Tottenham 5 – 3 Chelsea: Spurs Maximise Chelsea’s Midfield Weakness with Strong Possession Game

Foreshadowing

Tottenham gave indications as to exactly how they were going to play even in the 1st minute, when they pressed Chelsea and stayed very compact horizontally. This would be key in reducing the influence of Fabregas by giving him little space to utilize. In this example in particular, Fazio makes a challenge to force the ball back to Cahill.

In addition to this, there were also early signs of Chelsea’s defensive issue which would be ever present throughout the game. In the third minute, Fabregas found himself out of position which left Matic with too much space to cover by himself. Credit must be given to Pochettino’s side as they exploited Fabregas’ poor defensive positioning/awareness well.

Not only was this aspect of Chelsea’s game on show, but after the ball inside, Matic was caught out after misjudging the challenge, leaving Chadli to drive against the Chelsea defensive line and make a good long shot against Courtois.

Hazard

The Belgian, whose defensive role in the team changes always based on the opponent they’re playing, had a passive role off of the ball against Spurs. This was probably to increase his threat on the counter-attack against the similiarly attacking Rose and Walker whilst generally improving his attacking output by conserving energy and reducing his focus on other aspects of his game.

Chelsea are able to do this because of the excellent Willian and Oscar who rotate positions amongst the three to take on more of the workload and trying to leave Hazard with less important spaces to cover. However, in this match, their ability to do so was less apparent and Tottenham exploited this on a number of occasions to good effect, such as in the below example.

1 – Oscar is forced into a left back position to mark Walker after taking up Hazard’s role on the left flank. With the same case happening on the opposite flank, Chelsea are in a 6-2-1-1 which reduces their ability to defend the 6 space significantly, as they have poor coverage of vertical space centrally, and the wide players cannot support Matic and Fabregas inside.

2 – Given this especially, Hazard needs to support the midfield pair by covering Bentaleb, who is is just yards away from. Instead, he walks the other way and leaves a 3v2 centrally. Even when he moves higher, he doesn’t support Costa with pressing the centre-backs and just stands in space.

Tottenham work the 3v2 very well and find the free man, Bentaleb, who Hazard should really have been marking. In addition to this, Matic made a bad decision to try and press the switch into Bentaleb, vacating the space which the Algerian could then drive into.

Because the 6 space is uncovered in front of the Chelsea defence, Willian reacts intelligently to press Bentaleb into making a decision. Despite him leaving a 2v1 against Ivanovic, the Brazilian stops the ball-carrier from directly attacking the defensive line, and Ivanovic deals well against the cross.

1st Tottenham Goal

Following a previous Tottenham attack, Chelsea are in a 4-1-4-1 shape with Hazard the highest player, Costa at right wing and Oscar in move of a central midfield position. His positioning in this case is quite strange, because he would be better being nearer the red marker, where he could support Ivanovic better who could be effected by Eriksen coming across. This may be down to the previous attack, where he got mixed up with Hazard in terms of positioning.

The Danish Tottenham playmaker does really well here to drag Matic out of position, initially creating the space that Kane has to drive into, whilst temporarily forcing Ivanovic to hold off which relieves any pressure off of the young striker.

This then opens the small space which Kane moves into, and Fabregas simply can’t cover the 6 space without Matic and Oscar struggles to win the ball back. Notice Willian can’t support because he is marking Walker on the right wing, although these doesn’t seem completely necessary, and he could potentially have closed down Kane in the space he eventually shot.

Fabregas is dribbled past not for the first time, but Kane makes the necessary excellent shot to beat Courtois from distance.

Tottenham Pressing

In the majority of matches for Chelsea this season, it has been evident that if Fabregas’ influence were to be reduced, Chelsea’s performance drops significantly. Pochettino’s side worked very well to stop the Spaniard from finding any profitable space in the 1st and 2nd phases of possession.

Especially in this example below, Tottenham’s narrow shape forced Chelsea into a less stable build-up wide, which resulted in possession regained for the home side. Even with Matic dropping into the defensive line in efforts to stabilize more and open passing lanes, they struggle to play through Tottenham’s midfield duo to its compactness and their focus on Fabregas in the 6 space.

Spurs’ Possession Game

In contrast to Chelsea, Tottenham looked very good on the ball and passed through the opposition lines concisely. This was a result of some Chelsea doing, as they pressed poorly with Hazard in central areas and lacked compaction, leading to Pochettino’s side finding midfield gaps to great effect.

