By Josh Jaswal
A battle for top four sees Chelsea and Everton clash. Thomas Tuchel hasn’t changed formation since his start at Chelsea, setting up in a 3-4-3 and using positional play, looking to dominate the ball, whilst Carlo Ancelotti understood he wouldn’t be seeing a lot of the ball in this match and opted for a 3-4-1-2/5-2-1-2 shape. Whilst this battle went on, it was Kai Havertz that shone on the day through his dynamic off the ball movement.
Tuchel – the set-up so far
Tuchel, a herald of Pep Guardiola’s “juego de posicion”, looks to have high possession in games and maximise the returns of his players by putting them in their favoured areas of the pitch, such as Reece James in right midfield during build-up, Timo Werner making half-space runs, on the shoulder of the defence line, or Marcos Alonso high on the left wing.
Off the ball, they come with a ferocious press and block passing lanes quickly, seeing them regain possession. Once the ball is won, instead of countering, they go backwards to Andreas Christensen, who then settles play, orchestrating around the back and passing into the two central midfielders. He does this to create much more controlled attacks. The back three allow quick ball circulation in build-up, shifting the ball from side-to-side, putting less pressure on Edouard Mendy to build up in goal. An ageing Cesar Azpilicueta comes back in, in arguably his best possession in at right centre-back and Kurt Zouma or Antonio Rüdiger on to left look to bomb into the space ahead due to Alonso staying high when playing out from the back.
Timo Werner holds the line whilst the other two inside forwards look to receive and progress the ball into the final third. As mentioned, Guardiola and Tuchel have their similarities in how they use possession and also notably how they fit two number eights/tens within Zone 14 – also known as the ‘golden zone’ – where most chance creation and goal scoring opportunities come. However you also need width to allow these players the freedom they need. As you can see from the diagram, even though Chelsea play 3-4-3 and Man City 4-3-3, their layouts both find a way to provide width and two creators to support the striker.
Havertz creating overloads
Everton chose a mid-block and their main focus was to stop Chelsea getting into the final third. Due to the limitations of the 3-4-3 and Chelsea starting the game without Mason Mount, it was difficult to progress the ball past the midfield line and instead Chelsea found themselves passing sideways. This led to Callum Hudson-Odoi spinning in behind from time-to-time to receive. Alonso and James were not pressed by Everton’s respective wing-backs but instead the central midfielder (André Gomes and Allan), leaving a flat back five for Everton in the final third. Furthermore Everton outnumbered Chelsea in midfield, three-against-two, meaning they could not only control Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho but move out wide towards Chelsea’s wing-backs as well.
Whilst Alonso and Werner would pin the back five, it was very important Havertz and Hudson-Odoi dropped deeper to receive in the blind spots of the Everton midfield. This was the reason Havertz was brought in for this game. At Bayern Leverkusen, his speciality was creating these overloads and space for others in Peter Bosz’ high-possession side. You can see just how influential he was in his deep striker role as he had 53 touches – almost more than any Everton player!
As Chelsea’s back three and midfield two passed around, Havertz would make little runs to try and make it a three-versus-three in midfield, so as to receive and turn into the final third. Neither of Everton’s centre-backs would come out with him, to avoid gaps in behind for Werner.
Furthermore, when the ball went out wide, Havertz would drift wide to support Alonso or James. Therefore, when Gomes or Allan pressed the wing-back, they had a two-on-one to deal with, freeing either Havertz or one of Chelsea’s wing backs.
Havertz wasn’t done there: he would constantly make runs in behind to stretch the defence and find players’ blind sides, leading to the first goal.
Once Everton swapped to a 4-4-2 diamond in the second half, Havertz movement caused even more problems, as he managed to get in behind and win a penalty for his team.
You can read more from Josh on his blog The Gaffer Josh or follow him on Twitter.
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