Champions League: Chelsea Produce a Nice Display to Beat Copenhagen

Chelsea made a significant step towards the Champions League quarter finals by beating Copenhagen in Denmark today. Carlo Ancelotti deserves a lot of credit for finally playing a formation which suited the players he put on the field. Rather than playing the usual 4-3-3 or his beloved diamond formation, the Italian manager used a flat 4-4-2 formation today, deploying Essien and Lampard as central midfielders, and Malouda and Ramires as left and Right midfielders.

Chelsea won the game in midfield. Pairing Michael Essien and Frank Lampard as central midfielders worked great. Essien is not a great dribbler nor a tricky playmaker. What he does best is break up opponents' plays and make powerful runs from midfield. He does that best when playing in a central position as he showed tonight.

Operating from a more central position also benefited Frank Lampard. Chelsea's vice captain was more influential and seemed to be able to pick the right passes to find his strikers. Essien and Ramires' work in midfield allowed him to focus more on ball distribution. The midfield's understanding was highlighted by Chelsea's second goal, when Michael Essien picked up the ball in his own half, made an assertive run forward to pick out Frank Lampard, who in turn laid a perfect ball into Nicolas Anelka's path. The French man didn't disappoint with his one time finish across the goal.

Ramires was deployed as a right midfielder, but really tucked in more centrally, covering for Michael Essien when the Ghanaian would go up the pitch, and for Bosingwa as the Portuguese right back would go up and operate as a right winger to provide width on the right side. 

As Usual, Malouda worked showed very good understanding with Ashley Cole. Both players linked up well to provide width on the left side. 

Finally, this formation also seemed to suit Fernando Torres and Nicolas Anelka. The french man looked better in this setup than in the 4-3-3 formation. He is not a winger, even though he does a decent job playing as one. His best position is as a second striker. Tonight, Torres was the target man, and Anelka had the freedom to roam around him. While Torres seemed to attract most of the defenders, he created space for Anelka to run into the box and take his chance as he did successfully twice.

Though Torres didn't score tonight, he had an abundance of chances yet again. At this point, I'm certain it's only a matter of time until he starts scoring for Chelsea. He is developing some really good understanding with the rest of the team, and making some very clever runs, and putting himself in the right places. His problem right now is  lack of confidence but things will turn around once he gets the monkey off his back and opens his account with his new club.