Maurizio Sarri had no answers for Manuel Pellegrini’s halftime adjustments on Monday, but Sarri can survive without answers as long as Chelsea have Eden Hazard.
For 45 minutes at Stamford Bridge, West Ham were the opponent Maurizio Sarri has waited all season for. Here, in Manuel Pellegrini’s 11th-place side, did he finally have a team interested in making a go of it, but loose enough to let Chelsea run through their midfield and sufficiently ambivalent about losing not to set up in a low block to deny Chelsea any sight of goal.
This let Chelsea play “Sarriball” as expansively and at the pace Sarri and his disciples imagine it in their perfect dream world. The Blues could set their defensive line deeper, opening up more space between their lines to ping passes through their well-rehearsed circuits. West Ham gave chase through that space, thereby leaving room for Chelsea players to shift their triangles from isosceles to scalene and back again. Sure, the Blues rarely if ever isolated West Ham’s full-backs or put a pass into the striker making a run in behind, but it sure looked nice. NBC Sports’ halftime show certainly loved showing how three players moved in a triangle leading up to Eden Hazard’s goal, as though Euclidean geometry permitted any other option barring a straight line.
Unfortunately for Sarri, Pellegrini put a stop to the fun at half time. Pellegrini replaced Chicharito with Robert Snodgrass, shifting the Hammers from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-1-4-1.
This shift eliminated the vulnerability created by Declan Rice and Mark Noble as the midfield pair in front of the defence. Chelsea spent the first half running and passing through and around Rice and Noble. Eden Hazard’s goal was the extreme version of how much space West Ham surrendered through this midfield pairing, but many other Blues found joy in their part of the pitch.
The second half shift closed up the gaps through midfield. It was an important shift for Pellegrini to keep his team in the game, but it almost succeeded far more than it ever should have.
West Ham were on the front foot for most of the second half. Even when they were not coming at Chelsea, they stifled the Blues in a way they could not through the first half. Within 10 minutes of the restart it was clear this was going to be another “game of two halves,” and for the same reason as all the others: the opposition adjusted, and Sarri did not.
Or is it “could” not?
Chelsea did nothing different in the second half than in the first. The reason their play looked so different was because of what West Ham did. The only surprise is how it took Pellegrini a full 45 minutes to implement those changes.
Surely he knew what the first 45 would look like. Any 45 minutes of game footage would have told him.
Then again, without Eden Hazard’s second-best goal of the season (his goal against Liverpool was better), Pellegrini would have been validated by a 0-0 scoreline at halftime. If “well we won, didn’t we?” validates Maurizio Sarri’s performance over an entire game, “well we didn’t concede” should do the same for an opponent’s first half, right?
A second goal felt inevitable for most of the second half, but it seemed an even split between whether Chelsea or West Ham would score it.
This is why it is so hard to be enthusiastic about halves of football like Chelsea’s first half against West Ham. You know Chelsea are doing the same thing as always, and yes, it is working to some extent. But you know two other things as well: the opposition will likely make a tactical and / or personnel change that will change the game, and Chelsea will not. As a result, the opponent will be in control of the second half because they will have the tactical initiative and they will know Maurizio Sarri will have nothing but the individual quality of his players to rescue the game for him.
Manuel Pellegrini knew Maurizio Sarri would have no answer to the 4-1-4-1. Sarri plays the same way against Pellegrini’s 4-2-3-1 as he does against Pellegrini’s 4-1-4-1 as he does against whatever Cardiff, Brighton, Everton, Tottenham and all the other teams throw at him. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Win some, lose some, a few draws.
Chelsea fans are a spoiled lot. Two stints with Jose Mourinho accustomed them to thinking the manager always has the perfect counterpunch if needed late in the game. The genius of Jose Mourinho and the dramatic tension of his football came from his ability to make the perfect substitutions at just the right time with the precise organizational tweak to take a late win. His adjustments in the final 30 minutes were like DNA-based designer drugs: specially crafted and meticulously delivered for maximum lethality against the one particular opponent he was facing.
Chelsea no longer have that ability or the advantage that comes with it. Substitutions are like-for-like because there are no tactical shifts nor organizational adjustments.
Fortunately for Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri, no organizational shift or substitution from the opponent can fully neutralize Eden Hazard. As long as the Blues can keep the game within a goal or two, Eden Hazard can pull them through, as necessary.
Lately, it seems necessary more often that not. And even if Eden Hazard stays, this is a weak platform on which to build a team with Chelsea’s supposed ambitions.
Building a team around a star is one thing. Build a team atop the star player is a blueprint for fragility, and says very little about the coach’s ability to organize 11 players rather than just turning to one.