Chelsea: Newcastle put a spotlight on Jorginho in each third of the pitch

Frank Lampard may be a great coach, particularly for teaching midfielders their (his) craft, but he and Jorginho will need more than five months together for Jorginho to fully adapt to this Chelsea and its place in the Premier League.

Look at what site you’re on, look at the title and look at my byline. If you’ve been here before, you probably have some idea of what to expect. If that alone is enough to trigger you, punch out now. But if you stay, you may be surprised and you just might pick up something new and interesting about the you-know-who of Chelsea midfielders.

How Jorginho and Newcastle interacted with each other at Stamford Bridge on Saturday showed a lot about how opposing teams view him, and where he is as he emerges from Maurizio Sarri’s smoke cloud and learns to breathe free.

We can roughly approach Jorginho’s performance via the thirds of the pitch.

Chelsea had 71% possession, and Newcastle probably would have been content to let them have even more of it. When Newcastle were able to clear their zone – either through a hoofed clearance or by advancing the ball through their midfielders – their entire focus was on creating a chance for Allan Saint-Maximin or Joelinton. They had little interest in setting up for sustained possession, particularly if prolonging possession required them to press Chelsea upon a turnover in Chelsea’s defensive third.

Steve Bruce knew the Blues have too much speed and creativity to allow them to counter-attack at pace and against a transitioning, overloaded defence. Any combination of Willian, Tammy Abraham, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mason Mount would have an easy time isolating and then overrunning the Magpies’ defenders for a quality chance on goal.

As a result, Newcastle made no effort to regain possession through any sort of press. Turning over the ball was the simple trigger to retreat into their zone and set up in their 4-5-1 defensive shape.

Joelinton stayed well at the top of Newcastle’s formation at nearly all times. As the Magpies pulled out of Chelsea’s half, Joelinton’s duty was Newcastle’s one nod to not giving Chelsea a completely open road into Newcastle’s half: Joelinton stayed about 5-10 yards off of Jorginho until the ball approached midfield. By doing this, Joelinton showed that Steve Bruce’s staff watched a few Chelsea games last season, particularly around this stage of the season, as clubs like Burnley, Crystal Palace, Everton and Tottenham took Jorginho out of the game with simple man-marking, in doing so interrupting the entire flow of Maurizio Sarri’s Jorginho-centric build-out circuits.

Much like last season, this forced the build-out play out to the full-backs. Jorginho made his usual minimal effort to get separation from Joelinton, which effectively foreclosed the centre of the pitch to anything other than a long-ball over the top (to which, thankfully, Frank Lampard has no aversion).

As the ball progressed into the middle third of the pitch, Newcastle would take advantage of any openings Chelsea gave them to press Jorginho specifically. The opening minutes of the second half provided a perfect example.

Cesar Azpilicueta received a pass from the centreback and saw Jorginho open right where he should be. The Blues were a bit discombobulated to start the half, so as Jorginho received the pass from Azpilicueta in plenty of space near the midfield line, Azpilicueta signalled to Jorginho to slow down the play, calm things down and let Blues set themselves up into their offensive shape.

Mind you, Azpilicueta and Jorginho were in a lot of open space because, as discussed above, Newcastle would fall back into their defensive structure immediately upon losing possession.

Azpilicueta’s signal to Jorginho to take his time on the ball, though, ended up being an invitation to Newcastle’s midfielders and Joelinton. They know Jorginho prefers a one- or two-touch short pass, and is very uncomfortable on the dribble, particularly through traffic.

Four Newcastle players rushed out to form a box around Jorginho. None of them rushed towards him for a tackle. The closest two stood on a line just forward of where Jorginho was. By doing this, they took away the quick and obvious passing lanes and set up a dribbling situation that Jorginho would either avoid or lose. As a result, Jorginho did what they hoped he would do and knew he would do because he has done it so many times: he turned around and opted for the back pass. The four Newcastle players then fell back into their 4-5-1, and the Blues started to bring it out again.

Take away the quick easy passes, put pressure on an already-reluctant dribble.

Again, all this would do would interrupt and slow down the inevitable progression into the final third. Especially with Mateo Kovacic, the Blues had many effective options for advancing the ball across the middle of the pitch and into their attacking phase.

Once in the final third, Jorginho was now in a position to be the player he wants to be. Newcastle could not run the risk of breaking their shape to close him down as they did in the middle third. Their 4-5-1 – as perfect in its movement as in its solidity – nearly gave them a result. Sending anyone out of it simply to interfere with Jorginho would be suicidal with all of Chelsea’s attackers looking for space that was hardly ever there.

This gave Jorginho time on the ball, and with it he found and completed many high quality passes to Chelsea’s forwards. He hit a range of angled passes: diagonals to Callum Hudson-Odoi, lay-offs to Mateo Kovacic, slicing throughballs to Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham and some deft vertical throughballs for Cesar Azpilicueta and Willian.

None of these were “by the book” passes because – again, we can’t stress this enough – there is no book. Jorginho and the rest were not pulling levers: they were playing Premier League football.

These passes were usually only one or two passes away from a Chelsea scoring chance. To put it the trendy hipster way, he was a few steps up the xG chain. But if you ever wanted to make the case with something resembling a straight face and a modicum of credibility that it’s not his job to make assists because of where and how else he plays his passes, this game would be it.

My colleague Abhishek said last March that Jorginho had the potential to be a productive No. 10 once freed from his Sarri-shackles. He does not carve open space with off-the-ball runs and obviously has none of Cesc Fabregas’ passing wizardry to send a forward in on goal, but he has enough of a passing range that he can evolve into the role as Abhishek described it.

The attacking third seems to be the most important to Frank Lampard so far this season. Chelsea will face more teams like Newcastle who will oblige Lampard’s priorities. If this is Jorginho’s best third, then he and Lampard are off to a good start together, especially once N’Golo Kante returns to cover the other two.