Chelsea: Antonio Conte readying a night of brilliance or an excuse-laden exit

Chelsea are either executing another masterstroke of genius or are making their excuses ahead of time. Antonio Conte chose Eden Hazard to be the false-nine in a 3-4-3, rather than either of Chelsea’s strikers.

Antonio Conte’s steadfast refusal not to play any player he deems less than 100% in any capacity just reached a new peak (or low, depending on your perspective). Eden Hazard, Pedro and Willian will be Chelsea’s headless, striker-less, target-less front line as Alvaro Morata nurses his back injury and Olivier Giroud waits for his 10-30 minutes of second-half glory. Assuming, obviously, that it’s not already too late.

This lineup will go down in history as either the moment Antonio Conte’s brilliance was inescapably on display, or the night he completely lost the plot. Chelsea’s early succes with the false-nine gave way to the formation being one of the club’s fatally predictable quirks.

Without any target man, Barcelona only needs to do what Bournemouth and Watford did to such devastating effect. Press high and exploit the space behind the wing-backs on one end of the pitch, and play a high and tight defensive line on the other.

Antonio Conte may have two tactical schemes in mind for this formation. The first is to create as many 1-v-1’s across the pitch as possible. The second is to sit back, hope Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez do not quickly do what they so often and quickly do, and then hit Barcelona on the counter.

The Blues missed having a striker simply to play the ball up and out of their half, let alone do anything in the offensive third. Relying on the centre-backs and wing-backs to play the ball out against Barcelona’s press is essentially ceding the lion’s share of possession in the hope of the counter-attacking goals that were much more common last season than this one.

This is high-risk, minimal reward scenario. Chelsea’s recent records against teams in the large category of “not Barcelona” give little reason for optimism. Conte’s obvious lack of faith in his strikers apparently extends beyond Michy Batshuayi to Alvaro Morata and now Olivier Giroud.

Next: Four players Chelsea need perfection from to defeat Barcelona

In a few hours, the verdict will be in. Expect plenty more talk about the sack race than the Champions League title before the night is out.