3 Things We Learnt From Xabi Alonso's First Chelsea Game in Preseason

6-4Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea took to the field for the first time in Preseason against Western Sydney Wanderers and there are lot of things to pick out from Xabi Alonso’s teams tactically, but here we will be focusing on 3 tactical ideas from Xabi Alonso that really stood out this game.

For Context, The Chelsea lineup was a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 shape

The team contained a lot of youngsters from the academy and fringe players. But we will dissect those 3 tactical ideas and what we saw that was interesting in the game, or just more or less the main theme from the game.

Xabi wants to use a 4 at the back off the ball and 3 at the back on it.

Now, the arguments, talks and questions a lot of Chelsea fans were asking was, what was the shape Xabi Alonso was going to play this season?

His Leverkusen team had success with a 3-4-2-1 formation featuring mostly 2 wingbacks and the shape off the ball was almost exclusively a 5-4-1 shape. Now from what we noticed in this game, Xabi’s team shape on the ball was still a 3-2-5 shape, but this was achieved in a different, or different ways. Acheampong was the CCB, Tosin became the LCB in possession, Suboloye (started at RB) was the RCB in possession, with a midfield pivot of Essugo and Reggie Watson. Emenalo, the Left Back pushed high to become a wide left player in possession. Walsh was a sort of Right pocket 10, while Satpayev who started on the left wing, cut inside and played as a left inside 10 when Emenalo went forward and Delap stayed at ST. Ryan Kavuma-McQueen on the right side. This is how it looked.

This is interesting profiling because first Josh is profiled as a CCB not a RCB here, Tosin, LCB, its almost like Xabi put the better progressive passers on the sides of Josh who is a carrier instead. Also Reggie Walsh also dropped deep at times to make it a 3 man midfield too.

When the big hitters came in, during the 2nd half, then we saw something similar but in a different way depending on the personnel we had. Colwill was the CCB in possession, Fofana RCB, Anselmino LCB, Jamie Gittens out wide on the left, and now interestingly, Watson the deepest but not necessarily in a double pivot, Nicol-Jazuli is playing an 8 role, alternating between staying in the pivot and connecting with Gittens, Palmer even though he was playing as the furthest midfielder, he was almost like an 8 and that looked a bit more like a midfield 3 than a double pivot. Palestra and Estevao are now basically on the right flank. Palmer goes in there to form over loads like you will see in the picture below, lots of rotations, Palestra given the licence to bomb forward and play like a wingback.

Almost like a 3-3-4 shape. Because WSW pressed the team a lot, we hardly saw the team in settled possession for long periods. But we can see the shape Xabi is trying to form in possession.

Now out of possession, what is Xabi doing?

Chelsea were looking a lot like a 4-4-2 out of possession

From the press right till when Chelsea drop into their own deep block.

The press is a 4-4-2 shape, Reggie Walsh with Delap up top and the same when Chelsea are in their own half.

Chelsea try to be compact in their 4-4-2 when deeper

So the positioning is fluid and its is very much in the midfield. It is interesting

XABI WANTS INTENSITY OFF THE BALL

Another thing Xabi Alonso wants to achieve is his press off the ball, Often times when Chelsea aren’t with the ball, like we said, they use a 4-4-2 press to try to win the ball back. Watching the game in real time must have distracted me from the fact that Chelsea did actually have some good ball wins, issue is that the press wasn’t compact which is natural in his first game and early during preseason. Xabi didn’t opt for a M2M press, but as he did at Leverkusen, used a more zonal one that turns M2M. The team tried to push them wide. An example here

Joao Pedro angles his press to go back to the Gk, Gittens marks the DM instead of the CB,

Notice the right back for WSW is not marked, because Chelsea are trying to make them play to the left, force them to play there.

WSW go long and Chelsea have enough men to deal with it here. But a better team could have tried to play out here and shorter. Premier League teams definitely have the ability to play through this and cause problems, so it has to be tight. There were many examples were players were either too aggressive and left gaps and the team was open, especially in the first half. Those are the type of system rust that Xabi has to iron out.

Chelsea also made mistakes and when they did in possession Chelsea were very open. This should also improve, when Chelsea try to be expansive, they should be able to recover quicker to stop teams from playing through them with one pass.

Chelsea lost the ball here from Estevao not laying off the ball well, firstly you shouldn’t lose the ball here, Estevao has to take better care, but when they lose it, No one is close enough to challenge 2 players and they score an easy goal. Maybe Alonso would put Nicol-Jazuli closer to Reggie Watson to close the gap? Those are the questions he has to ask himself too but that is what Preseason is for. But its clear Xabi wants intensity. He also mentioned how the team needed to face adversity better and it means off the ball and it means reacting when they concede. Xabi wants no passengers off the ball and he will continue to reinforce that.

COMBINATION PLAY.

Lastly, Xabi Alonso’s football already looks like it involves the forwards engaging in lots of inter-play, not even just the forwards, we saw the 2 Reggies, Watson and Walsh combine in midfield to build up attacks, we saw the build up to the first goal, too the play from the back

Teddy plays out to Josh, Josh, finds Suboleye and from there its one touch football. He passes it to Walsh, who drops deep (remember when I said that, as well as he drops to form a 3 man midfield at times)

Walsh one time pass to RKM who then breaks away from pressure

To find a wonderfully weighted throughball for Satpayev and he finishes aplomb.

We also saw it in loads of other chances and goals, Gittens’s goal was a nice link up between he and Joao Pedro, who combined and went on a top run to find Gittens again in the box. Then as well we saw the link up between Palmer and Estevao. Palmer , Estevao and Palestra often also overloaded the right side of the pitch to create space on the other side of the pitch where Jamie was an outlet, and Joao Pedro made off ball runs, so Xabi wants them close and wants them to combine.

There is a lot to like about what Xabi is trying to do. You can see execution issues with them, especially with the off ball principles and it will be interesting how Xabi sets up against Spurs too a tougher team. But its clear with the attacking quality this team has, it is set up to maximize that quality. Xabi ball is unofficially underway.