Chelsea suffered a humiliating defeat against Tottenham. While this is an obvious catastrophe in many aspects, on the long run, this was a win for Chelsea.
The excitement was in the air last weekend. A London derby neither team wanted to lose. Both sides confident on their form and with the potential to win what could have been a close game. Until Spurs completely outplayed Chelsea, who decided to get run over.
A loss against Spurs is never a good thing, but this can be considered a win for Chelsea in the long run. For starters, this result was long time coming. Chelsea had barely been getting by in the Europa League and narrowly won or drew games in the Premier League, most of which they should have won comfortably. Over the balance of the previous month or so, losing 3-1 to a motivated Spurs should not be a surprise.
On the day, Maurizio Sarri was not a happy man. Mauricio Pochettino completely dissected Sarrismo, and without too much difficulty in doing so. In fact, it only took three aspects: Man-mark Jorginho; play simple passes before hitting on the counter; make runs in behind the defense, since they have no protection from the midfield.
The first is probably the most important. Chelsea have been overly reliant on Jorginho. Every pass, every play and every movement went through him before it could become anything else. But take Jorginho out of the equation and Chelsea have nowhere to go.
The system is based on him playing quick passes and distributing the ball around, all on the assumption he has a couple seconds to do so. However, on Saturday, Dele Alli was Jorginho’s shadow and did not leave him alone. This simple act forced the Italian to move further up the field, a place he is not comfortable. With N’Golo Kante in his now-normal box-to-box position and Mateo Kovacic the only defensive midfielder left, Spurs completely destroyed what had been Chelsea’s stronghold.
Second, Spurs never played Chelsea’s game. Tottenham did not give Chelsea a moment’s respite or a narrow avenue of the game in which to be comfortable. Tottenham only ever needed 3-4 passes to put themselves at the top of or inside Kepa Arrizabalaga’s box. With Jorginho and Kante trying to get back into position, that was all Spurs needed to destroy Sarrismo and exploit its major weakness.
Finally, and not to single out any section of the team, the defense was excrementally poor. Yes, the Spurs attack were miles ahead of Chelsea’s defense strictly in tactical terms. But even setting that aside, the Blues’ back-liners’ sloppy passes and clearances, their inability to track a runner and their indecisive challenges left them nowhere near their actual position.
This should be a wakeup call to Maurizio Sarri to realize one cannot have non-defensive midfielders covering the back line. N’Golo Kante was in a non-defensive position but – Kante being Kante – took it upon himself to run triple that of everyone else to come back and defend.
Sarri has stated the team must find the answers on the training ground and not the transfer market. However, this does not excuse the players who have to go. And that statement comes from more than just this loss. If players like David Luiz and Willian keep starting, they will cost the team a lot more in the coming years.
If Sarri wants to win anything in the near future, he must understand there are undeniable weak points in his team and they need to be strengthened.
Chelsea tasted defeat. After all the bragging about a meaningless record, all the team has to show is a fight with Arsenal and Spurs for top-four. Although it would have been less concerning against another team, a loss to Spurs (of all teams) should spark the fire back into the blues.
It should also force Maurizio Sarri to find new solutions to his problems, something he could not do on Saturday. Rather than sticking to the same plan for 70 minutes and then slightly changing it when all is lost, he needs to make major tactical and structural changes.
Sarri knows his tactics will fail if he doesn’t adapt. Perhaps dropping a few players to make a point, changing the formation and changing the roles of key players will be enough. He could give Jorginho a new role to avoid what happened on Saturday. He could also drp[ Alvaro Morata and David Luiz for their lack of quality: one was offside almost the entire game, and the other did his utmost to do the very least when it came to defend. And he can return Kante to a more defensive role.
At this point, anything but the same strategy to play quick passes with no backbone and no real threat on goal should do the trick.
Losing such a big game is never acceptable. But given the circumstances, Sarri and the team learned a lot from getting demolished.
Winning the Premier League is looking harder and header for Chelsea now. Settling is never good, but going for a top four finish is a fair goal.
And there are other competitions with weaker opponents. Sarri must take advantage of those chances to create a bulletproof system that can take the team to new heights in the near future.