Manchester City vs Chelsea: Tactical Analysis

We can compete...

Chelsea lined up in their usual 4-2-3-1 with Jackson back to ST, Palmer on the right, and Sterling back in the side. Man City had their usual 4-3-3 which became a 3-2-5 in possession.

Chelsea knew they were going to be without the ball for most of the game so the out-of-ball shape had to be very important. That was one of the most impressive aspects of the first half, especially when you compare it to the Liverpool game.

Chelsea first tried to press as it was the mindset of being aggressive that Poch gave since the press conference. Chelsea were not afraid of pressing City early on in the game and managed to gain the ball when they tried to go full. Mostly though, Chelsea set up in a mid-block. Gallagher and Jackson led the pressing by blocking the passing lanes to City's in-possession pivot of Akanji and Rodri, forcing the ball back to Dias, and giving Ederson a pressing he didn’t like. While Sterling and Palmer tried to time their jump to press Walker and Ake.

Chelsea set up in a 4-4-2 mid-block where Gallagher and Jackson start by pressuring the City pivot in their 3-2 shape. Gallagher's job off the ball was man-marking Rodri like in the reverse fixture of this game at Stamford Bridge. While Jackson‘s job was to harry any City player in defence. Chelsea didn’t prioritize pressing City every time as they set up that midblock to deny City space in the half-spaces. Palmer and Sterling were timing their jumps out of their shape to pressure Walker and Ake. It looked very rehearsed.

The mid-block was set up in a way to both deny City to play comfortably in the half spaces, and slow the ball down when it goes to the wide areas, enough for City not to use their go-to way of breaking teams down (half-space runs or in-seam runs).

I watched City's game against Copenhagen in the week and thought Copenhagen were slow to get to City in the wide areas, and it was easy for them to make use of those in-seam runs from De Bruyne to dismantle them. But we avoided it a lot in that first half, but how?

The positioning of Palmer and Sterling firstly was 100% key. They had to time their jumps out of the press and when they were in shape, they were stationed in such a way as to block direct passes into the half-spaces first, but also delay the ball to the wing so Gusto and Chilly could also adjust from being narrow to keep tabs on Doku and Foden 1v1. So they kept being aware of his surroundings by adjusting themselves appropriately.

Here is how it was in motion…

Enzo and Caicedo were important in how we defended because they had to track the in-seam runs of De Bruyne and Alvarez as I said pre-game. So they had to be tactically aware and have the energy to track it. I could only recall once when Caicedo didn’t track the run of Alvarez in that first half and it led to a big chance for Haaland. I also saw Enzo follow De Bruyne to the other side and stop him from having space to cross the ball when City were on a counterattack. The communication between the backline of knowing who to track at each time, and when to pass on marking jobs was brilliant as I kept seeing Gusto and Enzo directing on when to press and who to press. Good to see them stepping up.

When the ball was played to the wing to Doku, Palmer and Gusto mostly doubled up on him like Palmer helped Reece James in the reverse fixture. Even though Gusto was well capable of dealing with him on his own. At times Enzo made it a triple tag team just to know how well they denied him space

When the ball reached Foden and Doku, Gusto and Chilly kept tabs on them 1v1 with help from Palmer and Enzo, and this denied them from conjuring much through their 1v1 dribbling.

Chelsea’s plan on the ball was so key to how we got in behind City’s shape and it’s also what we should do against Liverpool next week. The plan was to play through City's press as much as they could in a 4-3-3 with Caicedo as the deepest line pivot, Palmer and Enzo flanking him at either side and being active in between the lines to receive the ball. Gallagher at times dropped too to create overloads enough to try and out number City as options on the ball. That was the difference for me between that, and a lot of our build-ups recently that have numbers in the wrong areas which would mean that players have to carry a lot before seeing a passing option. Options were plenty. When Palmer dropped deep, Ake/Dias, whoever was tracking him, followed him and that created space for the runs of Gusto in behind City’s defence, and Doku won’t follow him.

That created space for Jackson to receive as we used him a lot as the out ball with longer passes to feet and in the air, and he separated himself brilliantly from Dias to receive the ball to either turn, holding it up under lots of pressure, or linking up with his flicks. It brought us up the pitch well. While Palmer, Conor and Sterling were available between the lines for Disasi and Colwill to target, their passing ability was important in finding them constantly. I loved the fact we used the pockets to get out of the press since we use wide combinations a lot. We played some nice football.

We were also dangerous on the counter as we usually are under Poch, because we could win the ball and be devastating on the break; Gallagher was key. I also mentioned pre-game that the understanding between Jackson, Palmer and Sterling on the break would be key as they have played multiple big games together this season. We had the ball-carrying quality to take us up the pitch in Jackson, Sterling and Gallagher, as well as the passing quality of Palmer and the deep runs of Gusto. It was evident for the goal. We lost that after the period Poch changed his shape. But we will come to that.

As we had spells we were comfortable on the ball, the idea in those periods was to either quickly penetrate in between the lines with Enzo and Gallagher to then penetrate in behind or direct balls in behind with Jackson. Sterling and the fullbacks were making runs in behind City’s backline.

City later tried to change their 3-2 shape to a 3-1-6 to overload the wide areas putting Foden in between the lines and letting Walker take up wide positions, but the communication was top to prevent chances still in that first half especially.

When City still tried to force their way in between the lines, they met the heavy traffic of Chelsea players.

Then when City managed to get balls into the box, Disasi and Colwill managed to mop a lot of it up. Haaland beat Colwill to a good number though but didn’t capitalize.

In the 2nd half, after we were stopped them doing much before around the 60th minute and still went very well up against them, City started to find the wider areas faster. Gusto and Palmer's side was well protected, but Sterling started to delay tracking the runs of De Bruyne, and since it was done faster, Enzo and Caicedo couldn’t shift on time.

With that said, Sterling's change made sense and he then put Jackson on the wing. it was a good move cause Jackson will track the runs better.

It was this change here that felt too early as we had 20 minutes to go, and we weren’t under severe pressure at that point in time. If we waited for that until the 80th minute or so or brought on Noni as he can provide a ball-carrying and dribbling threat on the counter as well as defend off the ball diligently, we could have continued to carry a threat on the counter till the end of the game. The change to a 5 was a good idea but the timing was a tad early. The way we were defending covering the wide areas very well already, City were hardly giving us constant 2v1s in wide areas, so I didn't feel we needed to change that.

So it gave us less pressing numbers in forward areas and the 4-4-2 went to a 5-3-2, but it was also disorganised within the first 3 minutes. No one knew who they were to pick up, it didn’t look trained. For a back 5, we were too narrow and started giving out more space for in-seam runs somehow in wide areas than before.

That said, the players also had issues with in-game management off the ball in the last 15 minutes of games. Especially trying to keep the ball as we’ve seen so much this season. There were moments that we could have instead cleared (non-dangerous areas). We should have kept calm and continued to try and keep the ball, but we cleared it without any pressure in not-so-dangerous areas. Trying to keep the ball makes sure the opponent doesn’t have it, and even Jamie Carragher mentioned how we were clearing the ball needlessly when there were easy passes out of pressure.

Well, those are my neat picks…

In the end, the pressure was too much and we wilted, but make no mistake, we did well defending in shape for most of the game. It’s City, and they know how to sustain pressure better than any team in the world and the boys gave everything to delay it as much as possible. They were understandably tired. We need to learn to use our quality better late in games to try and grab hold of the ball as much as well as we can. We are improving.

The game sets the team up well for the cup final next week. Let’s try to get an important first trophy for this set of players.

Seun