3 Tactical details learnt from Chelsea vs Real Sociedad

Chelsea hosted Copa del Rey champions, Real Sociedad, at Stamford Bridge for Xabi’s first unofficial home game for Chelsea. This details some interesting tactical details Xabi set for this game. Lots of the starters that were unavailable until now, like Rogers, Lacroix, Reece, and Enzo Fernandez, all got their first Preseason runout, and I'll examine some of these details.

The 3-2-5/5-2-3 shape on and off the ball, respectively, seems to be Xabi’s go-to shape

The reason for highlighting this is that many of these players starting against Sociedad look set to start against Fulham next week. Fofana is suspended, so he won't be in the starting line-up, and maybe it's James in for him and Enzo for James in the midfield; it would suit it, but it is clear, shape-wise, that to start Rogers, Palmer and co, it's looking more like how it would be.

We also got to see a full-on 5 at the back with 5 defenders early in the 2nd half. He hadn’t tried it up until now. This was when Gusto, Josh, and even Hato came on the pitch too

Another thing to note is the lack of substantial Gusto leaving links means that Reece could play a lot in midfield this season, and his first game back to preseason in midfield kinda proves that.

Xabi needs to fix the shape/actions to reduce the fact that Chelsea are susceptible to being cut through by one pass in defensive transition.

Real Sociedad might not have had long dominating spells, but they got into lots of positions for half chances where they could have scored with above-average finishing. Most of these came from when Chelsea lost the ball whilst trying to transition or build up. One pass and Real Sociedad had an opening for shots. An example here is Colwill playing a good line breaker to Palmer; he dummies for Joao Pedro, Joao tries to pass to Rogers, but it was not successful. Real recycle the ball, and Colwill is out of position as well as Palestra; now Kubo has space to make a run in behind and get into a good position.

Xabi could either not make the build-up so quick so players get into positions and in shape, but it can lead to Chelsea waiting for teams to get back into shape and would not allow them to take advantage of transition opportunities, or still, the Chelsea players should be aware of these before opening up to fully go forward.

Joao Pedro is ready for an even higher goal-scoring season

Joao Pedro has been on fire during preseason. 7 goals and 2 assists are among the most for a PL player during preseason. It is very clear the rest has done his massive amount of good, although he should have gone to the World Cup. Chelsea will look to benefit from that, though. He was magnificent in this game. Always moving, making runs into the channels, in behind and dropping deep to receive the ball and turn. Those runs behind brought about the 1st and 3rd goals. 1st goal started from Reece looking for his run in behind; Reece didn’t get the weight, but Chelsea were in the final third and recycled it, Neto crossed it in, Joao again got his head to it, GK save, and Rogers got the rebound

Joao Pedro’s 2nd goal too, Chelsea build up in a lovely fashion with lots of third man, triangle passes, and rotations, Gusto receives in some space but enough time to deliver a fantastic ball with his weaker left foot (or is it…) to Joao Pedro making a run in behind and like I noticed from the Stamford Bridge crowd, expecting Joao to score and he did. He hardly misses those.

When he drops deep, he is always faced with pressure from around 2 to 3 players, and he didn’t lose the ball. His press resistance was so evident, and he made the right decision a lot of the time.

An example here was when the ball was fired into him from Colwill

He received it with a 2 man pressure already on him. He turned away from it and got past a third and won a foul for his team.

The team had a decent first half, very good first 20 mins, dropped too deep and became a bit passive, let Sociedad get back into the game but exploded into the 2nd half much better and finished the game off with the goals. Good outing for Chelsea on the day and lots of positives to look forward to as the season starts.