Mauricio Pochettino has found out how to stop Chelsea again and again. That should worry Maurizio Sarri as others copy the plan.
Chelsea was rampant in 2014. Jose Mourinho’s side played fast, free flowing football that swiped away all competitors. Then they faced Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham at the turn of the new year. Tottenham ran Chelsea off the pitch and Mourinho was so rocked that he reeled Chelsea’s free flowing attack all the way into the bus.
In 2016, a similar set of circumstances unfolded for Antonio Conte. Rampant heading into the new year, Tottenham countered Conte’s tactics and ended the winning run.
And now, in the 2018/2019 season, Pochettino has done it again. His Tottenham side ran Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea off the pitch in the first match they played against each other. Pochettino created the tactical blueprint to beat the Blues (again) and Arsenal copied it letter for letter with the same effect. Heading into another match with Tottenham, that should be a worry for Maurizio Sarri.
Pochettino fairly gets criticized for his lack of trophies. He has built and excellent side but without that final push, silverware eludes them. But it is undeniable that he is one of the league’s most tactically astute managers. His ability to look at a tactic and solve it before anyone else is nearly unparalleled.
Chelsea frequently ends up on the wrong side of this. The aggressive, high pressing 4-2-3-1 rocked Mourinho’s Blues. His 3-5-2/3-4-2-1 was not only a solid replication of Conte’s tactics, but a perfect counter to the space Chelsea often left behind on attack. And his 4-4-2 diamond is now the blue print for stifling Sarri’s Chelsea.
Sarri has gone in and stated that the loss to Arsenal was not tactical. That is false. Arsenal copied Tottenham’s game plan exactly and used it to do the same thing to Chelsea that Tottenham did in their 3-1 victory.
4-4-2 diamonds are narrow naturally and most would see that as a risk against a team that likes to play in the wide areas. But the diamond allows teams to stifle Chelsea’s midfield. The ball is forced wide before the players are properly positioned and the Blues are so toothless in possession that it does not really matter if they get free reign of the wide areas.
Chelsea’s overlapping fullbacks and zonal defense is also ripe for the taking to strikers moving from a central area to the half space. That large gap left behind the fullbacks is not dissimilar to the large gap left behind Conte’s wingbacks. The major difference is one less centerback and the lack of man to man coverage.
Sarri may not see his tactics as wrong but Pochettino has proved they are easily solved. Unai Emery did not need to send someone to hide in the bushes because all he had to do was watch the 3-1 match and copy Pochettino’s homework.
If Sarri wants to overcome the 1-0 aggregate deficient, he will have to change something besides the players. Pochettino is a mastermind of figuring Chelsea out, but even he cannot plan for something he has never seen before. Changing one or two players will not protect Chelsea. It will take a systematic change to overcome Tottenham. Given that Sarri has passed the blame off, expect the exact same XI in the exact same way with the exact same result for Pochettino.