Arsenal vs Chelsea tactical preview: A guide on how to beat Tuchel’s Chelsea
With Thomas Tuchel’s arrival in late January, he has managed to transform a leaky, underwhelming Chelsea side into a steely team which became hard to beat, leading them to a top 4 finish and a Champions League medal. With the addition of Lukaku, it has become the consensus that Chelsea have solved one of their most glaring issues (chance creation and goal scoring) and can now be seen as title contenders. Meanwhile in north London, Arsenal are coming off back-to-back 8th placed finishes and an underwhelming window despite having spent most in the top 5 European leagues. With Arsenal losing in embarrassing fashion to newly promoted Brentford and Chelsea comfortably beating Palace, optimism among the Arsenal fanbase is at an all-time low with fans, pundits and the like expecting Arsenal to be on the wrong side of a hiding in the game coming up. It really is the case of a tale of two cities. However, I personally think this caution is misguided and if Arteta plays his cards right, Arsenal can take a result from the game.
Firstly, we would need to understand what Chelsea’s system is, and how that system has helped mask the glaring flaws in their squad. In Lampard’s tenure, the lack of a conventional DM led to Chelsea getting consistently torn in transition and to make matters worse, Lampard’s insistence on playing advanced 8’s with no inverted FB’s made matters so much worse as at times it would only be the 6 and two CB’s behind the ball, meaning that teams with quicker forwards like Neto, Antonio and more were able to decide the game in a single moment towards the end of the games.
Figure 1 - Life without a DM? (Leicester 2-0 Chelsea January 2021
Figure 2 - A Chelsea attack breaking down with Mount and Azpilicueta being the deepest "midfielder”
Figure 3 - Rudiger and Christensen are left to defend acres of space that West Ham take complete advantage of
Tuchel rectified this by playing a 3-4-2-1 which consisted of rigid structure with 3 CB’s and 2 DM’s that stayed behind the ball at all times. What this did was first offer protection to players such as Jorginho and Kovacic who really struggle in defensive transition scenarios due to their inability to block passing lanes, complete lack of pace and can’t be relied upon to put in a challenge when needed. The three CB’s behind the two DM’s meant that they could handle long balls in much better fashion than they normally would do, since the wide CB’s would be able to sweep up without much pressure. Another way that Tuchel has been able to help Chelsea suffer less in transition is that when they are in possession, they are so safe and basic with the passes they play that it dramatically reduces the risk of losing the ball in dangerous areas that could lead to the counter attacks that Chelsea struggle with. Think of it as a throwback to Van Gaal’s United team and their method of defence by sterile possession. However, this also explains why Chelsea’s attack is so unthreatening, in the 19 games Tuchel coached for Chelsea, they have only mustered up 25 goals. As mentioned earlier, their lack of urgency on the ball can be blamed for this, it is as if they let teams settle into a deep block before they start progressing the ball into the final third. This can most likely be changed by a change in formation but considering that Chelsea have signed no new midfielders, there is little to no chance of that happening.
Figure 4 - Chelsea's formation vs Palace
The 3-4-2-1 also offers a natural front 5 that stretch the pitch and overwhelms most teams since they occupy the 5 channels. This is one of the fundamental principles in positional play which ensures that when playing vs a back four, there will always be a spare man on the wing, which causes a dilemma for the opposition FB’s, should they close down the wingback when the ball is switched or should they stay tight ton their man. That confusion creates gaps across the back four which can be exploited to create chances.
Figure 5 - Chelsea's 5 attackers vs Palace's back 4
Tuchel’s set up is also great at creating overloads in build up which makes it easy to play through the press. Three CB’s and two DM’s means that unless opponents send half of the XI to press, there will always be angles available to break the press. If 3 attackers are sent to press the 3, Edouard Mendy has the world class ability of picking out the wing back on the touchline, which can absolutely decimate a press as it did vs City in the Champions League final.
Figure 6 - CB options are all marked so Mendy chips the ball to Chilwell
Figure 7 - Chilwell who was unmarked receives the ball under no pressure and Walker panics and tries to close him down, this leaves Mount in acres of space to the receive the ball to play Havertz through, and the rest is history
So, as we can see, the 3-4-2-1 is a very strong system and is difficult to play against, however there is one main key to nullifying Chelsea - matching their formation. Think back towards the end of the season, the loss in the final to Leicester, and the losses towards the end of the season to Arsenal and Aston Villa. What did all these teams all have in common? They all played some variation of the 3-4-3 which allowed them to match Chelsea up man for man. Why did this prove to be so effective?
If we consider build-up, the narrow front 3 provided by the 3-4-3 can press the CB’s, with the pivot stepping up to mark the opposition pivot, not only that, but the WBs are also marked tightly too. This leads to a scenario where Zouma picks up the ball and there is no immediate passing option to take and gives to Jorginho who is under immense pressure, this results in him playing a wayward pass back to Kepa which then leads to Arsenal taking advantage and making it 1-0.
Figure 8 - Zouma appears visibly frustrated as there are no passing options ahead of him
Figure 9 - Jorginho ends up playing a very ill-advised back pass to Kepa essentially making it 1-0 for Arsenal
If Chelsea were to sustain pressure vs a 3-4-3 turned 5-4-1 low block they would also face difficulties in breaking it down. The advantage of having 5 attackers is wiped out due to the opponents also having 5 defenders which can cover the width of the pitch. This means that they will have to rely on moments of individual quality, however Chelsea’s options at WB (James, Azpilicueta, Alonso, Chilwell) are all relatively unspectacular in 1v1 scenarios, while a few of the guys mentioned have a top-quality final ball, they lack the explosiveness to create separation before playing said final ball. Chelsea can remedy this by allowing the RCB to overlap and act as an extra body in the final third but that would leave their subpar midfielders relatively exposed in transition.
Another way Arsenal could use the weaknesses of Kovacic/Jorginho to their advantage is by overloading build up in a similar method to how Chelsea usually would. This would draw their pivot higher up the pitch and since they are so poor at winning the ball back, they can be beaten to open up the centre of the pitch and attack Chelsea in transition. However, this can only be achieved by playing Ramsdale since Leno will actively hurt us in build-up, there’s no two ways about it.
This brings me on to my next point, so it is just one thing to nullify Chelsea’s set up, but that can only be taken advantage of by having the right players in the starting XI. Considering the potential absentees, this is probably the best XI Arsenal can run with.
The main concerns here are that Chambers and Mari may not fare well in the 1v1 scenarios that they may face due to being wide CB’s however their ball playing ability may be able to account for this. For Arsenal to get a result from this game, the pressing has to be spot on, Arsenal need to avoid the potential scenario of Lukaku facing up Chambers or Mari 1v1 at all costs. Arsenal also have to start the game on the front foot, Chelsea tend to really struggle when it comes to responding to set backs, an early lead could essentially decide the game.
All in all, switching to a 3-4-3 does not guarantee a result, however it guarantees that Chelsea’s strengths are essentially cancelled out and puts Arsenal in the best position of getting a result from the game.
Written by Muad
@Raumdeuter_EN
