Chelsea: Conte’s false-nine gambit had no margin against rare, freak errors

Antonio Conte played a high-risk, low-reward gambit with his lineup against Barcelona. His game-plan was on the verge of working until it encountered the most unpredictable factor: simple human error.

Antonio Conte executed some high stakes game theory against Barcelona on Tuesday. There were four outcomes to Chelsea’s knock-out round opener. One would have been a miracle, one would have been a disaster and the other two sat right in between.

If Conte was right, he would be the genius who not only put Chelsea ahead in the Champions League tie but also preserved his strikers for the upcoming Premier League matches against Manchester United and Manchester City. If he was wrong, he was a self-destructive egomaniac, seeking a perfection that does not exist in reality and throwing a Guardiola-style tantrum in the process. On the one hand, glory and praise. On the other, suspended betting on the sack race.

Chelsea Football Club, meet Jack Bristow.

In the end, Conte left Stamford Bridge with the third best outcome of the four. A draw is greatly better than a loss. But a 1-1 draw is a significant step below a scoreless draw. Chelsea now need a win at Camp Nou in mid-March.

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Conte chose to play Eden Hazard as a false-nine instead of the presumably less-than-fully-fit Alvaro Morata or Olivier Giroud. Chelsea have more recent experience in this formation, but not recent success. Planning to play out of possession and strike on the counter-attack, he needed players who could break out quickly. A target-man striker looking for crosses in the box or loose balls to poach is a mark of affluent possession – something he did not intend for his side.

Not having a target man centre-forward opened the door to darker speculations of Conte’s motives. The most obvious was self-handicapping. If Chelsea lost, it was because they did not have an available striker able to play at full strength in the Champions League. This shifts the conversation to Chelsea’s transfer policy in both windows.

Of course, it would snap back on Conte because it would place Olivier Giroud and Alvaro Morata on the same level as the now on-loan Michy Batshuayi as strikers Conte just does not trust. Conte could get away with not trusting Batshuayi. He could not get away with it for the club record signing Morata – a player Conte himself requested – nor a player with Olivier Giroud’s Premier League and Champions League credneitals.

Conte would also face questions about how divorced he is from the reality of football. Is it really better to play with no striker at all than a striker who is at 70% fitness or 80% match readiness? What player with Chelsea’s fixture congestion is not battling through a few knocks and aches? Is a Champions League tie against Barcelona really the best time to prove a point through protest about scheduling or squad depth?

Antonio Conte’s decision to rest both his strikers could also reflect his broader priorities for the season. Winning the Champions League is improbable, to say the least. Going deep in the Champions League would be very enjoyable. But Conte’s job does not hinge on a quarter-final vs. semi-final vs. final appearance. His prospects, though, are almost entirely dependent on qualifying for next year’s Champions League with a top-four finish.

Chelsea’s next three Premier League games are Manchester United, Manchester City and Crystal Palace. The Blues need at least two points from the Manchester games, and must avenge their early season loss to Palace. More than vengeance, though, they cannot drop any more points against bottom-half teams.

Playing Hazard as the false-nine ensured Conte will have both strikers fully fit for Manchester United. This is the more important of the two Manchester games. It is more winnable and is a six-point game in the battle for the top four. If Conte’s game-plan against the Mancunians involves 90 minutes of strikers, he needs both of them available. Eden Hazard is replaceable as a position, if not as a player. If either Giroud or Morata are injured, Conte has no backup.

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Whatever Antonio Conte’s strategy or analysis, it ultimately foundered on the one thing outside any manager’s control: simple human error. Individual errors by Andreas Christensen and Cesar Azpilicueta are rare enough. For them to make errors one after another in a matter of seconds is almost astronomically improbable. But it happened, and there was Lionel Messi.

And that may be the biggest short-coming in all of Antonio Conte’s machinations. His plan was high risk and low reward with minimal margin of error. A 1-0 victory was the best realistic scenario for the game plan he chose. This left Chelsea vulnerable to fortune, whether Willian rattling two shots of the post or the Christensen-Azpilicueta errors.

Conte’s plan was highly fragile in a volatile environment: Stamford Bridge on a European night. Sometimes, the volatility works in Chelsea’s favour. Just ask Napoli. Other times, it doesn’t. Just look at Tuesday night.

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Hopefully Conte will bring more confidence in his strikers to Camp Nou, and let that bring some simplicity back into the tactics. Fortune favours Chelsea in that setting, particularly when a much-maligned Spanish No. 9 is leading the line for the Blues.