Tactics and Transfers: Chelsea goes back to fourth place

Chelsea beat Watford with a comfortable and stately performance, but that is what is expected of the Blues and too much praise beyond that is unnecessary.

West Ham United brought Chelsea straight back down to Earth recently and against Nigel Pearson’s Watford, the Blues delivered the sort of reaction that was expected of them. Christian Pulisic was again the most threatening player in blue and the defence showed the sort of toughness every single Premier League side expects of their backline. In doing so, Chelsea was able to pull out a professional—if imperfect—win and move back into the top four.

This isn’t the sort of match that too much should be made of. It is expected that Chelsea will beat a team in the bottom five of the league. That’s what it takes to be a big team that wins trophies. It’s that simple. That’s why the loss to West Ham, regardless of London Derby feelings, was such a failure. Nothing that the Blues did against Watford will make up for the ridiculousness of that performance. Chelsea cannot have those three points back and it is the reason why they were out of the Champions League places for the first time since the early part of the season, albeit only a few hours.

That said, a 3-0 win is something to celebrate and at the very least acknowledge the positivity of.

Pulisic, for instance, is doing an incredible job for Chelsea at the moment. He is making his transfer fee look like yet another of Marina Granovskaia’s best pieces of business. His dribbling, intelligent passing and interplay are as dangerous as anything happening for any side in the division at the moment. Those abilities are very often the catalysts for anything good happening for Chelsea in recent games.

That—coupled with the fact that the rest of the side looked dangerous, sharp and professional without losing concentration for the entirety of the match—made for a good showing against Watford. Willian, Ross Barkley and Kurt Zouma looked particularly strong as well. The latter showing why his aerial dominance is something that Chelsea simply cannot do without.

The defence shouldn’t be praised as much as given a solitary solute. They did their jobs on the day and they did what was expected of them. Both Zouma and Andreas Christensen had solitary errors, but outside of that, the foursome of Reece James, Cesar Azpilicueta, Zouma and Christensen was perfect. The defence contested everything as it should, the players communicated well and there was never that hands-on-head ‘how did nobody track that simple run?’ moment that has been as much a staple of Chelsea’s play this season as a result their youth and attacking fortitude. That in and of itself is honestly a victory.

It says a lot about Frank Lampard as a manager that he was able to arrest Chelsea’s West Ham performance with a strong and stately one in the team’s next match. Things like that can snowball and turn young, tenacious teams into timid, terrible ones. He named an experienced side from the off and yet, still managed to get an incredible six youth team players onto the pitch over the course of the match.

The truth is, there’s very little to say here. The Blues did their duty and Lampard did his. He showed good judgment and managerial acumen to understand what his side needed beyond the game. A win is a win and Chelsea reclaimed its Champions League place in the process. It would be a shame to watch the Blues surrender that position and add something of a foul taste to what has been a very positive season.  Though many of us expected it to be more difficult at the beginning of the year, it is only fair that those expectations could change over the course of a season.

The Blues did what mattered most today and that was put themselves in the best position possible to play in the competitions that they should be next season.