Brighton set the tone for the opponents Chelsea will face in the next month. These lessons from the game against the Seagulls will easily carry over to the upcoming fixtures.
Training time is at a minimum, so lessons have to be broken down into quick, manageable chunks for teams (and, of course, fans) to absorb with minimum time and effort before the next game. Here’s what Chelsea can take from the Brighton game into the month ahead.
1. Sarrismo must be ready for classic English football
The word “physicality” is in large letters in any word cloud of terms used to describe the Premier League. While Maurizio Sarri’s fluid, technically intricate style has its admirers among the top six clubs, the collective reaction of most of the rest of the league is along the lines of “That’s cute.”
Brighton fought their way into the second half of the game on Sunday by being true to themselves, the 13th place, two years out of the Championship, 30+ years out of the top division team they are. And don’t misunderstand us: we’re not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s not pretty, and plenty of snooty hipsters will say it’s barely football. But it works, and it has Brighton as close to Manchester United in sixth (lol) as to Newcastle one place below.
Chelsea’s opponents for the next month will be cut from Brighton’s cloth. Maurizio Sarri will experience the most English teams playing the most English football during the most English time of the year. Like that most English of Yuletide desserts – mincemeat – it’s an acquired taste, and one pooh-poohed by those wearing the mantle of refinement. Connoisseurs of the Italian school – football or cuisine – beware.
2. Need a plan for the wide areas
Brighton scored their goal through a quick and relatively simple series of passes across the pitch that stretched Chelsea’s defence, creating chaos and space for Solly March.
Chelsea’s narrow defence cedes the flanks and the higher areas of the defensive third to the opponent. The Blues are effective at stopping head-on attacks, and the opponent cannot create much danger if Chelsea can limit them to the wide areas. However, they can exploit Chelsea’s inexperience in those areas to make things happens in the box.
Right up to the final minutes of the game they probed Chelsea’s comfort in zonal marking. In the 92′ a cross came in to Lewis Dunk, who turned a header towards the net despite being marked by both Antonio Rudiger and David Luiz. Whether any of those three – Dunk, Rudiger or Luiz – knew how many Brighton players lurked around them is an open question. A rebound, flick-on or other second ball would have fallen to an unmarked Brighton player within 10 yards of Kepa Arrizabalaga.
Tottenham inflicted serious damage on Chelsea from the wide areas, and Manchester City operated threateningly in those spaces for the first half as well. The combination of Chelsea’s overall narrowness, Marcos Alonso’s forward positioning on the left and the team’s continued struggles with zonal marking combine to create a significant vulnerability. In accordance with #1 above, Brighton showed that you don’t need the technical and tactical quality of Tottenham or Manchester City to pull Chelsea wide to create space centrally. These areas will remain targets until the Blues can patch them up.
3. Keep blurring the lines between wingers and attacking midfielders
Maurizio Sarri substituted his wingers for attacking midfielders, bringing on Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ross Barkley to finish up against Brighton. Both of these players are versatile enough to play on the wing as proper wingers, if necessary. But their best contribution could be in blurring the roles between wingers and midfielders.
Chelsea left a lot of space in the area broadly circumscribed by the forward line and Jorginho. The wingers stayed high and wide, Eden Hazard veered towards the left, Jorginho stayed deep and the other midfielders were supporting their triangles along the flanks. This was both a cause and effect of Brighton’s defensive block, but the cycle favoured the Seagulls.
Barkley and Loftus-Cheek both give some direct centrality to Chelsea’s attack in a way the wingers do not. They can bring the play more towards the top of the box. Barkley, in particular, is more than willing to dribble straight at the box before unleashing a long-range shot, while Loftus-Cheek has the technical quality to dribble in closer before lining up a more deft attempt.
Substituting these two for Willian and Pedro is the kind of technical and tactical substitution that can throw an opponent for a loop in the late stages of a game. Barkley and Loftus-Cheek can force the opponent to rethink their defensive and counter-attacking plans just as they are at the point of the game where they are willing to take their chances and come out for a late goal.
These two are also much more physically able to withstand the hacking and scrapping that will come in the final 20-30 minutes of this upcoming run of games.
Even better would be starting either of these two Englishmen opposite one of the traditional wingers. This could approximate the 4-2-3-1 we have advocated as a potential evolution (don’t call it a change) for Sarrismo, even if just situationally. But even within the 4-3-3, having a mix-and-matched pairing would make life very difficult on the defenders, especially if Eden Hazard is the false-nine and is moving freely across the pitch.
Hazard would also appreciate the direct supporting role that either Barkley or Loftus-Cheek could provide him up the middle, giving him one more reason to enjoy life as a false-nine.