Oluwaseun ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฌ
Oluwaseun ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฌ

@MobyChe

24 Tweets 1 reads Apr 02, 2024
Chelsea v Burnley
Tactical Review
Wasteful and Open Chelsea
Thread
Chelsea returned from the international break, faced a 19th-placed Burnley side at home, and lined up in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation with Badiashille back in the side, Mudryk finally getting a start in nice form. While Burnley lined up in 4-4-2, with Odobert and Larsen rotated in and out of the wings regularly but played more centrally.
Chelsea's plan, as usual, was to play vertical from back to front quickly, Burnley didnโ€™t try to sit back early on and went for it, explained by their bright early start.
Burnley tried to do the same thing, bypassing our press and aiming for our wide areas, They created overloads out wide and pushed Viitinha out wide, they were aiming for the runs in the space between Our Cbs and FBs which Larsen made.
Even throughout the game. It was quite easy for Burnley to get their FBs/wingers 1v1 against Chelsea's FBs and easily get past our press which isnโ€™t good enough. The distances between the lines, closing down was not good enough, gave Burnley space to play.
The annoying thing is that early on we kept encouraging Burnley to get the ball by trying to be too direct, making silly mistakes and giving fouls away in dangerous areas.
Burnely also used that to pin us in our half during that period, winning the 2nd balls in a good counter-pressing shape.
Ironically Chelsea started being more aggressive winning the ball when Poch started getting aggressive with them to push up and apply pressure and it kinda showed immediately...
That was when Burnely being direct began to hurt themselves as Chelsea was finally being aggressive stopping those balls to the wings without opposition. Chelsea began to win the first balls and 2nd balls and began to exert control of the game.
When Chelsea settled into the game and had a build-up shape, Chelsea looked like having a 2-3 shape on the ball and 3-2 when Cucurella joined in the back 3. With Enzo orchestrating the play
Burnley still had their threat in wide areas with Odobert giving Gusto a hard time. They normally gave Odobert a 1v1 with Gusto from Freekicks.
Chelsea began to get lots of Joy playing from back to front vertically bypassing Burnley's half-hearted press and creating chance after chance but almost making the wrong choices in attack which didnโ€™t finish the game early.
Conor didnโ€™t get a lot of cutbacks he positioned himself well for. You could then see he deliberately didnโ€™t pass when he was supposed to, it looked like a sort of payback for not receiving the passes earlier,
Chelsea was also dangerous on transitions as we always are but it was the same issue of not being clinical to take our chances.
Chelsea also used lots of switches to find more space quickly on the wings and quickly get at Burnley's defence. Enzo was instrumental in doing that in the way he should as often as he is. Gusto was mostly the receiver on the right.
CFC in their structure were positioned poorly to stop counterattacks. The counter press was poor. At times the midfield and defence werenโ€™t close enough to stop Burnley from having transitions of their own especially when Burnley was down to 10 men.
After the red, Burnley changed their shape to a 4-4-1 to be harder to play through in the 2nd half with the introduction of Brownhill and looked to sit and get counters to get chances.
The issue I highlighted in the first half of Chelsea's midfield and shape being too porous was clear immediately for Burnley's goal just after halftime. Burnley looked like the ones that had 11 men and we looked like we had 10 menโ€ฆ
Chelsea now had to break down a low block for the rest of the 2nd half. We didnโ€™t get behind the low block much but a lot of our main threat was from the wings through cutbacks. There werenโ€™t many big chances though.
But it was a real piece of quality that created the goal. Good link-up play, a brilliant line-breaking pass from Enzo, a deft flick from Sterling and a cool finish from Palmer. Shows the understanding in the team increasing.
Then our set piece frailties still showed by allowing a free header on goal and Petrovic should easily save that as well.
The match ended with Chelsea missing another big chance out of 6 big chances, missing 4 of them, and how we also allowed Burnley to create 4 big chances in the 2nd half was very amusing and confusing. The main action points from the game for me are we create enough and donโ€™t finish enough ( cause you canโ€™t score all your chances ).
But what has been apparent for months is that our OOP shape is really poor, midfield porous and we allow teams to play through us too easily, conceding 2 goals in 5 straight games, better control is a must to maximize our technical midfield off the e ball as much as on it. Will Poch fix it before the end of the season?
End of Thread

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