Everton showed it is easier to disassemble Chelsea than decapitate them

Old and busted: Hacking Eden Hazard so he cannot come within sight of goal. New hotness: Marking Jorginho so Chelsea move as smoothly as a car with three flat tires.

Everton treated Jorginho like a creative No. 10 more than a deep-lying rhythm-setting midfielder. He had two players as his ever-present markers, a third ready to join in and an entire midfielder line ready to close the trap. And Chelsea could muster nothing against it.

The Toffees extended the tactics they had seen work to varying extents in Chelsea’s games against Burnley, Manchester United and Crystal Palace. In each of those games, the opponent used their forwards to separate Jorginho from his centre-backs. They closed down the passing lanes, forcing the centre-backs to play out via the full-backs. This in turn required the wingers to drop deeper the touchlines to retrieve the ball, blunting their ability to quickly put Chelsea into the final third. Jorginho, for his part, moved further up the field to find space to operate. He could not set the tempo up there, but he could still be a recycle option and, by expanding the space between himself and his centrebacks, he forced his markers to decide if they should stay near him or set themselves up for a counter-attack.

Everton did all this, and they gave additional attention to Jorginho. Whenever the ball came to a Chelsea full-back near the touchline, Jorginho would trot over to offer an option and attempt to put himself in his usual role as the pacemaker of the team. However, his ball-side marker would move halfway between Jorginho and the full-back to cut out the passing lane. Meanwhile, his ball-far marker would stay right on his shoulder, just in case the ball reached him.

If, somehow, one of the defenders connected with Jorginho, Everton’s midfield line would step a few yards forward. He then had his markers pressing him from two sides, and no passing lanes in any direction other than back towards the defence.

On top of that, the Toffees triggered their midfielders on Chelsea’s attempts to play out from the back. If the Blues’ centrebacks passed to the full-backs, Everton’s outside midfielders ran out to press the full-backs. If Chelsea tried to go up the centre, Everton closed ranks and completely congested the middle of the pitch.

Everton set the half-spaces as their buffer zone. If Chelsea had the ball along the touchline, the press was on. Once a Chelsea player brought the ball through the half-space – whether by a pass or a dribble, moving forward or backward – they brought everyone into the centre. This was important for them when Chelsea’s centre-backs would lob a diagonal pass directly towards the wingers, bypassing the full-backs and the nullified Jorginho.

Jorginho, then, spent his 63 minutes on the pitch looking for some place he could be relevant. At times he dropped behind the centre-back line, almost into the middle centre-back position from the 3-4-3 of the last two years. Other times he pressed higher than the other midfielders and roamed around the forward line seeking purpose.

He ended up spending most of his time in the Cesc Fabregas position. But for everything Jorginho can do in “his” position, he cannot replicate Fabregas further up the pitch. Jorginho can implement Sarrismo’s tempo and rhythm better than Fabregas could. But he does not have Fabregas’ impeccable timing, the ability to bring all the variables together for one magical moment. Jorginho’s individual passes come off quickly, but he needs time to establish the setting. Fabregas’ individual passes need a bit more time, but they can spring from nothing.

As an aside, Cesc Fabregas can set a rhythm and be the passing focal point for many tactical systems. He did it for two managers just as Chelsea. But he cannot sustain his passing – let alone his positioning – to the pace Maurizio Sarri demands.

The statistical upshot is that three players made more passes per minute than Jorginho: David Luiz, Antonio Rudiger and Mateo Kovacic. The Blues also did not take their first shot on goal until the 41′.

Everton spared themselves the hassle, the difficulty, the fouls and yellow cards and near-futility of marking Eden Hazard by choking off his supply all the way at the source. By the time Mateo Kovacic or Marcos Alonso has the ball atop the final third, it’s already too late. They can do too much on their own and Eden Hazard can too easily get close enough for a brush pass. At that point, Hazard is already in control.

But if the ball can never get to Alonso or Mateo Kovacic because it can never get to Jorginho, if the ball is stuck amongst the centre-backs, Eden Hazard is much less threatening. He can drop very deep to pick up the ball, as can Alvaro Morata, but this further distorts Chelsea’s shape and rhythm. If Hazard comes back to Jorginho’s usual spot to retrieve the ball while Jorginho is up near Morata looking for a way to get involved, Sarrismo stumbles and staggers.

Chelsea desperately need a Plan B for the increasingly sophisticated and effective ways their opponents are neutralizing Jorginho. They have to connect the centrebacks with the wingers without having the wingers drop back along the touchline. Long balls are obviously not an option.

Maurizio Sarri either needs a passing scheme that is not as reliant on Jorginho, or that creates better opportunities for the full-backs to work up the line.

Their next run of opponents will be much less likely to let the Blues escape with a goalless draw.