Chelsea v Crystal Palace: Tactical Analysis

Rotations galore

Chelsea continued their topsy-turvy season of winning one and losing one game per game week. This time we faced a Crystal Palace team that hadn’t won in a long time, what could go wrong eh?

Let's see how it unfolded tactically…

Chelsea lined up in their usual 4231 formation with Nkunku finally partnering Jackson and Mudryk, and Maatsen as the inside RW. While Palace lined up in their own 4231 with the superb Eze and Olise being the dangermen.

Palace started the livelier out of the 2 sides, immediately using the rotations of the brilliant Olise and Clyne to find space out wide on the right side to put in crosses. Mudryk did very well to track those runs from Cylne. Chelsea did well in general to prevent anything substantial from coming out of it.

Palace also tried to take advantage of the space in Chelsea's wide areas by using switches, we gave lots of time and unnecessary time for Palace to find switch play regularly. Gusto handled Ayew really well and was brilliant throughout.

Anderson particularly got too much time to play those balls, as it was only Jackson pressing the 2 CBs, the press wasn’t consistently intense.

Palace also tried to press Chelsea high, they managed to not allow Chelsea to play out when we tried to. Some of the mistakes were also self-engineered as some of our players were careless in possession throughout the night at the back.

But with that high press, Chelsea became dangerous whenever we managed to play out of it as we know our biggest attacking threat is transitions and we do well generating it in different ways.

The link-up play of Mudryk, Nkunku and Jackson then gave us the quality to create chances in the final third when the ball got there. It’s something we’ve barely seen since preseason and it was beautiful to see.

With Palace pressing that high, Chelsea tried to play out at times to not too much success as earlier described, but they needed an out ball when they could and Jackson provided that throughout the game. His hold-up and link-up play caused problems for the Palace backline and gave Chelsea a platform to bypass the Palace press.

Chelsea after weathering the early pressure showed the shape in settled possession of 3-2-5, with Gusto overlapping wide on the right and Muryk providing width on the left, Maatsen and Nkunku in the half spaces, that is a reason why from Poch’s thinking that Noni didn’t start for that balance.

However, in my opinion, Noni staying wide could mean Gusto inverts and makes late runs from deep like Ben White and Saka do and still fulfil the 3-2-5 shape. It was fluid as Nkunku, Jackson and Mudryk regularly rotated their positions and linked up well, Gusto and Maatsen as well. It was the theme of Chelsea's play throughout the game.

Nkunku and Jackson regularly rotated positions too, when one dropped the other threatened in behind. It was reminiscent of the work and understanding forged in preseason and was good to see.

It was particularly very good to see someone occupying and receiving in the LHS. Since Carney and Nkunku got injured, there has been no one to consistently receive there as I pointed out a long time ago and it made Poch put Enzo in those positions instead, and it is non-beneficial to the team and himself. Enzo would look so much better playing those passes to Nkunku in the half-spaces.

One of those Gusto and Maatsen rotations proves why I think Noni should have started. They combine well, Nkunku's awareness and weight of pass is elite and it’s a brilliant goal.

Let’s run through the rotations in detail…

It first starts with Gusto receiving a pass from Disasi and immediately inverts, Maatsen reads the trigger and goes wide.

Maatsen then receives the ball and immediately lays off to Gusto, Gusto swivels brilliantly and carries the ball.

Gusto gets lucky with the pass but here we see another rotation again. Mudryk comes inside from the left.

Nkunku reads the trigger, goes wider and comes inside to try to play the threaded ball to Mudryk.

Nkunku misses the pass but the oncoming Gusto gives a brilliant overlapping option, Nkunku's pass is slick, and Gusto squares for Mudryk for a brilliantly worked goal.

The palace goal was just a defensive lapse and came against the run of play, but it highlights our disorganisation in our box defending crosses. A sloppy goal to concede.

The slopiness leaked into the 2nd half and as for the first half of the 2nd half, the team were fighting their demons of silly mistakes and passes, and Palace, boosted by the goal, were full of confidence. It never got us going.

That and Palace became more intense in their counter-pressing and started deeper as well in their positioning. It made it hard to get Jackson, Mudryk and Nkunku into the game in the 2nd Half.

Poch tried to change that with his subs, the first 2 were good players coming on. Lavia for more control in the middle and Silva for more control at the back. But it was those players that they replaced that upset the balance of the team. Colwill and Maatsen going off meant there had to be a makeshift left back. He put Gusto there, moved Conor up the pitch in the LHS, Nkunku wide right, with Disasi as the RB. The problem with that is it massively upset the balance of the team. Nkunku being on the right isn’t bad but when there is no natural wide right player with Disasi there, it means there wouldn’t be width on that side.

But the control aspect worked as Chelsea got far more of the ball and were calmer in possession, but they had no real attacking threat despite self-afflicted errors still apparent. Palace tried to get up the pitch with transitions of theirs when they went deep.

The next set of changes made more sense as it gave the team more balance. Noni and Broja for Nkunku and Mudryk meant Noni goes wide on the right, Conor RHS, Broja ST, Jackson LHS, and Gusto wide. We started being more threatening again.

In the end, we won with a Noni penalty. We once again showed a lot of good things, especially in the first half with the synergy of the attacking players, even if it was for a half. We couldn’t get them the ball as much in the 2nd half and that needs to be rectified so we put full 90 min performances in. It will come, positives of that and our young wingers, Noni and Mudryk coming out with positive performances and goals.

Onto a wet night Saturday early kickoff at Stoke Luton!

Seun