Chelsea: Open midfield worked vs. Brighton, but Kante-sized hole remains

Chelsea’s midfield was even more fluid against Brighton than it was against Grimsby Town. The fluidity came at the expense of the vacuum in front of the defence, as neither N’Golo Kante nor Billy Gilmour were in the lineup.

Two of Chelsea’s smallest players leave the biggest gap on the pitch in their absence. Frank Lampard erred on the side of caution and rested N’Golo Kante against Brighton, as Kante was nursing a slight hamstring issue and Lampard did not want to risk him ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League tie at Lille. Billy Gilmour had played the previous day with the Development Squad, so even if Lampard thinks he is ready to face a midtable Premier League opponent, he was not ready for this particular match.

Chelsea’s structure against Brighton was a still-refreshingly dynamic 4-something-1. Build-up was mostly in a 4-2-3-1, but sometimes because a 4-3-3. The few times Chelsea had to defend they had two banks of four. But when the Blues were in possession, they often ended up in a 4-0-5-1.

The base formation of 4-2-3-1 had Jorginho and Ross Barkley in the double pivot. As against Grimsby Town, Barkley did not spend too much time labouring in the deeper role – he would rather go forward and is more comfortable further up the pitch, despite his desultory performances in any region of the pitch in the last two games.

When Barkley moved forward in build-up play against Brighton, Mason Mount would usually drop deep into Jorginho’s line. However, if Willian and Mount had rotated amongst the attacking line before Barkley came up, Willian would come deep. In short, the same side attacking midfielder would cover Barkley’s adventures. There appeared to be much more organization and direction than against Grimsby Town, where at one point or another just about everybody dropped deep.

The other side, though, had no such cover moving up-and-back. Jorginho held his usual position throughout the transition to offence regardless of what Barkley & Co. were up to on the other side. Jorginho was the constant point of the midfield, and this allowed the Blues to shift between a 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 in this stage of play.

But with Chelsea having long spells in offensive position, Jorginho could creep forward until he took station at the top of the box. With all the other midfielders having a more attacking bent than Jorginho, Kante or Gilmour, and with the full-backs being the main source of width on the attack, no one moved into the space between the centrebacks and the high, flat attacking midfield line.

Even if Jorginho remained the deepest of the midfielders, he was not in a position to cover the defence. He was too far forward to interdict immediately an outlet pass to any Brighton player who snuck around and darted into that space upon a turnover; nor is he fast enough to catch up with the play once it is already behind him, as Michael Oliver can attest.

This left Chelsea vulnerable to the counter-attack. It’s hard to credit Brighton with being a “counter-attacking team,” but a team averaging 54% possession and setting up in a 3-4-3 on the road against a temporarily displaced top-six opponent is going to look to counter-attacks as their best chance of nicking a goal. Brighton were not able to get much going at all against the Blues – their first half xG was 0.00, something we’ve never seen before – but the space was there for them to attack through, and other opponents will have more success.

N’Golo Kante is, as you may have heard, here, there and everywhere, provided he is on the pitch in the first place. Even when he is in a more advanced role and involved in the attack, he is smart enough to know when to get back and fast enough to always get back to break up a counter. Where he starts on an opponent’s counter is rarely an issue, as he tends to end them all the same way.

From what he showed against Grimsby Town, Billy Gilmour is a true holding midfielder – he holds his place in front of the defence, even when Chelsea are comfortably in high, prolonged possession.

Without either of these two in the lineup, Chelsea had five midfielders caught up in one phase of the game, leaving the team exposed on defence. As my colleague Kevin proposed this morning, perhaps Frank Lampard truly is unconcerned about defence as long as his Blues can continue to score more goals than they concede. The 4-0-5-1 in possession certainly is in line with that philosophy, and Brighton at home would be the time to put it into practice.

Against most opponents, though, Chelsea will want to at least make a nod towards protecting their centrebacks from a counter-attack on-rush. The Blues don’t want to be shipping cheap goals – that’s what set pieces are for.

If neither N’Golo Kante nor Billy Gilmour are in the lineup, a midfielder or the-second-coming-of-Javier-Zanetti Cesar Azpilicueta should be tasked with putting some Blue into the large patch of green between the centrebacks and the offensive action.