Why did Chelsea falter in the 2nd Half v Brentford?

Tactical Review of the Brentford v Chelsea game

Chelsea lined up for the first time this season in a 3 at the back formation (Liverpool game was a back 4, Chilly LW). With Gusto and Chilly as the WBs, a 3-man midfield mostly of Gallagher, Enzo & Caicedo. Then Jackson and Palmer as split-forwards. Brentford started in their own back 3 as well.

Brentford planned to press Chelsea on Goal kicks, mostly in a 4-2-3-1 as they went man-to-man on Chelsea. Chelsea tried to play out at times but most of the time Petrovic preferred kicking it long and a lot of it kept coming back because Chelsea didn’t win enough Aerial duels. After all, we’re a short team and the team doesn’t win enough 2nd balls.

Chelsea hardly had more of a structured way of attacking Brentford and were moving the ball around trying to find space. We looked like we had a plan when we managed to play out of Brentford's press as I mentioned earlier.

Brentford dropped deep to make a low block when the press wasn’t so intense or when it was broken. Chelsea though, didn’t look like they had a defined plan to break them down when that happened and thrived more when they couldn’t allow Brentford to settle in shape. Chelsea was also in a strange shape as it was hard to know which zones the players were occupying and whether it was the right zone to help break down the block.

There were lots of players in front of the block and not in the midst of it (between the lines) or in behind it enough. When they were in the midst of it, there was a lack of movement to trouble Brentford’s backline. Jackson did make runs but the rest didn’t make as much. Gallagher and Palmer got at the end of 1 ball in behind each. It meant we were just circulating the ball to the sides until Gusto decided to just put in the cross.

The goal came during the run of play, superb cross and goal but not as a result of repeated ways of trying to break Brentford down with the same patterns or a set of them.

What we did do well as a pattern that helped us in the first half was how we pressed. We pressed Brentford aggressively when they had the ball in the first half and got it back and even counter-pressed well enough not to allow counterattacks.

Now in the 2nd half, Chelsea immediately started to face more long balls from Brentford. I’m surprised they didn’t do enough of that in the first half because we struggle with it just like against Newcastle away. The goal came against the run of play but still highlighted the fact we fail to deal with crosses. 2 men were positioned well enough to deal with the ball but it was poor defending. It happened for many crosses in that 2nd half.

Then in the 2nd half, we also started to lose the ball trying to play out because of a poorly structured build-up. For a team that has shown lots of good instances of good build-up this season. The fact no one knows what to do consistently by now is alarming. The lack of options for the ball handler is disappointing as you can see the distances between the players are just too much.

Errors stemming from the tiredness of playing 210 minutes during the week came up in the individual errors and we also began to make more of them the 2nd half as well.

The tiredness also began to show in our press as well, a better first half in terms of pressing turned sour when Brentford began to play through our half-baked press with the distances increasing and intensity reducing. This led to the 2nd goal we conceded.

Brentford began to load long balls into our half constantly, and remember when I mentioned how bad we were defending goal kicks/long balls? Including from Petrovic and dealing with the 2nd balls? We were much worse here.

When that happened I would have expected Poch to make changes between the first goal and the 70th minute (when he made the first substitution). But he didn’t act proactively to try and change the tide and we paid for it and conceded it again from another cross for the 2nd goal. Especially when the squad is rightfully tired from all the minutes they played during the week. Players like Casedei were brought back for this very reason and especially with his height could have aided the team against Brentford’s long balls as much as he isn't “THE ANSWER“ to Chelsea’s midfield currently.

Chelsea capitulated in the 2nd half because of a combination of reducing their pressing intensity, allowing Brentford to come unto them more, couldn't win their duels, and tiredness played a part. Then that’s where the coach comes in but he couldn’t find a solution which was very poor as he watched things just unfold. This has been a trend all season as the team’s energy dips in the 2nd half and the lack of proactiveness from Poch makes teams come back into games. It shows in the statistics. In the first half of games we’re 8 points from the top of the table. The 2nd half table shows a dire place in the relegation scrap.

What you can be positive about is the team spirit which we’ve had throughout the whole season when they go a goal down, they can recover and don’t just lie down. We’ve gotten points from losing positions more than any time I remember in the past season and it’s good for the resilience of the squad regardless of who the manager is, especially if this group of players stay together for a long time.

Many questions do remain unanswered and more are beginning to pop up for Poch to answer. Is it tiredness? Why are we so tired without European football this season? Why are some playing principles so inconsistent? Why are our levels dropping so drastically during 2nd halves? I’ve attempted to shed a little light on that but Poch has the bulk of the answering to do.

Seun