Team Focus: Chelsea's Step Back Has Taken Them Strides Forward
It's easy, in retrospect, to see the moment at which Jose Mourinho decided he had had enough. His Chelsea side had just lost to Sunderland in the quarter-final of the Capital One Cup and, in his post-match interview, he seemed weary and distant, and yet at the same time defiant. "We may have to take a step back in order to be more consistent at the back," he said. "It's something I don't want to do, to play more counterattacking, but I'm giving it serious thought. If I want to win 1-0, I think I can, as I think it's one of the easiest things in football. It's not so difficult, as you don't give players the chance to express themselves." It was the signal for a change of tactical approach that has been supremely successful.
In Chelsea's following game, away at Arsenal, Mourinho switched from 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-3, looked to contain the home side, and did so with great success. The 4-2-3-1 has since returned, but the refocusing, the defensive resolve of that game, have remained with quite startling results. In the 17 league matches before the Sunderland defeat, Chelsea scored 32 and conceded 18; in the 11 games since, they have scored 20 and conceded just 4.
Chelsea have gone to a more counter-attacking style, but simply to say they're sitting deeper and looking to catch teams on the break oversimplifies the situation. Possession, not surprisingly, has gone down, from 56.1% to 52.1%, as Chelsea increasingly allow the opposition - particularly stronger sides - the ball. Accordingly they play a greater proportion of their passes long now than they did: 12.3% in the last 11 games as opposed to 10.9% in the first 17, and equally logically, pass completion has gone down from 84.1% to 80.1%. The number of successful dribbles per game has also gone up, from 10.1 to 12.4 as the need for Willian and Eden Hazard, in particular, to carry the ball at their feet, leading the breakway, has increased.
The success of the policy is undeniable, and not just from a defensive point of view. Although Chelsea are ostensibly playing more defensively, they are actually creating more goalscoringopportunities by looking to hit sides with rapid transitions. Shots per game have gone up from 16.8 to 18.2 and, more significantly, shots on target have increased from 5.8 to 6.5. Shots conceded, slightly surprisingly, has dropped only from 10.4 per game to 10.3, although the radical drop-off in goals conceded suggests that the type of shot has changed significantly, and opponents are now being forced into taking on shots either from long range or under pressure.
The arrival of Nemanja Matic has also made a huge difference. He was WhoScored's second highest rated Premier League player in February and in his five starts he has already shown his quality. He is that rarest of players: somebody who is both physically imposing but also a gifted footballer. Matic averages 3.4 tackles and 2.6 interceptions per game. It's a small sample size admittedly, but only Mile Jedinak, Lucas Leiva and Claudio Yacob win the ball back more often. At the same time, his pass completion rate is 84.2% - higher than the team average for Chelsea in the same period.
And that, perhaps, is the most impressive aspect of this Chelsea side. It's not just that they are in pole position for the title, or that they have a sense of relentlessness that their rivals lack: it's that they have conspicuously improved as the season has gone on, as Mourinho has shaped the side according to his tactical blueprint. The fear for everybody else must be that next season they'll be even better.
Can Chelsea win the league with their improved defensive record? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