In the start of this move, we can see “Salido Lavolpiana” or ‘the way out of la volpe’ in which Bentaleb drops into the defensive line. This has a multitude of results;

1. This conditions Chelsea into more of a 4-4-2, with Hazard supporting Costa centrally. The lack of control over Tottenham’s 6 space as a result gives Spurs a key area in which they can play into, whilst it also opens passing lanes more easily. Especially with Hazard, this is effective as the Belgian doesn’t work hard to regain his position as an attacking midfielder, leaving to Chelsea lacking control in the central midfield position.
2. With the centre-backs wide, the 3 players in the backline cover the whole width of the pitch, this allows them to access the aforementioned passing lanes more easily because as a group, they have an almost complete view of the play ahead of them.
3. The full-backs can occupy Chelsea’s wide players more and in higher areas. This reduced the away side’s ability to control midfield spaces because their wide midfielders weren’t in positions to support centrally
4. With Bentaleb as a pivot, Tottenham had increased stability in their 1^st phase as his technical ability and presence can be used there.

With three different players oriented on different vertical lines, Tottenham create a 4v1 overload which could be interpreted with the perspective of a 4v1 rondo. The variations in height on the field allow more passing options of varying benefits (because they’re in more different positions) whilst making it impossible for Oscar to cover every option.

With 2 short passes in the ‘rondo’, Eriksen is now free to drive against the Chelsea midfield, which is evidently lacking compaction around the CM position with Fabregas having far too much space to cover, and lonely without Matic beside him.

Ideally, the Serbian could’ve been supporting Oscar in the wide press however in the next frame we see how this was made impossible by excellent off of the ball movement by Spurs.

1. Eriksen has exchanged passes with Kane, who has dropped deep into the free space left by Oscar and Matic and has brought Cahill with him.
2. Chadli has again occupied Matic and dragged him wide, which is absolutely key in this move from Tottenham. By doing so, he reduces their central control in midfield, as his presence is removed, whilst Fabregas doesn’t react (and wouldn’t be of great use regardless) whilst Oscar is pressing higher. He also cannot support in the previous press as I stated, and could’ve offered a good second wave of pressure, meeting Eriksen immediately after he bypassed Oscar.
3. Walker and Rose are stretching the play very well, and the former is stopping Willian from becoming involved in the centre which could’ve been key in stopping the attack.

An overall key aspect in this move and some others also, was Tottenham’s excellent occupation of players. For example, in this situation,  Chadli is occupying Matic and moved him wide, Kane has forced Cahill into a deep position, Townsend is doing well to threat both Azpilicueta and Terry whilst just as crucially, Willian is being taken up by Walker on the opposite flank.

Had the last one not happened, this situation could’ve been much better for Chelsea, and they may have had great stability in the centre if Willian had come inside to support Fabregas.

In this case, he could’ve taken Townsend, allowing Azpilicueta and Terry to come inside more and make the defensive line more compact and stable, allowing Cahill to stay higher for longer and support in the 6 space.

What would’ve been better however, would be to come far inside and allow Fabregas to take up the position of Cahill, allowing the back 4 to be maintained better and a more ‘natural’ distribution of space amongst the players.

With a little support from Willian, Fabregas could’ve possible got higher up to Eriksen and blocked off Kane, meaning Chelsea could focus better on the left flank where Cahill could provide help for Matic and Ivanovic.

Tottenham’s Second Goal

For the home side’s second goal of the game, similar defensive frailties occurred for Chelsea.

In the start of the move, Tottenham are pressing on the flank, not that they’re doing this very well, as both Hazard and Matic are free in central positions, however Azpilicueta inexplicably decides to try and play the ball down the line instead, resulting in Tottenham regaining possession.

Immediately a vertical pass is played in an attempt to start a quick counter-attack, which goes slightly astray but Matic misses a crucial interception as Eriksen simply runs past him. As with most situations this left the defensive line, who individually struggled on numerous occasions, exposed.

From this position, Chadli intelligently drags Ivanovic far inside, leaving so much room for Danny Rose to sprint into, unbeknownst to the Chelsea defence.

Tottenham’s Fourth

Some issues, both with the 4-3-3 and individual players, where exposed yet again for Kane’s second goal of the match early in the second half.

Initially, Ramires looks to press higher but fails badly and is far out of position whilst Tottenham break, increasing the distance greatly.

Given the situation where Chelsea are lacking stability in midfield and need to recover organisation, Ivanovic strangely attempts to copy Ramires and goes diving in himself. He fails, and Tottenham have 4 players running at a makeshift backline where Cahill moves to right-back, forcing Matic in at centre-back to cover there.

The Serbian then again loses out in a challenge with Kane, who turns brilliantly and makes an equally-fine finish into the bottom right corner, with help from a deflection off of Terry in the block.

