3 Things Learned vs Everton

3 Tactical details we learnt from the Everton vs Chelsea game

Chelsea faced an unbeaten Everton side to follow up on their Bournemouth win last weekend. In this article, we are going to go into the tactical details that contributed to Xabi’s first clean sheet at the Chelsea dugout.

Chelsea stepped up physically

Before we talk tactics. I have talked about the fact that many times in such a physical league as the Premier League is, when teams do get physical with you, you as a team have to earn the right to you’re your football by matching the physicality or else teams like Everton, Sunderland, Brentford and co will eat you up. That is exactly what Chelsea did. The players ran the distance, outran Everton, had more sprints, 125 v Everton’s 117 and won more physical duels than Everton.

It was a performance you could argue Chelsea hasn’t had in the Clearlake Era. The type of players on the pitch allowed for that to happen. Rogers, Henderson, Joh, Hato, Lacroix, Colwill and even the front line joining in too. Xabi is building a culture at Stamford Bridge, and yes, it is going to take time, but the huge signs are there, and there is no bigger sign that Chelsea are going to be a different team under Xabi’s guidance in terms of one that has the potential to handle adversity much better with the experience and nous now in the team this season. This sets the base for Chelsea to win this game. Next, we see the tactical advantage this birthed.

Again, directness is a weapon for Chelsea.

With the trend of man-to-man pressing in the Premier League, teams have to find different ways to break it. These days its not as easy to play through them except with elite possession-play players but if you have attackers such as Chelsea do, you don’t need to all the time as you want to get the ball into them quickly. That is where Rogers and Joao Pedro come in. Xabi also mentioned post-match that Chelsea don’t need to go short every time since Rogers and Joao Pedro can contest for long balls and win them and if not, win them, make it scrappy enough for Chelsea to pick up the 2nd balls and not make it easy for the opposition. The physicality in attack has increased and we saw it to devastating effect against Brighton, and Fulham and other games this season and we saw it here again as it was what led to Neto’s first goal.

Martinez has a lot of options to pass to, but instead goes long to Rogers, its clear they work on this.

Rogers receives it and holds up the ball importantly against Mitland-Niles. Lays it off for Hato and links up with him, flicks it into the path of an incoming Hato, and Hato does brilliantly to carry the ball and put in a cross for Palmer who doesn’t get it but Neto is just in the right place.

Shows the importance of not having one way of playing and in the PL it is vital.

Chelsea’s improved defensive shape.

It always takes time for a new manager to instil what he wants from his players. Over the past few games, including the Hull City game I wrote about here, I've seen improvements in Chelsea’s defensive shape and intent, and it'll click with time; it's one game, but we watch the process, not just the results. Xabi’s 4-4-2 shape off the ball that he used against Bournemouth, and now Everton looks more compact at times. Neto still drops deep to make it a 5 in the last line when it’s a proper low block, which is quite normal for a winger tracking back; people forget Maresca had one of his wingers as a wingback off the ball when Chelsea were in a deep block.

Very compact and enough to leave a wide area a bit free as Chelsea aim to congest the central space, and when the opposition team has the ball on one side of the pitch, they squeeze on that side to make the pitch smaller. Everton knew that, so they tried using switches of play at times, but it's about the work rate and desire of the Chelsea players to get back and close down the spaces quickly. It is still dangerous, as a better team with better wide players could have had more time. But Chelsea handled the situations well when the ball was wide. Everton hardly threatened, just one ball into the box where Barry had a free header from a set-piece situation. Hardly anything from open play. If Alonso can continue to make these improvements from a tactical perspective off the ball, then Chelsea can be a comfortable top 4 contender and probably more but UCL place is more accurate for the level now.