of negativity can end up looking a little foolish.

This is the Chelsea who were the second-top goalscorers in the Premier League last season, who housed the top scorer for much of the campaign in Diego Costa, boasted by far and away the player with the most assists in Cesc Fabregas and also contained the Players’ Player of the Year and Football Writers’ Player of the Year, Eden "Better Than Cristiano Ronaldo" Hazard. You can’t do all that while being purely defensive.

You can do it while being ruthless, cunning and quick to expose your opponents’ weaknesses, however, and all of those traits apply to Mourinho’s teams, Mourinho’s players and Mourinho himself.

As he enters the defence of his title, though, it will be interesting to see how the Portuguese goes into battle.

Chelsea’s Premier League fixture list has offered up some intriguing clashes early on in their campaign and none more so than the visit to Manchester City on just the second weekend of the season.

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Supporters on the trip from London to Manchester might cast their minds back to that aforementioned game at Old Trafford two years ago, back before anybody knew just how bad David Moyes’ Manchester United were going to be and when Mourinho thought that a point at a ground where West Bromwich Albion, Everton, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Manchester City and Sunderland would all subsequently win that season was a good result.

There’s little doubt that a point at the Etihad Stadium—where City will have Raheem Sterling playing for them for the first time and will be energised by the electricity he brings—would be a good one, but after that we should hopefully see more of the expansive, expressive Chelsea that the “true” 4-2-3-1 brings.

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The late November visit to Tottenham will conjure up memories of last season’s shambolic 5-3 defeat at White Hart Lane, but most other away games in the rest of 2015 will be approached with full confidence by the Blues, including the trip to Old Trafford between Christmas and New Year.

What we’ll hopefully end up seeing, then, will be Cesc Fabregas stationed in the two in the centre of Chelsea’s midfield alongside Matic more often than not, with the Spaniard pulling the strings from deeper and allowing Willian, Oscar, Hazard and Costa to thrive in the spaces in front of him, with Juan Cuadrado, Ramires, Loic Remy and Radamel Falcao all available as back-up.

There are surely three key elements to this approach, though:

• The first centres on the form of Fabregas, who had a stellar opening to his Chelsea career last season but then noticeably faded somewhat, even though his below-par form is better than most footballers can ever dream of.
• Secondly, a lot comes down to the form and consistency of Oscar, who should thrive in the centre of that three behind the forward but does have a tendency to go missing on odd occasions.
• And thirdly comes Costa, who exists on the periphery of an injury or a suspension seemingly all the time and would be hugely missed by this Chelsea side were he to be forced out of contention again.

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If all three elements are fit, firing and fully available, though, then the “true” 4-2-3-1 is what we could and hopefully should be seeing from Mourinho’s Chelsea throughout 2015/16.

Playing that way, the Blues will have the power, pace and crucially the positioning to see off the threat of the rest of their Premier League rivals, all of whom have noticeably improved in key areas over the summer.

Key personnel-wise, Chelsea haven’t really done that, but if Mourinho has spent the summer instilling the ideas and ideologies of his two favourite formations into his players, then it’s going to be very tough to see anyone being better than them.