Chelsea key clashes at Sheffield: Battle of the substitutes

2. The central midfield battle

Thursday brought two bits of bad news for Chelsea fans. First, Frank Lampard claimed that N’Golo Kante was unlikely to be ready to play against Sheffield. Second, and much more depressing, Billy Gilmour’s season was declared over after news broke that he required knee surgery. It’s devastating news for an upcoming phenom, and an unexpected bump in the road on Chelsea’s path to a top four finish.

In the meantime, Lampard will need to come up with a midfield that can cope with the many problems Sheffield pose to their opposition. Chris Wilder’s unique tactics and use of a 3-5-2 have thrown plenty of teams off their game when they come up against the Blades. Chelsea’s first match against Sheffield way back in August was a sterling example, ending 2-2 with a late Zouma own goal earning the away side a draw.

That match, like many early in the season, featured Jorginho as the deepest midfielder in Lampard’s 4-3-3, with Ross Barkley and Mateo Kovacic on either side of the Italian. Having done a decent job of calming a frazzled Chelsea midfield at the end of the Crystal Palace match, Jorginho may find himself making his first start of the Project Restart era, if only due to the injuries to Kante and Gilmour. Somewhere in Turin, Maurizio Sarri laughs quietly to himself.

The other option is Mateo Kovacic, whose fitness is up for debate after a mild-Achilles injury kept in out of the last few matches. Kovacic would represent a desire to maintain the faster, more athletic midfield dynamic that has worked well for Chelsea since the restart. You know, the kind of football Lampard actually wants to play.

Going with Jorginho would suggest a slower, more intricate and deliberate style of attacking play, which has had mixed results over the course of the season. This could be the final death knell of Sarriball in England. It was fairly clear that Lampard was actively avoiding using Jorginho up until the Palace match, so deciding to hand him a starting role would likely be a tough pill to swallow for the manager.

Regardless of who ends up on the team sheet, they’ll have their work cut out for them against Sheffield’s midfield three, with Sander Berge posing the biggest (literally) challenge. Chelsea, like many other big clubs, took an interest in the Norwegian midfielder earlier in the season, before he was surprisingly snatched up by Sheffield in January.

The 6-foot-5 22-year-old has bedded in nicely with Wilder’s side, offering smooth skills and confident passing in addition to his towering frame. Any player that tall who isn’t a goalkeeper or center back will always raise eyebrows, but Berge presents a particular danger to a Chelsea midfield that lacks height and strength. The tallest coherent midfield Chelsea could piece together would be Ruben Loftus-Cheek (6-foot-3), Ross Barkley (6-foot-1) and Jorginho (5-foot-11), only one of whom has offered much since the restart. A more Lampardian midfield would be Mason Mount (5-foot-10), Kovacic (5-foot-9) and probably Barkley. Berge would win every header imaginable.

The Berge versus Jorginho/Kovacic battle is important for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that dominating the middle of the pitch is important for creating attacking moves. If Chelsea can hold that advantage, both midfielders would be able to do what they do best. For Kovacic, it would allow him to run forward with the ball into the final third while looking for teammates to find space in behind. For Jorginho, he would be able to set up base camp in the center circle and spray passes all over the field in an effort to stretch the defense until gaps start to open up. It hasn’t been an overly successful strategy this season, but it’s at least a strategy.

The entire midfield will have to put in a lot of work to fend of Berge, not to mention Oliver Norwood and Ben Osborn, but success would mean putting Chelsea on the front foot for most of the match, which is a necessity against a clever and organized team like Sheffield.

A dominant midfield performance on Saturday will be reminiscent of the old Muhammad Ali maxim: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Unfortunately, two of Chelsea’s busiest bees will be sidelined, but that doesn’t mean the hive can’t still produce honey. Welcome to The Pride of London; come for the tactical breakdowns, stay for the op-ed pieces and leave because of the painfully cringeworthy bee metaphors.