Manchester City will punish Chelsea if the Blues do not play for a win
By George Perry
Chelsea need at least a point against Manchester City to salvage their back-to-back trips to Manchester and to keep a light grip on the top-four. However, they must play for a win or else Manchester City will punish their lack of ambition.
Liverpool are the only Premier League team to defeat Manchester City this season, and they showed how simple it is to do so. All you have to do is play City’s game against them, and do it slightly better. Antonio Conte will have his own variation on this schema for Chelsea to defeat the league leaders. But whatever he cooked up, there can only be one top-line goal: Play for the win.
The other clubs who came close to taking a point off of Manchester City presaged Liverpool’s strategy. They attacked Manchester City, they moved the ball sharply into City’s zone and they flooded back to stem City’s counter. Once City established possession in the opposition’s final third, these opponents played an expansive defence to win the ball back and force City to shoot from distance.
This is obviously a high-risk approach. City are as fast as they are good, and staying on the front foot invites a counter-attack. Keeping the defence expensive in their own third creates space in the box for any number of delicious possibilities for Leroy Sane, Kevin de Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, or, well, any of the Citizens. And City are as dangerous from outside the box as they are within a few yards of goal.
But the risk rarely panned out as such. Teams who played this way kept City within one goal’s reach for most of the game. City always prevailed, but often needed a series of late – sometimes stoppage time – goals from Raheem Sterling and a few other heart-breakers. Other times, City would be protecting an early lead rather than pressing their advantage as they were able to do in some of their more dominant victories.
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Chelsea are a more complete team, more offensively capable, than most of those other teams who held on to late draws or one-goal deficits. The Blues could turn those situations into late goals and wins of their own. If – the big, crucial, match-turning if – that is, they set themselves up to do so, and then follow that with confidence.
Chelsea must keep the ball in their offensive third as much as possible. They must have Antonio Rudiger ready to bomb back to assist Andreas Christensen, who in turn must be ready to single-handedly squash – or at least delay – a sky blue rush. The wing-backs must be ready to do the same. Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso have a key role in maintaining possession and keeping the ball in the offensive areas. If they give City the opportunity to regain possession easily, they are condemning themselves to chasing the play the other way. Victor Moses at least has a chance of catching up with it. Marcos Alonso does not.
Playing against Manchester City is the ultimate expression of the adage that a good offence is the best defence. Inviting City into your defensive third simply paves their way to your goal. Chelsea must keep them away from that part of the pitch, and when City penetrates it, the Blues must be equally ruthless in taking the ball back and running it the other way. “Keep-away” is the new “parking the bus.”
Liverpool are uniquely set up and trained for this style of football. The lustre wore off of gegenpressung some time ago, but it perfectly met the challenge against City. Chelsea have the physical and tactical attributes to play a similar style. Willian, Pedro, Eden Hazard, N’Golo Kante, Antonio Rudiger and – God help him – Tiemoue Bakayoko were born for moments like this.
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Antonio Conte surely knows he cannot concede possession and not concede goals. He needs his men to be at their 2016/17 best to defeat the 2017/18 leaders. Unfortunately, in the last two games his players have let down his tactics. Individual mistakes and collective apathy undid them on the red side of Manchester. Another such let down in the will to win will extend the winless streak against top opponents.