Chelsea talking tactics: Pep Guardiola further in than ever is a bit weird

Chelsea faces a Pep Guardiola Manchester City that will look slightly different than recent seasons. He’s never been this far into a job and it is weird.

Pep Guardiola might always be most heavily associated with Barcelona given what he did there, but he has now been at Manchester City longer than any other club. He left Barcelona after a season where his progress seemingly halted. That happened at City last year as well. On the other side of that lull, what does a Guardiola team look like?

The answer is weird. When Guardiola moved from La Liga to the Bundesliga after a hiatus, he had adapted his tactics to focus less on wide areas and focus more on playing down the middle with inverted fullbacks. Moving to Manchester City, he tried the same idea at first before landing on the dual eights/10s formation he used for the last few years. But with David Silva leaving, Guardiola has had to adapt. Instead of finding a way to sharpen the attacking edge, he has looked to steel the defense.

The defense being leaky has been an issue for Guardiola for a few seasons, even with the titles flowing. It is why nearly every window he has gotten a new fullback, center back, or keeper to try to solve the issue by simply improving the players at hand. But this season he has taken a more tactical solution which has worked to make City a better defending team at the cost of their attacking edge.

Generally, Guardiola has strictly been a 4-3-3 manager due to the balance of the shape and its ability to morph into other shapes as needed. This season, however, he has used the 4-2-3-1 more and more. A pivot of Rodrigo and Ilkay Gundogan sit behind Kevin De Bruyne in more of a traditional 10 role. It is still all very free flowing but the effect is that the base is more defensively oriented than previous seasons.

Ironically, this whole idea is the opposite of Chelsea’s with the 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1. 4-3-3 for Chelsea gives the Blues more defensive control but less attacking edge. 4-2-3-1 is the opposite. For City, the 4-2-3-1 is about control with less attack and the 4-3-3 about attack with less control.

The main cause behind this is the make up of the midfield and how the striker operates. Gabriel Jesus has played a lot this season with Sergio Aguero being injured and he often drops deep to help in build up. This creates space behind him either by dragging a defender out of position or by an unexpected player entering that space. Furthermore, the midfield has more creativity than Chelsea’s which allows Manchester City to attack down the center more while still having the flanks as an option.

What does all this mean for Chelsea? Assuming the Blues use a 4-3-3 (which isn’t a guarantee given they used 4-2-3-1 against Aston Villa), the shape will pit N’Golo Kante one on one with De Bruyne. In fact, the only place on the field players won’t be one on one is the center backs and the strikers. Jesus will miss out due to Covid quarantine, but whoever plays will likely drop deep and cause Kante to think twice on who he needs to focus on as well as keeping Thiago Silva and Kurt Zouma on their toes.

If Chelsea wants to get the best out of their own striker, it’ll have to be someone mobile enough to keep City guessing. If it is Timo Werner (which, on form, why would it be?), someone will have to refill the box because he’ll roam too much. If it is Tammy Abraham, he won’t stray as far while still being able to create issues. Olivier Giroud simply won’t be suited to the match, at least from the start, given how little the Blues can expect to have the ball.

It would also be hard to dismiss that this will be a weakened City side. That will be the battle cry from LampardOuts and City fans should Guardiola’s team lose but it simply is what it is. It is already a bit surprising that the match is happening at all but Chelsea cannot choose which opponent they face ravaged by Covid. They can only do what they can to get all three points and move on to the next match.

Guardiola has had to adapt for the first time in a while and it has been a bit weird for him. That, and Covid, does not mean that his team will be weak. The Blues will still need to be at 100 percent if they are to get anything out of the match. Anything less and the pressure will continue to mount.