Chelsea’s tactics, XI, subs, transfers: Everyone needs a Plan B after Newcastle

Nothing worked for Chelsea for 93 minutes at St. James’ Park, and then things imploded. The team does not need a revolution, just alternatives for every aspect of the game.

A recurring talking point through the first half of the season was whether Frank Lampard has a Plan B. The game against Tottenham proved that Plan B is real and it’s spectacular. Since then, his variations on his Plan A have shown the right amounts of adaptability, resilience and experimentation.

So where were any of them at Newcastle? Chelsea persisted with Plan A long after it was clear that it was not going to result in any goals barring a moment of brilliance or calamity by either side. With Eden Hazard gone, we could rule out the brilliance. And with things being as they are and St. James’ Park being what it is, the calamity was more likely to befall Chelsea, and it did.

Chelsea stayed in the same formation, making the same attempts to breakthrough in the 80′ as the did in 10′. The substitutions were like-for-like, with the most variation being the more direct dribbling of Ross Barkley replacing the ineffectual off-ball movements of Mason Mount. Lampard explained his substitution to bring Michy Batshuayi on for Tammy Abraham by saying it was just not Abraham’s day. It probably wasn’t, but it was definitely Newcastle’s day to shut down a target man striker playing in a 4-3-3. Batshuayi probably made their jobs easier by being so much less mobile than Abraham. Newcastle did not have to change anything when Batshuayi came on because Batshuayi coming on did not really change anything.

But it wasn’t just Lampard who ran into a rut early and stayed there.

Willian tried the same move over and over again: cut in from the left, make for the top corner of the box, take a shot from the top of the box, watch it get blocked. Mason Mount kept trying to make runs around Tammy Abraham even though there was no space for him to do so. Callum Hudson-Odoi and Reece James tried series of one-two’s, but they were mostly all the same set-up. Jorginho did what he usually does, and in this game did it slightly better than usual. But when he makes 114 of Chelsea’s 650 passes, you know exactly how things are going.

At a higher level, Chelsea may need a Plan B if Plan A was to get by with the players they have. More so than the other losses to bottom-half teams, this one put a spotlight on every one of the shortcomings in the squad.

The Blues need a striker who offers something both better and different than Tammy Abraham and Michy Batshuayi. A more clinical striker, someone who would have finished some of the chances Tammy Abraham had, would have given Chelsea the win. But a striker who could have done different things might have opened up the game in different directions, making the difference by changing the involvement of his teammates.

A qualitatively different striker could have had as much of an impact as a clinical lethal striker of the same mould, or as playing two strikers together. Chelsea have none of those three options

On a day when Erling Haaland scored a hat trick off the bench in his debut for Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea’s striker weakness was particularly acute.

Chelsea clearly need a young, true starting left back, someone who can challenge aging right back Cesar Azpilicueta for the XI. Neither Marcos Alonso (when he’s healthy) nor Emerson can dislodge Cesar Azpilicueta from his secondary position.

Chelsea’s left side collapsed when Emerson came on for Reece James and Azpilicueta took James’ spot on the right. His clownish attempt to draw a penalty made for one of the more absurd substitute appearances of the year.

A right back should not be the clear favorite at left back, with the best “natural left back” causing a drop in play when he comes on as a left back. Azpilicueta should be battling Reece James on the right and a Reece James-equivalent on the left, while transitioning into the next stage of his career as a defensive midfielder.

They may also need a creative attacking midfielder. Mason Mount has been superb in many games this season, but against teams like Newcastle that take away all the space between the lines, Mount is pinging off the defenders in the low block. Ross Barkley gave Chelsea a different movement through the centre when he came on for Mount, but too late and not enough. Lampard says Barkley is still in his plans, but that will hinge on what Barkley can do that the Blues currently cannot.

Christian Pulisic has the close control necessary to break through lines like Newcastle’s and he was at the root of Chelsea’s winning goal in the reverse fixture. But he was injured, which is exactly the sort of situation in which you need a Plan B.

And the transfer list may truly need to include a legitimate Plan B goalkeeper, if even just to (as they say in north London) keep the pressure on Kepa Arrizabalaga.

Arrizabalaga’s aggressiveness, control, communication and shot-stopping were all deficient in the 94′. He is young, especially for a goalkeeper, but Chelsea need to take action to make the most of their £72 million investment. Part of this is training, but part is competition so he has that extra motivation in training.

There are a lot of goalkeepers between Willy Caballero and Kepa Arrizabalaga on the global depth chart. Any of them will force Arrizabalaga to earn his spot in ways Caballero cannot.

No one loss should ever induce a club to do something it wasn’t already inclined to do. The Blues should not burn down the progress they have made so far this season simply because Newcastle happened. But nothing from that game was novel. It was simply inescapable, as the consequences of these factors will continue to be.

Chelsea should already know what they need to do. The loss at Newcastle should impel them to actually do it.