Tactics and Transfers: Post City and the 2nd Half of January

Chelsea was soundly beaten by a better side on Saturday. Manchester City showed exactly why they are the dominant force in British football while Chelsea showed exactly why they have become a cup team.

The Blues deserved to lose on Saturday and there’s not really any other way to see it. Pretending that Chelsea deserved to get something out of the match would be to deny some obvious truths. Every single member of the Chelsea party was bested by their opposition number on the day and it’s as simple as that.

The Chelsea players all looked second best to Manchester City’s. There was not a single Chelsea player who would have made it into a best 11 of the two sides. Though this comment is obviously made with the gift of foresight Thomas Tuchel as well made several tactical and team selection mistakes that were punished by his opposite number.

There’s not a lot of room to argue any of these points. The defense was mediocre at best but Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso were not the correct choices for their positions on Saturday. The only way to beat a Pep Guardiola side that is in full flight is to do so with an overwhelming authoritarian level of athleticism and power. It is what Real Madrid finally was able to do in La Liga against his Barcelona and it is exactly what Inter Milan and Bayern Munich did in their famous victories against his other sides. Paris Saint-Germain has also done the same thing against his City.

Against other sides who are not as powerful and athletic, Cesar Azpilicueta is a serviceable wingback, but against Manchester City and partnered with a midfield two who each had the worst matches I’ve seen them have Azpilicueta wasn’t given a fighting chance. Alonso on the other side however was the real victim. Raheem Sterling felt no pressure playing down his side and this will be the performance that people likely recall when they discuss how much closer Alonso is to the end than the beginning of his time in the Premier League.

The true culprit’s though it needs to be said are the two midfielders. Both N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic can be forgiven. Their service records are beyond reproach but this was a big game to have dual duds in the midfield and when I say dual duds I mean abject zeroes. Mateo Kovacic was as bad as he has been good in recent weeks. He made poor decision after poor decision and only tempered them with more poor decisions while being overwhelmed by the press time and time again. His dribbling was poor and his passing was perhaps even worse. N’Golo Kante then tragically, for the first time in my life, had the sort of game that would suggest all the injuries and coronavirus could possibly be catching up with him. I’m going to cast that out of my mind and think of him smiling instead but it did cautiously cross the cerebrum a couple of times. It cannot be forgotten that it was his missed challenge and then lack of recovery that allowed Kevin De Bruyne to score.

Both players had bad games in the middle of the park against a team who never have bad games in that area and it was pretty much impossible to recover.