Chelsea is falling into the trap of reaching for the familiar

The longer the season goes on, the staler Chelsea is getting on the ball. The Blues are reaching for old tools rather than exploring the options.

Tactics are a lot like toolboxes. If there is a nail, one grabs the hammer. If there is a screw, one grabs the screwdriver. It sounds much simpler than it is.

See some managers swear by one small set of tools as the answer to everything. The players know exactly what tool they are going to pull in that particular situation. Other managers prefer to leave their options open. Players know all the tools, but they have a wide range of selection when the decision is there to be made.

After three years of the first type of manager, Chelsea has the second type now. And the longer the season goes on, the more Chelsea is mentally defaulting to that small set of tools rather than exploring all the options. It is making Chelsea flat offensively and it is clearly driving Frank Lampard a bit mad.

It makes sense that it is happening now too. While physical tiredness is a well known factor during the winter slog, mental fatigue is a different and unknown beast. When asked to make decisions quickly and effectively rather than following a rehearsed routine, the players gain some of that mental fatigue. Do it long enough and often enough and complacency sets in. The players appear to be defaulting to the old routines they know rather than looking for the right tool for the situation.

Take the Hull match for example, though really any recent match would apply. Chelsea built up to the box in the same exact way every single time. The only real difference from what happened last season or the year before is that instead of getting stuck in a passing “U” around the box, Chelsea is now getting a wide player free to launch a cross towards no one in particular.

Simply put, it makes Chelsea easy to defend against. Opponents need only bunch up in the middle, let the cross come in, and deal with it. On days when the wide players are rotating around each other it is better, but it is by no means perfect.

Gone is Chelsea sitting off deeper to play balls in behind. Gone are low crosses into an open player in the box. Gone are the through balls into the “half spaces” of a defense.

Simply put, when a decision is there to be made, Chelsea is reverting to the circuits of Maurizio Sarri or Antonio Conte rather than exploring the options. This situation has only been getting worse the more games Chelsea has played in the winter slog.

It would be too easy to blame it on Lampard but he is clearly as frustrated as anyone. He has tried to mix things up by introducing new players (like Callum Hudson-Odoi) to try something different. But that seems to be a temporary fix for the problem at best.

One of two things needs to happen to fix this. The first is a simple rest physically and mentally and that is coming soon with the “winter break” the Premier League has implemented. The second is more players on the field who do not know those old circuits or who naturally do their own thing rather than pulling a lever over and over.

An example of this is when Christian Pulisic has been off injured. He has very much been one of the players trying to mix things up, but Chelsea has lost that since his absence. Willian, Pedro, and even Hudson-Odoi are defaulting to what they were drilled in last season and the years before.

Chelsea has not been the most entertaining team to watch lately like they were earlier in the season. These mental defaults are to be expected as making their own decisions is still somewhat new to them tactically after so many years of circuits. The only way to fix this current issue is to rest and train up or use players who are separate from those circuits. One or the other and Chelsea can start playing with the early season freedom they had once again.