The good, bad, & ugly of Chelsea's first two friendlies

What positives and negatives should be taken from the friendlies

***LIVE WATCH ALONG THIS WEDNESDAY***

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Chelsea are two matches into their preseason tour, and they have been two generally lackluster performances. Now, it is early in the campaign, but it’s clear that the complexity of this system is getting the best of the group. Players are finding themselves out of position, making errand passes, and not genuinely looking as fluid as Leicester City looked last season. Still, it’s important to say that this will not happen overnight.

Negatives

Against Wrexham, it was clear that Chelsea was the better team in the first half. Wrexham was happy to sit back and let Chelsea possess the ball, but there were a few times that Chelsea looked susceptible to a counterattack, especially on the side where the inverted right back was supposed to be. It is imperative that there is enough cover for counterattacks and that there is a genuine effort to recover on defense. Both Wesley Fofana and Tosin were jogging back multiple times, and a much more active Celtic attack took advantage of that.

They turned those few moments of tactical lapse into a whole game of exploitation from Celtic in their most recent friendly this past Saturday. Celtic consistently took advantage of the right back, vacating the space, and often, a center-back was man-marking all the way up into Chelsea’s attacking third. With little understanding of who was to move back into the vacated space, Celtic were one or two passes away from breaking past Chelsea’s midfield and finding wide players running unmarked, which in turn pulled the LCB of the back three out and caused a chain reaction to put Chelsea players entirely out of position. Combining the tactical issues with the sometimes comedic mistakes made by some Chelsea defenders, Chelsea have a long way to go before they can feel confident before playing against Manchester City on August 18th.

Now its important to note that learning these new roles will take time, this is a completely different set up to what the players have done in the past. It took Pep Guardiola who implemented a similar system at Manchester City a few seasons of learning from players and bringing in the right profiles to make it work.

The hope is that this system will be played at all levels for Chelsea and the other Blue Co. clubs they currently have a stake in and are looking to purchase. This standardized way of playing at these clubs and throughout the youth system should, in turn, create a pipeline of talent that has been playing in the same way that the parent club, Chelsea, likes to play. As a result, this will minimize the teething process that Chelsea is currently undergoing.

Robert Sanchez has been consistently a topic of conversation this season and this preseason. He has not looked comfortable in the most important thing asked of a goalkeeper in Maresca’s system: playing with his feet. With the impending signing of Filip Jorgensen, who will join the squad here in the next day or so, the pressure is on Sanchez to figure it out or risk being dropped very early. Some of his passes were dreadful and led directly to a number of opportunities for Celtic.

Positives

While tactically there hasn’t been too much success in the friendlies to this point, there has been some brightspots both individually and in one of the tactics that Enzo Maresca likes to deploy. Speaking of tactics first, one thing that has been impressive is counter pressing. When doing my initial review on Maresca, the counterpressing was the first thing that caught my eye. Leicester City consistently created a good number of chances simply by working ethic and immediately turning to the press once possession was lost.

A couple of players specifically caught my eye with their pressing in the first two games, including Marc Guiu, Christopher Nkunku, and Romeo Lavia. Chelsea created excellent chances against Celtic in these situations, especially in the first half.

Guiu has been brilliant individually, and everything is as advertised. His work rate and willingness to bully defenders, much more seasoned than he is, have stood out. One question that we initially had with Guiu was his hold-up play. He didn’t do it that often at Barcelona. Still, his ability in these preseason matches to hold his own physically and be composed enough to make passes to the midfield to releasing wingers and attacking midfielders has been sensational. Also, he makes runs, and his touch is fun to watch.

After the match, Maresca said, “I think Marc is doing well, and he’s one of the guys at this moment who is going to stay with us and not go somewhere.” Personally, after two matches, I think that this is a great sign. It assures you that you can play Nicolas Jackson, Nkunku, and Guiu for this upcoming season and have the flexibility to sell David Datro Fofana and Armando Broja.

Additionally, I was impressed when watching Romeo Lavia firsthand with his ability to receive the ball on the turn and manipulate his body position to shield his marker and keep his head up to find the next progressive pass. Defensively, he was eager and active in breaking up play when faced with ground duels. It was good to see Romeo Lavia play two matches with increasing minutes from the first to the second; if he can stay healthy, ll be playing a lot this season.

Overall, I am not pressing the panic button right now on Chelsea’s new system because, as mentioned above, there is precedent with Manchester City. However, the mental mistakes are a bit troubling. I would like to attribute them to not knowing the system as much as they should, but if they continue, it is definitely worrying, to say the least.

~ CFCDP (Dylan)