Chelsea: Three things to look for in EFL Cup Fourth Round

2. A time to experiment?

Chelsea has stuck to three at the back for nearly the entirety of Tuchel’s tenure. The last EFL Cup game against Villa is one of the few times anything different has been used as the Blues used some sort of 4-3-3/4-4-2 hybrid shape. Even with “four at the back”, Reece James often stayed lower giving it more of a three at the back appearance at times.

If Tuchel is to play with formations in a similar way as he did at Paris Saint-Germain, that is what it will look like. The formation will blur the lines between several ideas, often changing play to play. The Blues have, at most, seen this with 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 variants in the league. Tuchel was comfortable experimenting against Aston Villa last round, so it isn’t a stretch to assume he would do the same this round against Southampton.

The question is what form those experiments take. Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku are still going to be out, so anything with two strikers seems out of the question. The Blues have enough midfielders to pull off a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 with someone like Kai Havertz up top, but Tuchel may be unwilling to risk so much of the depth chart at once. And, more than anything else, it will come down to who rotates into the team. Many of the players that are due or overdue for minutes will be far more familiar with the three at the back ideas Tuchel’s been using already. It would be asking a lot of them to suddenly change the shape, even if the lines are blurred.

Of course, that awkwardness could cut two ways. Southampton only played Chelsea a few weeks ago so doing something very different could really throw them off. It’s all up to Tuchel and how much trust he puts into the players he rotates in.