4-3-3

At the start of the second half, Chelsea replaced Oscar with fellow-Brazilian Ramires, as they changed to a 4-3-3 formation. I suspect this was in attempt to facilitate Fabregas more both in and (more crucially) out of possession. By changing the midfield to a 1-2 with Matic CDM, Chelsea would hope to have greater stability as Ramires would be in support of the ex-Benfica player as well as the rather ineffective Fabregas.

This also supports their possession game in theory by giving Fabregas greater freedom in the 3^rd phase, however it has to be taken into consideration that Oscar’s removal weakened this area too as they lacked the great fluidity that his movement allows.

Ramires’ introduction also supported in their pressing during Tottenham’s 1^st phase as the 1-2 structure allowed for greater pressure high up with less alterations of the midfield shape.

However, this had less of an effect as Mourinho would’ve hoped, mainly because of the lack of discipline in Ramires’ pressing and the pairs’ distance from Matic. Especially with Eriksen still dragging the Serbian midfielder into wide spaces, neither CM had the awareness to cover and Chadli still proved a threat in these areas.

Here we can see Eriksen again dragging Matic wide, but now in the 4-3-3 system. If anything, the effects were heightened as neither Fabregas nor Ramires are in positions to cover in front of the Chelsea back 4, meaning Chadli is free and the Danish playmaker found with a clever inside pass.

Even when Matic wasn’t dragged out, he was easily overloaded as a result of Ramires and Fabregas simply not supported him by taking positions closer.

Regardless of the poor form of Chelsea at White Hart Lane, the Tottenham squad was excellently equipped to beat Mourinho’s side because of the excellent technically-gifted attacking midfielders. These could exploit Fabregas and executed this strategy brilliantly, who Chelsea just couldn’t facilitate off of the ball against a team so oriented in the 10 space.

4-3-3 Pressing

With the midfield triangle inverted, and Hazard more set in the left-wing position, Chelsea pressed slightly better in the 2^nd half, given the extra midfielder available to be high up during Tottenham’s 1^st phase.

This was evident for the 2^nd goal, where Fazio carelessly attempts to dribble the ball forward through pressure but is tackled by Hazard who could combine with Fabregas and score an excellently concise counter-attack.

The 1-2 midfield is evident as Ramires and Fabregas are high up, from this position they could then support the following counter-attack which lead to the second goal.

With 1 central midfielder usually supporting the 1^st phase press in deeper positions, the new pressing structure was an interesting one, and although it worked better in cutting off the passing lanes which were used well by Spurs in the 1^st half. In general it was more oriented towards man-marking higher up with the two forwards and the ‘3’ behind supported the 1^st wave better whilst with Hazard on the left and Ramires or Fabregas the main central player of the 3, they had greater stability in these areas as Tottenham passed through with less success.

Matic

The defensive midfielder key to Chelsea’s successes this season was poor versus Tottenham, against a challenging Eriksen who was constantly dragging him out of position. The Serbian midfielder mistimed a surprisingly large number of his challenges which often left Chelsea exposed greatly as no other midfielder supported well enough.

His weaknesses are less apparent when Mikel plays, however with Fabregas alongside him instead, there was a lot of pressure on Matic to win the majority of his challenges and when Pochettino set up Spurs directly to attack the space around Matic, he struggled as a result.

Even with slightly more support through the form of Ramires, Matic often caused his own problems through his consistent mistiming of challenges.

For example in this case, where Matic (highlighted) failed in his pressing, the defensive line is opened up and Chadli has far too much room to his right where he can make a threatening switch. Albeit, the Serbian is supported poorly by Ramires and Fabregas, who’re both wide and in no position to support (unless Tottenham inexplicably try to force play down the left).

It was the large majority of times when Matic mistimed his challenge, the defensive line was exposed and unfortunately for Mourinho, he did this far too frequently whilst Spurs exploited this without fail.

Conclusion

In summary, this was an excellent tactical performance from Pochettino accompanied by equally good performances by Kane, Eriksen and Chadli amongst others. Their exploitation of Fabregas and Hazard worked very well and highlighted the previously less evident issues in Chelsea’s system; it will be interesting to see if other team’s follow suit. Despite a number of individual errors gifting Tottenham goals at times, such as Cahill’s absent-mindedness for the penalty, praise has to be given to the home side, whose possession game in particular was good to watch as they utilised players in the 10 space to a great degree of success.

The only 2 managers to have scored 5 against Mourinho teams are Pochettino and Guardiola (5-0 Manita) – both disciples of Marcelo Bielsa

@tompayneftbl