Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United, Premier League: Tactical Analysis

There was some wonder whether or not Manchester United would field as strong of a lineup as possible considering they were expected to be in full preparation for the Europa League final against Tottenham, but Ruben Amorim did in fact pick a strong team. Chelsea went with basically what we can assume is their preferred starting eleven from who is available, and so with both teams fielding strong squads, this game did not entertain nearly as much as last season’s fixture. In fact, as our illustrious David pointed out in the post-match recap, both teams finished with a pretty poor 81% pass accuracy and loads of turnovers (24 for us, 26 for them – thankfully, only 5 of our turnovers were in our half while 16 of theirs were in their half.) It was actually a dull match to watch and I am far from excited about breaking down something so mundane.

Manchester United were on a seven game winless streak going into this match and are shockingly poor this season while our hopes for Champions League football next season rest now on our away trip to the City Ground – unfortunately, as I point out in the last article, our away stats this season (and more specifically this year, having only scored 5 PL away goals since the turn of the year) are not great, so it was imperative that we secured the 3 points against United. Neither formation had any real surprises, but it was great to see Reece James back in the starting XI (even if for Roméo Lavia) and many of us had pinned Tyrique George to be the replacement for Nicolas Jackson, it was only a question of which position he would assume, winger or striker. Also, Tosin Adarabioyo came in for Trevoh Chalobah despite his fantastic performances of late.

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Maresca has almost exclusively done man-marking his entire tenure, so there was little difference in how Chelsea set up defensively than what we could have expected. The wingers and Tyrique George pressed United’s back three and Palmer picked up their deeper-lying midfielder, Casemiro. However, especially on their back line, we were not pressing as intensely – in fact our PPDA was only a 9.9 and United, for example, allowed only 8.8 passes per defensive action. Maresca has traditionally had us pressing even a back line with intensity but we have not done that in our last 2 matches. Caicedo, although he was again all over the pitch, primarily marked Bruno Fernandes and Tosin was typically the one to mark Rasmus Højlund, while Mason Mount and Amad Diallo were covered by any others on our back line or EnzoFernández, depending largely on whether they had picked up a wider or more central location. The one exception to this was Reece James, who was relying more heavily on Pedro Neto to help pick up Dorgu or Mount than solely patrolling that flank on his own.

Offensively, our fullbacks would often (but not always) stay wide when getting forward rather than the typical Maresca inversion, while Neto and Madueke would come to the inside channels, forcing United to collapse into a back 5 to pick up all those pressing on. The midfield marks stayed the same as how we marked them, which left Højlund isolated up top. He was a decent target for them on the day, as they had quite a few clearances hurled forward which he was being asked to bring down to allow the midfielders to join in the attack. Our width was key, because on the circumstances when United did not track back or lost their marking scheme, we could exploit numerical superiority on their back line, especially when our fullback(s) pushed high and wide or inverted, as Cucurella did for our goal.

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Still, that makes it sound like there was cohesion between either side in this match, which largely was not the case, hence why 45% of it was played in the middle third of the pitch in addition to the aforementioned loss of possession stats and the generally low xG for both squads (0.82 for us, though some outlets have us as high as 1.22, while most agree around 0.29 for them.) Such a large quantity of the game was played in the middle of the park because long balls were a direct strategy for both teams, with us completing only 20/57 (35.1%) and United attempting a whopping 92 but completing a much more respectable 51 (55.4%.) A bulk of theirs came from André Onana (13/31), Victor Lindelöf (11/12), and Harry Maguire (5/11) to a relatively successful receiving trio of Højlund, Mount, and Diallo. Our long distribution fared much worse, with Sánchez (3/16), James (2/8), and Colwill (1/4) all yielding less than 25% accuracy. All these long passes contributed to why the game was both so disjointed but also concentrated in the middle third.

Chelsea created 3 big chances – M.C., a.k.a. Mr. Consistency a.k.a. Marc Cucurella converted his one while Noni Madueke missed the other two… In fact, while his general play has improved since becoming the left-sided winger, both of these chances should have been buried, especially the 5th minute chance that garnered over twice the xG that Cucurella had on his. This first chance is a beautiful display of what seems to be one of our strengths at the moment, quick transitional play after absorbing opposition pressure. Caicedo does brilliantly to escape their midfield, finds Palmer in the right half space, who tees up Madueke at the far post. Everything but the finish was sparkling.

The second one comes only moments after we had taken the lead, and not through entirely dissimilar fashion. Scrappy midfield play led to a free kick that was sent to our back line. Maresca can be seen instructing Enzo to come wide to receive and he lets it run through his legs to turn upfield but is confronted by Dorgu, however he wins the challenge. Palmer is again occupying the half space between their lines and takes the ball on the turn while Madueke begins his run in the channel between Lindelöf and Mazraoui. Palmer slides him through and although he has a clean look at goal, Madueke fires wide. Maresca and indeed a few of the players can be seen holding their hands to their head in shock at the poorly taken chance.

Thankfully those misses did not come back to haunt us as they have many times earlier this season. After one sequence of true quality via quite literally every outfield player and 21 passes, utilising the entire width and switching play quickly, Reece James is able to deliver a ball of superb quality and Marc Cucurella finishes it off with aplomb. One would happily note that this entire sequence starts from a dead ball on which after Mason Mount was subbed off. I know the following video is small, but it is a minute long and had to be in order to be uploaded. Enjoy it for what it’s worth.

So this is it, our fate is in our hands – win and we’re in (barring an Aston Villa win of 12+ goals depending on how many we score), and after no longer being able to sing about being the only London Club with European silverware, securing Champions League is a must do. One more game, one more win, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some help from the likes of Fulham (v Manchester City), Everton (v Newcastle), Manchester United (v Aston Villa) in fulfilling our European destiny.

KTBFFH.