Chelsea: Three lessons from Steve Holland’s “Masterclass” win over Barca

3. Defenders who know where their goal is

Steve Holland mentioned Ashley Cole’s goal line clearance from one of the few times Lionel Messi found himself open in Chelsea’s final third. I wanted to watch that moment from the game, and ended up watching the extended highlights.

The “every shot” highlights obviously showed a lot more of Chelsea’s defenders than Chelsea’s forwards. The inescapable and most impressive feature of Chelsea’s defending was how quickly the defensive moved side to side, and how in their movements they layered their bodies between the ball and the goal.

Ashley Cole was not standing on or near the goal line when he made that clearance. He, like every other Chelsea defender, was lining themselves up in front of the shot they knew Messi would take. Cole was on the far side, so he covered the furthest point from Messi: the goal line itself. Had he run across the pitch towards Messi, he would have been too late to block the shot near the player and the ball would have gone in.

Every time Barcelona moved the ball around Chelsea’s box – and we all know how many quick passes they could and would make – the Blues’ defenders shuffled and shifted almost as quickly to maintain their block. And they didn’t just move side-to-side. They moved in a way relevant to blocking the shot as soon as they knew it was coming.

John Terry, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic and Ashley Cole are no one’s idea of a modern, ball-playing, dynamic, buccaneering, overlapping, Pep-bot-approved defender. But they moved with almost Eden Hazard-esque agility to ensure that Petr Cech was the last line of defence, except for that time when Cole took that job for himself.

Such movement and blocking are rarely seen anywhere these days, including recent versions of the Blues. They are not attributes that are easily measured and they are certainly unfashionable; and because defending deep in itself is passe, a defender’s or a defensive battery’s skills in those situations is considered a mark of desperation and luck rather than drilling and performance.

A lot of the conversation around Chelsea this season has been about who are the best centrebacks and who is better at right back or left back. Chelsea’s defending against Barcelona in that game was not about centrebacks and full backs. It was a four-man defensive unit, in part because Roberto di Matteo set up such a tight 4-5-1, but more so because they were committed to being a unit in defence of their goal.

As we try to figure out Chelsea’s defensive situation this season and over the summer, ask yourself which player could and would do what those four did. Then try to find three more, and then see if they can do it as seamlessly as that quartet did.

Now we see the magnitude of the challenge facing Frank Lampard and Jody Morris in the roles Roberto di Matteo and Steve Holland once had.