Talking tactics: Chelsea host the all too familiar Liverpool

Chelsea once again faces off against Liverpool. The tactics are well known so what else is there to gleam from Jurgen Klopp’s side?

Thanks to the ever excellent Kevin Peacock, it is known that Chelsea has faced Liverpool 51 times in competitive fixtures since Roman Abramovich became the Chelsea owner. To find the same amount of matches played against Liverpool pre Abramovich, one would have to go back at least three decades.

These two sides are familiar foes now. Recent years have featured multiple matches with tons on the line. Jurgen Klopp, having been the Liverpool manager since 2015, is a well known in pretty much every way. They will press hard, aim to move the ball forward quickly, and they will know exactly when to turn that tap on and off for maximum effect.

So what is there to learn about Liverpool now? Not much. But Jurgen Klopp’s comments in the prematch presser about Frank Lampard’s side are somewhat telling. While it could just be tapping Lampard up to make him overextend, there is also a since of genuineness to the comments. Klopp thinks Chelsea reminds him of his Dortmund side and that is a very hard comparison to deny.

When Klopp took over at Dortmund, they were a team that had very much faded from where they once were. Through Klopp’s aggressive tactics (which have now become one of the two big tent poles of modern tactics) and the use of young players out of the academy, Dortmund became a juggernaut once again.

That describes Chelsea currently pretty well. While Chelsea may not have fallen as far as Dortmund did, the club is not the juggernaut it used to be when Didier Drogba, John Terry, Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, and Frank Lampard roamed the halls. Now Lampard is the Chelsea manager (and Cech and Cole are back in various capacities) and he is aiming to introduce and aggressive, Kloppian style of play through the use of academy players and veterans.

It is a big change from the days of Rafa Benitez’s plastic comments and Joe Mourinho’s jabs. It is even decent from the “game respect game” craziness of Klopp and Antonio Conte. Klopp almost comes across as excited to see how Lampard does (even if it might be a bit of mind games).

So how does Lampard deal with a team that is essentially the blue print for where he wants Chelsea to be under him one day? Simply put what he did last time.

Chelsea was not deterred by the challenge of Liverpool in the Super Cup. It takes both confidence and bravery to play the way Lampard and Klopp want their sides to play and neither backed down. They came out and played the game they wanted to play, not the game Liverpool wanted them to play. It may not have resulted in a win, but to take Liverpool to penalties with this team cannot be discounted.

Lampard should be flattered by Klopp’s comments. And the best way to return them is to play the full out, Dortmund-like way Chelsea has been playing. There is no magic bullet that wins this game but as Lampard has already shown, he can get this side to turn up and play the way they want to play. That may be all it takes to get a result as Liverpool come to town.